This week, at Patrick Holleman’s suggestion, we’re going to continue our recent spate of free multiplayer online games with an evening of League of Legends. Quoting Patrick:

League of Legends is a free-to-play RTS/RPG hybrid focusing almost entirely on PvP.  The game was originally spun off of a Warcraft 3 custom map called Defense of the Ancients.  This map became so popular that it actually displaced the normal way to play WC3 as the most popular game type.  The game seems very simple, but as any of its dedicated adherents will tell you, there is depth in strategy.  The most fascinating aspect of the game, however, is how it has been monetized.  Although it is free to play, players can buy all manner of new playable characters, new skins, and other perks for real dollars.  This has proved extremely lucrative, and there are now more than 200 staffers on the League project.

It’s very easy to learn the basic mechanics.  The basic tutorial will take about 10 minutes.  The game is large, however, so give it a couple hours to download and patch, depending on your connection.  The game is also played in teams, which is good, because that way we noobs can lose as a group.

We’ll meet this Thursday, June 16th at 9:30 EDT / 6:30 PDT, with voice chat over Ventrilo; if you need the Vent contact info, leave a comment and I’ll e-mail it to you.