Hard to come up with a title for this one...

The reason it's hard to come up with a title is because I actually wanted to say "thank you riot". but the community is so toxic, that any post titled "Thanks Rito" is immediately assumed to be a flame post. No matter what you try to put, if it's actually something positive, it comes off as snarky and sarcastic. That part is sad. I imagine all the forum mods as butters from the south part episode “safe space” tweaking out and losing their minds trying to sort through all the OVERWHELMING negativity. But I’m not here to complain about “better nerf Irelia” or “I don’t always get everything the exact way that I want in a team game, and I’m obviously more important than everyone else.” I just wanted to throw a sincere thanks out to Riot games, and their employees. For what? Let me hit a few points….

1. This game is ACTUALLY free to play. There are so many “pay to win” games out there, that LoL really does stand out. The people who do spend money on the game (myself included) spent it AFTER we had played the game, and had decided, “I like this game enough, that I will pay to get a cool looking skin, because I like this game, and know I am going to continue playing this game enough to enjoy the alternate appearance.” That right there SAYS SOMETHING. Yeah, I know riot made a butt load of cash last year, but did they do that by people paying up front hoping the game was good? No. How about subscription fees, where you have to keep paying if you want to keep playing? No again? Then how on earth did they make that much? People liked the game enough, they CHOSE to spend that money on it, even though they didn’t have to, to play.
2. The game itself is impressive. The sheer scale of it is daunting. a. There are over 125 champions. Not only that, but while people like to complain about champs being “OP” and needing Nerfed, every champion is within a few points of a 50% win rate, which actually tells you that this game is actually impressively balanced given it’s scale. b. The game is a continuous evolution OVER 6+ YEARS. Where were you 6 years ago? That’s 3-4 operating systems ago. I have played since season 1, and the game has ALWAYS been fun, whenever I played, challenging and sometimes frustrating, yes, but any good game should be. A truly impressive feat. c. The size of the game itself. People don’t realize how big 12 gigs is… if all of the code for League was typed out in ones and zeroes, single spaced, 12 times new roman, printed on one side, standard margins, on standard copy paper, then was stacked vertically (not end to end, back to face, just like you normally stack paper) the stack would be over SEVEN THOUSAND FEET TALL. OVER HALF THE HEIGHT OF MT RAINIER! d. While people joke about “spaghetti code” this game runs on multiple operating systems, looks fantastic on high end machines, and is playable on toasters. Not only that, but the network coding on LoL is amazingly efficient. Honestly, if your connection is STABLE dial up, the game is still playable in a world of high speed streaming, and high bandwidth.
3. Riot’s staff is awesome. They may be overworked, and take a bit to respond, but they are always kind, and when you are dealing with a player base the size of league, there will always be tons of attention needed by the public. And they always do their best to make it fun, even in bad times, if you are willing to be cool headed, they will probably leave you with a smile.
4. Riot’s support of the community. As a cosplayer, it always saddens me when I see companies strangling out their fandom for “copyright infringement” on their fan art or damage to their “intellectual property.” Riot has always been amazingly supportive of the community, even featuring fan artists, and by the way, the cosplayers in the season opening video did not go unnoticed, I got so excited I yelled into the other room so I could show my girlfriend (also a player and cosplayer) and replayed it for her. Keep it up, and we as a community will keep impressing, I promise.

Seriously though, most people have no concept of what you guys do, or the work that goes into it, so I’d like to extend the thanks that they are too narrow sighted to see you deserve. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] TL;DR: Much love Rito