Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Intimacy has its Price : The Big Booth Debate



Booths vs. No Booths

By Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis
            Recently the big stink going around the LCS circuit is over the implementation, or lack thereof, of soundproof booths. Anyone who watches LCS today will see the players are in an open air environment and are fully visible to fans. This was to promote intimacy between fans and players, just like almost any other sport. However, LoL, and E-sports in general, aren't like other sports. There’s a lot of deception and trickery as well as other things that need to be hidden from the opposing team. Most sports remedy this by having a playbook or sidelines where these plans are relayed out to the field. Imagine, in football, if the audience told the other team what play they were running. That’s the best analogy for what the LCS is dealing with at the moment.

            Riot’s always run a thin line between having the audience feel engaged with the game, and the audience actually being part of the game. The LCS is run in an open atmosphere where players and spectators see things at almost the same time. Riot has admitted there is a slight delay, but even still, players know the delay. Players wear sound-proof headsets and small earbuds that go underneath. These headsets don’t completely block out all sound, but they at least do something to keep players from hearing anything from the audience that might change the outcome of the game. However, even if they can’t make out specific words, cheers alone can be enough to understand what's occurred. Let’s look at what the crowd generally cheers for in the LCS:

·         Wards
·         Towers
·         Dragons
·         Barons
·         Kills
·         Steals of any kind

            Of all of these, the only ones that aren’t always visible to both teams are Dragons and Barons. Based on positioning  of the enemy it can be pretty simple to make out what was done and have an almost exact timer for it if the audience is heard. Krepo has even come out himself to say that players are well aware of both the crowd and the delay that they’re seeing.

This set up has recently come under fire as Complexity’s ADC ROBERTxLEE stated on his stream that there was a point in his match against Curse where he wasn't sure what was being said on the comms. This wasn't an issue with headsets not working properly either. The sound that was being heard was coming through his teammates mics. Riot absolutely needs to address this issue. Communication between teammates in a game as cooperative as LoL is paramount. Most of the time, plays happen in League because the other team didn't work as a cohesive unit for one reason or another. If this persists and happens again, it could easily swing the outcome of a game, and consequently a season, if it occurs at the right (or in this case wrong) time.

Ideas have been passed around for a while now, and the most readily accepted one is the implementation of booths. Booths have been used in many E-sports games. Starcraft and Dota usually use booths for their events for the exact reason that people are clamoring for them now. They do a better job at keeping sound out of players hearing range than headsets alone. In fact, OGN, the Korean LoL league, uses both of them



The only issue here is the possibility of these booths being little to no use in terms of effectiveness. People have argued that considering the strength of the headsets used, the diminishing returns of adding a booth are almost non-existent. The headsets used in the LCS are approved for use near jet engines, meaning that if sound gets through them, theoretically, a booth isn’t going to do much to stop it. The other issue comes with vibrations.

Obviously sound comes from vibrations, and at events like the LCS there’s not only a lot of sound, but a lot of other things that can cause vibrations as well. (e.g. feet stomping, inflatable noise makers, etc.) Booths and headsets do nothing to stop this and it can cause all of the issues that come with sounds. For large scale crowds, there really is no effective way to keep things from being heard outside of playing from a remote area, and Riot will do anything to keep that from happening.

The normal LCS crowd has a few hundred people. According to most, albeit self-proclaimed, sound experts, vibrations shouldn't be an issue routinely faced in the LCS. World’s may be another issue, but normal games leading up to the world playoffs should see at least some effectiveness from booths.

There’s also been the argument of money. To be honest, it’s hard to get a grasp on which side of the argument is really true here. It’s more an issue of conflicting information rather than one side being right or wrong. I’ve seen reports of the LCS making Riot tons of money, and I’ve seen other information that says the LCS actually loses money in exchange for further advertising the game. There’s no official information straight from Riot so I can’t actually confirm which side is correct. This is in addition to varying booth prices. Depending on how high tech Riot would get if they decided on booths, the prices could go from a few hundred each or into the thousands. If it’s true that the LCS doesn't make money, it’s easy to see how Riot could refrain from putting more money into booths.

Personally, I find myself siding with putting booths on stage. Riot has always prided themselves on keeping player/audience interaction high, but at this point there are enough other ways for players to interact that the negatives outweigh the positives. Even if they decide against booths, there needs to be some kind of statement as to why or what Riot intends to do. There’s no reason to not comment on this considering the amount of backlash that has occurred. Fans need to at least hear a reason and keeping quiet about this will only increase the controversy as people make up their own reasons.



submit to reddit

Friday, June 6, 2014

LCS FanZone Question of the Day



We asked: If you could add a new game mode to LoL..what would it be?
-----------------

- Each team picks which 5 champs the other team will play. (You can trade with other players on your team). Nuggetsauce ‏@nuggetsauce

- Capture the flag Jose ‏@SporadicJ

- I would like a mode that emphasises the 1v1 aspect of the game. Not sure if you could do anything more creative than showdown. Arron Dempsey ‏@ArronDempers

- One where everyone is normal, but I am slightly buffed so I don't get frustrated as I can't die :p David Fletcher ‏@djfletcherer

- Hide and Seek would be awesome... people already do it in customs, but a mode of it would be so much fun! And the seeking team would be able to have 1 Rengar in the team xD Hopping all over! Monstro ‏@PokeBoobies

- Something similar to Dota's Ability Draft. Jesse Raen-Saunders ‏@VocalTerrorist

- Ability draft! It's a game mode from Dota 2. Pretty fun! But I didn't know how to play the game so it was really confusing too. Judar ‏@PikaJudar

- A mode where you pick any champion and any 4 abilities. Lucian with wish for his ult for example. Adam Cowley ‏@adz250

- Death match. 10 champs in an arena start at lvl 18 full items. NE0 Jets ‏@Jetslove81

- Free for all, every man for himself. SabreTilt ‏@SabrewoIf

- I was thinking of something like a normal mode but with minions spawning faster and faster throughout the game. Minions invasion. Jhyrar Baenre @Jhyrar

- I think would be nice to chose (to play) every minion from the map.. hmm ..baron drake minions wraths =)) donno sounds stupid?  Summer ‏@summmeryy

- That is an easy one, make a map, sword and shield style. 4v4v4!! :) three teams In a minion spawn point capture style. Mod bro ‏@Aust_Modbro

- Faction wars would be fun. Branch ‏@ThatGuyBranch

- 3v3 arena with everyone at max level, pillars etc to block skill shots and buffs that appear in specific places.  Amber ‏@kikuzLoL

- 6 player FFA arena last man standing, with an evolving map with randomized effects such as firebreathing statues and pitfalls. Lullaby ‏@LullabyGaming

- a story mode maybe. Chaz ‏@xheshire

- I have 2 ideas. Make all ults global, or instead of the nexus, there is a Baron Nashor at each base you need to kill. Accio Pwns ‏@AccioPwns

- Some mini games with skill shots or stuff like that. Token ‏@Fayetoken

- Somewhat of a tower defense game. Zack | 달 ‏@ChubsLoL

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Vel'Koz, the Eye of the Void Preview

Vel'Koz, the Eye of the Void



They say he's terrifying..they say he's evil..but the first thing that came to my mind was, "What a pretty shade of purple!" Vel'Koz may be a nasty ranged mage, but look at these awesome pink glowies he spits out... 


Neon shinies that kill people! I'm liking! 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Riot Plz - The ARAM Conspiracy.



As of this second, I have 307 wins and 307 losses in ARAMS.

No one really contemplates these things, which is part of why it works, but all thirty-eight of my closest ARAM friends come within ten points of a 50-50 win / loss record, and that is far too perfect a percentage to be by chance alone. While keeping a player interested, motivated and challenged requires losses, player satisfaction requires wins, and 50/50 appears to be Riot's golden ratio of happiness...but how exactly do they do this if an ARAM is 'All Random?'

The answer is...it isn't all random. There's nothing random about it at all. It's all carefully planned and orchestrated to create the illusion of randomness. In truth, outside algorithmic forces are at work. The deck is always stacked in favor of one team over another, and you've all seen it happen plenty of times. Certain characters have a very high win rate in ARAMs and you can be sure there will be several of them on the opposing team when it's your turn to lose. Of course, skill level can still prevail in these match ups, but skill level is measurable as well, and ELO clearly is taken into account and calculated into the equation.     

But, the conspiracy goes deeper still!

Once I was made aware of Riot's sneaky manipulation, I began to discover just how far they will go to prevent me from getting a win. Yesterday's glorious losing streak is a prime example. I was subject to suspicious problem after suspicious problem, and Riot was clearly at the core!

For starters, I went 'bug splat' link dead at the start of three games, severely crippling my team. Then I was bugged in game and unable to buy, and had to completely reboot. During one particularly difficult game where we were coming back against all odds, the transformer on my street blew, plunging us into darkness. The lengths that our unscrupulous Riot will go to are beyond belief! This morning, my cat turned my computer off mid-game...under Riot's silent feline directive. In the next game, they made Kaspersky bring up an override screen in the middle of a team fight.

Know those games where someone goes afk at the start and never leaves base? Those are evil Riot agents, added to even out the playing field when a game cannot be run without you winning. Likewise, those people who just stand behind your tower and run in circles are also Riot bots! And they're programmed to heckle your build, no matter what direction you go in. 'AP Ezreal is stupid, he does like no damage!' or 'AD Ezreal? Why? In an ARAM?' simply to make you waste a minute in base while you type back an explanation. (Or in my case, a few expletives.) And on those rare occasions when the system glitches and gives you an amazing line up, Riot will quickly fix the problem with a fake 'summoner has quit' message.

They're probably watching me right now with their high-powered satellite surveillance, just waiting for any attempt on my part to breech the 50/50 ceiling. They have full control the power grid, the internets and the government. This is why most of our lives also seem to fit the 50/50 mold. Not to blow your mind, but the phrase 'you win some, you lose some,' has been around for a very a long time.

This is because Riot is behind it all.

And now you know the truth.