About the Harrowing

Riotcalisker·11/2/2015, 8:51:25 PM·100 votes·87,686 views

Hey everyone!

Some of you have questions around the Harrowing this year, and we wanted to give you a quick update:

In October, we shared that the Harrowing (and other seasonal events) are changing. You can check out the PBE Boards post here (sorry we didn’t post it to the main Boards as well, our bad).

In short: We’re releasing Legacy skins from past Harrowing events later this week. Zombie / Slayer skins are also rolling out soon, so get those chainsaws ready. We wanted to get you in the mood with a dark and terrifying tale of the unliving, “Shadow and Fortune: A Harrowing Story,” as well as updated biographies for some of our Shadow Isles champions.

And if you’re wondering about Snowdown, we have some great stuff in our bag of goodies that’ll look a little different from what you’ve previously seen. So hold on for info on that, we’ll share more once we have all the details sorted out.

346 Comments

Pyro11/2/2015, 8:57:33 PM480 votes

I'd just like you to know that we're unhappy about this turn of events and would prefer if you delivered them properly next year. It doesn't have to be a full-blown lore event like the Bilgewater one - let's instead give some love to other locations - but it needs to be annual, a piece in the calendar that marks at the very least the reappearance of some of the legacy skins. Some people waited for them and saved up or purchased RP, because you gave them no indication to not do it.

I mean, this year Pool Party and PROJECT were better events with all the minions and animations, and those are a complete gimmick, not deeply imbued within the lore.

Harrowing and Snowdown need to be full events because they're tied to locations (Shadow Isles/Freljord) and maps (Twisted Treeline/Howling Abyss) - and, what's even more important, real-life holidays. Yes, Harrowing is not Halloween, and Halloween is not celebrated by a vast majority of LoL players, but for some people it's really nice when they get a time off, sit down, play a bit more, and enjoy their holidays in their game. What a "minimum plan" for holiday events should be is:

Reopening of the Legacy Vault (at least partially, and informing in advance what will be on sale this year)
At least one new skin (even if it's in a different mood, like the Slayer ones... oh and those should have been called Survivor)
Possibly: new ward skin
Summoner icon (purchasable for anniversaries - but lore event icons have to be purchasable with IP or grindable)
Can be the return of the event's old icon if the old one was not supposed to be limited
Something small but tangible happening to the lore location
Example, this year's Harrowing: a great lore development with character updates and story presenting the upcoming champion Illaoi
Alternatives: just a small update, this year the lore quota for Harrowing would have been met with just the story
More than we could ask for: new champion from the location or a rework to an existing one
Some kind of interaction with the location-specific map
Example: bonus IP, grindable summoner icon, featured game mode (not necessarily a new one)
Just give people a reason to play it for once, right now SR has a ranked ladder and rewards, and the other maps have nothing
Some kind of indicator on Summoner's Rift, so that a regular player knows the event is happening.
Doesn't have to be changes to minions - you can go back to the good old days and replace the item icons and/or item names (Frozen Brain and Eggnog Health Potion, anyone?)
Even the smallest changes will be appreciated. For Easter event literal easter eggs to find on the map, don't have to be interactive, and boom we're done, nothing more needed.
Minion changes would be great tho. For Harrowing this could be spooky monster changes. For Lunar Revel fireworks on kill animations, or making the Dragon a Chinese dragon.
Winter SR - I'm 99% sure you guys are preparing Winter SR for this year. That can't happen at the cost of Harrowing completely, just revert to minimum plan if needed. And if you can't do even that - communicate.
Free event-themed ward skins for the duration of the event are fine too. Just something, one thing.

Bind Crystal Scar to Shurima and you have the next yearly lore-map-holiday event to open the sales (Guardian of the Sands and/or Pool Party). Harrowing and Snowdown are close to each other, but placing the Shurima event in the summer should spread out the workload. Oh and with Targon, I see that the new Sightstone upgrade is called "Eye of the Equinox". When is the spring equinox? Easter. So make a Targon's-based map/gamemode, and you have your next yearly lore-map-holiday event. If you're worried about other maps getting too little attention to keep them alive, man up and make some holiday-only maps. Hell, the lack of incentive to play anything else than SR (no rewards for being good at any other game mode) prompts me to say that you could make Twisted Treeline and reworked Crystal Scar holiday-specific maps (keeping them for custom games), and it would work out for the better.

You know what annual real-life inspired holiday event is not bound to lore location yet? Lunar Revel. You guys dish out great skins each year, so please consider tieing this event to Ionia, and we'd have four annual events everyone could look out for.

If you want to decouple the extra contents of the event - like, deliver the lore later, or launch some update to the map in a different timeframe - it's okay to do so. But the minimum plan should be reenabling the content from the previous years in the expected timeframe - and you're awfully late with that this year. If you still think Harrowing should occur at a different time of the year, you should have at least said it out loud: "Harrowing is now going to be unexpected. Don't expect it by Halloween" and broadcast that message in the client, like the sales schedules. Having it a week late is sloppy, it's as if Snowdown was moved to February. I know you guys love innovation but holidays don't exist for innovation. They exist for tradition. It would be nice for a game with such a long lifespan to have a tradition. Keep innovating for the big events - we loved Bilgewater, we can't wait for Targon - but the traditions need to have a minimum plan.

Hellioning11/2/2015, 9:18:37 PM107 votes

As far as I can tell, all removing The Harrowing from Halloween is is just giving you guys an excuse to release skins later.

I'm not in a 'spooky mood' anymore. I'm not going to read a piece of lore I've already read twice over to get into a spooky mood.

At this point, I'm thinking of turkeys. Not pumpkins.

PUMPZILLA11/2/2015, 10:28:26 PM60 votes

I'm pretty sure people like to buy Harrowing skins for ~~Halloween~~ "Annual Harrowing Acknowledgement." Deciding to just not release these things before the actual IRL annual event we all know they're made in recognition of is missing the entire point. Everyone knows those skins don't have to be limited release, there's absolutely nothing stopping you guys from letting people give you their money for these at any time of the year, you just choose not to because "reasons." This time you missed the timeframe for those "reasons," so how is buying spooky skins in November any different than buying them in February or July, not to mention where's the motivation to buy them at all now that Halloween's already passed? Why even do the Harrowing thing in October if not to acknowledge the fact that it's really just Riot's Halloween event? The events don't have to be spectacular or anything, just throw some bats and pumpkins and crap in October so we can all get in the mood at the proper time instead of scratching our heads wondering what the point even is. That Shadow and Fortune thing is neat for a story, but you guys don't even really give us any indication it's supposed to be a big deal for us at all, it's just a little rectangle box with a link in our client to a wall of text saying "scary ghost things are happening somewhere... not here, though." There aren't any spooky black fogs in our games, no actual acknowledgement of anything, actually. If the changes to your seasonal events are going to be this disjointed, why are you even trying? What's the point of it at all? Who benefits from this? You know the deadlines your home expects, October 31st, November 26th, December 25th, January 1st, February 14th, etc. etc. People are invested the weeks before, not the weeks after.

tl;dr Ya blew it. Good thing is you set the bar so low for ~~Christmas~~ "Annual Snow Festival" you can't possibly disappoint anyone quite as much! :]

TerraRising11/2/2015, 9:07:50 PM57 votes

If this is going to be the effect of decoupling Riot's creative departments from the calendar, this is already a failure.

I seriously thought Riot Games had the best people in the business who were on top of their game. This nonsense is really inexcusable. Halloween has been celebrated on the same day since forever, yet you guys couldn't be bothered to get this stuff ready before then?

But whatever. This new policy benefits everyone except the players, but who cares about them...

Mcprowlington11/2/2015, 8:56:37 PM52 votes

sorry we didn’t post it to the main Boards as well, our bad

That's only one small facet of the overall lack of clarity here.

We’re releasing Legacy skins from past Harrowing events later this week

but thanks, glad to have some form of time frame, finally

Vacus11/2/2015, 9:32:58 PM52 votes

Here is my list of things Riot has done wrong with this Harrowing event and communcation related to it.

Note that I don't actually mind that it's a different theme, and I don't actually mind not having Harrowing content.

Skins take a while to make. You have known for a significant length of time that there would be no traditional Harrowing skins this year. That means that you have known, in general, that events and holidays will be done differently, for at least a few months. I know you don't want to have a release schedule and you don't want to talk about upcoming content, but we were not informed early enough. Not even close. As a result of the information being released so close to the event, it felt much more like the event was cancelled than that there has been a change.
The actual new decision about decoupling events from calenders is absurd. An event that has no relation to a real-world event can be done whenever. The Harrowing loses a massive amount of its impact if it is not done at Halloween. Similarly, Snowdown anytime other than the winter holiday season would be vapid and uninteresting. Saying that you can push out these events any time and it will be just as good is not something that anyone will ever believe. Acting like it's an improvement is insulting.
The failure to post this in a place where you could receive public feedback until now. Halloween is over. You missed your chance entirely. 100% complete communication failure, which there is no excuse for.

There's probably more, but this is off the top of my head.

AMYS GRAVE11/2/2015, 11:44:03 PM48 votes

The Harrowing is halloween, snowdown is around christmas, and urf is around april fools. If you try to do these events at other times they lose their seasonal impact and cheapen the traditions.

I don't think you understand why we enjoy these things.

Milady Snowdrop11/3/2015, 8:08:20 AM34 votes

I'd like to contribute to this dispute from a european point of view. I can imagine that my fellow american players are very upset that there was no Halloween mood in the game because of tradition, really valid arguments were already made in this thread and I completely agree. But there is more to that, imo. Riot may argue "well, not EVERYONE celebrates Halloween". That's correct, in my country, by tradition, we do not celebrate Halloween, there is no trick or treat, no Halloween House decorations or else you can see in American Movies. You may spot one pumkin here and there, or some homemade Halloween Sweets, and maybe some Halloween Parties in the big cities, but generally that's it. So I experience Halloween through games. I love Halloween a lot, it is one of my favourite holidays, so I really really enjoy experiencing this awesome holiday through games, and mainly through LOL because I do not have a lot of time for other games. "Depriving" me of the Halloween mood through LOL for me is a lot as if you'd decided that this year there is no Halloween for me. What I had left was the chocolate spiders I made for family and friends and some random Halloween Movie in TV. Sure, Riot doesn't owe me anything, and they are not responsable for me not having had a Halloween experience like the last years, but I think it is worth noting that for some people around the world LOL contributes a lot to making us experience an awesome holiday event.

Prince of Corgis11/3/2015, 1:28:37 AM31 votes

I've noticed that the most the Riot employees are suggesting at to the players on The Harrowing event is mainly to just go read the "Shadow and Fortune: A Harrowing Story." Yes I've read it, but what about it? It was a fascinating read to myself, but why are you point to go read it to the players when they ask a question on the subject? Seriously, I would like a top ranking Riot employee to explain why there is such a lack of conversation between player and corporate on a SIMPLE video game event.

If I asked a question on LCS I bet I would get a reply back in a heart beat, but with The Harrowing I've seen like five riot employees trying to say something and three of which have no clue what is going on either!? I know you're a big company now, but seriously that is an absurd amount of miscommunication on your part. If you have a lack of communication at the work place for such events like these I fear what the winter event will be like with this amount of miscommunication. The lack of communication at the corporate level transfers over to the lack of communication at the player level, and half of your players have never even talked to you face to face I bet.

Going forward I fear that the game will start to decline in productivity, and even management. Back when I first started playing in 2010 there were so many great things about League of Legends and I even invited my friends to play it, which they still play to this day!! There wasn't the worry of Lore, or story board but it was a game that was still in the making. I love the fact that the Lore has been gradually building since that time, but still I didn't play because you had the best writers or the best story, but I played because you cared for the players!! I remember when you use to give out free RP if you felt like you harmed the players game play or something went amiss. That was how I bought my first Malzahar skin, with the RP you gave me because of a bad patch. I was so over come with gratitude that you even cared about your players; but this last month I felt like you don't care about your players, and that's sad. There was so much focus on Worlds that I felt left out from the game because you didn't even bother explaining in detail what you're going to do with The Harrowing event going forward, but dodge the questions players are asking. I spectate that the main reason you even made The Harrowing is because of Halloween. Ha"rr"owing....Ha'll"oween...not much of a difference in letters between the two.

All your players want to know is what's going on. If you don't have details yet enough to explain what's going on for the events going forward you should probably hold off until you can create the details because as of right now to myself I can tell that you literally have nothing actually planned on how you're going about these events since you keep repeating yourselves. "look a little different from what you’ve previously seen" is all I have seen, and all that indicates is that this was a last minute decision made probably a month ago or so, and lets face it Worlds distracted you so much so that you didn't bother working on the details. I apologize if I hurt feelings over this post, but sometimes the truth hurts. What I have said is a double edged sword and I got cut posting this because it hurts to even feel like I have to say this to a company such as yours.

ElfrahamLincoln11/2/2015, 10:13:29 PM30 votes

Too little too late. Halloween is over Riot, in case you haven't noticed. Nobody is going to care about spooky skins until next year.

Penguin l0l11/2/2015, 10:30:43 PM28 votes

I won't be buying any of these skins because of how poorly Riot has handled this. Why does Riot think of everything as a fun little project? All this does is make it to where they have no time constraints and can take as much time as they want, rather than working on a deadline. It's like an accounting company that sends an e-mail to all its clients saying "We will no longer send you your profit/loss charts once a quarter, we'll do it whenever we feel like so we can make it with more information and useless data that you probably didn't want anyways!" People expect halloween skins on halloween and christmas skins on christmas. It's the only reason I would even consider buying them.

May be a poor analogy, but this just feels like Riot using lore as an excuse to remove time restraints. Riot will read this and say "This idiot thinks he knows more than me? A Riot employee?! Off with his head!"

Blizzard/Valve/Any game company > Riot.

Raiden27d11/3/2015, 7:33:21 AM28 votes

Get us in the mood for Halloween by missing Halloween and hoping a story would hold us over? Right, scum bag Riot. All my other favorite games held events for Halloween!! Not just bullshit skin releases either, map make overs, Halloween themes, spooky and creepily magnificent imagery. And what does League do, arguably the most able and resourceful of any game developers I enjoy games from currently? They give me an excuse, a lukewarm one at that. As if anything can excuse this behavior that doing next to nothing for Holiday events has become the norm. I miss the old devs that made this game special, now you've changed for the worse. It's the little things that make the biggest difference and you've lost sight of that.

Spangy11/2/2015, 10:58:53 PM26 votes

I guess I'm okay with you guys wanting to be able to tell Harrowing stories whenever you please, but can you guys at least add some pumpkins to the rift and maybe release a "Definitely Not" skin or some other skin of a champion in a costume every year for Halloween? Halloween is my favourite holiday of the year, and this year I unfortunately had nothing to do on the 31st so I just played League (which I was happy with), but it just felt so stale because there was no Halloween content this year. I mean, sure, I had my Ghost ward skin on and it felt kinda nice, but this Halloween just felt so empty because there was literally nothing. I read the updated champion lores, which were all pretty interesting, but when it's all said and done, I felt really disappointed this year. Hoping next year yields better results.

bunny110211/2/2015, 10:45:44 PM26 votes

Will snowdown be occurring in January just "because you want to try something a bit different this year"?

TheRaiOh11/3/2015, 3:35:08 AM23 votes

I don't normally jump on hate trains, especially when a company does seem to usually be trying to please the players. But in this case, separating the holidays they represent and these events is just not a good idea. A large reason people enjoy that sort of thing is because they coincide with a real life holiday, such as Halloween or Christmas. Separating just so you don't have to be on a deadline for content is the kind of self focused behavior that can really hurt the enjoyment of your players. Please keep the Christmas event releasing on the regular time, and don't mess up the Halloween one again.

PupperBarksAlot11/3/2015, 4:16:51 AM22 votes

{quoted}

And if you’re wondering about Snowdown, we have some great stuff in our bag of goodies that’ll look a little different from what you’ve previously seen. So hold on for info on that, we’ll share more once we have all the details sorted out.

Please tell me that Snowdown will happen in December Prior to December 25th and not in January after the new year. Please tell me I am not going to buy a Santa skin 3 weeks after Christmas.

EatMyUdyr11/3/2015, 2:13:27 AM20 votes

Well, we're all pretty upset but at least you told us. 2 days after Halloween. Ahem.

Euijin Song11/2/2015, 9:59:46 PM19 votes

yeah idc anymore, looking forward to snowdown now, we can skip the harrowing

Paravani11/3/2015, 8:11:42 PM18 votes

This has, sadly, been going on for a long time and this is just more failure than ever before. Seasonal events have gone from the highlight of LoL's year, something I personally looked forward to for months... to an expected failure every time. Halloween has always been The Harrowing, and that's ALL that needs to be done to keep it international. The winter holiday has always been Snowdown, equivalent to everything from Christmas to Yule but with a distinctly Christmasey feel because LoL is an American game and in America, Christmas is the most celebrated winter holiday. As long as it's Snowdown and not Christmas, there's no problem.

Over the years we've gone from a wide array of costumed, horror-themed skins for Halloween to a paltry 2 or 3 vaguely dark skins that could have been released any time of the year. When Harrowing was good, it was good because Riot's gift to the community was a burst of themed content. Everyone wondered what the Harrowing skins were going to be. You knew what lines to think along because the theme was set. Was somebody going to be turned into a mummy? Maybe there will be a set of vampire skins! What about a witch, maybe somebody will be a witch! Will jack-o-lanterns be involved? Black cats? Zombies? How many skins will there be... they did 6 last year, so what 6 champs do you think deserve a Harrowing skin the most? These are the kinds of things we said to each other, while anticipating The Harrowing. I genuinely think players don't ask each other these things anymore. The magic is gone.

Over the years we've gone from holiday skins themed on presents, St. Nick and candy to winter gear and snowball fights. An event that used to feel like the one period in the LoL year when you could imagine champs being kind to each other and getting together to have fun, exchange presents, and share hot cocoa has become just another set of skins featuring champs in winter gear. Frankly, some skins like that should be released in the winter anyway because it's such a generic concept. Even if they were incorporated into the special seasonal event, they shouldn't be the entirety of it.

Harrowing and Snowdown both shrunk to much smaller events in 2012, and both have released skins that are far less themed in the years since. I really feel bad for players who have joined after then, as they simply do not know what The Harrowing and Snowdown used to be like. And now, Rito, you tell us that "Seasonal events are changing." No kidding? Kinda implies they haven't been changing already for years. Apparently the change now is.... you're not gonna get the content ready on time for a big awesome explosion of themed goodness. You're just gonna release bits and pieces when they come out of the shop. What do you do for your fans these days, Rito? Seriously, though. I look at something like SMITE and what do I see? Weekends where first-win bonuses are their equivalent to RP, while all Halloween skins are half off. Now that's appreciation! Riot what do you offer your fans, anymore, really? An icon here and there, right? You can't even be bothered to do a real seasonal event for us anymore because you dump too many resources into esports. How does loyalty to LoL reward the average player who doesn't care much about the pro scene? Nothing substantial. All year long my client flashes pictures of acne-ridden pro LoL players trying to look tough for a photo shoot and when the holidays come around nothing changes.

Lucariolu11/2/2015, 9:40:43 PM18 votes

remember what happened when jack went to christmas town? this is what you're doing with harrowing and possibly snowdown now ):

PupperBarksAlot11/3/2015, 4:21:09 AM17 votes

{quoted}

sure you have some great ideas. but let me make it clear that you're not speaking for everyone. I mean who do you think you are telling riot, "we're not satisfied and you should do what you always do the same way". I'm sorry but no. if riot wants to experiment with the harrowing in a different way then before then by all means. I'm down. I'm sorry people went out and bought RP for the legacy skins and couldn't wait any longer cause it didn't fall on Halloween, that's their fault. this game has such a wide audience and tries to keep things fresh and doing new things is what makes people love it more. how do you know that this harrowing won't top every other harrowing? honestly you don't. and your blatant lack of respect and questioning as to why things aren't the way they are show are rude you are.

We are the consumers. And as always consumers vote with their dollars. You are very much confusing people telling publishers to make changes to the game, nerfs, buffs making it hard and making it easier. We are referring to an annual event that typically takes place well ... umm annually.

And if you think that this was all "planned" as in a group of riot employees decided months ago to do this. Well I I have some ocean front property in Arizona for you. As I have said in other posts. Riot is a company. A company's prime directive is to make money. They don't pass on revenue they don't leave money laying on the table, Unless you are a charity or the center of a feel good story (I don't see the letters U R or F in your name) then you are there to pay the executive salaries, developer salaries, customer service, LCS events, world events, economists, the list goes on and on and on. Holiday events are prime for revenue growth and IMO something happened internally that caused this to happen. But that is neither here nor there.

Yes a Halloween event or Harrowing event is expected as it has been since inception. Had this been a "planned strategic" goal to break up The Harrowing and Halloween they would have announced it PRIOR to todays announcement. They would not have passed the opportunity of FREE MONEY by not allowing previous legacy skins to be available in the store. If in any event they would have/should have done it strictly for PR purposes.

And don't forget it's that WIDE audience that keeps this game pumping. It is that WIDE audience that pays REAL LIFE CASH for skins. That same REAL LIFE CASH the allows you to post on the board. That WIDE AUDIENCE that plays the games through all the rule changes and all of the buffing, nerfing and item changes season after season. Forgetting about or even worse not communicating the dissolution of what they have reinforced as a traditional annual event well that is where the animosity is coming from.

And remember that the vast majority of the people complaining about the non existence of Halloween 2015 or the Harrowing v5.x are people who are/were willing, ready and wanting to spend $$$ (remember the companies primary goal is to make $$$)

Now to address your points: I'm sorry people went out and bought RP for the legacy skins and couldn't wait any longer cause it didn't fall on Halloween, that's their fault

If you are referring to "their" to the as the people that bought RP for the Halloween event, No it is NOT their fault as they purchased RP in anticipation for an event that has been held annually and traditionally. Riot should have made it public that there was going to be a change. You are possibly insinuating that Riot was keeping quiet about the lack of a Halloween event and split of Halloween & the Harrowing so the fan base would as in years past and holiday past load up on RP.

If you are referring to "their" as Riot, well then you are on point. The lack of communication is where the major disconnect was.

_ if riot wants to experiment with the harrowing in a different way then before_

Riot has already said Halloween and The Harrowing are 2 (two) different events. The Harrowing is not tied to Halloween ... "The Harrowing can happen any time of the year!". By this method of thought they forgot about the Halloween holiday. There are too many posts about this to elaborate.

_ how do you know that this harrowing won't top every other harrowing? honestly you don't_

Any Harrowing event will not make up for a lost Halloween event. That is not saying that it won't be good, great or bad, but it is not a Halloween event. And everyone knows that. The lost revenue from not having a Halloween event is well lost. That is not saying they won't make some money because they will, but not as much.

your blatant lack of respect and questioning as to why things aren't the way they are show are rude you are.

Incorrect Riot's lack of communication is where the lack of respect is. This has caused all the strife.

I have spent too much time on this..

Is Riot a bad company because of this? NO they are not. But it was handled incorrectly for what ever reason.

**Do I think a game developer/publisher should jump at every players command? **No I do not there have been too many good games ruined because they bent to the consumers will and on the other side of the scale there have been good games that bit the dust because they thought they were Frank Sinatra (referring to "I Did It My Way"). But there is a happy medium and from what I have seen Riot has done a good job in that area.

And if anyone takes anything from this .. take this .. URF is NOT Dead ... he is kicking it on a Paradise Island with Elvis & TuPac!

Oh and one more thing ... the point of everyone being $$$ to Riot. Paying customers far outweigh the non paying customers. That is in the business model. I know multiple people with smurf accounts that all have skins ... and skins = $$$ to Riot

Stellafreyja11/3/2015, 12:19:40 AM16 votes

Great idea having this in the Misc. boards. It's not like a lot of people are going to miss this thread at all.

Riot. I. Don't. Care. There were no new icons, no new gamemodes, no new anything besides the new Jinx, Pantheon, and Nunu skins. If your Harrowing event is literally just a skins sale (since legacy skins are returning), then that is the shittiest event ever. I don't want spooky scary skins and lore AFTER Halloween. I want them BEFORE. Or even DURING. There was literally no reason you guys couldn't have released the new skins before Halloween. None. This was my first Harrowing and you guys ruined it. I was really looking forward to Bewitching Nidalee, but now I don't want it at all. Any "event" you try to do this week is far too late. The atmosphere is dead.

Poor Bioluminescence and KateyKhaos had to run damage control for you guys. They're the real MVPs. I've worked QA before and weekends always drove me insane. Never any updates on any pressing issues that needed to be resolved. Always waiting until Monday to hear literally anything. And yet, here we are, on Monday and you guys haven't really done anything.

I better be fucking blown away by Snowdown (also my first obviously). You guys really shot yourselves in the foot with the Harrowing. You say you have "some great stuff in our bag of goodies" and now you've set yourselves up for very high expectations come December. You better deliver.

TheLeviathan77711/2/2015, 11:07:41 PM15 votes

Personally, i would like to see harrowing/ halloween skins more related to the holiday.. The zombie/slayer theme just doesnt fit at all.. Ideas like spooky bard , or the old harrowing skins like mundo mundo, or pumpkin head fiddlr, headless hecarim.. Thats what the community expects for halloween. Either spooky halloween or goofy costumes, and this years skins just ruin it.. Unless they are tied to a unique game mode or some in game accomplishments .. Its just flat out disappointing

Lumii11/3/2015, 6:34:49 AM14 votes

Riot, you **failed **to communicate with your players. That needs more then a poorly written half-ass board post that feels like it was just thrown together last second because someone finally decided to pay attention to your player base.

Suicidal Support11/3/2015, 5:43:10 AM14 votes

at the end of the day, i don't think anyone cares if the harrowing and halloween are separate events

the problem is that you didn't do anything to celebrate halloween

the harrowing was your halloween gimmick, now you have no gimmick, everyone is disappointed

PickleBabah11/3/2015, 5:16:50 AM13 votes

With all due respect, if I may ask, was the overlap of Worlds and the Harrowing foreseen and deemed to not be worth moving a week or even a day? In my opinion, the Harrowing (in-game event) is nothing but a follow up to Halloween (real-life holiday). What I mean by this is that it's supposed to add to the (however sp00py) festivity of that general time frame. If anything, make the Harrowing before Halloween so that it still at least builds up to the vibe. Right now we have content without its flair, people losing interest, people who are just upset or annoyed, and the idea that there's once again miscommunication and lack of transparency.

Yes, Harrowing can happen any time, but why make it so? --(and by can happen I meant happen but without the flair that is due). Worlds is a foreseeable and controllable event that could have been moved even a day or two if planned right correctly. So I ask again: was the overlap due to oversight, or was it simply the fact that they thought it didn't matter?

Orisi11/2/2015, 9:28:16 PM13 votes

Here's the issue with everything that's happened - the chain of events;

Divorce the real world event Halloween from The Harrowing - a lore-based event.
Design skins and or any other events this year around Halloween, not a lore-specific event (the slayer skins etc)
Delay these skins AFTER the event they're designed for, and cite the delay as being because they're tied to The Harrowing, the IN GAME EVENT YOU JUST SPLIT OFF FROM.

All of this while there is no clear and consistent line of planning that has been openly and honestly discussed from the outset. If you'd chosen to do one or the other and flat out explained it; Either there would be a harrowing event and nothing for Halloween, or just a harrowing story and HALLOWEEN content, that would've gone down fine. Instead it's just been everywhere.

Urgonnalearn2day11/3/2015, 3:15:33 PM12 votes

Poorly done Riot. My fiance is a sweet extremely positive casual player and she was like "aren't these scary skins supposed to be out already? It's not even Halloween anymore. "

º LB º11/3/2015, 9:34:01 PM11 votes

i LOVE the Harrowing :D i have made it a part of my Halloween since i discovered league ^.^ this year things got a bit messy with the worlds and stuff and that's okay, but can you maybe organize it a bit better for next year so that we could have the Harrowing happen during Halloween please? :3

Havenscythe11/3/2015, 7:48:54 PM10 votes

This is some low effort bullshit to cover up for you guy's fuck up. If you're going to lie and attempt to shift blame onto the community at least put in a little bit of effort.

Blainezy11/4/2015, 5:41:10 PM10 votes

November 4th, and it's still being pushed aside for Worlds sales and now Preseason items/posts... Such a disappointment. October has passed, doesn't even feel the same.

Chrispy Cream11/3/2015, 12:27:47 AM10 votes

Are people supposed to believe that worlds had nothing to do with delaying the harrowing ? Why would riot throw away what is essentially free advertising (by using the real life holidays for promotion) unless they knew they would make that revenue elsewhere ( worlds ) releasing the harrowing takes away from the worlds focus and drops hype around championship skins etc. It makes no sense for them to not release their events to coincide with the holidays.

Little Stick Man11/4/2015, 4:44:19 AM10 votes

well halloween is over the spirit is gone

Jack º11/2/2015, 8:57:29 PM9 votes

don't make snowdown pure lore based T~T do what u did with bilgewater event, interactive game-play and lore <3 that was one of the best events you have done! tho I LOVE the lores for this halloween, I want some interaction :P

DwarvenGiant11/2/2015, 8:57:25 PM9 votes

And if you’re wondering about Snowdown, we have some great stuff in our bag of goodies that’ll look a little different from what you’ve previously seen.

Lightly clears throat

What kind of, ermm- Goodies? :)

-_-

Seriously though, can you share whether or not we are talking about lore or what? :>

Arcade Poro Bot11/4/2015, 2:04:42 AM9 votes

Riot put all their time on the Worlds. They didn't think about the players who were waiting all year long to get those awesom elegacy skins and icons we've been waiting for.

Tycoon11/4/2015, 9:08:09 PM9 votes

As someone who truly loves the macabre season of Halloween, and the haunting stories that come along with it, i was totally psyched for the harrowing. As the days drug on i became enthralled with the idea of new dark and exciting skins. Each day became an agonizing wait just to see the skin reveals, and then they came. I'm not normally someone who looks down on the work that others do, being someone who does work in textures and design myself, but this time it was really a letdown. To be honest i didn't even get a Halloween vibe from them, hell they even had more of a Borderlands feel to them. Slightly dissatisfied, i simply convinced myself to wait for the harrowing and buy one of the classics instead, to make up for the lack of interesting skins this harrowing. And wait i did. Still am. It honestly wouldn't have been as bad of a wait if you put out some information on the date of the start, but no. On the DAY of Halloween i got on and when i saw NOTHING of the harrowing i went straight to the boards, looking for ANY INFORMATION. All i found was hundreds of others looking for the same info. Not one post was responded to or helped by riot.** NOT ONE**. Then you come and drop this crap. TWO DAYS AFTER HALLOWEEN. Not only was it unacceptably late, but it still DOESN'T EVEN HELP. Halloween is over riot. You missed well over half of your sales by waiting till the hype had subsided. I'm actually embarrassed to say i didn't even see the story as great either. Sure the story was, well actually it wasn't even that good. It seemed too happy an ending to me. The story line was surprisingly shallow, with champions barely getting any development (besides Lucian ), and nothing truly progressing. The mist will be back strong as ever, the town is still screwed, and the shadow isles ghouls were just brushed aside by some lady and her faith. C'mon, we want BATTLE, we want an interactive event, and most of all we want it during the season that we all are hyped for. Not in the middle of July, or whenever you plan on it being. So while im not happy with how this harrowing has been going, I do hope you take this as advice for the future. Live up to expectations, and go beyond them, not this sub par B.S. where a select audience is targeted over the majority of players (E-Sports vs Harrowing). I hope to see next years harrowing blow us away, and i appreciate the effort you guys put into this game, but please PLEASE, do something like the harrowing RIGHT.

With all due respect -Tycoon

Spuky11/3/2015, 5:32:40 AM8 votes

I'm sure that you have a lot of Fans of the lore and you do a good job of it. But the lore doesn't make the season for most of us. Halloween gets in the mood for the Harrowing event. You missed the ball Riot and these boards are proof.

I do appreciate you coming online to make a comment about the event but still we have no definite date.

KhaosWinds11/5/2015, 3:39:10 PM8 votes

Not really sure I'm liking the sick feeling and foul taste in my mouth that you guys just left me with.

The Harrowing has been tied to Halloween since it was introduced, so I'm not quite sure why it all of a sudden has nothing to do with it, you know, considering it has the same look and feel. Snowdown isn't going to have anything to do with Christmas approaching? That's fine I guess, as long as you don't wait until Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day.

Certain holidays are only celebrated by certain people, but you've already established these events to go along with said holidays, and your excuse is so you're not tied to specific dates, deadlines even? Glad to see you apparently can't spare enough people to work on all of this while Worlds is going on. You do realize that the majority of the player base is not in the pro scene, right? I mean I realize Worlds was pretty close to Halloween, but shouldn't you have enough "Rioters" by now to handle a bigger workload? From a business standpoint, this is just a small mistake. From a gamer's, this is a disappointment, and I'm not really sure you all care anymore.

I'll play your game, I may even go against my better judgement and get a few more skins if they amuse me enough, but that special feeling I had about League of Legends after my first dozen or so matches, and how you, Riot, were going about it... I think that's gone.

tl:dr - Ouch

Selfhood11/2/2015, 10:47:55 PM8 votes

I don't think "Our bad" covers for this matter that you guys thought it's less important and we are just going to post it on PBE. Not even 50% of the community owns a PBE account yet Riot decided not to give fuck??You guys make me sick.