Subversive Play: Moral Support – Maryyann Landlord

The idea came to me while I was sitting on a bench in a hallway trying to think of what to do for this assignment. Time was ticking and I was desperate. I remember thinking, “I could really use some moral support or encouragement right now. I have no idea what I’m going to do”.

The notion of having predetermined roles for players in an MMO game is very fascinating to me. Each player picks a character and depending on the stats of that character, he/she create builds in the game that would best use utilize those abilities. The major roles in MMO games are DPS, Tank, Healer, and Support. Each role class plays an important part to the team so players must work together to win the game. The DPS carries out the most amount of the damage in the team; Tanks usually have large amounts of health and can take a lot of damage while inflicting damage; Healers aid the other players by healing them and supports help various other roles to clear waves of enemies.

Following this thought process, I decided to create my own new class called Moral Support for League of Legends. The role of the Moral Support would be to follow a character around and give him/her large amounts of moral support and encouragement. Before carrying out my destructive plan, I predicted that players would become extremely angry since they are essentially losing a player on their team. However, after several games, I noticed that the players actually were really happy with my role and even endorsed me after the games. I think it is both because they receive enough amount of hate from normal players and due to the fact that I stated out my role as Moral Support in the beginning of each game. This experiment actually makes me want to keep this account.

After the first game, I gained a new friend
After the second game, I gained two more friends. You can see our post-game conversation and my score here.