Interview #3 CANCELLED

It appears Heat n Serve wasn't able to complete the questions I sent him, which is a shame because I was looking forward to reading it. Anyway, I've been trying to think of some eligible content to publish today.

I thought I'd cover a couple of things, starting with my favorite, Riots inadequacy:


Summoners!
Yesterday, many of you logged in to play League of Legends only to experience bugged IP rewards. As this is not the level of service that we strive to maintain, we wanted to offer all those players affected by these issues something to compensate for their negative experience.
If you logged in and played a game yesterday, your account will automatically be credited with a 10 Win IP Boost. Distribution of the boosts may take up to five days, so if you don’t get yours right away, don’t panic! We haven’t forgotten about you, it just takes some time to credit that many boosts! We apologize for the inconvenience, and for any disruptions to your regular gameplay schedule.
Thank for your patience and for your continued support for League of Legends!

When the new IP system came out, it was flawed and didn't work. Which didn't surprise nor annoy me; I play for fun not for the points. So then Riot announce we get a free boost. And once again, they didn't work. So this post on the news section is their attempt to apologise I guess, because third time is the charm. Amusing as always Riot, when will you get things right. <3

So, moving on. We've all seen the new UI, it's a little more complicated but it looks nice I guess. Vladmir escaped the heavy nerf that we were all expecting, probably by blood pooling out of it. The overpowered bastard.

I'd also like to reveal a few pieces of LoL art that have caught my eye today, League art is always so impressive.

Mhhhm Katarina. Dunno what the background is about, but looks good nonetheless. I'm actually half sure Riot are implementing this as a skin ingame. I'd buy it.

 I thought this was very nice actually, all the League art is so much better than what we see by Blizzard, and that's saying something. Ashe is one of my favorite characters, although she's a little easy to play, except for her ulti.

Now this one just looks like an attempt to remake the DotA loading screen. Fail. No wonder it's not in the game.

That's all I have for you today guys, I'll make sure I get something extraspecial for you tomorrow. For now, just eat your cookie and take a nap.

Riot introduce paid tournaments! Finally!

A new post on the League of Legends website:




Summoners,
You asked for organized weekly tournaments and we’re here to deliver!
We saw how the ESL Go4LoL & Master Series provided an awesome experience for our European competitors, so now we want to bring all of you the same experience on this side of the pond.
The ESL will be running two competitions for North Americans:

1. The Go4LoL Tournament Series starts with weekly $100 one day tournaments that culminate in $1,000 finals for the teams that earn the most placement points during the month.
2. The National ESL Premier League will be an invite division where the best of North Amerca compete for $5,000. The top teams will be invited to compete against their European counter-parts in the ESL Major Series. Stay tuned for more details on this division.

All of these events will also be a part of the Season One Circuit, which means that the top eight teams in each event will earn Circuit Points that advance them ever so closer to being invited to the $100,000 tournament at the end of Season One. You can find the North American standings here.
The first qualifiers start this weekend, so what are you waiting for? Sign up a team today and start practicing.

The first thing I will say is, AWESOME. There's been a lot of posts on the Riot forums regarding competitive play recently, and this is the first step in the right direction. This is a wonderful way to encourage players to practice and play to win. I am behind Riot on this one all the way.


Whilst I will not enter myself, I hope plenty of people sign up for this. I will be watching all the live streams though, so I can put on my coolface when someone makes a mistake and brag to my friends about how I'm so much better.

It appears the massive success of the Go4LoL tournaments have finally gotten Riot's attention. This could be a new beginning to the League of Legends, because as of now, the game is considered "casual". When I hear this, it really pisses me off, despite the fact it's true. LoL is a game orientated for casual players, even in ELO. Of course a common player couldn't reach the top rankings, but average players can meet a fair amount of success in ranked matches. I play the game to win, and I'd like to play competitively, when I've had a few hundred more games of practice.

I really hope these tournaments bring a new era of play to LoL, because I know there's a lot of us out there that want there to be a more reliable and skilled playerbase.

Good job Riot, you managed to announce a change that most people will find favorable. The only downside I can see is a drastic influx of elitist players. Actually.... That's not good. Really not good. Oh dear.