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[INTRO] Chris “Pwyff” Tom - Communications dude

RiotPWYFF·12/14/2015, 9:05:44 PM·1 votes·20,461 views

Hi fronds,

Quick introduction here - I’m Pwyff. In previous lives I’ve played video games competitively, ghost-wrote college essays for tuition, wrote terrible movie scripts for free dinners, and did the whole video game journalism / editor-in-chief bit before arriving at Riot Games.

I come from a mixed competitive gaming background of: FPSes (CS 1.6, Natural Selection, TFC), MOBAs (DotA, HoN, Bloodline Champions), and MMORPGs (Ragnarok Online, FFXI, vanilla + TBC WoW), so my favorites tend to fall along those. In between games of League, DotA 2, and Duelyst, I was trying to speedrun Fallout 4 before dropping everything for the new Bloodborne DLC, but did not get very far. I think I rerolled twice, explored fifty million supermarkets, recruited Nick Valentine, decided to forcibly set my carry weight limit to 20,000 so I could hoard more things, realized I opened Pandora’s Box of cheat codes and shortcuts, set my melee stats to five billion, punched a few Deathclaws, and then couldn’t go back to a normal life.

Outside of those things, I read, write, walk, and talk a lot (often at the same time).

I currently own: 0 cats.

WHAT AM I DOING AT RIOT?

A tl;dr would be that I’m a communications lead, working on all things to do with… communicating. One of my first big projects was to improve the way we talk about change in League (particularly in design), and you may have noticed the experiments we’ve run over the years, especially with the patch notes.

These days, I’m focused more broadly on how we talk about what we do and why we do it. With the preseason just shipping and the 2016 season update on the horizon, I’m in the process of helping with our next Riot Pls update, getting this Dev Corner to a functional place, and thinking about what people actually want to hear about.

WHAT AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT?

I’ll probably use my monthly slot as an open forum to talk about what new things you’d like to hear from other teams. If there’s a pressing topic you’d like to see discussed, feel free to chuck them in and I can understand what we should be thinking - or talking - about. Or if it’s just a miscommunication, I can talk about that as well.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR FROM ME?

Honestly? Let me know. I can tell you stories about life at Riot, or how teams work together, or about the cat I don’t own.

56 Comments

Deep Terror Nami12/14/2015, 9:07:13 PM5 votes

Actually yes, tell us about the cat you don't own.

Do you want one? More than one? What kind? Did you used to have any? Tell us the furry details. [slayer-jinx-catface]

Thanks for all the work you do around here, btw.

aperson112/14/2015, 10:07:31 PM4 votes

Complaint:

I don't know how involved you are in its production, but the Patch Rundown is basically complete fluff. All I see is a bunch of Rioters patting themselves on the back over a change while the 4th guy awkwardly sits there and laughs.

I was looking through old patch notes on a nostalgia trip and came across this old preseason 3 Patch Preview video. Instantly at the beginning of the video I know which changes are going to be discussed. Despite being less than half as long as the patch rundowns it easily covers just as much information, and I could skip to any part of the video and instantly understand what change they were talking about without having to sit through some stupid in-joke.

I'm not saying Rioters shouldn't have any personality whatsoever, but your changes affect a lot of people's enjoyment of the game and if you're going to talk about them you better, well, talk about them.

Sorry if I'm yelling at the wrong guy about this.

DwarvenGiant12/14/2015, 9:22:17 PM3 votes

Is there a team in charge of maps (delivering new ones)/maps updates at Riot or are projects like Dominion, the Twisted Treeline Update, the Howling Abyss, the Summoner's Rift Update, the small map updates we got earlier this year and Butcher's Bridge simply require making somewhat-temporary teams, or what? And if there is a 'permanent' team working on such content, are they constantly working sneakily on super secret map projects? :o

-_-

P.S- Sorry if I gave too many examples in the first part of the question. lol :P

pattheflip12/14/2015, 9:11:16 PM2 votes

Donde esta Pe-wiff?

hopeful412/14/2015, 9:16:59 PM2 votes

I want to know if there are any plans for creating an RTS engine for LoL (or whatever is called, im not very familiar with these things), which will allow to control other units reliably and make the extremely few existing RTS-like interactions (Annies bear, Mordes drake, Shacos clone) less awkward to play

I know that LoL wasnt designed with that mind, since the champ is always ''locked'' to the player, but what do you think now? I think that it would open up the game much more, in all aspects: new champs, reworks, items etc. It would add more depth to the game and it would help the current project of the rework department to make some champions more distinctive as well, since they will be given more choices

Jeddy01712/14/2015, 10:36:43 PM2 votes

Care to comment about the communication,or lack there of, surronding the non-SR maps?Any idea why it's so hard to get a rioter on the team responsible to talk about them?

Also,can we get more communication from the lore people?Like a Dev Corner dedicated to lore?

TerraRising12/14/2015, 10:01:21 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Pwyff,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=orGt4Gw6,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-12-14T21:05:44.460+0000)

WHAT AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT?

I’ll probably use my monthly slot as an open forum to talk about what new things you’d like to hear from other teams. If there’s a pressing topic you’d like to see discussed, feel free to chuck them in and I can understand what we should be thinking - or talking - about. Or if it’s just a miscommunication, I can talk about that as well.

What I'd like to see, when it's released in 20XX, is a documentary on Yorick's pending rework, from "start" to finish. Something beyond the short rework blogs that we've seen from the Sion and Poppy updates.

LOL Spammer12/14/2015, 10:49:31 PM1 votes

Are you in contact with "Not Pwyff" ?

DeBigMoist12/15/2015, 2:12:46 AM1 votes

Is kog maw going to be fixed i dont really enjoy his new play style

Jason12/15/2015, 2:16:28 AM1 votes

So, Riot never communicates where they have nothing good to report, but a lot of people want to know.

Is the Replays system still being handled by some department? We're about 2 years in, and no communication. Care to communicate?

edit; we're 5 years in to apparent development, but 2 years without even a whisper about it.

thebucketking12/15/2015, 1:20:28 PM1 votes

You smell nice

SlashStriker12/16/2015, 7:53:35 PM1 votes

Why in the patch rundown you completely ignored topics like mana changes? Ahri that constantly runs out of mana while Zed always full combos you whenever he pleases. So what is Mana's main function and Energy main function? Feels like there is lots of hate toward mana champions

UrTears4Lube2/6/2016, 4:39:10 PM1 votes

Recommendations for communication improvements:

modify chat boxes: instead of the chat box being on the bottom and opening into client where it always seems to block something (especially if you are last pick on your team) place exterior tabs on the outside that are movable to all sides of client, they would go the full length if its the only chat, or split it up evenly on each side if there are multiple chats open.

Team Communication: we are not allowed to communicate during game loads. Why not allow team communication during the game loading screens? how many times have you been in the middle of a conversation with your team just to be interrupted my an excessive load screen.... TOO MANY!!! haha

This isn't communication based.. but I'm already here soo....: LOCK SCREEN CHANGE: right now we have two options, free floating screen or locked ( with champion in the center) why not make it so you can lock the screen and its current position, allowing you to lock your champ into one corner or side of your screen to allow you to keep maximum vision of your lane... if you want it re-centered, simply hit Y, SPACEBAR, Y and you are re-centered.

That is all, Heratik out!

Decrit12/14/2015, 9:22:46 PM1 votes

There is any game in particular from which you have learned a lot, developer communication wise? or that had a certain philosophy you learnt from? or that showed you how to handle 0 cats? How much do i suck at English? :D

Anyway, great job dude - after some years of a bit stale communication you managed to communicate to millions of players. How you deal with that? You imagine the audience half-naked?

Garrotte12/14/2015, 9:32:35 PM1 votes

For a while there was a period where a lot of communication got pushed to other social media platforms such as twitter/reddit/ask.fm.

Do you feel that the platform used influences what questions someone is willing to answer?

Retillin12/14/2015, 9:33:28 PM1 votes

Have you found a format for communicating back and forth with the players you are really happy with? And if so, what one?

What is the biggest thing lost when trying to communicate with players?

warpenguin55512/14/2015, 9:40:00 PM1 votes

When do you think the next Riot pls will be up?

ploki12212/14/2015, 9:48:31 PM1 votes

I’ll probably use my monthly slot as an open forum to talk about what new things you’d like to hear from other teams.

I have 2 main topics I'd like to talk about which are on a bigger scope than just a small Q&A question like this (so either a topic with the right person or a blog or something). As a Big Data-enthusiast, I would really love a Big Data post. I feel like there are more and more "Big Data" posts, like the Vayne Ping one recently, but it's a lot more about presenting casual side-projects (like a lot of teams do) than actually talking about Riot Games' data. I would really appreciate it if you could hook up someone works with the database, from my point of view, there are at the very least 3 different "scopes" at Riot Games that englobes completely different topics :

  1. The internal exploitation : The people who work with the database to provide information as needed to the various teams. Might also have to provide various tools to gather the data, as needed.

  2. The external exploitation : Those are the various dudes working on things like the API.

  3. The architect : The various people working on the actual infrastructure which wons a shitload of cash because nobody wants their job.

An example of topic would be the "Teamwork OP" video series, where they could explain what kind of information they have access to, and how they define their methodology/terms/etc. How much information is manually worked through, and how much is computed. Another probably good one would be the new tribunal system, and the various implications that a "fully" automated system implies.

The other one would simply be a blog about the PBE. Personally, I feel like the PBE is in a really precarious state right now. I would really love to get a blog out of you guys about where the PBE came from, what its original objectives were, how they were met, where it excelled, where it failed, what plans you have going forward... A bti like the Mordekaiser/Tahm Kench threads, but with the PBE system instead.

Chris “Pwyff” Tom - Communications dude

How does it feel being constantly refered to as she/her, with a name like Chris Tom which really sounds like "randomly generated male name #4"? In the same vein, I feel like a lot of people started recognizing you as the memelord doing the patch notes. Is it hard to live up to that hype and making sure your memes are always on point?

One of my first big projects was to improve the way we talk about change in League (particularly in design), and you may have noticed the experiments we’ve run over the years, especially with the patch notes.

If you look at other companies, what do you feel is the most common problems they have in term of company-player relations? Personally, I feel like there's a massive misconception both within the players' eyes and the devs that communication is only required/positive when the changes are bad, but that's just one among many.

I've also had a lot of fun asking (roughly) the same generic questions to all the devs, so you're the next one on the list :

  • What is in your opinion the best/worst niche in LoL right now in term of design (split push, mobile mages, tank supports, poke supports, all in mid laners, AP junglers, etc.)?

  • Who are your favorite current rioters and ex-rioters?

  • What would you say is the biggest pros and cons of the current way PBE functions?

  • Favorite champion?

  • What design from another game would you like to see in LoL (even if unrealistic) and why?

  • If everything was to be turned into ice cream, what side dish would best accompany your SO (or best friend assuming there's no SO).