GAME 332 RS Game Narrative Review

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Your name: Giselle Marquez

Your school: George Mason University
Your email: mmarque9@masonlive.gmu.edu
Month/Year you submitted this review: 9/29
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Game Title: League of Legends

Platform: PC
Genre: MOBA
Release Date: 10/27/2010
Developer: Riot Games
Publisher: Riot Games, Tencent Holdings, Limited, Garena
Game Writer/Creative Director/Narrative Designer: Tom Cadwell

Overview
League of Legends has an ongoing storyline in which characters live in a world called
Runeterra and are located in the supercontinent Valoran. This supercontinent is divided in
several kingdoms and cities and it is populated by all kinds of creatures that range from
intelligent beast to humans, sorcerers and machines.
In Runeterra, political differences have been always solved though war. However, due
this wars the world has experienced severe phenomenas like magic storms that have
damaged the environment, making living conditions hard for everyone. Thus, Valorans
most powerful magicians decided to settle an organization called The League of
Legends as an entity to solve any political conflict.

Characters
The League of Legends would physically exist as battle arenas called Fields of Justice,
spread across Valoran. Those who would fight in them, gained the name of champions as
they would be summoned by a specific political force to represent them and fight for
victory.
These champions are League of Legends characters and there are 126 to date. Each of
them has its own motivations, backgrounds and allegiances. But the most relevant
disputes in the story run between characters that support either of two most powerful
nations: Demacia and Noxus.

KATARINA (sinister blade) - Daughter of a prominent general of the Noxus. She

is a skilled assassin and uses small blades as weapons. Her first great quest
demanded her to assassin a Demacian low range general, but after several
takedowns she faced Garen and the fight resulted in a defeat. Although she
escaped, she has now a scar of a reminder of her foe. She has white skin, vibrant
red hair, blue eyes and her leather outfit enhances her feminine figure.

GAREN (the might of Demacia) The most acknowledged general from the
Demacias kingdom military forces. He carries a heavy armor and with his sword
he fights against Demacias prominent rival Noxus.

MASTER YI (Wuju bladesman) Hes an old man who has mastered Wuju and
makes great damage his sword. He comes from a village that was vanished by
the Noxus. He once seeked for revenge but now is part of the League and simply
fights for justice.

RYZE (the rogue mague) A sorcerer from Runeterra who wants to learn all he
can of the magic matter. He carries an indestructible scroll that he found and no
one but him knows its content. He joined the league to learn from all the different
creatures in it.

Breakdown
The conflict in the world of the League of Legends resides in many political and social
disputes. There are some small battles between tribes and specific characters. But the
greatest of them all, is the dispute between the city-states, Demacia and Noxus.
Players are exposed to the story of the battle between the good and evil. And since the
game is not narrative-driven, there is not a three act structure in it, causing a bloom of
characters that may or may not have a resolved arc story.
For this reason, characters have all unique backgrounds, motivations and appearances.
And although they are all evoking some kind of archetype, there are characters that stand
out for having a major role in the battle among Demacia and Noxus.

Strongest Element
In League of Legends players pick a champion and fight other players champions. These
champions are exposed through videos called champion spotlight and sometimes
cinematics. These expose the appearance, background story, alliance and attacks of the
champion. Due this reason and for the wide variety of characters, the game has the
potential of making a player feel identified with a champions aspect, weapons, attacks or
story.

Unsuccessful Element
The story lacks a main villain and hero that make the whole story of Runeterra move
forward with the main conflict. Instead of that, we have some characters whose
individual stories have no impact on it. This leaves the story with some lose ends, making
it wide and sometimes frustrating because we dont see the characters fulfilling any
important role.
However, the biggest issue about the narrative of the game is the way it is delivered to
players. The story is not explicit on the gameplay and players will have to dive into the
web to find out the story behind the game and characters; players have to read and watch
cinematics in different websites.

Highlight
Since the story is still being developed, there hasnt been a remarkable event. But this
gives room for a great story denouement with epic deaths, victorys and new champions.
This also means that they can give the characters they already have a plot twist and a
well-defined story arc.

Critical Reception
Yannick LeJacq, a writer and editor graduated from Wesleyand University, explains that
in the early days of League of Legends there used to be a reason for characters to appear
in the game. But as its popularity quickly grew Riot fell into the pressure of keeping a
good game-play and began to introduce champions that would give players a new
experience but didnt add anything to the games story gestalt.
On the other hand, the lack of narrative didnt affect at all the gameplay and its
effectiveness to make players enjoy the game, and reviewers to praise it. Leah B.
Jackson, an experienced writer graduated from the University of Florida, expressed great
enthusiasm while reviewing the game mechanics, assets and hazards on an article for
IGN entertainment. She described the game as an example of excellence.

Lessons

Lesson 1: Try to have the story of the game in one place.

Lesson 2: If the story is not meant to be linear, either make a strong branching
structure.
Lesson 3: Create champions with a major role in the main conflict.
Lesson 4: Having a wide variety of champions help players to feel identified and
like the game.

Lessons 5: Make cinematics every now and then to reinforce characters

personalities and circumstances.

Summation
League of Legends holds a story worth to mine. It started off with an interesting conflict
but due the pressure of keeping the gameplay interesting, it has fallen onto the cliff and
now we have a really rich world that is not wired.
Another big issue is the way Riot pretends to narrate the story. Sometimes it is through a
cinematic, some other times is through a comic and also through plain text. Most players
do not invest their time into surfing the web to gather all this information and are happy
simply playing the game. So it is vital to define a way to show the story.
Nevertheless, having so many characters that without a specific role into the world
Runeterra can actually take them in a very interesting journey where they can make up
conflicts that eventually bring all the story together and even breed a new one.