My journey to Berlin arena A riot made me miss when the League of Legends was about people

I played League of Legends in 2014, which is a long time, for a long time. I raised the game shortly after the release of Vel'koz, something that is easy for me to remember, because, at that time, the newest champion was displayed on the connection screen. If you ask someone from this era when they started playing exactly, they will probably refer to the “first” connection screen.

I was 14 years old at that time and still queue for several hundred games ranked per season, although I am much less prolific than I was. I have played 532 games in 2015 and stay up to 70 years for this season so far. For better or worse, League of Legends was one of the most consistent aspects of my adolescence and young age.

Given this, I jumped on the opportunity to visit Riot Games' Arena in Berlin, a place I never visited, despite the fact that I participated in several Liga sports events in the last decade. After visiting Lol Park in Seoul earlier this year, the European League House was another place to check my list of buckets. Riot invited me to deal with the recently announced champion, Yunara and also show me other aspects of Spirit Blossom Beyond, the theme of the second half of the current season.

Earning skin

Riot Games Spirit Blossom Skin Press Trip showing the skin

I arrived, admired the place and mixed with the press and the assembled influences; This last word did not enter the vernacular when I started playing the game a decade ago. After some time, passing around the arena, I was finally introduced in the stage area, where various teams from revolts presented different aspects of the flowering of the spirit beyond.

In all honor, this presentation made me feel old. I have had conflicting feelings about the direction of the league of legends for some time and, because I am a cynic in nature, I am probably more than the ordinary player.

Riot has two parts. The first creates amazing kinematic, is open and transparent with the base of the players and cultivates convincing thematic packages, all combined to make me want to queue. But, there is also the side that perceives $ 250 for a skin, simultaneously reducing the quality of these versions. Yes, one finances the other, but it is difficult not to feel somewhat worried about the increased marketing of the legend legend.

During the skin section of the presentation, each disclosure was accompanied by a choir of Oohs and AAHS from the gathered crowd. I haven't bought skin for years, and another cute outfit for Nidalee (seventeenth skin) does not turn the dial for me. It sounds dramatically, but I sat down there, thinking: “League of Legends left me behind?”

It is not just the liga-suntem in an era in which constant live innovative services games, squeezing the income from cosmetics and crossings. We are not so bad in the League of Legends and I am grateful that Goku does not invade my jungle at level 2 and my chicks are stealing. However, there is still a level of monetization that I do not agree with. The release of a $ 250 skin feels exploiting.

Many players love skins and help games remain free. But I simply can't help but feel something has changed in the industry. It is like games now exist to sell skins, rather than the existing skin to finance games.

The existential crisis aside, after the presentation, were separated in various rooms. These are the players' heating rooms if you have ever watched less. Our room was not labeled with a team logo, but I have a lid sensation has played a few solo tail games on the computer I used, and its spirit lived during the subsequent Arams.

The next game hours were my favorite part of the whole day. I was placed in a room with a few English-language content creators that I recognized. I told one of them, Huzzygames, that I used to watch his videos ten years ago, probably feeling older than I was twenty minutes before. We were in a private construction of the league, allowing us to test the new Aram map as a five-standard compared to other rooms.

These few hours reminded me of why I was so hanging on the League of Legends first. Playing games in voice with four strangers, delight in each game the good-to-the-line of things on which the Liga is built, not “passing through the emotional state similar to the zombies” of your classified average player. It was interesting: I was eager to prove to these people I just knew, and the vibrations were great in the game. It was a fun of good fashion.

I won each Aram game, playing the various other teams present at the event. After lunch, I played a regular five versus-five versus a team of Germans to test some of the new skins. It was a nail biter back and back, with the Finnish Santa who transported us hard in the late game.

Good days

League of Legends Spirit Blossom Morgana Splash Art

The whole experience has highlighted something that is AMIS with the Modern League of Legends. It is a game built in the community that seems to have forgotten the appearance of the community. This change in mentality dates back to the client's re-prel with, which has displayed high-level games that you can show on the first page and used to have functionalities for public chat rooms. The game felt alive. Now, you can easily make a queue queue and play for 8 hours, without having a significant interaction. More fuel in Grind Forever, forgotten the next day.

It is not as if the community has disappeared entirely, but it has become decentralized. I feel for new players who pick up the game today, because the league is lonely than it was before. Everything used to feel closer: content creators, professionals, developers. You were part of a ecosystem; Now you only feed the ecosystem. The league became systematic and I lost some of the spirit I had.

There is always a danger when we look back, nostalgia does not go crazy and affects one's memories. It was a different period of my life: I had more free time and, since I learned the game, every time I improve, I felt like a significant progression. Maybe I hit my ceiling or I don't like the game as much as before, or maybe I'm correct and something has been fundamentally changed to the League of Legends.

At least, for a few hours in Berlin, I remembered why I like this game.