League of Legends is a game that we've been watching closely because of its fun, session based, competitive gameplay that keeps players engaged via rich community features and persistent MMORPG elements. The gameplay is similar to the famous Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA), only LoL has much more depth. To that point, League of Legends takes the training wheels off DotA.

In our recent interview with League of Legends Director of Systems Design, Tom Cadwell, a name you may recognize because of his work on Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, he said "... we are adding multiplayer matchmaking, the summoner system (which is a persistent advancement system but with more depth than COD 4 or TF2 unlocks), and optimized controls and engine built specifically for this type of game.  We feel that DotA revealed an incredible new game genre, and we are trying to take this genre to the next level in as many ways as we can." At the League of Legends E3 party we had the opportunity to fully explore the game, it's clear they're headed in the right direction.

During our time hanging out with the Riot Games team we had the chance to snag Lead Creative Designer, Shawn Carnes to talk about the game. After the interview I challenged him to a quick match of something we like to call "Bowling for Beta Keys" and as fate would have it, we won! Because of that victory, the first ten comments get access to the extremely closed League of Legends beta. Special thanks to our friends over at Riot Games for the great party and the extra beta keys to hand out. Good luck and enjoy our E3 League of Legends coverage!