@Riot: "Create a champion" competition

JimmynatorB·Aug 12, 2014·5 votes·1,292 views

There are many good champion concepts created by players, and some of them are actually game developers or artists like the guys at Riot, so I thougth you could host a competition to create a champion that will actually MAKE IT INTO THE GAME. Something like having a concept competition, then ability competition for each ability, and then a lore competition, like you would normally do in Riot to create a champion. You could act as moderators and talk about the most popular abilities to see if they would be healthy for the game and such.

This would make the community feel noticed and would make us feel awesome and love you even more. I know this is a HUGE thing, but I feel like this is be the most awesome thing you could ever do. I beg you to do this, please :3

10 Comments

ploki122Aug 12, 20143 votes

It has been discussed multiple times and there are many problems with it :

The time a champion spends in work is really really long. Iirc, Jinx (or Vi if she came before her) was being worked on for easily 6-8 months. Knowing that you won the contest, but not seeing the final product for a really long time would be pretty disappointing. Heck, it's highly probable that not every participants of the contest would be still playing the game by the time the champion came out.
The reason it takes so much time is because there are a lot of cahnges being made. Sometimes synergy between them and another champion is too good and would make the duo lane's meta be "these 2 champs". Other times, an ability ends up being "just a little off" and reworked into something new, or abilities are moved around (innate<->base<->ultimate). The fact that the winner isn't certain to see his champion as-is is kinda weird, since in the end it wouldn't be "his champion" that gets in.
Even worse than changes, there are quite a few champions that are either shelved or cancelled. Missing technology, a theme that doesn't fit the game, a champion that ends up not beign fun, waiting for X/Y/Z event or rework. There are many reasons that can justify that. If they say "the winner gets implemented", it means they can'T back down even if it ends up not fitting the game, which means heavier changes, which means lots of complaints.
Intellectual Property. Legislations are a bitch, and no matter what you do, there are ways to try and get a bit of royalties/compensations and always leech a little more than what the contract said. Just that human hassle alone is enough to deter them from doing so.

FlintfallAug 12, 20141 votes

This, also Athene won the chance to help make a champion, but they declined for similar reasons.

While this would be nice, I doubt that such a contest will ever take place. I myself love making champions because I like to explore new characters, not because I expect them to be put into the game (not that there is a lack of wanting to though :P)

JimmynatorBAug 13, 20141 votes

That wasn't granted by a skill competition, but by a referral competition. He was granted the chance, not his champion. Here Riot will select the champion abilities and design, not a random guy that got 10000 referrals that may not know how to design a champion.

JimmynatorBAug 13, 20141 votes

It certainly has some problems, but they don't make this impossible to achieve. I know it requires even more work than doing a champion by themselves, even when they don't have to come up with the ideas.

True, but those 6 or 8 months would be the contest itself. The fear would be dragging it for too long, but the PBE could be used to test the champion every now and then to make that waiting time somewhat shorter for the contestants, as they are able to try their champion.
It's not that the concept winner gets their champ created, but that the winner recieves a try on their ability/champion aesthetics/lore, and if it fits it gets implemented. It's not that the champion is desinged by 1 person.
The cancellation is the biggest fear here, making the contest last 1 year or 2. If the contestants recieve a good argument that explains why their concept is getting cancelled in favour of a better one, it may (or may not if the contestants are close minded) work. But this is not a reason to not do this. It's like saying "Let's not make champions anymore because we fear it being cancelled". No risk = no gain.
Yeah, that's a hassle, but given the amount of lawsuits of the style of "The coffee was cold so I threw it into my pants and they got wet", and given that Riot is a big company, this is something they'd have to swallow. There are also many companies that do this community stuff and are doing OK, such as Valve with their Steam Workshop. I'm sure they have recieved more than one claim of intellectual rights for a champion or ability.

Then there's the option 2: Make some tools to allow people to create their own champions and share them in a specific environment (it would be like modding LoL). Then if something is good enough, request for permission to the author and include it in the main game. This is obviously huge and I don't expect them to do this, even though it would be awesome.

ploki122Aug 13, 20141 votes

True, but those 6 or 8 months would be the contest itself. The fear would be dragging it for too long, but the PBE could be used to test the champion every now and then to make that waiting time somewhat shorter for the contestants, as they are able to try their champion.

Wait... you mean you start developping the champion before all entries are in? and before voting is done? Does that mean you would spend 4-5designing teams to develop the best 4-5 current ideas and implement working prototypes for the PBE? The throw it all away if a new entry gets higher? How does the voting goes if the entries are developped as the contest runs?

JimmynatorBAug 13, 20141 votes

No, I'm saying doing it in little steps. Something like this:

Theme competition: The most voted Riot-approved champion theme is selected to go to the next step.
Ability competition: The most voted Riot-approved set of abilities / single abilities are selected to test and try if they work. If they don't a new competition is held to serch for a new set / ability. The process is repeated until a good set of abilities is found.
Art competition: The most voted Riot-approved splash screen is selected as the champion aesthetic looks and will be used to make the new champion.

67chromeAug 13, 20141 votes

Such a contest would be awesome.

But there's 2 massive things that I'm pretty sure will prevent this from ever happening:

Claims of stolen IP. The issue wouldn't be with the winners (which Riot would probably generate more $ from the interest the contest generated anyways). It would be with everyone else's entry. All the ones that didn't win, the entries that got nothing. Even with only 100 entries you could easily run into problems were every single champion Riot made post-contest would have one ability that was already thought up and written down in one of the contest entries. Rioters have generally steered clear of the Champion Concepts section of the Forums because of this.
The number of entries. Would be unmanageable. They'd number in the millions. Which ties back into point 1 as a massive problem - every champion idea imaginable would be imagined within such a contest due to the massive scope.

Linna ExcelAug 13, 20141 votes

It'd been done in MtG via fans voting on just about everything. So I'd be for the devs trying a similar event here.

JimmynatorBAug 13, 20141 votes

This, even if it's just trying to see if it works. Testing crazy stuff is necessary to advance, like the first one that made a F2P game, or the first one trying to use fire to his advantage.

ploki122Aug 13, 20141 votes

The fire that tried to use fire to its advantage probably died actaully...