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Should Riot do a Create-a-Champion Contest?

Malzahard Mode··28 votes·1,963 views

Over the years I have seen many players (myself included) come up with some amazing concepts for champions to fit into the world of League of Legends. Some of these champions have been created based on existing lore, others have been created from the endless imagination of the communities members. Many of these have all been posted on the Forum boards before to be seen by players and RIOT employees alike. Some have even been made post of the day and have been loved by hundreds of players. However due to legal reasons, RIOT cannot simply take these ideas and make them into reality.

UNLESS they make a submission based contest. In order to make the contest, they would (in the most basic explanation possible) have the creator wave and right to claim ownership, royalties, theft, fraud, etc. of the materials they enter into the contest format and be aware that there will be no guarantee of any form compensation of intrinsic value for their work. Any individual aspects from created content could be used in combination with any other user-submitted or RIOT created content in any all future works.

If they did make this contest a reality, RIOT could pick, one two, or even ten champion concepts, and put them all into the pipeline for creation. If RIOT wanted to, they could give winners of the contest a special summoner icon, or even have the champion unlocked on their account once created for no charge as a reward for winning, but that is entirely up to the RIOT team.

So what do you say, if RIOT gave you all the chance to submit your idea of a champion with a chance of it being it made into a playable one, knowing the only guaranteed reward is the knowledge that you have permanently contributed something to League of Legends, would you?

36 Comments

Sir ArmaMalum4 votes

Personally I would love this, but there are a few additional problems with this that player created content produces simply by nature.

  1. Timeline. Riot already has several champions in various stages of development over the next year or even two years that can't be adjusted easily. As an example: Ao-Shin where?? Adding a player-created concept will most likely be tacked onto the end. Meaning that a player created champion will, at best, be released a year after the concept is taken.

  2. Expectations. When a concept is advertised it puts its best foot forward, as it should. There are concepts here that are simply jaw-dropping, and being up on a global or even national stage would up the anty even more. Imagine the level of amazing-ness we would get if there was a real goal involved on top of the respectable passion conceptors have. This is a great thing, don't get me wrong, but Riot's team would have to live up to that expectation that was already set, while at the same time keeping the champion balanced and address visual aspect problems like clipping and smooth animations that don't appear on a normal concept.

  3. Community opinion. The definition of "balanced" and "good" is so skewed between the community fragments I doubt we would get a single concept to be unanimously liked.

Now granted these issues can be solved by having a "perfect" concept complete with model, animations, voice overs and the like. But at that point why not use that on a portfolio and apply to work for Riot? :P

Again, I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, I would love to see it happen, but I also want to make sure the problems that have held something like this back are known. There are more, but those are the first that I think of.

Malzahard Mode3 votes

  1. Well aware of that, i know things take time, and i never said it needed to be an instantaneous reward, just an eventual.

  2. Riot would be allowed to edit/change the champion as needed based as needed. If a concept requires 1080p graphics, riot can say NOPE, and change it to fit the game. Obviously some people could go far above and beyond league's capabilities for their concept, but riot would then adapt them to the game. Also most submissions probably wouldn't have artwork, mostly kit and maybe lore, give RIOT a lot of creative control which would be mentioned in the rules

  3. It is an opinion, and their isn't a single champion in league that is liked by everyone in every way. A community voting after RIOT goes through and picks the "best" submissions (as @Squeekems) below suggested would help appease this.

Sir ArmaMalum1 votes

On 1 and 2, yes that makes perfect sense when you have appropriate expectations, logic and a patient playerbase. And if you think the League community as a whole can do that, then props to you I personally have a pessimistic view when it comes to that. There are great people here don't get me wrong, I love coming here to talk, but when we're talking about a community-wide thing I usually get discouraged at the regular community backlash at anything Riot does. And this being a community-driven thing that would harm the effort greatly.

\3. I do agree that alleviates most of that issue.

Malzahard Mode1 votes

You make a very valid point i will say

Keagn2 votes

I completely agree. There's a huge quality difference between community concepts and champions Riot release. A lot of thought goes into every aspect: Appearance, lore, kit, name, etc. Not much more to say, because you obviously covered it really well :P

As for "Reward" having a champion in League should be reward enough, maybe get your champion and its release skin free.

OJ1912 votes

{quoted}

I completely agree. There's a huge quality difference between community concepts and champions Riot release. A lot of thought goes into every aspect: Appearance, lore, kit, name, etc. Not much more to say, because you obviously covered it really well :P

As for "Reward" having a champion in League should be reward enough, maybe get your champion and its release skin free.

Lol more like get your champion and every skin ever made for them free, because without the champion concept none of it would exist in the first place. 1x free of each is nothing compared to the revenue they would be getting from it anyway.

I don't think anyone could or should realistically expect any reward beyond that though.

Narasimha2 votes

I would disagree with the 'every skin ever' part. Unless the designer came up with all those skins, thats not part of their work. The credit for those should go for whoever designed those skins.

Narasimha1 votes

Dude! I finally found you on the forums.

Mission complete, awarding XP.

Next task: Locate coffee

Squeekems3 votes

I think Riot should do an annual champion concept contest. Have all the submissions go through their judgement and then have their top picks for the winner be voted on by the community. I am thinking of the way American Idol works.

ugIy boy3 votes

yessss dude this would be amazing. I think just 1 champion though.

Hotblack Desiato1 votes

I think that you should be able to submit more than one if they are different. If someone can come up multiple good ideas then he or she should be able to display all of them.

ZGM Dazzling3 votes

please please please get this to the top of the "HOT" posts.

Solaxo2 votes

They don't even listen to our balance suggestions or even bug reports, and you want them to do a contest? Lol

SociopathFriend2 votes

The only "catch" is that if they do this, their own champion creation team would be denied work. Remember, they're earning a paycheck just like everyone else.

That said, totes agree, some of the concepts out here are phenomenal.

ZGM Dazzling2 votes

they are working on tons of different champs as we speak.... AND they still have to actually program/rebalance the champion and finish all the details. They wont just be sitting around.

Hotblack Desiato3 votes

I agree. They wouldn't just have to re-balance the proposed champions, but there would have to be people to do the judging in the first place, people to separate the good ideas from the bad.

SociopathFriend2 votes

I'd think the least they could do with something like this is at least give the creator the champion and associated starting skin for free- just because you're already using your League account on the forums.

Skunt2 votes

We should replace CertainlyOP concepts with fan concepts.

warpenguin5552 votes

Yes, of course.

They would obviously might not be able to keep the entire kit/ scalings the same but i could see it happening with the winner receiving their champion for free and testing on the PBE for it

Seth Lightheart1 votes

That would be awesome.

The only possible issue is who owns the content. Even if you 'sign it away' you can still take them to court.

I do love the idea though.

Malzahard Mode2 votes

I'm aware of the legal issue, but i know it is doable, especially where Magic the Gathering has done user created cards, and those are for sale with real world value, i know Riot can do it as well.

Seth Lightheart2 votes

Oh no, I think it is possible. But I remember a Riot member talking about how it can be an issue.

(Personally I wish Riot outsourced quite a few things to their fans such as lore)

Linna Excel1 votes

Usually submissions like this means you hand over rights.

Linna Excel1 votes

I'd love something like this.

You can send in one design per person (smurfs are disqualified, only your first submission among all accounts is qualified). Any finalists or semi finalists (8-10) that pass a certain bar will get put in a pool of champs that could be made (original designers get credit/input). Winner definitely is made.

Squeekems3 votes

How would they know which accounts are smurfs? I say Level 30 should be a requirement.

Nagirah1 votes

Considering how much work designing a working champion is... as much as I love the idea, I don't think riot would be ready to give fans this much power. A design a skin contest would be much better considering how much easier they're to make and don't affect game balance. Just my opinion.

Hotblack Desiato1 votes

Riot wouldn't necessarily be giving the fans too much power, Riot has the power to veto any bad ideas. I think that this contest idea is a good business plan. If the fans submit ideas than they would feel more attached to the game because they had invested hard work and imagination into the game, causing the fans to play even more and spend more money on RP.

1st HanarSpectre1 votes

Do you want to end up with garbage like Cthuluphant, because that's how you end up with garbage like Cthuluphant. Remember when C-A-D guy got his referal and tried to submit a fucking shark on wheel as a hero?

Malzahard Mode3 votes

This is where a 2 stage voting set up would be good, first stage is RIOT going through submissions and picking out the best ones they believe they could do, then the community votes on the remaining ones to decide the winner(s)

SociopathFriend1 votes

I'd honestly prefer it if Riot just picked the winner. The fanbase is kind of hit and miss with its reactions.

Malzahard Mode3 votes

Zthat's why Riot Games get the first round of pics, they get to narrow down the list of Champions the ones they feel would actually make sense in League of Legendsand then the ones that are remaining are the ones community gets a vote on so no matter which one of those get spanked it will be one right it feels to be a healthy balance in the game

SociopathFriend2 votes

Now see (no offense to you) I do not have enough faith in the community to pick a good concept; I just don't. I reviewed concepts back in the old forums for fun, for every good concept, there were two bad ones.

There was literally a guy who wanted to give his champion a Karthus ult that would hit everyone on both teams AND their towers.

Malzahard Mode3 votes

I too have times where I q uestion the communities sanity, but again. Out of ALL the inputs, RIOT picks which ones can be voted on. That way the community doesnt have a chance to vote for a mass map purge champion like that. Only healthy/balanced/smart champions could be voted on, provided Rito isnt bugnutty bat $h!t crazy.

SociopathFriend1 votes

True, but if Riot's going to be picking out which champs progress- based on selecting attributes they find desirable- is that really so different than what they already do?

Not to mention concepts are hopelessly boned atm just because we don't know what Riot's doing with their lore.

Like I said, I want it to happen (and us commenting bumps the thread) but I see a lot of potential problems for not a very large payoff.

warpenguin5551 votes

{quoted}

Now see (no offense to you) I do not have enough faith in the community to pick a good concept; I just don't. I reviewed concepts back in the old forums for fun, for every good concept, there were two bad ones.

There was literally a guy who wanted to give his champion a Karthus ult that would hit everyone on both teams AND their towers.

LOL

Nucleophilic atk1 votes

OMG yes! I could finally create my champion: Taylor Swift.

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