League of Legends MMO - The world of the future game!

In the past, MMOs were regarded as the godfathers of games. They were the peak of what developers could accomplish. Even though looking back  that's a fairly subjective thing to say.

Everyone knew MMOs had the power to create cult following, but also everyone knew making MMOs was hard.

On average an MMO has to spend at least 6 years in the baking before it can get anywhere near being good, but that didn't stop companies from jumping onto the bandwagon anyway. Soon we could see dozens of new MMOs — all releasing in 2008 all being called the wow killers. Spoiler Alert: none of them did that…

Unfortunately we can feel the ripple effects even now. It got to a point where every time a new MMO is announced we all think the same thing: “oh… anyway…”.

When you're working on an MMO you have to respect three pillars:

1. Gameplay is king;
2. Social interactions matter;
3. The world setting is important;

When riot announced their MMO it became clear that two of the pillars are being respected and the third one is already done.

When it comes to the gameplay it is currently in the hands of ghost crawler — someone who's been working on wow during its best times and someone who got a reputation for hating boomkins and loving mages.

When it comes to the social interactions it is a dance between the developers and the players. A dev can guide players towards social interactions or they can annihilate them, and after that the players usually find their own fun inside the MMO. From that point on the devs should do everything in their power to support the players having fun in their own way.

And finally when it comes to the world of an MMO, in riot's case it's done and it's been finished for quite a few years now.

 

In fact the world of rights MMO is in such a good state they already have the continents, the zones, the cultures and the races and to a lesser degree every zone already has its own storyline.

Now of course unless you follow the lore of league of legends you wouldn't know about this. That's why we decided to make this article. We want to show you all the zones we are going to see in the MMO and what sorts of quests we are going to do there.

For the purpose of this article, we will assume you have no idea what League of Legends is about you have no idea what the universe is about, but you like MMOs!

Now, without further ado, let's have a look at all the zones in riot's MMO!

Runeterra

 

This is Runeterra — the world of League of Legends. Right now the world is separated into 10 main regions but these 10 regions don't cover all the land on the map so there are some mini zones in between them.
The lore already revealed that there is going to be another continent further to the East that definitely sounds like a future expansion.

In fact it would be foolish to release all of these regions at launch — you can easily turn half of these into separate expansions and because a lot of people already know and love these regions the hype behind these expansions would be big. With that said we know a lot of you would like to play as Shuriman or Ionian.

Now you may be cursing us for suggesting that these would be expansions, but the Lore can justify giving you these nations as playable races without having their regions. We’ll show you how riot can pull this off in a bit. First let's talk about the regions rights MMO has to start with.

The Northern Continent

 

This entire continent is called Valoran. This is where the absolute core of this The two main regions here are Demacia and Noxus.

They are the two big rivals.

Demacia

While we would like to say that Demacia is your classic normie human region it's not really true. Runeterra doesn't really have a normal place. There is something weird happening in every region and Demacia has racism. Okay maybe not racism because
Demacia doesn't mind yordles or minotaurs but they really hate mages. That's because in the past their rivals almost annihilated half of the world using magic and so Demacia was built inside a magic absorbing forest.

Therefore Demacia is a really cool place where you can hide from magic. When it comes to the visuals of the zone you can see a lot of lush fields, it is surrounded by mountains, but the iconic part of the Demacia are the buildings. They are made of Petricite which is a combination of stone and the magic absorbing wood.

Because these ancient magic absorbing trees were grey all the buildings have a marble-like appearance. And yes, given what material they are using all the buildings in the Demacia also absorb magic.

So should a mage visit this region let's just say it's going to be a painful experience.

On top of this let's not forget that demacians can weaponize Petricite. They can turn it into Petricite steel which gives you your classic anti-magic weapons and you can sculpt Petricite constructs which wake up after absorbing magic.

Simply said these guys just really don't like magic. The irony is they've been absorbing it for years now, and this is where the story would kick in.
You see demacians are so afraid of magic they founded the mage seeker order. This is an order of people who hunt mages they throw them in the prison and they torture them until their body gives up on magic. So yes, being a mage is a crime in Demacia.

The thing is people still get naturally born with magical abilities. You can't stop it from happening. So not only are there mages hiding in the royal court, right now there is a mage civil war happening in Demacia where mages and people who don't hate mages rise up to fight for moral rights.

So should we do some quests in this zone — this is gonna be the core story. Mage is trying to overthrow racist leadership following old laws, so the main enemy NPCs might be mages and witches.

Further to the south we might find some crag beasts, tiny woolly elephants and yes, of course, in the argent mountains there are also dragons — lots and lots of dragons.

But that's about it for Demacia.
Fun fact: the capital city of Demacia is called “The Great City of Demacia”. Sounds dumb but thankfully the other regions are a bit more creative with their names.

Noxus

Now let's move away from Demacian region and let's have a look at the badass region — Noxus.

If you're planning on playing a warrior with oversized weapons and overcompensating lush hair — this is the region for you. This place actually has a long and badass history but we really don't have to explain it now so just know that originally it was built by the most badass warrior in the history of Runeterra.

Mordekaiser literally died on a mountain of corpses. And after he died, he was too angry to stay dead so he just became the god of the underworld. When this guy lived he built the Immortal Bastion, which is to this day the largest structure on the entire Runeterra.

Currently he is banished underneath the Immortal Bastion but only a few people know about it so you know that's a future raid boss.

The Immortal Bastion is the capital city of the Noxian Empire with Noxus being one of the most brutal nations in Runeterra.

It is brutal because the nation is surrounded by rocky earth. It is hard to grow plants here so Noxians are forced into conquering surrounding land for resources to survive.
That's why when you go to the map you can notice that the Noxian territory is all over the place. It's because these are all the places Noxus has already conquered.

Although when we say it like that you may imagine Noxus brutally raiding everything but that's not true. They like to absorb the surrounding nations into their empire. After all it's just more human resources.
Most of the time they only remove the royalty and they let the leaderless people join their empire and that's because Noxus values strength above all and rulers… tend to not be good fighters. This is what you can see in the after victory cinematic:

They killed the king because he was weak and let everyone else join them. Fun fact: conquering nations is so iconic for Noxus they have their own saying: “kill them until they are family”.

So when it comes to the quests in Noxus it is most likely going to be helping the empire expand its territory. Although this region has its own unique enemies too. Inside the Immortal Bastion — there is a cult known as the Black Rose. This cult is connected to the darkest of magics so be ready to fight homemancers, witches, demons and the grey legion — which is an army of soldiers revived with blood magic to fight for the empire again. And when it comes to collecting 10 bear asses here we have the native drakehounds and basilisks

Freljord

Now while Noxus and Demacia are the main rivals here, both of them are also constantly repelling raids from the north.

Now let's have a look at the Freljord. just like pretty much any region on Runeterra, Freljord has a long history. But for the purpose of this article, just know that the maddening Old Gods — known as the watchers of the void, who want to devour the entire reality only because it keeps waking them up, once tried to breach into reality.

They almost succeeded because they tricked the ice witch Lissandra into helping them. Fortunately she realized how wrong she was and she managed to freeze half of the kingdom with the watchers still beneath them.

So these days the Ice Witch is the only person holding back the end of reality by keeping the watchers frozen.
At some point in the future you bet one of these woken up frozen watchers is gonna be a raid boss.

Now, when it comes to the NPCs this is where things get diverse. First of all remember that the Freljord is brutally cruel. Everything is frozen and survival is everything, so the first enemy here would be the wildlife — from rhyme fangs to yetis, from dhruvasks to elnects, from mammoths to, the worst of them all, poros.

 

Next we are going to fight the Freljordians themselves. There are three main tribes here:

The Avarosans, who are quite peaceful,

the Winter's Claw, who are quite brutal,

and the frost guard Lissandra's followers, who hold back the watchers and these guys have some badass armor.

Among the notable tribes, there are also the ursine which are shamans who worship the Volibear — the primal God of the wild. He slowly turns his worshippers into twisted animalistic monstrosities, speaking of which — yes, they are also the primal Gods of Freljord.

And finally, we need to talk about the Iceborn.
When the watchers tried to arrive here, they tainted the ice around them. This special ice is called the True Ice and it is so dangerous that you literally die if you touch it.

However the watchers also tainted some people, giving them the ability to touch the ice. It is still extremely painful for them to hold a true ice weapon but at least they can survive it. These people are known as the Iceborn.

But people were not the only things that were tainted. There are also Ice Trolls (ex. Trundle), some of whom are also Iceborn.

To be honest these guys were made to have their own dungeon, but there are also some animals that were twisted by the watchers. Even Lissandra is twisting some beings herself to make them serve her.

So overall, Freljord is going to have a lot of cool warriors ,shamans and horrors!

So these would be the three regions on the main continent. This place is actually so big it can easily make the base world of the game, especially since there are a bunch of smaller regions in between them.

There is Nokmirch — full of witches (Le Blanc).

Argent Mountains — with their dragons.

Tokogol — with void monsters (Vel’Koz).

Dalamor Plain — with Kled,

and so much more!
But from here you can cleverly set up the expansions because of how well everything is interconnected.

Ionia

Now let's have a look at the continent to the East called Ionia.

Ionia has a very close connection to Noxus. It's because Noxians once tried to conquer it all during an event simply called “The Invasion of Ionia”.
This was a horrible war full of using children as soldiers because Noxians thought Ionians wouldn't fight back against children and chemical weapons. Lots and lots of chemical weapons — speaking of which, remember Singed from “Arcane”. 

He's the guy who chemically devastated Ionia.

Eventually Noxus failed but they kept their small controlled territories.

The first quest here could be simply boarding a ship sailing over and exploring the place for the Noxian empire.

Now when it comes to Ionia itself, the place gets mystical. Everything here is alive and connected to the spirit of nature — everything from the animals to the people and buildings, everything is alive.

If you anger mother nature your house can twist and strangle you in your sleep. You can only imagine how mother nature fought against Noxians — usually a river came alive to drown them. That's why all the buildings here look like they were woven from wood.

That’s because they wear with nature magic. People let nature build their houses. It also means that sometimes your house can just walk away.

When it comes to the NPCs, here obviously there is gonna be a lot of nature spirits and mystical animals. From giant flying tigers to the Never Ending Story.

Be ready to also face local Ionians blade masters (ex. Master Yi), shadow cultists, murderers (ex. Jhin) and ninjas (ex. Shen) — both good, bad, and the in-between. But finally there is also one more enemy that we could face — the furries (ex. Sett, Ahri).
That's right — this race is known as the Vastaya. They are half humans and half magical animals and yes, canonically the species was born in exactly the way you are thinking…
To be fair, the Vastaya are quite cool. They are definitely gonna be a playable race just like Yordles — who also like Ionia a lot.

Lastly, after Noxians ravaged mother nature, demons started occupying all the places filled with misery and doubt. That's gonna be a nice bonus enemy — so yes the exploration of Ionia and the raid on the shadow order could be a really cool first expansion!

Piltover and Zaun

But it's definitely not riot's only option because we can also go south to Piltover and Zaun.

These are the ones people will know about simply because this is where Arcane took place.

Piltover and Zaun are two massive cities located one above the other. They are so massive they could easily be turned into their own playable zones. They are both focusing on futuristic technology powered up by magic of the Hextech Gemstones.

Using this magic they can power up anything from guns, to augmented limbs and vehicles.

Visually it is simply futuristic victorian era.

Unfortunately, there wouldn't be much of enemy variety. We would likely fight the rich houses of Piltover and their deadly assassins with the occasional thief on the streets, corrupt wardens and the occasional rogue steam golem.

But things get a bit more interesting in the undercity known as Zaun.

Zaun is the dirty underbelly covered in thick toxic smoke. Because the majority of people are poor here they developed a cheaper alternative to Hextech called Chemtech.

This artificial green stuff can power up cheaper limb replacements as well as highly unstable weaponry.
Zaun is also controlled by the cam barons (ex. Renata Glasc) which are obviously gonna be the main enemy here. On the side we may also meet some chemical mutants (ex. Dr. Mundo), unstable constructs as well as some mass murderers (ex. Singed) and people who hunt down mass murderers (ex. Urgot).
Funnily enough, at the very bottom of Zaun itself, there are the hidden ruins of an ancient city full of traps.

That is obviously gonna be a cool dungeon.

Yes there is not much more that we can add here. Piltover and Zau were simply explored in Arcane so if you like the series you are gonna like this place!

Shurima

From there we can travel further South to Shurima.

Shurima used to be a massive empire that ruled the world but after the emperor got betrayed by his best friend, the entire empire collapsed.

This region is a massive desert with the occasional city-near-a-river. In the center of the region there is the sun disk — a colossal piece of star metal that has the power to reflect celestial magic.

The Shurimans used this celestial magic to turn their best soldiers into the ascended — also known as the Golden God Warriors (ex. Renekton, Nasus).

However these God Warriors wouldn't make a great enemy here, that's because after the emperor had died, the ascended started fighting for leadership. Slowly, after learning how to use blood magic to gain the edge, they morphed their own bodies and became The Darkin.

Twisted blood frenzied monsters that would certainly make really cool raid bosses.

Besides this ancient evil, Shurima is also full of its own animals, raiders, dune scavengers and on top of all of that — void creatures (ex. Bel'Veth). That's because to the South, there used to be a kingdom known as Icathia that wanted to destroy the Shuriman empire so they asked the watchers for help.

The watchers sent through some void beasts that consumed Icathia and polluted Shurima.

To this day, to fight back the void, Shurima does have a lot of hidden tombs around with hidden God Warrior weapons. Not to mention that Shurima also has a circle of time mages who are trying to freeze the void in time.

Even if Shurima becomes an expansion, riot can still easily make Shurimans a playable race, because they are already connected to Noxus.
Noxians already conquered parts of Shurima so some Shurimans are fighting for Noxus. Also as a cool fact for those of you who liked Arcane: hex crystals are harvested in Shurima. That's why a Shuriman expansion would be a great follow-up to Piltover and Zaun. That's why riot can easily turn only the Northern continent into the base world.

The Mount Targon

Anyway, going West from Shurima, we arrive at Mount Targon.

This place is incredibly unique. First of all, this mountain is not natural — it was literally pulled up from the ground by Celestial Gods and that's because this place serves as a portal to the Celestial Realm, also known as Targon Prime.

Because this mountain was pulled up it also has some unique features. For example you may find frozen lakes frozen horizontally on the mountain.

The very peak of the mountain is special too: should a mortal reach the peak despite the brutal climate and the deadly wildlife — either they die from exhaustion, or the Celestial Gods deem them worthy and they become an Ascended Aspect. There is Aspect of War (Pantheon), Aspect of the Sun (Leona), Aspect of the Moon (Diana), Aspect of the Twilight (Zoe), Aspect of the Guardian (Taric), and so on.
Simply said after people reach the peak, they become some of the strongest beings on the entire planet, so of course, the mountain is full of people who worship the Celestial Demigods.

This is where we could get a lot of cool armor sets. There are the Solari who are devoted to the Aspect of the Sun. Then, there are the rivals — the Lunari, who are devoted to the Aspect of the Moon.

Of course, besides just humans, Targon also has all sorts of furry Vastaya. Near the bottom of the mountain you may notice that the mountain is alive… but also there are Stellacorns — a variety of mind-bending creatures and loads and loads of dragons.

 

Speaking of which, remember that this place is linked to the Celestial Realm so this is where we may also meet the star-forging celestial dragon Aurelion Soul, as well as all sorts of other celestial beings.

A lot of these would make interesting bosses. In fact the ascension of Mount Targon would be a really cool raid!

Ixtal

Next on the other side of Shurima there is Ixtal.

This is a special place where people are mastering the Elemental Magic. They are using it for everything — fishing, smithing, walking, and this place is definitely gonna be saved for an expansion.

Basically, remember when Icathia asked the watchers for help? Ixtal was their neighbor and after they saw the void devour an entire kingdom they believed the void would soon devour the entire world.
Using their elemental magic, Ixtal built massive walls of plants around their entire region, isolating themselves from the rest of the world for three and a half thousand years. Ixtal stayed isolated believing that the world outside of their walls was devoured by the void but now, very recently, some mages found out that the world outside is completely fine. Now the Ixtali mages are slowly revealing themselves.

Ixtal is the most underdeveloped region in Runeterra. We know the region has a lot of hunting Vastaya (ex. Rengar), deadly plants (ex. Zyra) and some elemental dragons but most of the region is still a mystery to us. Here is where riot will have the freedom to try something new.

Bilgewater

Now we'll leave the main continent to visit the last two regions — first of all there is Bilgewater.

If you like pirate adventures this is gonna be your place. This is where we are going to explore inns and gambling dens, even some local temples worshipping the God of Motion — Nagakabouros!

Here we are going to fight pirates (ex. Miss Fortune) and sea monsters (ex. Nautilus), sea witches, sea Vastayas and maybe some demons (ex. Tahm Kench). Possibly we'll fight the king of the pirates — Gangplank!

But there's a lot more here — last year riot released their RPG which was set in Bilgewater. Not only can we already explore this place in detail but it even has a monster journal and, at a quick glance, you can already see some really cool bosses too.
However this place is also linked to the last place we want to show you today…

The Shadow Isles 

Every year the horrors of the Shadow Isles lurk out and Bilgewater just happens to be the closest place.

Every year bilgewater is fighting the undead. Once upon a time the shadow isles used to be the Blessed Isles — a rich place full of advanced magic.

Long story short, there was a young king (Viego) who wanted to revive his dead queen and in the process he accidentally released dark necromantic magic. This magic destroyed the island and made it home for undeath.

In the Lore, this event is called Druination and because the RPG is called “the Ruined King”, it may not be a surprise to you that you also get to explore the Shadow Isles. There and there they have anything you can imagine: undead horrors creeping everywhere!

Should we ever venture into these islands we have no idea whom we're going to fight. The Ruined King who caused all of this is banished elsewhere. Thresh — who siphoned his magic after he was banished also left the isles. Even Hecarim — the most brutal soldier of them all is currently around Demacia.

So the Shadow Isles don't currently have a main baddie. This is where riot could push forward some of the side characters. 

Other unknown lands

Even though these have all been the regions that are currently set up on Runeterra, riot has already confirmed that there is a new continent further to the East. Currently it is planned to be revealed in the upcoming ruination novel.

So far we know that this new continent is where the Ruined King - Viego is from. This is also where he was banished at the end of his story.

All we know about that place is that it is quite mystical. There are yet more dragons here and, in fact — Camavor, which is the Ruined King's nation.
Camavor has a lot of draconic armor so, should riot run out of places to explore, don't worry they can always make up more. 

Conclusion

That's all we wanted to show you.

As someone who's been following the Lore of League of Legends from the very beginning, we can tell you we are very confident the setting of riot MMO is gonna be great!
Their incredible writers have been preparing the world for years now and now it's time to harvest the fruit.

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Reference:

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