41: Chapter 41 Ice Frog's New Game

Shucheng, Yangqing District.

In an internet cafe on the second floor of an urban village, the air was filled with the smell of instant noodles.

Wang An pushed his keyboard forward, the dota result screen frozen on the large characters for "Defeat."

"Lost again."

He leaned back against the chair and picked up his phone to send a voice message to his friend.

"Old Li, do you think dota 2 could get rid of denying? Last-hitting is exhausting enough, and I also have to turn around and kill my own minions."

A few seconds after the message was sent, Old Li's voice message came back.

"You're dreaming. Tencent let it slip before that dota 2's operational difficulty will only be higher than the first generation."

"I'm honestly speechless."

Wang An exited the game interface and casually clicked on Bilibili.

"Higher difficulty, doesn't that just make it more tiring to play? Right now, one match is over forty minutes, and I'm back-aching and sore after just one game."

While complaining, he habitually scrolled through the recommendation page.

Soon, a video cover popped up.

On a pure black background, only a golden fist logo was printed, with a line of text below.

"league of legends, a brand new MOBA game, internal beta starting soon."

Wang An's finger stopped for a moment.

"What kind of backyard MOBA is this again?"

Despite what he said, he clicked on it anyway.

After all, there had been at least eight or ten MOBA games that claimed to challenge dota over the years, and each one died quietly. He was used to it by now and had learned to click on such videos with the mindset of watching a joke.

The moment the screen lit up, he was reaching for the cola on the table.

But soon, his hand stopped in mid-air halfway through.

The scene on the screen was a canyon shrouded in thick fog. The camera slowly rose from the surface of the river, water droplets sliding off the edge of the lens, every refraction of each water drop clearly visible.

In the distance was the silhouette of a defensive tower, the runes on its body glowing with a faint blue light.

The fog dissipated.

A figure walked out of the fog.

It was Garen.

He wore heavy Demacian armor, with a Griffin emblem engraved on the shoulder pauldrons, every step he took on the ground accompanied by the sound of heavy metal clashing.

He walked to the center of the screen, stabbed his greatsword into the ground, and crossed his arms over his chest.

The camera swept past behind him, passing through a dense forest.

The scene changed.

Ashe stood on the edge of the cliff, her long hair blown by the wind. She drew her longbow, and an ice-blue arrow condensed on the bowstring.

The direction the arrow pointed was a panoramic view of the entire Summoners Rift.

Three creep lanes extended and intersected in the canyon, the river in the jungle reflected the moonlight, and a mass of purple poison mist swirled above the Baron pit.

The music began with a string arrangement and gradually added drum beats.

The screen switching speed began to accelerate.

Ryze formed seals with both hands, runes rotating and rising around him.

Master Yi gripped his sword hilt, turning into an afterimage as he dashed across the screen.

Twisted Fate stood in front of a gambling table, a golden card in his hand flipped over, and the moment the golden light burst, the scene cut to the next shot.

Garen and Katarina collided head-on in the center of the screen, sparks flying the moment the greatsword and daggers clashed.

The camera zoomed out.

Ten figures occupied different sides across the three lanes of the Summoners Rift, a siege minion's cannonball tracing an arc across the screen.

The screen went black.

The drum beats stopped.

A golden fist logo lit up in the darkness.

A line of text appeared below the logo.

"league of legends, internal beta starting soon."

Wang An's finger finally moved, ready to close the video.

Although this promotional CG was well-made, not even worse than the dota 2 CG, he had been tricked by the CGs of countless games over the years, so he knew that excellent CG did not mean the game was fun.

After all, because the heroes in league of legends hadn't finished final rendering, this promotional video had no in-game footage, it was all CG content.

But the next instant, the screen lit up again.

This time, there was only one sentence, but it instantly made Wang An spring up from his chair.

And that line of text was.

"Produced by IceFrog, a brand-new masterpiece from the original dota team!"

The trailer ended.

Wang An stared at the frozen final frame, his mouth opening several times.

"Holy shit."

As one of the earliest players of dota, he had known the name IceFrog back before Tencent acquired dota.

It could be said that dota's current status was inseparable from IceFrog!

He hadn't quite believed the rumors before that IceFrog had left Tencent, but now it seemed the rumors were likely true; IceFrog hadn't just left Tencent, he had even struck out on his own to develop a new game!

The genre was still MOBA!

He picked up his phone and sent a voice message to Old Li, his voice trembling.

"Old Li, check Bilibili quickly! Search for league of legends! Hurry!"

Old Li didn't reply.

He clicked on the voice call instead.

The phone rang seven or eight times before it connected.

"What? I just came back from the bathroom, why are you yelling?"

"Do you still remember IceFrog?"

"IceFrog? I know him, the guy who made dota, wasn't he kicked out by Tencent a long time ago? Why are you asking about this?"

"He's back with his new MOBA game."

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment.

"What did you say?"

"IceFrog! The original team from dota! They made a new MOBA game! It's called league of legends! The trailer was just released!"

Just as the two were incredibly excited about the new game produced by IceFrog, the league of legends trailer was like a bombshell, attracting a massive amount of attention on other platforms as well.

Even though many people didn't know yet that league of legends was produced by IceFrog, just the fact that this new MOBA game dared to choose the same day to promote itself as the dota 2 trailer release was enough to shock many people.

On Bilibili, this video had no prior warning, no pre-hype, and the publishing account was even a newly registered account, yet because of the algorithm push and the traffic from the cover title, it gained hundreds of thousands of views in a short time.

On Weibo, the league of legends trailer was 30th on the trending list, and "IceFrog's brand new game after leaving" was 27th.

This position wasn't high, but it was genuine, organic traffic.

Clicking into the entries, the trailer's view count was still jumping up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The comment section completely exploded.

"None of those games that wanted to challenge dota dared to go head-to-head with dota 2 in the same period, where did this league of legends get the courage? Releasing a trailer on the same day!"

"Just looking at the trailer doesn't prove anything; the ecosystem of dota is right there, it can't be shaken by just a pretty CG. This CG doesn't even have any in-game footage."

"But the producer is IceFrog! He's the one who made dota! How could a MOBA made by him after leaving with the original team be bad?"

"I also think it's worth looking forward to. These years, dota has become harder and harder, and not everyone is willing to spend hundreds of hours practicing skills. If IceFrog can really make a MOBA that isn't so discouraging, I'll definitely play it."

"Interesting, want to play, love to play!"

At the same time, the trend #IceFrog's brand new game after leaving# was also constantly rising in popularity.

However, although the words "league of legends" rushed onto the trending lists of major platforms just a few hours after the trailer was released, everyone understood: the reason this suddenly popped-up new MOBA game's trailer had such high popularity was only because of two reasons.

First, releasing the trailer on the same day as dota 2 basically put the words "clout chasing" right on its face.

Second, it was because the producer of this game was IceFrog; the weight of those two words was too high.

If league of legends had been a game led by some unknown producer, it would probably have been drowned in the spit of netizens long ago.

dota players would have unhesitatingly cursed this clout-chasing promotional game to death.

But the name IceFrog made everyone who questioned it hesitate before speaking; after all, dota was something he had raised with his own hands.

But regardless, by relying on the two key points of releasing the trailer on the same day and having IceFrog at the helm, this new game called league of legends did indeed receive great attention from the very beginning.

Many players also planned to get their hands on it and experience it the moment league of legends started its internal beta.

After all, according to the specific times on both official websites, the internal beta time for league of legends was much earlier than the open beta for dota 2.