League of Legends Community…Why So Serious?
NB: This is based purely on my personal experience with League of Legends. I’m fully aware that not every player is like the abusive ones mentioned below. Be welcoming and help out anyone needing it. Have fun and play nicely.
After hearing how great League of Legends was (or as they refer to it LoL) I decided to take the plunge and check it out. After the tutorials, I jumped into a game to see what the fuss was about. The interface of the menus was nicely arranged and easy to navigate. The champions selection screen offered decent detail of the roles, skills and general stats of the champions on offer. Things were going well…then the game started.
A whole five minutes into the game and two team mates where at each other’s throats. ”REPORTED, REPORTED, TEEMO NOOB, KS NOOB”, I was confused as to what was going on to say the least. As the game progressed the insults got worse and worse, swearing and threats of ”I’m going to hack you Teemo” were throwing left right and centre.
While this argument didn’t concern me it was never the less a little distracting. The sheer venom being spouted over such a trivial thing was bizarre. I’ve played plenty of online games across many years, and yes there are a lot of arguments, but LoL just seems to be nothing but.
In my second game I took up the champion of Ashe, I asked the lobby which position I should hold and if people could keep me right that would be great. While most of the team was fine with this and understood I was new, one guy felt compelled to moan. If I was doing something right or wrong this one guy who spam the screen with ”’F***ing noob, gtfo , l2p”.
While it didn’t bother me, I was quite stunned at how negative and abusive some of the players could be. By the end of the game he was still swearing and spamming chat, but the supportive guys offered me advice and wished me luck.
It restored my faith in the game and I decided to play more. Twenty something games down the road and my faith had been wrecked. Every match I had been involved in contained vicious arguments, spamming of chat and just general bad sportsmanship. While it’s only words on screen it does take away from the enjoyment of the game. Team performances become awful due to no communication, which in turns takes away from the game. The community (or at least a large section of it) simply appear to be angry and/or delusional.
A number of times players began to argue with each other, based purely on their choice of champion and item purchase. Other times, players would argue based on what country they were from. It honestly seems like a non stop circle of arguments and complaining. Players demanding others report a person for a simple mistake seem prominent, it’s hardly something you want in a video game community.
Even with the bad experiences I still managed to have some fun at times. One or two games I played had players happy to point out what items I should be buying, what skills I should get and in what order. To these people I say thank you, and kudos. These are the kind of people who should be praised and rewarded for their welcoming nature and willingness to help. A clear glimmer of hope in what is, unfortunately, a sea of immature, aggressive and pretty nasty people.
It’s hard to regulate a player base, even more so given the popularity of League of Legends, but I hope that the community can improve. While League of Legends is enjoyable, the community (for the most part) takes away the shine and the appeal of the game. Let’s hope the same thing doesn’t happen to DOTA2.
sadly wow has also turned out like this so far gw2 is the complete opposite
To be fair WoW has been in a similar (though not half as bad) state since mid TBC onwards. It’s a shame, it’s not everyone to be fair.