League of Fun
When you saw this game for the first time and downloaded it, what was it for? Regardless of who you are, whether you were told of it by your friends or saw a game of the LCS on a stream, you downloaded the game to have fun, you downloaded it to get pleasure, you downloaded it to gain something. It appealed to you, it was interesting. You didn't know what to do, but you didn't really care. You wanted to have fun and enjoy this game in whatever way you could. And now, you still play it. You are dedicated enough to go on the forums of the game. You continue to play, because you want to have fun. Whether that means finding a game with good players, improving and ranking up, or just winning the game. Many people are happy with this, and continue to enjoy the game. But some people don't get to that point. .
. So many players struggle, or even flat out can't have, fun, playing League. This is something that can happen to anyone, someone who has barely played, veterans from as long ago as beta, and everyone inbetween. Some of these people don't mind that it's this way, they have moved on from League, likely to never play it again. But there are also people that still stick around, despite hating many of the matches that they play. They linger around, waiting for a change, something that will make it better.
But what is it that makes the game so horrible for most of these people? What makes it so unbearable, so undesirable to them?
It's us. No, it's not Riot. It doesn't matter what Riot does to the game, it's still the same game. The meta may change, the champions may be reworked and new champions will arrive, and items can be tweaked, but it is still League of Legends. They wont change that. .
. We, as a community, have built ourselves apart. Many times we consider the other players in the game to just be these Bots that have random levels of skill, whether or not we think like that. We taught ourselves this though. We all have our own means to gaining pleasure from this game, and we tend to ignore the other players' ideas. We have our objective, and that is fun, and that is what we want accomplished. .
. And now we, as a community, have given ourselves a reputation that doesn't fit almost any of us. It starts with people who are incapable of achieving happiness from playing a match of LoL. This could be that they can't win the game, simply hate a champion that they are forced to play against, or many other things. This leaves the player upset. One of these times the person will call out upon the reason they were irritated at the game. This can easily lead to an argument. The argument that follows can take two people who are both very kind at heart and put them against each other, simply because they disagree about one thing. These arguments can raise the temper of people, and cause them to get toxic. They don't mean to hurt a person, but they do. And as this happens, people get scarred by these things, and the habits of these players devolve. .
. Now very innocent and kind people will flame others for various reasons.
People who follow the meta will call you many bad things and even dodge the match because you took an off meta pick. In reality you simply don't care about the meta, or even purposely enjoy doing things against it. Now you can't enjoy the game because you get flamed for your pick.
People who don't care as much about the result of the game will call you a tryhard because you took a meta pick or your main in a normal game, or you bought pinks and upgraded your trinket immediately. In reality you try because you enjoy doing well, or you are trying to get better, or you simply were taught to play the game with those very healthy habits. Now you can't enjoy the game because you play to achieve the objective of the game, you can't play the game the way you have learned it.
People of all types will call you out for being bad because you fed, or lost them the game. In reality you really couldn't care less about the result of the game, or perhaps you just had a bad game, or maybe you are still learning to play the game. Now you can't enjoy the game because every game you feed you get yelled at by your team and laughed at by the enemy team. .
. This is us. This what we have made. You may not want to accept it, you may say that you aren't a part of the problem. It isn't you that started this, but it is you that must stop it. All of us have the power to prove that we can work together. All of us can prove that we can just play the game for fun. We don't share the same opinions, but we share this game. We share our dedication to put time aside for this game. We share enjoyment in this game however it may be.
So please, try to remember that every person you play with has their own emotions. The person that takes on off pick, don't judge him. When someone does poorly, try to help them out in whatever way you can. When the person gives all their effort into playing the game to win, don't tell them they're wrong. .
. TL;DR - Play the game for fun, however it may be that you have it, but don't be mean to other people to obtain the enjoyment. It's what that game is for.
