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Open Question to Riot Games Product Management Team! Save the Golden Goose!

League of Legends is one of the largest e-sports on the planet. But the release strategy for the game might prove to be self destructive and we may see the game die a lot earlier.

Mayur Bhimjiyani, Blogger

September 6, 2012

4 Min Read
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Let me first explain my player profile and why I like LoL:

I have been playing League of legends for almost over two years now. And seen over 50 champions get released in my player life. LoL has been like a dream come true for one of my life's motives of making e-sports events the next NHL or NBA or EPL and put it on display in the living rooms of our world. And I think that is the single biggest motive for Riot Games to work on and make League of Legends the most successful MOBA game ever.

And this is my dilemma:

As a dedicated player I optimistically, or even enthusiastically hope that the game can live on for almost another decade and make e-sports history but the game designer in me tells me that it is not possible because the learning curve increases geometrically every fortnight with a champion release.

I am not naive enough to ask you whether you know how difficult it is for a new player to start playing LoL today from scratch, without any knowledge of games like DotA or HoN and the likes. Hell, it was ridiculously difficult for a DotA veteran of five years like me to get on and understand the game in its entirety when there were some 50 odd champions and now the count is above 100.

With an introduction of a new champion every two weeks, you  disrupt the game flow and the skill required to play the game and raise it to another level, which is multiplied manifolds when it comes with new items. Firstly just the skills and stats of the new hero and stats for items are an additional memory dump for a player who has only a hundred thousand other things to remember. Then comes the infinitely possible 'hero-synergy' like the good-old Sven-Lina, or Leshrac-Sandking (If you dont know who these are, then you don't deserve to be working in Riot! :) ) or Vayne-Alistar for LoL. On top of all this comes the different ways and strategies you can play as a hero. And then one fine day Hotshot.GG will come by and blow your gamer brains away by doing something so awesome with your favorite champion, it will make you go - why dint I think of that!!!

And that I think is the true joy for any MOBA game that exact moment frozen in time where i was able to do a perfectly timed - Magnus-Rylai-Kunkka ultimate combo of epic destruction or the Amumu-Nunu-Ziggs Ultimate combo for an Ace. You are closing the doors on that. When I played DotA dedicatedly 3 years back, we would eagerly wait for an update that would come once in three months or if fortune was to be merciful earlier.
By the next update I would have played a lot and would be a lot eager to consume new content and would enjoy the game to the hilt with all new possible strategies. I still remember the Mirana release in 6.38 and am almost moved to tears with sheer nostalgia of innate joy.

Three months - I agree is too long a cadence cycle but a fortnight is too short. You are not only making it difficult for a gainfully employed but a dedicated gamer like me to keep up and play the game but you also are assuredly demanding more from the upcoming teen populace and old school RPG players, who havent turned to the true joys of the MOBA genre.

So the question stands that how are you going to fulfill that objective of bringing LoL to the quintessential living rooms, if it will be near impossible to last for a decade more, if the game population here on wards is going to steadily decline.


I urge you to consider the option of releasing a champion every fourth week instead of a fortnight release, for my selfish reasons of wanting to play this game for at least another 5-6 years. I urge you to save the golden goose so that i can be grateful to you in 2022, instead of killing it and putting it on the grill for 2013.

I am sure you already have far cooler things to release like Pulsefire Ezreal in pipeline to fill in that gap in the release cycle.So, Are you ever planning to slow down the champion release cycle and increase the game's longevity or will you be greedy and disappoint us??

Your's Truly,
Summoner Stonepoof

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