Why is the Irish League of Legends community all but non-existent?

Ruaille

To League of Legends players, real time strategists, gamers and Boards members alike!

I have been playing League for a little over a year now and only a few of my friends have heard of it. This really surprised me since, according to Forbes, League is the most played PC game in the world at the moment. So why is it that no one knows about it in Ireland?

My friend Luke and I have been making songs and shorts about League for about 6 months and we've received a great response. However, our YouTube channel's analytics shows that of our nearly one million views only about seven thousand of those views has come from Ireland.

Almost all of my friends who know about League - and/or play it - heard about it from either myself or Luke. When I explain the videos to people for the first time - even those who consider themselves 'gamers' - they almost always haven't heard of League at all.

Luke found the Riot Games headquarters in Dublin a couple of months back and he got talking to one of the customer support managers. The guy said that he had been working for Riot for two years and Luke was the first Irish person he had met that played League of Legends.

So why is the Irish League of Legends community like this? Or am I just looking in the wrong places?

cherryghost

It's not. There are thousands of us playing. I have about 50 regulars on my friends list who play for one.

Sycopat

It doesn't seem small to me. Disorganised, sure, but that's a bit symptomatic of irish gaming in general tbh.

My own opinion on why this is is because there's little to no organisation at the grassroots level in Ireland. Organisation is always slow and riddled with growing pains. Boards gave us this forum pretty quickly after we asked for it, but look how long it took us to just ask for it.

The facebook page seems very busy, I think they're trying to get a dedicated website off the ground, the old thread here went through phases of very busy to very quiet, but was rarely more than a few pages from the front page. The various college cons seem to have started doing LoL tournies too.

Things are on the up, but these things take time.

Also, for every person posting about LoL somewhere online, there's probably a group of friends somewhere who're happy to just play with each other and who've never bothered looking for other players. This is true of just about every pastime I know.


and ignoring all that,

7000 out of a million is 0.7%

4million out of 7 billion is 0.4%

The irish are, as a worldwide average, slightly overrepresented in your audience. There's many reasons that could be expected: Your own views and own friends, the very large number of people without internet access, the fact I'm fudging these numbers, etc. etc. but things don't look so bad. If you want to increase your irish audience share, try marketing yourself more aggressively to the irish. (For instance, put a link to your youtube channel in the posts you talk about your youtube channel in. I'm not sure how that would interact with boards.ies advertising policies, but it's not like your selling something.)

Sycopat

Ah. I just noticed the dates on this. Did ye move every thread related to moba's in here?

Doctor DooM

I'm part of another competitive gaming community and I'm pretty sure to a man they're all aware of LoL and what it is.

If you're asking why there isn't a more active local community- well, people have to man up and do it. Ideas are easy to come up with, work is hard to do. It's people willing to put in the work you need.

cherryghost

Sycopat wrote: »

Ah. I just noticed the dates on this. Did ye move every thread related to moba's in here?

Most of the stuff yes. As Doctor Doom stated, he's put a lot of work into the Fighting Games community and it's really paid off. I don't doubt for a second that the same kind of thing can't be pulled of here in the MOBA forum either.

D4RK ONION

Not a huge MOBA player (just 'nauts atm) but I do have almost as much experience in the IFGC as Doom so I've seen our scene go from people complaining about there not being one to having international events.

As Doom says, someone has to step up, pick a place and a time and hold an event there. Advertise it here, on facebook, on twitter. There are indeed lots of MOBA players on there in Ireland, even at IFGC events I can always here some guys discussing a LoL game they played behind me.

For now, my own opinion would be to start with a just LoL tourney and make it semi-regular (once/twice a month). Talk to Doom about how you'd go about recording and commentating such an event. Get the videos onto Youtube and repeat!

In the future, you can branch out to multi game tournaments, but these take a lot more in the way of organisation and work on the day.

Another thing we've done that has been huge in recruiting members for the IFGC is getting in contact with the cons in Ireland. In general, they're happy to let us run the events for them using the proper rules (there was once a con that had Akuma banned because his "hard kick was too fast") and in return, we get new members for the scene and good publicity.

I'm pretty sure Eirtakon are going to run Lol this year with Riot Games being involved as the same thing happened at ArcadeCon and I've been told it was a massive success. Untapped players guys!

TL;DR
Pick a day, advertise, run tournaments, run it no matter how many people show up. Talk to Cons and get involved with them for some beautiful symbiosis.

BMMachine

it would be hard to enough to get enough teams for one specific game i think. I dont know about LoL but there are 0 irish dota teams. there are a few good players but ive never seen any irish teams on ladders, just the occasional guy with british/swedish/french teams etc. the guy who is probably our best player (keitaru) played with a russian mix in a few lans 3 years ago or so but barely anyone knew who he was there was one guy in northern ireland who used to talk about being good and setting up a scene but hes a big s**t talker

IRL_Sinister

Glad to see MOBA Forum finally made. You're all welcome I guess

Doctor DooM

D4RK ONION wrote: »

For now, my own opinion would be to start with a just LoL tourney and make it semi-regular (once/twice a month). Talk to Doom about how you'd go about recording and commentating such an event. Get the videos onto Youtube and repeat!

I'm pretty sure Eirtakon are going to run Lol this year with Riot Games being involved as the same thing happened at ArcadeCon and I've been told it was a massive success. Untapped players guys!

TL;DR
Pick a day, advertise, run tournaments, run it no matter how many people show up. Talk to Cons and get involved with them for some beautiful symbiosis.

This basically, I'd certainly pop along to any MOBA tournament in Dublin and record/let people use the commentary gear. Be amazed how that youtube footage helps.

BMMachine

Doctor DooM wrote: »

This basically, I'd certainly pop along to any MOBA tournament in Dublin and record/let people use the commentary gear. Be amazed how that youtube footage helps.

i might take you up on that if it were to happen.

Tar.Aldarion

Doctor DooM wrote: »

This basically, I'd certainly pop along to any MOBA tournament in Dublin and record/let people use the commentary gear. Be amazed how that youtube footage helps.

That's awesome man.

Vikings

Don't forget that Riot have an office in Dublin, I'm pretty sure they would be more than happy to get involved in something promoting their game. I know one staff member in there and from what I've heard from him it's a pretty awesome place to be so I can only imagine the staff would go out of their way to help out the local scene.

Doctor DooM

BMMachine wrote: »

i might take you up on that if it were to happen.

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

That's awesome man.

I'd be more than happy to do it. I just sorted out some sportscaster headsets from sennheiser for commentary through my mixing desk and was told it's basically me and production companies in Ireland that have them! I'm all about promoting competitive gaming so I'd love to help out. I have a hd widescreen webcam and a full xsplit license too so we'd be good to go for a reasonably good quality production on a tournament.

Vikings wrote: »

Don't forget that Riot have an office in Dublin, I'm pretty sure they would be more than happy to get involved in something promoting their game. I know one staff member in there and from what I've heard from him it's a pretty awesome place to be so I can only imagine the staff would go out of their way to help out the local scene.

Yeah, other scenes would KILL for that opportunity. We should definitely find a way to use it.

Dustaz

RopeDrink wrote: »

I was quite happy when I heard there was an Irish Chatroom in the League Client, thought it'd be a good way to find some people to consistently play with - but on joining it I was disappointed to see that after nearly five days of sitting in there, there was about as many sentences uttered.

Even now I look at the chat-log and it's basically 2 pages of "X has joined" before one random person might ask something, get ignored, followed up by another two pages of people logging in and out.

It seems utterly pointless to even be in it.

[snip]
Unfortunately, I don't play League much at all anymore and have lost any and all interest to even try to get anything going - The only people I chat and play with consistently anymore is a tiny 3v3 Ranked team, and the lads I've played with for the year in the Dominion chat-room, and I get more banter, games and activity out of a chat-room based on a dead//dying game-mode with a small-scale community than I do the Oirish channel with ten times as many users and fifty times less actual communication.

You answered your own question there rope. The same channel exists in Dota 2 and its just as tumbleweed. The reason is pretty simple. For the most part people come to these games as part of an existing social group. Maybe you came from an FPS team with some pals, or an MMO with the rest of your guild. But your playing with existing friends with existing voicecomms. This goes for a pretty large percentage of players I'd imagine. Even if you're not part of this demographic, you're much more likely to be invited to an existing community than to pick up playing partners through channels like the ones mentioned above.

TheDoc

There is a rather active Irish LoL community, it just doesn't happen to be on boards, and I don't think it will be.

I'm not sure how or why, but it started up on Facebook, and has grown from there. While it isn't the most riveting in terms of conversation or dicsussion, it is where everyone congragates. There was the first national LoL tournament which took place over the last few months concluded this summer, at Arcadecon.
The event had full support from Riot games Dublin, who were very involved in having really good seminars and presentations over the weekend. Staff were at the event and very approachable, and they also had pro LCS commentator Trever "Quickshot" Henry cast the final. I was in the final myself, and was driven to Riot HQ to play the final there on LAN, and it was a brilliant experience, and Riot showing they show as much interest in the amatuer scene as the pros.
I felt like a prothe way I was looked after and checked on by the guys running the day, making sure equipement etc. was fine and working.

Another event is running at the moment, Nom-Com, and there is also a number of amateur cups and tournaments on the go which as number of Irish teams are involved in.

There has been a relatively big shift in terms of "new communities". In the past the assumption was that boards would always be the place an irish community for something hung around for, but that is not the case anymore. The LoL community really hasn't come near here, and with some dedicated websites being set for Irish LoL, I don't see it coming here in a big way.

Which in one way is a pity, I like boards as a platform and it is much more mature and advanced for discussion over the like of paragraphless Facebook. But at the same time, Boards has a reputation for it's communities being newcomer friendly only, and that when players get to a certain point they move away to alternative sites or forums where the discussion is more advanced and relevant.

Dustaz makes a good point above in a sense that you can move form a genre/game to genre/game with the same group of friends, and not always interact with a community as such on a local level. I know for myself I'm playing with the same lads for years in games in general, and for the past 2 years in LoL.

There are a number of high level Irish teams and players, but probably not even known considering they don't come around here. You'll never really bridge a full community involvement, but always worth a shot I guess

TheDoc

RopeDrink wrote: »

"Why is the Irish League of Legends community all but non-existent?"

It exists, just nobody seems to want to do anything.

Arcadecon 2013. Online tournament with LAN final supported by Riot and final held in Riot Dublin.
Nom- Com 2013 online tournament with LAN final
Gaelic Gaming 1v1 tournament
EGL Razer Cup , massive trials and "best of the irish" team organised and done via the Facebook group.

Along with the number of Irish teams competing in the EGL, MOBAFire cups etc.

Plenty going on, maybe we can bridge the gaps someway if we want information to get here, from where it's originating

Doctor DooM

TheDoc wrote: »

Arcadecon 2013. Online tournament with LAN final supported by Riot and final held in Riot Dublin.
Nom- Com 2013 online tournament with LAN final
Gaelic Gaming 1v1 tournament
EGL Razer Cup , massive trials and "best of the irish" team organised and done via the Facebook group.

Along with the number of Irish teams competing in the EGL, MOBAFire cups etc.

Plenty going on, maybe we can bridge the gaps someway if we want information to get here, from where it's originating

Conventions organising tournaments isn't really enough to keep a scene going.

That said, I'm not a member of any of these facebook groups (I honestly believe organising tourneys in them is a bad move as mentioned earlier as they exclude people outside of the crrent circle of friends) so I don't know the state of things.

TheDoc

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Conventions organising tournaments isn't really enough to keep a scene going.

That said, I'm not a member of any of these facebook groups (I honestly believe organising tourneys in them is a bad move as mentioned earlier as they exclude people outside of the crrent circle of friends) so I don't know the state of things.

Well the tournaments are a by-product really, a good platform to host from.

The tournaments themselves are simply having information etc. posted there, the tournaments themselves don't spawn from there if you get me.

Also for the LoL scene, the amount of amateur cups and events are expanding steadily, with big players like Razer and Mobafire, along with EGL, organising tournaments that will run through most of the year.

In terms of exclusion, it's hard to know how to bridge the gap. for LoL, the Irish Facebook page got the jumpstart and it is where most people are. Granted it's a poor platform and the discussion leaves alot to be desired, there was a big push for a dedicated LoL website which is making good progress, and I'm imagine alot of stuff will move to there.

Best short term solution would be to bridge the gap short term, by sharing important information.

Ronomono

One advertisement for your facebook page is quite enough, thank you- Mod.

Valdez

would anyone be interested in starting a team for LOL? I want to start running competitions for this at my LAN Events (overclocker.ie) but I need a good team first . we could practice Sunday nights at my Internet Cafe In Dublin (Ballyfermot). I really would like to get a good team together for this, as if I host LOL events, I want to be in with a chance to Win them.

TheDoc

Valdez wrote: »

I really would like to get a good team together for this, as if I host LOL events, I want to be in with a chance to Win them.

dwef

The Irish LOL community is an absolute joke. They have a facebook page and the amount of circle jerk on it is unreal.