I'll walk off into the the road, thumb out, like Bill Bixby from the Incredible Hulk TV show.
..that too old of of a reference? Shit..
But seriously, good question. I think this team has an interesting aspect of it. It basically has (generally speaking) a point of "mission accomplished". There will most likely be a single champion that's the last out the door. I have a board next to my desk that the team has assembled with every champion's portrait. They fall loosely into 'what we did last year', 'what we're gunna do this year, mos' def', 'what we would like to do this year' and 'prime targets of opportunity'. Below that is the backlog, and below that is the safe zone. I don't know the exact numbers, but it's interesting to see, very slowly, each of the champions rise to the top of that board. Won't it be cool when we have more VU's under our belt than we have champions left to do? I'm pretty stoked that that's even a possibility. Sure, maybe we'll get to a point where say Model + Texture updates are the bare minimum to qualify as acceptable content. I guess I could see that as a benchmark.
We face a lot of challenges from different directions when approaching a VU. We might have an idea for a character model change, but the rig/animations stand in the way of us executing in a timely manner. Or maybe we have a really big thematic/story question mark above one of the champions. It can be a challenge executing if we have to do a tear-down. That really leans on the ideation and pre-production process, as well as crosses paths with anyone working on greater questions of story and IP.
Many of these factors are why we try to plan and scope accordingly. Big, medium and small projects all at once and staggered when possible. The team has also had it's mission statement and purpose change and grow. We used to be about "getting the ugly out of the game", but now we focus quite holistically on the health of a champion as a complete package. Balance and gameplay do their thing, but we handle major overhauls especially if they have art/narrative dependencies. All of this is exciting when we take on a project, but it can be a lot to manage.
Some characters we do push off because we haven't answered some real hard questions about them at a core level. For example, even Leona. Right now she's fine in terms of fidelity, but does she exemplify her aspect of Targon? Well, I'll go ahead and say no. We created her before we had even a slight understanding about what Targon is, what it would become, and what it could later be. She's far down on that list because her fidelity is fine, and we also haven't dug into Targon to ratify it as something we can start developing form language or motifs from. I think we're closest with someone like Diana. She probably generally fits into what we might use as a springboard for greater Targon, but not Leona, to say the least of Pantheon.
As those narrative components solidify we might pull from the lower buckets and bring them up. If we said, "BOOM! THIS IS TARGON!" tomorrow, maybe we'd throw her into pre-production. Similar for anyone who really exemplifies the faction/region to which they belong. Many of these characters which are older now have modern compatriots we can compare against and dirive new designs from such as Caitlyn (Vi, Jayce), Irelia (Yasuo, Karma) etc. I think that's where we get into "character progressions" as you've said.
I'll also get into some personal feelings here as well.. this is me speaking very close to my heart and just for a goal that relates back to something I felt I left unfinished a while ago. This isn't a reflection on any team I've worked with, or anything approaching criticism, this is solely a feeling I have as an individual looking at a lofty goal or benchmark.
Quinn and Valor weren't the easiest of projects. There was a fair amount of misalignment throughout the process and I'm definitely to blame for my chunk of it. It was rough in each part of the pipeline. Ideation, pre-production, production, release, etc. This is no one's "fault", this is just the thing about iterative fast-paced game development. Sometimes stuff just happens. No one is at fault. This is just observation from 20/20 hindsight.
That said, Quinn and Valor were the last champions I worked on with the Champion team. That's a little bittersweet. After that "Team Diana", who worked on Q&V, sort of went our separate ways to different corners of our disciplines and onto other teams in some cases. I think we all learned a lot from that experience. I think now we look back on it and say we wish we could have executed differently. Not "better", but differently.
Quinn and Valor to me (lol.. Valor, to me!) represent something I've left unfinished. Something that I want to approach with fresh eyes. Something that I now have more clarity on and I think have a more rounded understanding of. They're really near the bottom of the list. There are much worse offenders in terms of theme, art and design. She's far down the list. However, as that list churns, she's going to inch up. I sort of see it as this weird destiny thing that it's possible that the last thing I work on for ChampUP is Quinn and Valor, setting right the things I did wrong, giving them the respect they deserve.
I was just listening to the new Music of League of Legends and there's an extended version of Quinn and Valor's theme. I got shivers. It's so good. It's touching, then rising, then triumphant then serene. I want to listen to that over and over and go back and ideate with that music surrounding me. I want to find the oomph. I want them to get a second chance.
One funny thing, the site lolskinviewer.com hasn't been updated since Quinn and Valor were released. I often look at that site for quick reference for the old champion models. So, any time I launch the site I see Quinn there. It's so funny that she's where those updates stop. To me, every time I see it, I think to myself, "You and me have unfinished busy, young lady".
Anywhoozle, that's a lot of romanticizing. But hey, even dreamy goals are goals.
Whichever way we do it, it'll take a while. We're not half-way through yet. Lot's of work to be done.
You're not rid of me yet :)
- and 
-level work, what would you want the VU team to be doing? What do you think is likely to happen to you guys once the big projects are done? Will the team be scaled down and keep doing small projects or will you expand and do other kinds of things? Would you ever consider to start doing "character progression"-relaunches, for example? Or will you just start all over again?
relaunch with a visual update 