Refer-a-Friend retires in thirty days

Riot·Jul 17, 2015·8 votes·341,678 views

Refer-a-Friend, a system built to make it easy and rewarding to bring your friends into League originally launched in 2010. Over the years, we updated Refer-a-Friend a few times to make prize tiers more achievable and reduce botting. Since relaunching RAF earlier this year we’ve been tracking how both new and referring players play with the feature and the results show it’s not helping players find new people to game with. In fact, we experimented with turning RAF off in some regions, and there was no discernible change in social behaviors. League’s social systems should make it easier and more rewarding to hit the Rift with friends, but RAF just doesn’t meet that bar anymore. Because of that, we’re retiring the program in thirty days.

Recent features like Party IP, friend discovery and Team Up and Pool Party helped players play with friends and unlock cool rewards while doing it. We plan on forging ahead, concepting, building, and supporting social systems and features that do all the above.

In the meantime, RAF remains fully operational, so you can still earn up to 5000 IP, as well as Grey Warwick and Medieval Twitch by referring five friends before September 5th. Once the program wraps, the two skins become limited edition, but may return as rewards for another social system somewhere down the line. High-volume referrers from legacy versions of RAF remain on our radar as well. We’re actively working with each individual to fulfill their rewards and won’t consider RAF genuinely wrapped until that work is complete.

RAF closes down on September 5th. We’ll hang around the comments to clear anything up!

666 Comments

Landocommand0Aug 6, 2015188 votes

RAF gets removed but graves... stopped his smoking habit. This is good.

Rew711Aug 6, 201540 votes

Now, if only MissFortune were to go to a harrowing party in a bunny costume.

sscarzAug 7, 201520 votes

Still waiting on French Maid Tryndamere

Thiswas10bucksAug 6, 2015131 votes

Graves stopped smoking but Nidalee still dancing on that pole

EspiritusantoAug 6, 201513 votes

I thought this literally yesterday Ahri

Thiswas10bucksAug 6, 20159 votes

Rito is killing me item 3070

Numbuh ZeroAug 6, 201555 votes

Has anyone heard Janna jokes?

CondemnFetishAug 7, 2015253 votes

yeah they all blow me away

Dr BearfightAug 7, 201523 votes

Logged in just to upvote this.

i hate tryhardsAug 7, 201566 votes

Heard? Yes. Seen? No. LeeSin

praulerAug 7, 20154 votes

who's dancing on a pole? Fizz

Farya O WolyoAug 6, 201515 votes

it breaks my heart </3 I really wanted that WW skin... ah

400 Silly PandasAug 6, 20154 votes

you can still get it. just refer friends before its the dead line.

Farya O WolyoAug 7, 20157 votes

I know, but everyone I know either irks off whenever I mention leagues, or they ll never play it lol, i am doomed. I am not gonna bother any random friends I have just for a skin anyway... that is just greedy

ScrizzBillingtonAug 7, 20158 votes

I've already referred 7 friends... 5 are level 30 and the other two are 11 and 26 all are active. tried to redeem my award and Riot said they already sent it out. I really hope I get it in my email soon... because if I open a ticket about it I doubt I'll get an answer in 30 days. Still don't have one from a long time ago

FRASHERI KRISAug 7, 20153 votes

can you tell me what you mean by refer friends?

Murlock RagerAug 7, 201559 votes

Can you tell me what you mean by friends? Are those the things you use to block skill shots?

Zombie GrueAug 6, 2015142 votes

A friend of mine worked as an IT support operator for a major company and would would refer his customers. He helped something like 12-25 people per shift and after about 2 months he had over 100 referrals. Rito denied him the rewards and claimed he must be botting to accumulate that much volume in such a short time. He got his boss to email, call AND snail mail Riot, but they still denied him. He never played League again in disgust.

one of those stories that won't happen again. RIP RAF.

thexfatalxcureAug 7, 201538 votes

Coming from Riot, this doesn't surprise me.

GANKMEHARDERDADAug 7, 201524 votes

It's sad but I believe you.

iamwhoimnotAug 7, 201517 votes

Well given the sheer volume of support requests Riot gets on a daily basis it's not surprising they would shrug off something like this... At least until now. It's a good thing they are removing RAF (your example exposes one way this system is flawed). Hopefully Riot will get some better system in place and your buddy will get the rewards he rightly deserves. :)

HeátAug 7, 20158 votes

Hitler runs rito confirmed

DeadJokrAug 6, 201562 votes

Too many people are already playing this so its hard to find people to referral Amumu

Thetrex2003Aug 6, 201523 votes

Lets say you referred a friend and they didn't hit lvl 10 yet. If they hit 10 after the retirement do I still get my reward or no? @rito

RiotHollymonsterAug 6, 201517 votes

No, it won't count. When the program shuts down that will be the end. You will no longer be able to redeem rewards.

FlemmanAug 6, 20152 votes

just to be sure, if find 5 friend already playing league and all of us do 5 smurf refer to the other player, is this against the "law" or self smurf only are ban worthy^^

RiotHollymonsterAug 6, 201517 votes

This is a quote from the Terms and Conditions of the program:

"The referred individual must not have had a previous LoL Player account or be a current LoL Player for purposes of the referral."

http://rewards.na.leagueoflegends.com/terms-and-conditions

Sorin RTSPlayerAug 7, 20155 votes

If i have referred someone to the game previously but had forgotten to get them to say they referred me is it to late to get them as credit?

ScaredOfClocksAug 6, 201518 votes

I really don't like that idea of just getting rid of the skins. Maybe re-release them as 975 or 750 RP for medieval twitch and 520RP for the Warwick skin? And give the people who got them from refer a friend the vintage edition? It's just that there are people like myself who joined during the boom of people playing League and it was and still is impossible to get anyone to play for more than 5 or even 15 levels without doing it yourself which is a banable offense. I was hoping to get the skin one day legit from bugging people or just actually referring people. But sadly anyone I knew already played or didn't like the game. (Mind you this is the 2 years of me playing I have only gotten 1 person to play to level 15 and that was a friend I bugged to no end )

On a side note though this is also even sadder news cause it is a kind of sign that League has hit it's peak.

R.I.P. Refer system And R.I.P. Gray Warwick and Medieval Twitch. 1 good skin and 1 amazing skin gone to rest.

SwizzleAug 6, 201521 votes

"Once the program wraps, the two skins become limited edition, but may return as rewards for another social system somewhere down the line. "

Smh

RiotRiot NaKyleAug 6, 201555 votes

On putting these skins on sale:

The players who earned these skins did a cool thing with a social feature. Simply putting the skins on sale cheapens those players efforts and honestly would feel a little money grubby to me.

On the skins coming back:

There's no concrete plans yet, but it makes more sense to attach these skins to some other, future social feature because that matches the original spirit of how Grey and Medieval were earned.

Da FlackzAug 6, 20159 votes

Pls do reincorporate them into some system that is OPEN to all players for everyone to have a chance , but not as restricting as RAF program , i think the problem is that so many peoples RL friends either A: already play or B: wouldnt touch LoL at all item 3070 , Thanks!

FF DominionAug 6, 201511 votes

ive been trying to get my friends and siblings to play league for ages XD for the sole purpose of medieval twitch Q.Q only one of them have made it to level 10 the other 2 are level 5-6 and just stoped play..... I shall never know the joy of the medieval twitch item 3070 (untill i can earn it some other way)

GoeoldesAug 6, 201526 votes

( Quick, just level the accounts yourself! )

Lucky Apple 21Aug 6, 201526 votes

why not just incorporate this into the Facebook feature, where if you play 10-15 games with x people you connected on FB; will unlock the skins once you "share" you achievement on FB; RITO gets league out to their friends on FB and it is a more realistic way of spreading the game to people.

HeadHydraAug 6, 20155 votes

Twitch is my main :P Do you main him too?

Darkwolf128Aug 6, 201514 votes

Adc has their support

Top Lane has Jungler

And Mid lane has Dragon Mordekaiser

Hentai WeebAug 7, 201510 votes

and graves cant have his cigar Graves

T0PH BEIFONGAug 6, 201511 votes

first graves cant have a cigar and now refer a friend is gone Graves

IWDoCocaineAug 6, 201526 votes

Graves can't have friends OR his cigar. Sad day.

xLalipopAug 6, 20158 votes

Wait, why exactly are you getting rid of RAF?

SephirothWontDieAug 6, 201512 votes

They are removing RAF because with or without, there is no observable change in social gameplay. Either people are referring bot accounts or almost no one at all. They observed that game events - like Pool Party, Party IP, and friend discovery were doing a better job. So the game events are actually promoting friends playing the game together than the actual RAF, which is a bit odd. Bu that is why.

TL;DR: Game events are doing better what RAF should have been doing.

McAnnexAug 11, 20155 votes

I just referred a friend and got an email that says " RAF closes down on August 20th." -- The RAF ending article says 9/5... can we get clarification on that?