League of Legends Hitting Mac Soon

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

League of Legends Hitting Mac Soon

Associate Producer Steve Mieczkowski is looking for player feedback on League of Legends' Mac client.

Since its 2009 release, free-to-play PC MOBA League of Legends has enjoyed immense popularity, with developer Riot Games calling it "the most played video game in the world" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120102-Riot-Claims-League-of-Legends-Is-the-Most-Played-Video-Game] last October. However, it's been limited to Windows computers since launch, leaving Mac users out of the fun. That will change in the near future; Associate Producer Steve Mieczkowski has announced that the "long-awaited" Mac client will be ready soon. And by "soon," he means it's in beta right now.

The League of Legends Mac client is currently available on the Public Beta Environment, after which it will enter open beta. "Riot engineers re-wrote a lot of the underlying game engine so that both PC and Mac platforms share the same code base and assets," Mieczkowski wrote on the League of Legends community forum. "This means Mac players will receive all future features, bug fixes, and new content at the same time as PC users."

Though the Mac client has entered the Public Beta Environment, it won't go into open beta until the results from the PBE are acceptable, so there's no timeline for when the full open beta will begin. In the meantime, Mieczkowski encourages PBE players to download the client and start providing feedback.

Source: Destructoid [http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3036579]

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[walrusaurus]

Seeing as its been in closed beta for going on 2 years color me less than impressed. I'll believe it when i see it. Not that it really matters to me anymore since i've bought a pc in the meantime anyways

 

[OniaPL]

Only Oddone wannabes use Corporate Mundo. True men rock Mr. Mundoverse.

Also, related just because it's hilarious (even if probably slightly overposted)

 

[geizr]

For those who are less patient and prefer to play League of Legends on the Mac NOW, you can download iLoL from Bommpje's site:

http://www.boompje.net/download/ilol

From what I understand, it basically uses a WINE wrapper to run LoL on the Mac. I've been playing LoL using this client myself on my highly anemic 2008 Macbook Pro, and it works very well (performance is 30+ fps on medium settings). While one can expect to run into some crash problems, the application is fairly self-recovering (meaning that it will recognize the crash, reinitialize itself, and attempt to reconnect to your game). Honestly, "incredible" can not even begin to describe the work these guys have done with bringing LoL to the Mac and the improvements they have made to the application overall, and they've been doing all this for FREE. A definite labor-of-love for these guys.

From what I understand, they developed iLoL because they became so frustrated with Riot's laggard attempts at bring LoL to the Mac. Even with this announcement from Riot, I'm in the "I'll believe it when I see it" camp, and even then, I have some question whether Riot's client will be as good as Boompje's iLoL client.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Brace yourselves, the playerbase is about to go on a hate crusade against the Mac-using newbies.

 

[subtlefuge]

Brace yourselves, the playerbase is about to go on a hate crusade against the Mac-using newbies.

Well, it's not like they're wrong. They're just assholes.

 

[Davroth]

I've been playing LoL just fine on my mac even after the beta ended. But I would appreciate for the patching process to be a little less painless once it's getting all official again.

 

[Aeshi]

Well this is unexpected.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the upcoming DOTA2 will almost assuredly have a Mac version?

 

[Keoul]

Booo!
Bring out a Linux version!
Anyone else think the game will change a lot to accommodate new mac players like what happened to tf2?

 

[geizr]

Brace yourselves, the playerbase is about to go on a hate crusade against the Mac-using newbies.

Well, it's not like they're wrong. They're just assholes.

Wow, fella! I mean, just...wow!
Never mind. I rescind my comment.

 

[Torrasque]

Seeing as its been in closed beta for going on 2 years color me less than impressed. I'll believe it when i see it. Not that it really matters to me anymore since i've bought a pc in the meantime anyways

You mean Dota2? LoL has been free to play for anyone who wants to play it for an extremely long time. The game balance is just always changing and adding new characters.
I hate to defend LoL because I think it is a blight on the moba genre, but I don't want you to be wrong

I've played LoL when the community created client was still up and running, and I didn't like it one bit. Mostly because I could tell that it was a dota rip-off, but partially because it was just really boring. I'd rather play SC2 with my meagre skills because that game is just so much more satisfying to play and win.

 

[thesilentman]

Booo!
Bring out a Linux version!
Anyone else think the game will change a lot to accommodate new mac players like what happened to tf2?

WE WANT LINUX! WE WANT LINUX!

OT- I see no issue. Getting more people to play a good game seems to always be a good thing, isn't it?

 

[Steve the Pocket]

At this rate, the final release might be out before Dota 2's Mac port is.

 

[ckam]

Oh, that seems interesting. If only parts of the community could get better too.

 

[NightHawk21]

Well this is unexpected.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that the upcoming DOTA2 will almost assuredly have a Mac version?

That's my guess. Either they're already seeing a drop in players as people migrate over towards dota 2 with invites being as abundant as they are, and it being on steam, or Riot wants to resecure the Mac base before Dota 2 launches on Mac into essentially a relatively untapped market.

I don't think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts though. While I like some Reds, RIOT never really struck me as a company that does stuff for the players just because in the few years I spent playing LoL. Not to mention when I started there was originally Mac support, but it was dropped, and the game went Windows only due to "the work necessary to keep both versions updated", with an unofficial mac version run by some group (that apparently worked flawless).

 

[subtlefuge]

Brace yourselves, the playerbase is about to go on a hate crusade against the Mac-using newbies.

Well, it's not like they're wrong. They're just assholes.

Wow, fella! I mean, just...wow!
Never mind. I rescind my comment.

I guess you got the reference. Those things can be finicky sometimes.

 

[walrusaurus]

Seeing as its been in closed beta for going on 2 years color me less than impressed. I'll believe it when i see it. Not that it really matters to me anymore since i've bought a pc in the meantime anyways

You mean Dota2? LoL has been free to play for anyone who wants to play it for an extremely long time. The game balance is just always changing and adding new characters.
I hate to defend LoL because I think it is a blight on the moba genre, but I don't want you to be wrong

No I'm refering to the Mac Client. My friends started playing LoL a few years ago but i had a Mac at the time so i couldn't play. There was beta Mac client being tested by riot back then but it was closed access.

 

[Torrasque]

Seeing as its been in closed beta for going on 2 years color me less than impressed. I'll believe it when i see it. Not that it really matters to me anymore since i've bought a pc in the meantime anyways

You mean Dota2? LoL has been free to play for anyone who wants to play it for an extremely long time. The game balance is just always changing and adding new characters.
I hate to defend LoL because I think it is a blight on the moba genre, but I don't want you to be wrong

No I'm refering to the Mac Client. My friends started playing LoL a few years ago but i had a Mac at the time so i couldn't play. There was beta Mac client being tested by riot back then but it was closed access.

I was under the impression that the mac client was fan-made and for that reason, Riot stopped supporting it after a while.
But I guess its pointless to argue about who might have been right, because I don't really care about the state of LoL, lololol

 

[antipunt]

So are Mac-users going to be labeled like Brs?

huehuehue..