Thursday, December 9, 2010

League of Legends, Walden, and "Jungling."


Disclaimer at the start: this post reeks of the absurd. League of Legends, a game that I play on a fairly regular basis, is basically a World of Warcraft spinoff with no monetary obligation. It's also far less intense and takes up considerably less time depending on your level of dedication. The game itself is typically 5v5 player format, in which you can either play with your friends or random people from across the world. Mostly Russia, from what I've seen. Russians, by the way, are very difficult to communicate with when they don't know English; I've seen really good foreigners that type with awkward, indecipherable symbols but they are usually quite bad. It's annoying to not be able to thank/rage at partners that are either really good or really bad, respectably.

At any rate, "jungling" is a style of play that many pre-made teams resort to. The match-making system assumes that a group of five people that know each other will be a stronger team than five random strangers; they will pit you and your friends against stronger teams according to that assumption. If all five of you were somehow randomly paired up you would have weaker opponents. The map for League of Legends is made up of three lanes and an extensive jungle with creatures that can be killed for money and experience. Teams that are comfortable with each other will often have one of their players gain their experience and money through killing in the jungle, leaving one of the lanes as a "solo" lane (one ally against two enemies). The ally left in the solo lane will gain bonus experience and gold from the extra minion kills they are able to get; the ally in the jungle will, if they are skilled, level up at a faster pace as well. This gives the team a decisive advantage in teamfights and can often lead to victory.

One skilled jungler that would basically win the game for the team:




Henry David Thoreau, 19th century thinker and writer, also went to the woods. His book Walden gives us his experiences and thoughts on the matter. Here's a quote:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau, Walden

I think I see a very strong parallel. When you jungle in LOL, you only have to deal with the intricacies of killing monsters. This remains largely the same regardless of what game you are in (unless the other team decides to go hunting for you). You have to be deliberate, learn from your mistakes, and know your strengths and weaknesses enough to be able to judge which monsters you can kill by yourself.

However, you have to be careful; being lazy in the jungle can make you an object of derision for your team:

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. -Thoreau, Walden

In LOL, the same thing is true. If you spend a majority of your time wandering the jungles and admiring the beauty of the creatures found therein, you are a slacker. However, if you spend all of your time killing these monsters, you are a valuable asset to your team.

I could go on, but I'll spare my readers. This has been a really fun blog to keep; I'm really proud of several of these posts, although the majority (including this one) are kinda... well, I'd like to think that to people with a background in these subjects at least find them a bit humorous and a little helpful. Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it.

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