User-Generated Content

I recently completed a survey from Riot where a couple of (paraphrased) questions asked were:

Riot has the best interests of the players in mind -- Agree/Disagree Riot has making money as a top priority in spite of players' interests -- Agree/Disagree

At the time, I answered that 'of course they have the best interests of the player in mind!', 'Of course prices in the game are generally fair' But this untenable assertion would be certifiably false, and for a reason that I try to emphasize with any long running game environment. User Generated Content.

I think about the origins of League of Legends and how it is essentially a reformed and modified version of DotA from Warcraft 3 / AoS from Starcraft. MOBA's have come a long way since DotA in Warcraft 3, but we're bound to plateau indefinitely so long as we the community no longer have access to generating our own content for the new MOBA environments.

So to answer the questions on the survey; Sure, Riot has players' best interests in mind, and even have reasonable prices for in game purchases. But with those answers, we've already accepted that Riot Games will never allow the community access to modifying the game. A platform such as League can only be looking out for its own interests and income if it does not allow us the opportunity to continue to experiment and balance as we see fit. It would be like having to play a champion without runes/masteries/items/summoner spells -- the only thing you could do would be play the character as it was designed. As a character needs all 4 of these things to feel personalized and interesting to us as a player, so too do we need that control over the game mode (which frankly hasn't changed from much from its 3 lane system in the past 10 years). The future of MOBA's and League of Legends is solely in the hands of its creators. Why is it that we cannot have our own impact on the direction of MOBA's and League of Legends as well?

Of course I don't ask that Riot force anyone to have to enter any customized game setting, and more importantly I don't view the ability to generate content as something that cannot be monetized. Personally, I would pay $50 easily for the option to mess with game parameters, and then host games with friends only.

It's insulting to me that we have to come up with our own game modes so long as they follow the League of Legends standards. How many times have you looked in the custom games and see titles like "Catch the Teemo"? Catch the Teemo will always end if the win condition of Dominion is met. There will never be a count of lives Teemo has had nor a timer for himself. There will never be an enforced time period where the Teemo gets to run and hide. Perhaps you've no clue what I'm talking about, but really liked Mirror Mode, where an entire team was able to play all as the same character. How would you get to play when League only releases the mode once every 3+ months? Perhaps you'd wonder how well a Zed could pub stomp if he just did about 10 less damage at level 1! Possibilities abound!!!

If Riot Games had the best interests of the players in mind, it would do nothing short of immediately issuing the ability to modify the game. Without the community's ability to influence the future of an ever-changing game environment, we are forced to abide by the standards mandated by an arbitrarily lenient tycoon. We could agree that they are treating the community as nicely as possible, but that would be consciously averting our attention from the fact that they control everything. There needs to be an outlet for user generated content!

tl:dr Custom modes with custom modifications to the game are required for League of Legends to progress with the best interests of its players in mind.

I know this won't be an extremely popular topic, but if you feel as strongly as I do about having custom modes/mods on a game; Email me, let me know you agree. Add me in League, and message me. Reply to this comment. Talk about it with one other player. I think it's really important that the conversation takes place.

Email: [email protected] League SN: Rillindann