Season VI – A New Hope

With patch 5.24 dropping this week and the preseason fully upon us, I am really beginning to feel that season 6 might bring a new hope to my League of Legends play, but first I am rewatching Star Wars.

Anticipation for The Force Awakens

The excitement is at a fever pitch around my house with the the new Star Wars movie coming out. The Force Awakens is definitely one of the most anticipated movie events of the past few years for me but sadly, I don't have tickets yet. I guess I'm just not the type that feels the need to do something the moment it is available. I'm not doing it for Star Wars, and I usually hold off like this for games as well – not that I'm not going to participate in the fun, but have moved beyond the need to do things right away.

Watching Star Wars Machete Order

With that said, I have been watching the 6 released Star Wars films over the past few weeks, and it has been great! It really brings me back to a time when I had to see things right away. When I was younger, I loved Star Wars so much I went to see it over 50 times in the theater. That was back when movies didn't go to DVD in 3 months but stuck around in theaters for months.

I've been following the Machete Order for watching the films, so I actually am only watching 5 out of the 6. Basically, Machete Order removes The Phantom Menace from the series since it contributes so little to the story and is so annoying with Jar Jar. That leaves 5 films and you start with the original Episode IV: A New Hope.

For an introductory movie, the original Star Wars was a really great way to get into the universe that George Lucas created. Sure it was not perfect, and some could even say it's not that good of a movie, but it sets the stage for the viewer to get excited and want more…and I want more.

Hope for League Season 6

Another thing I want more of is civility in League of Legends. Toxicity is the dark side of League and I have a hope that season 6 will bring the game closer to the light side. For me, last season was filled with so many rage quitters, so many people who only wanted to spew insults, so much Riot induced lag, and so many people trying a champ out for the first time in ranked. This upcoming season has the potential to do away with some key pieces of what has caused trouble in the past.

The new ranked team builder, which I certainly hope gets into the game sooner rather than later could solve some major issues.

• People will no longer be playing 'out of meta' champs without the team knowing beforehand
• The builder will give you a chance to review the record of people you'll be playing with before you get to the game
• You'll get the opportunity to chose which lane to play which will remove the punishment of having last pick in champ select and cut down on the fights that start during champ select that taint the actual gameplay

I think of it kinda like the LFG tool for dungeons in WoW. If you look for a group you do not expect to get 3 tanks and no healers or all dps – you expect to get a tank, a healer, and some dps. In ranked League, the wonderful Riot matchmaking has a tendency of throwing together 2-3 people who want to play the same role and end up abiding by a 'pick-order' convention or fighting over who gets what role. Many times I've seen this lead to the team fighting among themselves more that against the opponents.

With the new team building system for ranked games, I am seriously hoping that this aspect of the toxicity of the the game is severely diminished. I could see this one introduction reducing by half the number of rage quits and verbal abuse that seemed to dominate season 5. And perhaps this simple new mechanic can lead to a new hope for all League of Legends players.

Im looking forward to the new ranked team builder and busting out of bronze in season 6.