League of Legends

 League of Legends: Clash of Fates  is an upcoming Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Riot Games, Inc. for Microsoft Windows. It was first announced on October 7, 2008 and scheduled to be released in 2009, with a closed beta to be released in early 2009.

Two main designers for the popular Warcraft III mod, Defense of the Ancients: Allstars (commonly abbreviated as DotA), Steve "Guinsoo" Feak and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon are involved with Riot Games in the making of League Of Legends: Clash of Fates. Guinsoo created DotA: Allstars from the original DotA, created by Eul, by adding his own mix of content, including over 40 heroes, numerous items, and various gameplay changes. Guinsoo then passed DotA: Allstars on to its current developer, Icefrog. Pendragon, who is the Director of Community Relations for Riot Games, helped create the DotA: Allstars website along with its forums, and is still currently working on DotA: Allstars alongside of League of Legends: Clash of Fates.

Development
The idea of a spiritual sequel to Defense of the Ancients that would be its own stand-alone game with its own engine, rather than another Mod of Warcraft III began to materialize at the end of 2005. League of Legends was born when a couple of very active DotA community members believed that the gameplay was so fun and innovative that it represented the spawning of a new genre and deserved to be its own professional game with significantly enhanced features and around-game services.

Riot Games was co-founded by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill. They partnered with some of the key creative minds behind the creation of DotA-Allstars, Steve Feak and Steve Mescon, and League of Legends was born. Riot Games officially opened its office in September 2006 and currently has about 40 people working on League of Legends, including their robust technology platform to service and operate the game as well as a team dedicated to community relations.

Gameplay
The game will be sessions based with two teams of 6 players fighting each other with Champions called forth by the player, represented by a Summoner, the persistent element in the game, used to track statistics and scores for each player.

At the start of each battle, every player has the ability to choose a champion to fight for him in battle. According to the Game Features section on the main page of the website, there will be "dozens of unique champions with diverse skills and abilities" for the player to choose from. There will be "over 200 uniquely crafted items" that the player can buy, and combine to help them in their battles. League of Legends consists of three tiers of items. First, there are the basic consumables that give temporary bonuses or regeneration for the Champions, the middle tier involves basic gear that provide the Champions with permanent statistical or combat boosts, and finally the legendary items that are created as a result of combining multiple lesser items.

Currently League of Legends has both a persistent element which is the Summoner as well as session based play where your Summoner calls forth Champions that influence session-based play in a dynamic way. Champions have a level cap of 18 and can level up on the battlefield (a.k.a. "Fields of Justice"). Each Champion in Leagues of Legends will have varied playstyles, from support to tank to nuker. As the champion levels, it gains permanent health, mana, and statistical boosts. It also gains ability points it can use to learn new abilities that are unique to each champion. Champions also gain gold from killing the enemy player champions, AI controlled monsters, and other minions in the battlefield. The gold may be spent back at your base on any of numerous items that grant abilities and statistical boosts to aid the champion in and out of combat.

The first announced map, the  Summoner's Rift , is similar to the map in DotA. As in DotA, you start in your own base and fight to conquer strategical points and destroy the enemies' turrets until you finally try to destroy their base. The enemy team, however, will try to do the same. Strategy, tactics, skill, and above all, teamwork, will be the difference between winning and losing.

Summoner
Each player will have their own Summoner, this is the only aspect of the game that will be constant and represents the player in the game. Summoners summon champions to fight on their behalf on the fields of justice, and can gain levels as when their champions are successful in battle. As the Summoner's level increases, the player will be able to access new talents, abilities, equipment, and other various content.

The Summoner's Abilities can be used by the champions in the in-game sessions. A champion may only choose up to 2 summoner abilities to bring with it in any battle session.

The Summoner will be able to wear 8 pieces of equipment. Each piece will empower its champion with small bonuses such as a Health Bonus, Damage Increase, or Mana Regeneration, etc.

Each Summoner will also have its own customizable Talent Tree. Details on the Talents available and how they will affect the champion have not yet been announced.

Distribution
Riot Games has signed deals regarding the distribution of League of Legends: Clash of Fates in Asia, Europe, and North America. The game is expected to be released in the rest of the world also, including Australia. No public announcements regarding other countries has yet been made.

In Asia, Tencent Inc., China's largest Internet value-added services company, best known for its QQ Instant Messaging client will be in charge of the distribution to Tencent’s growing 300 million Internet user base through its leading QQ Game portal. The deal is one of only a handful of partnerships to bring a U.S.-developed online game directly to China.

For distribution in Europe, Riot Games has signed an international licensing partnership with GOA, the videogames department of Orange’s Content Division and Europe’s largest gaming portal.

In North America, Riot Games will self-publish and operate the game and all of its customer service aspects.

Riot Games has also announced a possible digital distribution.