League of Legends: hell is other people, pt. 1

Despite (or perhaps in conjunction with) its acronym, LoL features an inordinate amount of trash talk during and after the game. It even parks you in a post-game chat lobby to better facilitate post-drubbing geysers of self-amused braggadocio. “lol yo stats suk on me, lux scrub,” I’m informed after what I naively misconstrued as a lively hour-long exchange of cartoonish yet epic pyrotechnics. “We won,” I counter encouragingly. “I learned at team-building seminars not to fall forward, you might want to try that tactic near turrets when I have full mana there, cheech.” “lok at statz,” he insists. Then sends me a friend request, which upon my acceptance I soon learn he only proposed so that he could continue lambasting me in a larger window without the inconvenience of other spectators chiming in to break up his perfectly sculpted floes of aggression. See, ’cause he was an ice mage. I think. Like even the richest heiress’ wardrobe, 68 champions means seeing at least two shades of cobalt a week.

After the jump, I learn how my misanthropy is supported by cold, hard statistics.

The downside of free games is that it doesn’t exactly keep the riffraff out. In one game I cruise to the middle to help out some Fiddlesticks take on three champions. “LEAVE,” he types angrily. “GO THE FUCK AWAY.” I don’t cotton to his tone, so I stick around and steal his kills just to irritate him. In another game, my ally’s champion dies and he types, “I’m French.” Does he mean that as a defense, an apology, an existential declaration of his indifference to matters temporal, or a come-on. I assume the latter and start playing pants-less.

LoL’s most annoying characteristic is that it doesn’t yet offer any opportunity to kick afk players, and these fuckers are commoner than flea-eggs on Cousin It’s taint, since they get free xps just for sitting there by the shoppe for the whole game, and if you counter by leaving the game, you’re stuck with a “leaver” stigma by your name forever and they get off scot-free. Some League. Correspondingly, it doesn’t take much (say, a failed attempt to heal someone who’s just made a rash greedy play for a wounded champion retreating for his nearby turret) to piss someone off enough to park themselves by the shoppe and siphon off your labors till the inevitable defeat screen. There’s basically nothing you can do about it.

I’m also unclear on what a “cheese kill” is, although based on the amount of flak I catch for committing them, I seem to have cornered the market on these.

Up next: Tom Chick on life during death
Click here for the previous League of Legends game diary