The Online Battle Arena Games: Episode 2__LOL

As I mentioned earlier, League of Legends is quite a similar work to DOTA. It is actually inspired by the whole idea of DOTA and was shooting to supeirize dota.

It is interesting that the game was released between the era when DOTA  reached to its mature stage where the number of players comes to a constant or even declining, which actually provided a great opportunity for LOL.

Then what is new about LOL?

First of all, the business model is completely different. Even though it is free to create a Riot account and download and play LOL. The customers can only play the "heros of the week", if the customers wants to use the rest of the heros they like, they have to purchase with game points, which can be earned by playing more games or simply through purchase the Riot Points with their dollars.
If a player like a particular hero, he/she can spend some extra points or money to by a themend skin for their heros. The skins will make the heros look different than the normal model but will not affect the fairness of the game because the skins wont change any property of the gameplay.
I think this is a good model for LOL to be a merchandised game and generate a lot profit for Riot.

Another thing that differs LOL from Dota is that there are 3 different types of game mode, Field of Justic, Dominion and Persistance Meta Mode. The players can team up and play differnet modes to free their mind from the battles of the 5 vs. 5. These different modes also help the players to better define the heros they poccess. For example, there are certain heros who are not so powerful in the Field of Justic mode but are extremely useful in Dominion Mode.

From a personal perpective, the gameplay of LOL is still no better than DOTA. But the business trend and other types of promotions really present the game much more attractive to players who haven't tried either of the games.