First let's get to the champions. Since I saw the game last, they have released a number of new champions, a few of which are prominently displayed in the logo at the top of the article. Right now there are over 35 champions to choose from each time you start. The type of roles each champion plays runs the gamut from stealthy and nimble damage dealers, to strong and resilient damage tanks, to powerful support characters. Since you are always working with a team, what role your character plays can have a big effect on the outcome of the game. After playing around with a few characters in the beta, I really fell into a groove with some of the support tank characters, such as Taric and Sion. There are still 5 more champions they will be adding to the game before release, bring the grand total up to 40, which is a whole lot of choice for anyone playing the game.

As far as the gameplay goes, currently in beta they are allowing 5v5 games on their first map: Summoner's Rift. The map is true to the Defense of the Ancients in that you are pushing with minions to overthrow enemy towers until you can make a final assault on their base to win the game. Your characters slowly level in experience allowing them access to their four unique abilities which you can also upgrade at higher levels. You also gain money from destroying the enemies' minions and towers, which can be used at your base to purchase items that increase different stats on your champion. The gameplay on this map is superb and promotes team tactics very well. I loved seeing how the different characters could work together to topple towers and destroy the enemy opponents. I have probably lost as many games as I have won, but each time I've played a game to completion, I've always had an exciting nail-biting experience doing so.

As far as character building goes, playing as a support class you can sometimes feel squishy, but with the wide variety of items available in game and the Summoner stat bonuses you get as you play more games, I quickly found ways to remedy that. With proper planning and purchasing, I was easily able to stack health and movement speed items that would allow me to withstand more blows from my enemies. I also leveled my account to the maximum account level, 30, and was able to slot over 20 runes into my rune book that increased my armor, defense, health, and even attack power. Perhaps the best meta game account feature they have is the three talent trees that you can spend talent points into to help better carve out your niche on the battle field. I heavily invested in the tanking tree, and some in the support tree as well.

As far as the community goes, from lurking in the forums, chatting with teammates online, and inviting people to be on my friend's list, I've actually had very few problems. I did see the occasional complainer on my team that would be upset for someone who was obviously new to the game dying 3-5 times while trying to learn the nuisances of the game; however, I also saw players giving helpful hints and offering help to those same new people in matches. I think I only saw "fag" written by a teammate once, which is quite different from what I see in most online games. There's currently no in-game voice support, so that may have shielded me some from homophobic smack talk, but overall I'm quite happy with the online community. Add on to that the fact that they are currently working on a new player tutorial to help players get a feel for the game before jumping into a match, and it looks like League of Legends will be a very approachable game when it launches.

Speaking of launches, nothing is currently set in stone, but it looks like the folks at Riot Games would like to launch the game sometime in October, with an open beta happening a week or two beforehand. As I stated earlier the game is going to be a "free-to-play" game which means you can get into the game and start playing without dropping a penny; however, you'll only initially have access to a limited number of the 40 heroes. As you play games you'll gain influence points (IP) which can be used to buy runes and any other champions. They will have micro transactions available to players to purchase champions and runes. They've been very forward in stating that they will not make any items that can only be purchased using money, since they don't want to give unfair advantages to people that are willing to pay money for items over the rest of the player base.

Overall, I'm super excited to see League of Legends launch since I think it will allow a broad spectrum of gamers easy and exciting access to the Defense of the Ancients gameplay that was invented many years ago through the Warcraft III. Riot Games looks like they are poised well to see this game to the finish line, and I'll be sure to let you know when they are close to crossing it with a solid release date.