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Why won't riot crowdsource a new character from scratch?

Linna Excel··1 votes·612 views

Crowdsourcing is a big thing right now. It's also cool because it generates buy in and gets people involved and committed to an idea. I know rioter really want to do their own champions, but for a rare change, why not let the fans have a crack at it?

Pros:

  1. Fans get to participate from the beginning, it would be a constructive creative outlet instead of just negative outlets.
  2. You might get new ideas you haven't been able to try out yet or work into the game.
  3. You could use it as a teaching process for showing the fans what you guys go through.
  4. It'd be fun to see just what the community as a whole would come up with and riot could "guide" the project to make sure it produces an interesting and playable character.
  5. It'd be a way to increase community interaction since I've gathered devs often don't have as much time as they'd like with the community.

While there are obviously cons, I don't think they would outweigh the pros.

10 Comments

mi ramfan3 votes
  1. Most League players don't know ANYTHING about balance or game design.
  2. All the people Riot doesn't listen to will get salty about being "ignored".
  3. We'd find some way to flame each other over it. We're League players, after all.
Linna Excel1 votes
  1. This would be where riot steps in
  2. People will get to say something at least, but yes in the end be best ideas would be used.
  3. This is why I think it should be done, to foster positive interactions and trust. We don't have to be a crap community with such a low opinion on each other. We could be nice.
Jamaree2 votes

The main and biggest problem I see would be whiplash overall. Let's say they do, what crowd is going to source it, bronze players, silver, diamond, challenger, what? They would have to create a champion that would have to be perfectly balanced outright or the shit storm that would follow would be immense. Also the side that doesn't take part in creating the champion feels shafted because their input wasn't take into consideration as well as they think Riot is pandering to the other crowd and not theirs.

All in all, they won't do it because there is a very unlikely chance of a win win scenario.

Rothmi1 votes

I would disagree.

If the con's are so obvious then can you name them?

AtheosisX2 votes

{quoted}

I would disagree.

If the con's are so obvious then can you name them?

It would never work. That's the only con you need.

Linna Excel1 votes

Worked for Wizards on several occasions. They actually got professionals who make their sets from an online contest of sorts.

Kouga1 votes

I came across on article on SurrenderAt20.net that mentioned a Red explaining why they were not going to do "crowd sourced" or "community generated" in-game content such as Champion designs. Fan art and the like, sure, but all of the game assets are strictly handled on Riot's side. I can't find the link now so I can't quote their exact reasons but largely it has to do with the fact that they either give up a large amount of control, if they don't restrict the content, or they risk a lot of backlash if they do.

Matthias91191 votes

I know they've taken ideas/concepts from the community, at least for skins and maybe champion appearances/backstory.

Gameplay design is hard. Having a bunch of random people throw out ideas and yell at each other about it is extremely unlikely to produce good results.

Linna Excel1 votes

And that's where rioters would be able to guide things. Even if you couldn't get the exact kit from the fans, you could get what they wanted it to do from a high level view.

AtheosisX1 votes

I could maybe see it working like so:

Poll one: vote on role (marksman, fighter, mage, support, assassin)

Poll two: vote on theme/background from a predetermined list (Void, Shurima, Noxus, Demacia, Shadow Isles, etc.)

Poll three through seven: vote on each ability along with the passive from a list of predetermined concepts

Poll eight: vote on appearance from a a list of three to five visual concepts

Poll nine: vote on name from a list of three or four possibilities

It's hard for me to imagine them putting this much work into such a thing, but yeah I suppose this would probably result in something functional. The flame wars over it on these boards would be hilarious though.

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