We recently had a chance to revisit League of Legends, the upcoming free-to-play real-time strategy hybrid game, try out a new hero character, and get some new insight into the meta-game content. The game is currently in a closed beta state but will open up in the coming weeks leading up to early September as developer Riot Games will start testing the game with larger groups of people playing all at once.

　　This game has fast-paced real-time strategy and a sad-but-cute mummy. Yeah, you read that right.

　　Aside from gearing up for beta, Riot is polishing up the game's interfaces, which, while not complete, will show off some of the meta-game content right as you log in. Even though this is a competitive, single-unit strategy game similar to the Defense of the Ancients modification for Warcraft III, you'll also have an out-of-game avatar called a "summoner" who can rack up three different kinds of abilities (as well as different apparel items), including "masteries," which resemble the branching talent trees of World of Warcraft, and "spells"--a pool of magic spell abilities from which you can choose only a precious few to take into battle. Spells include abilities like healing and instantaneous teleports--basically, panic-button-type abilities to get you out of a jam.

　　Your summoner can also acquire "runes," which will give your heroes passive bonuses in battle (such as faster energy recovery or quicker cooldown times to re-use skills more quickly, or regenerative healing, or armor or damage bonuses). Over time, you'll acquire a pile of runes, and since you can equip only a handful of them each match, you may opt to combine some of the ones you're not using--if you have the right runes and the right formula, you may be able to create a more-powerful combined rune to equip for your next match.

　　You can bring your summoner's masteries, spells, and runes into battle to aid whichever hero you choose for your next match.

　　While these summoner skills are powerful and useful, thankfully, you won't be able to purchase them for real money using the game's cash-op store. Riot plans to implement two types of currency: "influence," the in-game currency that you can use to buy up new runes; and "Riot points," which you can use to purchase visual customization items, such as alternate skins for different hero characters. (Riot also plans to start awarding exclusive colored hero skins to different beta players.) In any case, the studio remains firm on the issue that even though the game will be free-to-play-with-microtransactions, it will not allow players to purchase anything with real-world money that will make them more powerful. Instead, the game will be set up in a way that will let most players advance their summoner to the highest level (currently planned to be level 20 at launch) relatively fast, in about a month or two of casual play. At level 20, most players will have a good-sized list chunk of runes and spells to choose from, as well as a fully-fleshed out masteries tree, and from there, they can participate in the game's larger social options.

　　You'll be able to create friend lists to keep your friends on call, and you'll also be able to join a larger clan/team system that Riot will most likely add to the game post-launch. This is a highly competitive, team-based game, but the largest match sizes currently planned are five-versus-five--the game just seems to play out best that way. So, in order to accommodate larger groups of players who want to get organized, Riot will most likely implement a larger clan system that will let larger groups of players associate with each other, while also incorporating a smaller team system that will let a handful of players work together across different matches. The studio actually plans to eventually start running competitive "seasons," just like in professional sports, so ranked team-based matches will be very important down the line.

　　You'll also be able to play as this guy. Pictured: This guy.

　　We also had a chance to try out a new hero character, Morgana, a "fallen angel" with useful ranged damage abilities and a handful of support skills. Morgana's skills include a single-target stun that requires you to carefully line up your target; an effect that damages all enemies within a small circular area; and a friendly magic protection spell usable on ourselves or our allies. Morgana's high-level combat ability is currently an effect that links her to any enemy heroes in range and continuously damages those targeted foes as long as she can stay within range (which completely changes her game from an at-a-distance support character to a chase-after-enemy-heroes character). As before, League of Legends still seems like a fast-paced, exciting experience where you're constantly gaining character levels, buying up better equipment from the in-level store, and putting the hurt on your enemies (or running for your life). The game is scheduled to launch later this year.