This is the first part of the furnished copy of the League of Legends Interview with RiotPendragon.
Read Part 2 here: LoL interview Part 2
Riot Pendragon is the community manager of League of LegendsDotA based games have been around since the days of Aeon of Strife, but it wasn't until a decade ago when Blizzard fans started to become obsessed with them on heavily modded StarCraft and Warcraft real time strategy maps. Standing on the shoulders of previous giants, eventually one established dominance, and became even more popular than WC3 itself. Defense of the Ancients has gone from cult classic to currently having an estimated 14 to 22 million active monthly players across the world. With that many people, it's arguable that Blizzard's most popular game right now isn't World of Warcraft, but instead a game they don't even own which is DotA.
We've seen iPhone and Facebook games catch on quick to these rapidly changing numbers, and you've no doubt played a few DotA based games in the past year casually, but what happens if a household name game company decides to jump in? Anticipating exactly this, both Riot Games and S2 Games rushed to take DotA to the next level in different paths, and just as the community felt comfortable that the future had been settled, Valve showed up late to the party and slammed its fist on the table by doing something no one expected. They hired the sole remaining developer of DotA, and then even tried to patent the name DotA.
The past month has been a whirlwind of anticipations and opinions, but the only thing that's certain is that we're about to see the DotA based game genre take a big bite out of the games industry. To have Riot Games' opinion on these matters I interviewed Steve "Pendragon" Mescon -- someone who used to maintain a DotA fan site and left to promote a DotA based game called League of Legends -- about how they think the dice will roll.
Here's the interview, all things marked with "@" represent the interviewer.
@LoLWiki
Thanks for this interview, and more importantly, thanks for being partially responsible for the DotA craze that’s still gaining more and more fame and fans each month after all these years of updates. In my opinion, DotA based games offer 5v5 strategy and excitement that no other form of online gaming can deliver.
The past few years of the DotA scene have been fascinating to watch as you and Riot Games brought League of Legends to online gaming, and S2 Games launched Heroes of Newerth. It’s refreshing to see game companies move so quickly with free updates for their community that turns a single game purchase into a multiplayer experience that changes and lasts for years without ever getting stale or costly.
Before we move on to League of Legends and current tower defense matters, let’s first take a look at the past. What do you think were Steve "Guinsoo" Feak's most successful additions to the DotA mod in the past?
Steve "Pendragon" Mescon:
If I had to choose two things, I’d say they would probably have to be the item combination system, and game modes. Adding tiers of items added a significant amount of depth to the DotA gameplay, and really made the game more interesting and exciting throughout the early, mid and late game, and the addition of modes such as allrandom went a long way towards retaining users that had varying play preferences, which really helped to grow the audience.@League of Legends Wikipedia
To help our readers get a better idea of what Riot Games is like, what’s the current size of your staff? Also, which career positions on your team are you planning on expanding over the next year?
Pendragon:
We currently have more than 100 employees at the company spread over two offices – most are here in our Los Angeles office, which is our global headquarters, and there’s almost a dozen at our European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. We are looking to hire new software engineers, new Web developers, customer service representatives and new artists to continue to develop and enhance League of Legends.@League of Legends Wiki
Okay, let’s get to the crux of the DotA based game community’s concerns. Even though gamers are able to play all of the popular DotA based games currently being updated each month, and there’s nothing limiting them to playing just one of these games, the mindset often seems to be that one of these DotA based games will “win” and the rest will fade and disappear. They think it’s like a modern day version of the battle between the NFL and AFL for the “official” football league, except that it’s currently a digital war for the tower defense throne. What are your thoughts on this? Is this mindset warranted or not?
Riot Games:
There are benefits to currently being the most popular game in the DotA based game genre, so we can see why people would want a clear-cut “winner”. For example, League of Legends has been selected by the WCG for their Grand Finals and the ESL for their Major Series, which we think is partially because of our rapid growth and wide popularity. However, as long as other developers in the space bring unique innovations to the table, multiple games can exist.@League of Legends Wiki Guide
With Valve and their humongous budget hard at work with IceFrog on an official release of DotA, what will happen if fans’ hopes and worries become true? What does Riot Games plan to do if the majority of the DotA based game community all migrates to Valve’s DotA after its launch? Would Riot Games change its current strategy and approach towards the DotA based game community?
RiotGames:
Having a developer of Valve's caliber recognize the DotA based genre that we have been working in for years is exciting. We are eager to see what innovations they can bring to the DotA based game genre. However, not knowing what their game will be it is hard to speculate on what will happen when it comes out. We just hope that they let the DotA community continue to dictate the future of the name because we believe the game belongs to the dozens of community members who contributed to DotA. We’ve got some really amazing updates in the pipeline that will further change the way people play the game, continuing to evolve the genre. We think we’ve got some great content that will continue to attract new players and keep veterans returning for more for years to come. We’re focused on continuing to provide the best possible game and experience to our users and believe that if we continue to keep doing what we have been doing, we will continue to have success.@LoL Garena
As someone who has followed professional competitions such as Asia Dota Championship, David Vs Goliath, Electronic Sports World Cup, and World Cyber Games, I definitely empathize with DotA based game fans’ frustration that professional DotA competitions are continually over shadowed by FPS and Madden tournaments.
The intensely strategic and entertaining replay videos are out there, the Babe Ruth and Ali sized idols have come and gone, but the money still isn’t there to allow teams to play full-time and gain the attention they deserve. Riot Games is definitely leaping in the right direction by having League of Legends Season One offer $100,000 in player prizes. How long will Season One last for, and when will Season Two begin?
League of Legends Game:
We haven’t announced when the end of Season One will take place, but people can expect that it will run for months. We want as many people to get into Ranked Games and get onto the ladders as possible, and since you have to be at least level 30 to participate, we realize it will take some players some time to get the experience.@League of Legends Garena
But you can definitely expect League of Legends and other games in the Dota based game genre to gain in traction in the competitive gaming scene. As we mentioned, we’ve been selected by some of the top competitions, including the WCG Grand Finals taking place next month, and the ESL Major Series, to elevate the game to new competitive levels. We’ll also be holding smaller tournaments and events for our community to keep things fresh and give everyone a chance to win awesome prizes.
Have fun and take a wild guess at when we’ll finally see a gaming championship of any multiplayer DotA based game genre televised in the future. Pick a year!
League of Legends community leader:
A televised championship would be cool but honestly I don’t think it’s really necessary anymore. The Internet is so powerful and has the ability to reach millions of people and it's where our audience is; in fact, we just had over 17,000 simultaneous viewers watching the League of Legends WCG USA Finals online and expect more viewers for the upcoming World Grand Finals.@League of Legends Exploits Do not Exist
Here’s another fun question. Your new Season One trailer was fucking awesome! Can we expect another badass cinematic video before the Season Two trailer? Keep ‘em coming!
Pendragon of Riot:
Thanks for the feedback. That trailer was a lot of fun to work on because we were able to bring some of our favorite characters to life in ways we had never thought of before. There will be another trailer, but I won’t spill the beans on when that’s coming.@League of Legends Downloads
What content updates can we expect over the next six months? Any new maps? How many new characters, items, and costumes? Any changes or additions to gameplay?
RiotPendragon:
Yes, yes and yes. We roll out with new content about every two weeks – that includes Champions, items, skins and balance tweaks. We're also working on a new map, which we'll be sharing more information on soon.@LoL Hacks are not Allowed
We’re also working on some more long-term League of Legends projects, but those things are still a secret. We’ll be sure to fill you in on those in the coming weeks and months as more information and assets become available.
Do you ever plan on adding more gameplay modes? Or even a mode that just increases the difficulty of games, such as including “denies” or other small tactics of DotA that you dropped in LoL?
Pendragon:
We are always thinking about gameplay options. But we don’t plan on adding denies into the game – that was something we talked about in the game’s initial development but we felt that denies rewarded passive play, which wasn't as exciting. Gamers who have played League of Legends love the fact that we don't have denies and are strongly in favor of us keeping our fast-paced play. We’ve changed a lot of people’s minds on this topic and wouldn’t be surprised to see other games in the genre follow suit on many of the design ideas we’ve innovated.@League of Legends Cheats Are Not Allowed
What’s your stance on gameplay mods and interface mods?
Pendragon (Forum member of LoL):
We are big supporters of the mod community – after all, we started out as modders ourselves. We think some of the best content and freshest ideas come from the community, which is one reason why we regularly ask our community for feedback on our game and ways to make improvements.Okay, Dota Based Game fans! Add your own opinions on these topics in the comments, and feel free to pose more questions of your own in case @LoLwiki can arrange a Valve, IceFrog, or S2 Games interview in the near future. And for the love of gaming gods, if you still haven't tried a top tier DotA based game yet, then what more are you waiting for?
League of Legends is a free game that belongs to a new genre called DotA Based Games.
For additional information about this, you can check out:
DotA on Facebook
Riot Games' competition
League of Legends Wiki
Official DotA All-Stars Website
No comments:
Post a Comment