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The brand new version of the 3v3 Twisted Treeline map in Riot Games' League of Legends is now live for players. This is no mere tweak: Riot has completely remade one of the game's three modes.

As you can see above, there's a new layout and redone art, new map-specific items in the store (no more generic wards!), Dominion-style speed shrines, and special altars with buffs to grab. There's also a new giant spider boss named Vilemaw who, like Baron Nashor, will grant a teamwide bonus when defeated.

The map is still in beta right now and is expected to be considered as such for a while, though the new version is being used in ranked Season 3 play already. Twisted Treeline's 3v3 player variant has almost always been part of League of Legends, but with this revamp LoL's millions of players have gained yet another way to experience the game.

Inspired by DOTA2 and League Of Legends soaring in popularity, and dominating the pro-gaming world, Yannick LeJacq decided to take a look at where Battle Arenas came from, and how history had conspired to make this the most competitive genre in PC gaming. Read on for his detailed history.

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League of Legends is celebrating LoLoween this year with a new champion named Elise the Spider Queen, a remake of the Twisted Treeline map, and a set of Sinister Skins for Elise, Hecarim, Maokai and Twisted Fate. Peep the Spider Queen and her Twisted Trees below.

Our e-sports correspondent is EFSI World‘s Jeb Boone. This week he looks at the worries around Starcraft 2, and the impact League Of Legends is having on the pro community.

On Wednesday, October 17th, the Fates seemed to be conspiring to kill e-sports. Like their Roman counterparts, the e-sports Parcae spin, measure and cut the USB cord of life, deciding what will live, and who will disband. On that day, beloved StarCraft 2 team SlayerS disbanded in a fury of controversy and vitriol, and with concerns about Heart Of The Swarm, the future of e-sports as a whole. Here’s what happened.(more…)

#leagueoflegends On October 13, the League of Legends season two world championship tournament concluded, and one team, the Taipei Assassins, walked away with the $1 million prize. Today, Riot announced just how many LoL fans watched it happen. More »

The War Z user agreement has a link to the terms of use for League of Legends, with the URL typed out in full, in the middle of section two, "Requirements." The War Z terms read:

"In installing and using the Software and playing the Game, you acknowledge that you have read, understand and agree with the terms of this License Agreement. You must also: (i) read, understand and agree to the OP Productions Terms of Use http://www.leagueoflegends.com/legal/termsofuse (the 'Terms of Use')."

Someone who actually read the terms of use before accepting noticed this mistake and posted a thread in The War Z's subreddit, where another user uploaded the above photo (larger image here). The War Z already gets flak for being a "cash-in rip-off" of wildly successful Arma 2 mod Day Z, and now it's getting heat for apparently taking League of Legends' terms of use, copy-pasta.

Taiwan team Taipei Assassins won the League of Legends World Championship on Saturday, walking away with the $1 million grand prize. TPA includes members Chen Hui Chung (MiSTakE), Kurtis Lau (Toyz), Alex Sung (Lilballz), Cheng Bo Wei (Bebeisadog) and Wang June Tsan (Stanley). But you can just call them "The Champions."

TPA defeated South Korean team Azubu Frost in the final round. The League of Legends World Championship tournament saw a snowball of delays, beginning with "connectivity issues" and concluding with reports of cheating. Riot Games issued multiple "unsportsmanlike conduct" warnings and slapped one player, Azubu Frost's Woong, with a $30,000 fine (20 percent of the $150,000 prize for advancing to the semifinals).

Still, the tournament ended on time and with a clear winner. Congratulations, TPA, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

#leagueoflegends Those young men you see up there are five of the members of the Taipei Assassins, who on Saturday took out season 2 of the League of Legends World Championships at the Galen Centre in Los Angeles. More »

#leagueoflegends Because it exists in something of a bubble, outside of the normal video game release schedules and news channels, it's often difficult for outsiders to grasp just how freaking huge PC game League of Legends has become. More »

#leagueoflegends Amidst the technical issues plaguing League of Legends' World Playoffs, there also emerged accusations that some of the contestants had essentially "cheated", by using the venue's monitors (there to show the game to the large crowd) to check in on the activity of their rival players. More »

Riot Games has finished up another legal dispute regarding a website domain name related to its popular League of Legends title. LeagueofLegends.co was previously awarded to the company by the World Intellectual Property Organization from the clutches of a domain squatter, and now LeagueofLegendsPorn.com has been reclaimed by Riot for its own use. The case actually closed in late September, but the ruling came online earlier this week.

Those looking for some racy pics of Miss Fortune or Akali getting it on, however, will be disappointed: The site never actually hosted any adult material, and now that Riot owns it, probably never will. But Riot is slowly securing its various domain name holdings online, making it easier for the company to connect players up to big company events like the recent World Championships in LA.

#leagueoflegends After suffering serious technical hiccups and even allegations of cheating, League of Legends' World Playoffs will try and finish up tomorrow at 5pm Pacific Time. More »

#leagueoflegends The playoffs in the League of Legends season two championship began on Thursday and were scheduled to conclude on Saturday, but ran into a series of troubles along the way. The first day went smoothly, as did day two. On Saturday, though, matches had to be paused and restarted more than once. Streaming and play were eventually halted and rescheduled due to a series of technical and connectivity issues, and allegations of cheating began to surface. More »

#leagueoflegends When it was shut down and moved to a "secure location," the $2 million League of Legends world playoffs was thought to be plagued only by technical issues, possibly a denial-of-service attack to cripple the event. More »

Riot Games announced a delay in the League of Legends season 2 playoffs in a news update yesterday. The delay comes after a "series of connectivity issues" at the event's LA venue.

"We'll be completing the last game of the CLG EU and Team WE quarterfinal match and finishing out the Semifinal Matches in the near future from a new location with a secure Internet connection," the announcement reads. The schedule for the remaining matches will be determined later this week and will still be streamed live, according to the League of Legends eSports Twitter account.

#leagueoflegends The World Playoffs for League of Legends, which had been livestreaming just fine, have been called off after serious network problems plagued the latter stages of the competition. More »

The second season of the League of Legends world championships is happening right now, with quarterfinal and semifinals matches scheduled for today. The world championship match is set for Saturday, October 13 at 7:00 p.m. PST. The winning team will take home half of the $2 million prize pool given out to contestants.

Here's the schedule for today's events, viewable on Twitch.tv and the Riot Games site:

• 12:00 p.m PST - Quarterfinals: WE vs CLG.EU
• 2:00 p.m. PST - Semifinals: M5 vs TPA
• 4:00 p.m. PST - Semifinals: Azubu vs TBD

#leagueoflegends League of Legends draws in some of the most enthusiastic, and biggest crowd of eSports gamers. More »

League of Legends' second season playoffs will begin tomorrow, October 4, and run through Saturday. Streams of the matches will be available on Twitch and Own3d, along with Riot Games' official tournament site. Teams are competing for a prize pool of $2 million.

Last year's League of Legends championship has over 1.69 million viewers, with the final match drawing in 210,000 unique viewers. The second season finale will be held on October 13.

#leagueoflegends Here's an e-mail I received yesterday from a PR person yesterday: More »

#superannuationsassortedscoopery DICE appear to be expanding their horizons to mobile devices with the seeming intent of bringing Battlefield franchise to mobile devices, according to job postings that went up on the developer's site last week. The FPS series has appeared on mobiles twice before — a version of Bad Company 2 and a multiplayer-oriented Battlefield 3 spin-off that was removed from the App Store because it was broken — via Spanish mobile developers Digital Legends, but DICE has never actually developed a mobile title in-house. (And there was also Canabalt-inspired take on Mirror's Edge handled by Australia's IronMonkey Studios.) More »

League of Legends‘ community – while easily one of the most populous in the MOBAsphere – isn’t exactly the most popular. People say mean things, feelings get hurt, and the winners are the ones that come away with the least emotional scarring. But, given LoL’s competitive nature, it’s not exactly something that can be avoided under a safety blanket of solo play. For years, then, it’s been Riot’s unsolvable enigma – the towering door of twisted rage and anonymity that keeps far too many potential players outside a land of creep-crushing bliss. Now, though, it’s taking a new approach: positive reinforcement. Make a stranger’s day, and hopefully they’ll give you Honor points. Problem is, for now, that’s kind of the whole system.

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Riot Games has added a feature called "Honor" to its popular online PvP game, League of Legends, partially in the hopes of solving the issue of community management. Honor is something that players will be able to distribute amongst each other after every matchmaking game. After finishing matches, players will be able to award either their teammates or opponents with Honor for being friendly, helpful, or for showing great teamwork in the game they just played.

Honor is "not a currency," says Riot (and it can't be traded or spammed), but it will be used to recognize worthy players over time, and the company says it is looking into possible "bonuses for the most Honorable summoners." For a long time, League of Legends players have been able to "report" each other for negative actions like being offensive or leaving a game early, but Honor seems designed to go the other way and reward positive actions instead. It remains to be seen how it will play out in the future. Riot is experimenting here, to see how players use the system before it's fully implemented.

Valve's Dota 2 also has some innovative social features planned, including a reward system like this for working together with other players in the game. These MOBA games are very complicated to play, and so companies like Riot and Valve are doing their best to get players to work together and create a solid community, rather than lose new players to widespread offensive behavior.

#leagueoflegends League of Legends is one of the biggest games in the world. Which means it also attracts some of the biggest assholes in the world as well, who despite being active players of the game, have banded together to try and bring it down. More »

#leagueoflegends Competitive games like League of Legends tend not to have reputations for particularly nice or well-behaved communities. In short, players are often foul-mouthed jerks to each other. The environment can be daunting to new players and can begin to wear down even the more experienced folk, after a while. More »

#leagueoflegends If you're a League of Legends player and have ever complained about a sore wrist, or tired eyes, here's something that might put your issues in perspective. More »

#fancypants Britthebadger is one of the best cosplayers going around. But even by her lofty standards, this League of Legends Orianna costume is a special piece of work. More »

We first saw Guardians of Middle-earth in action back at E3 this year, and it was quite impressive even then: Monolith has taken the PC-centric gameplay of the emerging MOBA (or DotA, or LoL, or even action RTS, whatever you like to call it) genre, and translated it over to a console and a controller. But since that first play at E3, I've gotten a few more chances to play the game at Comic-Con and PAX, and GOME (acronyms!) is even more interesting than just a console clone of the popular League of Legends and the upcoming Dota 2.

Monolith has actually iterated on this complex strategy/action genre in a few different ways. Here's a list of five different things, whether you're a level 30 summoner or a Venomancer newbie, that you'll find new and interesting about Guardians of Middle-earth when it arrives for consoles later on this year.

#leagueoflegends The Major League Gaming (MLG) summer championship events took place this past weekend, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Teams competed in several games, including StarCraft II, Mortal Kombat, and Soul Calibur V. But the biggest upset happened in the League of Legends tournament, which found both the first and second place winning teams disqualified and the third and fourth place teams winning the prize pot in their stead. More »