User blog comment:YourPrivateNightmare/Reasons to quit this game/@comment-24975330-20150913132142

Welp, here we go...

That's hard for me to admit, as I've always been a bit of a fanboy whenever it comes to League, but you and Dunkey bring up so many good points... Heck, I even feel the same way as you do about Bard, who I love so much, and Tahm Kench, who has been my main since his release.

Before officially answering the questions, I'll start off with a story:

I've been playing League since a few days before Season 1 was over (Around the days when Corki's champ spotlight and Riven's teaser were out).

Found the game and thought that it was an MMORPG of some sorts until I had barely realized what I was playing as I entered my first few matches (Up until that point, most -if not all- of my main games in my life had been MMORPGs.). It was a sort of mix between an MMORPG and a Strategy game with a few weird twists (But in a good way!). I did not know what to exactly think, yet I was tempted to play more matches of that game that brought some new and fresh gameplay. It felt so good, so fun.

And so, I kept playing this League of Legends game. For a whole year. I was a completely naive noob. I did not care for stats or how they worked or scaled with the abilities of the champs I was playing, nor did I care for how every mechanic worked. I don't even think I read the chat in my matches.

Eventually, I got bored. The IP grind was too awful and boring for me (maybe it's because I didn't realize that I wasn't getting any IP/Exp from the custom games I had played with my friend who I showed the game to). So I quit, during Rengar's patch.

I was still following the news, hearing about new champs and stuff.

During my first week in the game, I showed it to one of my friends (not the one I was talking about earlier- Let's call this one "C"). He really liked it, but after a week he quit. I tried to convince him to come and play with me a lot during my first year in League, but he kept refusing.

Then, Pre-Season 2 came.

Suddenly, a message from C saying that he was bored and asked me if I wanted to play League of Legends (he already downloaded it).

He got me back into the game (and a lot of our other friends too, but for the first time). I instantly fell in love with League again. Only this time, I had become more competitive and started learning about the game (Maybe too competitive, since I remember that one of my first 30 games after my return I was so frustrated with jungling- Me and my friends were training because we wanted to eventually form a team and compete in higher levels and stuff).

I never took a break for more than a week ever since (And most of these week-or-less breaks were either due to me being busy with school things or health issues).

First quarter of 2014 (and forgive me if I'm going a little off-topic here), I had this regular math test in school, but it got me so stressed that I got a blackout. This frustrated me so much that I got depressed, which caused a few tiny health issues. A few things made me realize that I was taking a lot of things in my life way too seriously. While I wasn't a chat-flamer, I used to flame my friends during Skype calls when we were playing together (I know, I'm a horrible person). So I started slowing down with League and I have almost never flamed my friends since then and I play more for fun rather than being competitive (I still really liked ranking, solo or duo, with my friends).

Later on (we're talking about a month or two ago) I started tilting like hell because of them losing streaks filled with trolls and toxic/negative people. I kept telling my friends about the games I lost- Some games I wasn't even mad about (despite them being a stomp for the enemy team or having trolls on my team), some got my really mad ("Do these people really leave every game with a bad start?"), but all of them got me really frustrated. I said that I wasn't even sure I was addicted nor if I was really enjoying the game. It really got me thinking- Why am I still playing?

Now, for the questions:

'' Do I still enjoy this game as much as I did when I started playing? ''

As I already said earlier, probably not, but it depends on the mood. Nowdays, I don't play that often, but after not playing for a long time (A week or a few days), I'd play.

Do I still have fun playing my favourite champs or do I just play to win?

Again, it depends on the mood. It's usually a mix of both, but lately I had more fun playing my fav champs rather than caring for a win.

Do I still get satisfaction out of doing well other than the relief of not being the reason your team is losing?

In Ranked, I will probably always be a little stressed and be glad as long as I'm not the one responsible for loses or being flamed at. In normal games I may also be tilted, but I stayed away from Ranked games lately and played more normal games with friends, in which I'm having a lot of fun actually.

Do I REALLY want to queue up for another game even if you don't get any excitement or joy out of the anticipation?

I sometimes end up playing another game even though I didn't have much fun in the last one. This usually happens if I'm with friends and have nothing else to do or when I really wanna play another Ranked game.

Can I really keep calm and play the game in a community as tainted as this?

I sometimes look at the positive side, saying to myself, "The community isn't that bad- Throughout the years I found some really nice people.", but that wouldn't be entirely true because I do encounter these people who just love ruining other's game experience from time to time (especially in Ranked). I try to keep my cool most of them (I never flame in chat though) and I try not to give a shit about what people say about me in game and mute them, but I don't always manage to.

Conclusion:

I can see myself playing for another year (maybe even two, if my friends don't end up quiting or going to the army by then (It's mandatory where I live). Yet You and Dunkey bring up a lot of good points and I just told a friend of mine two hours ago (on the topic of Dunkey's video) that the game did get rather bland (He agreed with me, saying that, now that he got Diamond, he probably would slow down, take a break and play a ton of Rocket League). The only problem is that I can't see myself playing any other games as much (At least ones that aren't MOBAs- I quite like Dota and HotS and I usually end up playing one of the two whenever I don't feel like playing League for a more than a week).

However, whether I'll quit in a month or two years, I most definitely do not regret finding the game almost four years ago(! Wow)- I know half of my friends, I got an idea of what I wanna do later in life (it really got me interested in art in the game industry and the game industry in general), I realized a bunch of important life things (Like how I took things way too seriously) and I'm pretty sure that I dodged depression a few times, all thanks to League. And this game will always have a special place in my heart. <3