@Riot - Whatever happened to the Replay system?

iainB85·Jul 22, 2015·7 votes·1,668 views

Replays Alpha Test on PBE - League of Legends Community

You announced it about two and a half years ago.

I never saw any posts following up about the feature after that.

What the heck?!

Replays would be so great for:

Improving Self Gameplay imagine downloading replays of challenger tier players, or even LCS matches where you could spectate the player YOU want
Catching Toxic Players easy to prove toxic behavior beyond just the chat log
Capturing & Reporting Bugs what the heck just happened?! was that a bug? let me go back and look!
Much more...

10 Comments

Virgin RayJul 22, 20151 votes

I didn't think RIOT needed it because many streamers and youtubers already owned programs.

iainB85Jul 22, 20153 votes

Using services like twitch or youtube only allow you to watch a VIDEO of a match.

An actual replay system allows you to move the camera and spectate any player you want during the match.

I'm aware there are some 3rd party ones, but from what I've heard they are very buggy and not well supported from patch to patch.

DrCyanideJul 22, 20151 votes

The best replay systems out there currently use the Spectator system.

Basically, the server (either replay.gg or na.op.gg) goes and spectates your game. They save every bit that Riot sends them as they spectate your game. Then, when you want to watch that replay, you enter a command line argument that basically says "Hey, start up League's Spectator Client, but look at this particular server to get the game".

This process is as bug-free as Riot's own spectator system, but is limited to only working on the current patch.

iainB85Jul 22, 20151 votes

Thanks for the tip, that is useful information.

How long do those last though?

Is there anyway to save them to your HD for later viewing?

DrCyanideJul 22, 20151 votes

Well, patches are live for 2 week windows, so the longest you'd have the game available is 2 weeks. If you could force your client not to update, or have some way to go back to an older version of the client, you could maybe access them for longer, but that'd depend on the individual website.

There's no way to save them on your hard drive for later. The reason is that the Client expects a steady stream of internet traffic to tell the Spectator what is happening, so you can't just read it like a file.

Honestly, if Riot's still working on Replays, making replays that can work with newer versions of the client is probably where things are slow going right now.

iainB85Jul 22, 20151 votes

It makes sense that if it's streamed through the client they can only support the current patch.

What they really need to work on is the ability to save replays into a file, and then view them offline. At that point it would not be hard to have an offline spectator client for viewing replays any time you want.

Pretty sure Blizzard does something like this with Warcraft and Starcraft. While those games are not as relevant anymore, it was super cool back in the day because it spawned off lots of sites where you could go and download pro replays and learn new strategies.

Imagine even Riot distributing replays of LCS matches -- where instead of being forced to watch the announcer cam, you could focus on the player you wanted and see what they do the entire match?