Suggestions

I feel like this should be in Community Creations because of what it entails.

When I first started playing League of Legends it was on the day of live release because that's when I heard about it, I had just switched over from DotA because I was no longer able to log in. What originally drew me towards both DotA and League was not necessarily the gameplay (though I learned to love it). No, instead it was the modding community behind it. For years I have been an avid member of the modding communities for multiple games. While I never put my name out there, and merely helped out on projects under various handles, it was a very welcoming community and the support Riot had for it at the beginning was amazing.

These days it seems that in an attempt to protect the assets and make the game fair to all Riot has become much harsher on that community, we have become restricted to what we are allowed to do and even the methods in which we do them because if the system is flagged incorrectly then we get punished for it. Over the course of the season so far I have noticed a drop in that community because of this and it makes me sad to think of what that means. DotA was a mod, we know this, League of Legends has its roots inside of that community and for that community to become so restricted seems unnatural.

Maybe this isn't what Riot is doing, maybe they are just lost on how to support that community when things are changing so much, but I think I have a solution either way: Community Projects.

The community has been overwhelming in asking for things that we used to have. Here is my idea then...

Let the community work on the projects they want. That's right, give the community the control over the content that doesn't affect the game. The Butcher's Bridge ARAM map is what sparked this and I really needed to think of a way to word this over a simple "hey you should do [idea]". I understand that Butcher's Bridge is taking a long time and with how many things are being worked on it's really hard for you, Riot, as a company to give the community everything it desires.

The community, after seeing Butcher's Bridge, seemed to revive in its desires to see a Winter themed Summoner's Rift or the Halloween Summoner's Rift. They even suggested other styles (I saw Battlecast in there).

So give the community the ability to work on these and simply give a deadline. Put things up to vote. Hold a poll over various theme ideas, give a custom option (for people to add their own idea), allow people to pick a max of 3 options to submit, then take the top 3 ideas and put them up for the community to work on. Give the deadline for submission for each stage.

So, for example, let's say this is a poll:

Winter Rift Battlecast Rift Halloween Rift Ponies Rift Wasteland Rift

Then out of that poll let's say Winter is 65%, Halloween is 40%, Battlecast is 30%, Ponies is 20%, and Wasteland is 25%. Then we take the top three: Winter, Battlecast, Halloween and put them up to the community.

So Winter Rift would have to be done by Winter. Here in North America the first official day of Winter is December 21st this year, so maybe we want to have the map live by December 15th just because of transitions. We could put up a month of time for artwork submissions. How will the trees be decorated, how will the structures be decorated/styled, what will the snow look like, will the river be flowing or frozen. So for one month people can work on basic ideas to bring together a concept map just out of artwork. This must be submitted by the end of that month. At the end of the month the files are collected and voted on by the community as to which structures and styles look the best. The most popular of each item needed is then pushed towards the models.

1 month is then given to create the new models for the structures and do the rigging. At the end of the time we take the structures and we move on to 2 months of time to work on the map texture. The reason I say 2 months of time to work on the map structure is because it's such a large file with so many variables to it multiple people are going to work on it. We take the best match-up of structures/map texture, vote on them, and build it. After it's built then the file goes up to PBE for bug testing, make sure there's nothing that can be exploited on the maps and to ensure they are ready for the live servers.

So 5 months later you have a map completely built by the community for the community and verified by Riot.

Now these times may be unrealistic. As a solo artist it took me 1 month to make a simple turret model modification...and it looked like crap. However I think they are good times because the modding community as a whole would be working on this project. There could be a board set up for idea sharing between artists.

Any thoughts on this are welcome, by all means. I am one person. I only have my thoughts. Any other suggestions would be welcome here. The ultimate goal is to get this noticed by Riot and get their input on it all.