@Rioters, A few honest, non-toxic questions I have, about something you raised. [From a Dev myself]

Hexalyte·Feb 25, 2014·17 votes·732 views

First off, I'm not going to do the general toxic flame statements of "I WANT STUFF RIOT!!! YOU FK***G NOOBS". I've been resisting to post for a while, but alas I must ask.

So, here it is:

First off, I totally understand more work goes into everything that happens than the community could possibly imagine, but I have a few questions regarding some posts that were made over the past couple weeks. I also understand you don't like discussing anything as it usually ends up making the community ask "WHY ISNT IT HERE YET!!! LAZY RIOT!", so I'll say you don't need to provide any specifics.

Q1) Addressing something Meddler said yesterday: Sion is currently really the focus of the rework team. I'm excited for that myself as I loved AD Sion and I can't wait to see what will be done. Here is what I don't understand, Meddler discussed several other champs (Warwick, Fiora, Yorick, Gangplank, Shaco + more) and said that nothing is being currently worked on with them. I don't really need an answer on who is being worked on, but is anybody at all besides Sion being worked on? I myself who used to work alongside Atari cannot understand how a whole team could only work on one character, and it would manage to take very long.

Q2) This one doesn't really bother me, but I am curious. Recently a Red posted that it now takes up to 2 weeks for a splash art to be completed, when even back with splashes like Syndra were completed in the span of a few hours [speed-art videos were posted]. To what extent was the process changed that the time it took suddenly became so much longer to make a splash art. Though, I really do like the new art.

Q3) All in all, since about November when the killer patch was released [with Sivir rework, new Nasus VU/VO] not a whole lot of well, anything has shown up. The Lunar revel was rather nice, I won't deny that and I can see some effort is being put into the Vel'koz presentation. Though, we have heard for quite a while that updates on things like new champs are slowing down to allow for more content to be released [Reworks, etc], but from the community view, we don't see a big increase in those, in fact we are starting to see a bit of a decrease. Is this going to possibly result in a whole lot of content being released at once later, or is the future going to be the same way it is now?

Any Red responses are greatly appreciated, no disrespect to any of you. I really appreciate the work you do on this game.

19 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 25, 20146 votes

I respect the civil manner and legitimate curiosity here, good on you good sir.

And speaking of curiosity (off-topic sorry) what did you work on with Atari? I've always fancied going into game dev myself so I'm always curious on anything like this. =)

HexalyteFeb 25, 20144 votes

I worked with a lot of teams, such as the website, community forums, the Roller Coaster Tycoon section, in the graphics department and the design sections.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 25, 20142 votes

What skills did you have on your resume when they hired you? Did you have a major in game design or 3d modeling? If I'm getting too nosy I apologize!

HexalyteFeb 26, 20141 votes

Computer science, but I also wrote about my experience with 3D modelling, website design. graphics design and such.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 26, 20141 votes

Awesome, thank you very much for humoring me, and I hope you get some juicy answers! =)

COMMINGFeb 26, 20141 votes

dude i loved roller coaster tycoon! wish i had a background that had to do with video games. I am just good at league lol

Kitch26Feb 26, 20144 votes

So I'm not a riot guy (obviously), but as a PBE member, I can honestly say that theres actually a decent bit of other work happening in the wings aside from the Vel'Koz (or at least there has been recently).

I'm not sure I would call it a decrease in new content that we've seen though. Since the Siv/Nasus patch, we've gotten multiple things content wise.

Snowdown
Heartseaker Ashe
Bouqet ward
Xerath Rework
Vel'Koz annoucement and PBE debut
Yasou
Lunar Revel skins, icons
Hexakill
One-for-all (this was after that patch right? my memory's a little fuzzy on this one)
Heimer Re-work announced and upcoming PBE debut
Scorched earth Renekton
Skarner re-work
February Bundles (albeit rather underwhelming)
Snowstorm Sivir

and most of that is since December. This is just my take on that third question, though.

AbiwonKenabiFeb 26, 20141 votes

Yeah it's not like nothing has happened. But it would be nice for a really huge exciting event (a la Freljord or Shadow Isles) to happen. Hopefully they can start cranking out even more VUs since they seem to have caught back up from their winter break :)

ShinjusukeFeb 25, 20143 votes

I might be able to shed light on your second question.

The actual drawing, as in pencil-to-paper, may only take so many hours, but there is so much more that goes into producing a good image, let alone a strong image that personifies a character and brings it to life.

Hell, I could see it taking 2 weeks to conceptualize the artistic direction they want for the splash arts and it not even touching the paper yet. Then there's the drafting, the sketched-then-trashed concepts, coloration, focal points, checking with the rest of the art team, and so on.

Art is work. They have to make an image the is the champion, that gives the champion life and direction and a powerful message.

If you're not convinced I could give you an example of what the process for one of their splashes might look like, but rest assured, I'm willing to bet it's taken 2 weeks or more for splash arts for a long time now.

HexalyteFeb 25, 20141 votes

This may very well be right, but the Rioter said that the reason they couldn't upload speed art videos anymore [like they used to, of them going from scratch in Photoshop] was because the actual Photoshop stage took 2 weeks. I seem to remember it was because they always needed feedback and touch-ups, but what you raised also answers some questions.

MasterofSFLFeb 25, 20142 votes

Find the Rioter and the Quote first.

The change probably has more to do with Thematic and Story than it does anything else. Recently we have seen a large amount of "leaks" in our Splash art and I would have to assume there is a lot of touch ups, quality control and various other details that go into the Splash arts we have no. Compare to the First year of League's existence, the Splash art then and now is incomparable. The Second year isn't nearly as good as today's either.

IMTOOJUICYFeb 26, 20142 votes

From what I recall, Riot said that multiple artists work on the splash arts now, and it's difficult to tie all their work together into one neat little speed run video. Maybe the video would be more feasible if Riot forced all the artists to work at the same workstation at all times. Elbow space be damned.

MXXIVFeb 25, 20142 votes

I'm looking forward to the time, when local posters learn what is the post title used for.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 25, 20141 votes

hey hey hey, found (well, S@20/moobeat found) a post by Meddler on the oceanic servers that provides a scattering of vague detials on other champ reworks that may partially answer your first question.

HexalyteFeb 25, 20141 votes

That post is exactly what raised my question. Because in that post, all that was really said is, Sion is being worked on and nobody else seems to be.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 25, 20141 votes

Fair point, but it at least hints as to who and what they are looking at. I agree to a point with the majority that Riot's process can be more transparent on subject matter like this, but at least there is something. :)

Kiwi SurpriseFeb 26, 20141 votes

I believe they have recently come out with both Sion, Urgot and Heimerdinger and others that are currently undergoing a remake. It appears Riot goes for around 2 or 3 with each patch or update.

HexalyteFeb 26, 20141 votes

It's good to see that now they have posted the Heimer VU, but I haven't seen confirmation that Urgot is currently being worked on. I've saw back in November Meddler was tossing around ideas.

Knight DevoutFeb 28, 20141 votes

Good posts, you asked a lot of things I also was wondering about but with much more class I could possibly muster :P

I'd also add that , at least from what I know, there was a huge time sink in 2 rework being canceled or passed hands.

Rengar reworks first iteration was made by Scarizard and was (no offense, no hate, just my POV) a bit messy . I remember raging over EuW boards because it was really hard to find a coherent pattern, it was just a straight nerf to his assassination. Then riot decided to nerf him a little for the time being and pass the rework from Scarizard to RiotScruffy, which changed 90% of what was done . FYI, in Scarizard iteration of Rengar, he had an ultimate that lasted really longer than live , with a really shorter cooldown, that didn't grant stealth. Sure, Rengar couldn't assassinate, but he was a glorified 4000 range pink ward with a 70% uptime. IDK how teams were supposed to counter that, you were to assume that if the enemy had a Rengar you couldn't move unseen in lategame.

Then there was Jayce's mini Rework. In this case Xypherous did a really interesting job in trying to shift Jayce power into a more even bruiser style, and, altough the choices he made were debatable, I saw a lot of potential there as a Jayce player. But the project was totally scrapped because apparently some other rioters (i bet on Morello) thought the changes were unneeded and too sudden. As a commenter on surrender at 20 said