Riot Games Suspends League of Legends Player Until 2020

By Eric Bryner

Source: Kotaku.com.au

In this article by Yvette Tan, a recent act of violence by a professional League of Legends player is discussed.

Chinese LoL player Li Wei Jun, better known by his in-game name “Vasilii” was “fired earlier in October from Chinese team Newbee,” after being caught making physical threats to his girlfriend on a live stream.

Riot Games announced that Vasilii would be suspended for 20 consecutive months, from Jan. to Oct. — effectively banning him until January 2020.

“Although the investigation results don’t show proof that Vasilii physically assaulted his girlfriend, he made credible threats of physical violence and death threats toward a defenseless person in a private home that were intimidating enough for her to call the police,” said the organization in a statement. 

The current rules for LoL suspensions state that a player may only be suspended for a maximum of ten months for “extreme misconduct.”

However, in this case Riot made an exception, doubling his sentence.

“Vasilii’s behavior was particularly egregious, beyond the worst kinds of extreme misconduct that we originally had in mind when we devised the Global Penalty Index,” said Riot Games.

Vasilii has a past of aggressive behavior, including: “physical aggression onstage, smashing a keyboard and physically intimidating a camera operator.” Riot took these acts into consideration when determining his sentence.

Riot has recently added new rules, which give harsher punishments for any possible domestic abuse cases in the future.

Now, cases of extreme misconduct will be handled by an indefinite suspension of the player.

However, Vasilii does not fall into this category because there was no evidence. He and his girlfriend both denied any acts of physical assault.

 

LPL Defeats LMS in six-hour-long All-Stars Grand Finals

By Eric Bryner

Source: dotesports.com

After a grueling five matches, totaling six hours of game time on the stage at the All-Stars tournament, Tencent League of Legends Pro League (LPL) claims their victory after defeating League of Legends Master Series (LMS).

The All-Stars tournament consisted of eight teams, one from each of League’s regions, where the five strongest players came together to represent their region.

Generally, the annual All-Stars event is less serious and more entertaining. But fans were shocked when they witnessed the six-hour-long, best of five series.

Ultimately, this had to do with the nature of the tournament. There were weird picks like top-lane Annie and countless tower dives; Players were in it for more than winning, they were there to mess around and have fun with the game.

That’s what League of Legends is all about though, right?

Aaron Mickunas, the writer of this article, said “The theme of the day today seemed to be a mixture wanting to have fun and wanting to try really hard to win the trophy, and the result was a complete and utter mess of a series.”

 

 

 

Riot Games Launches Student Ambassador Program

By Eric Bryner

On April 22-23, Riot Games hosted an event to officially welcome the 28 selected Riot Games Student Ambassadors (RSAs) for 2017/18 at Asia-Pacific University.

This opportunity was only available to full-time students enrolled in a Malaysian university or college, according to the website. These students become part of an “entrepreneurial nationwide ambassador team for a year – leading campaigns and projects.”

The purpose of the campaigns and projects are to grow the League of Legends community, while helping the student ambassadors develop skills that will be valuable in their future careers.

The RSA’s first major challenge was to create a gaming club on their campus. This proved to be challenging because many students have very little exposure to gaming and/or the esports industry.

Within the first two months of the program, the RSAs managed to create 16 new clubs. The gaming clubs are receiving a lot of positive feedback and students at the universities are excited to have a place to connect with fellow gamers.

“There are clubs for chess, clubs for languages and clubs for sports but somehow gaming clubs never seemed to surface. Finally, we get a place to connect with players,” said a member of the Taylor’s University E-Sports Club.

Source: riotstudentambassador.sgmy.leagueoflegends.com

 

 

Riot Games Revamps Collegiate League

By Eric Bryner

Source: beta-esports.garena.ph

According to this article, Riot Games is making efforts to turn League of Legends into a collegiate esport after the recent revamp of their collegiate league.

Schools across the nation are starting to create varsity esports programs. University of California Irvine (UCI) and Robert Morris University Illinois (RMU) became early adopters of the program and recently, The University of Utah became the first Power Five school with a varsity program.

One of Riot Games’ main focuses is to help more schools attain varsity programs.

“We want to share our esports knowledge, best practices, and pave the way for more schools to follow in the footsteps of the RMUs and UCIs of the world,” said J.T. Vandenbree, Riot Games’ lead for League Operations for North American Collegiate. “That includes building play spaces, hiring support staff, dedicating scholarships, and treating College League of Legends like schools treat existing sports.”

Riot Games hopes that their collegiate league revamp will increase competition and also increase the desire for school varsity programs.

The 2018 College League of Legends Season will ditch the previous round robin format for a Swiss format, providing teams with more equal opportunities. Vandenbree believes this season will be “the most competitive ever.”

 

 

 

Preseason 8 Begins; NA LCS Teams Regroup

By Eric Bryner

Source: Riftherald.com

Preseason 8 went live on Nov. 8, and with it came a few major updates that will drastically change the game. At this time, LCS teams were looking to make some big changes of their own, primarily to their rosters.

Team SoloMid (TSM), North America’s #1 team, replaced three out of their five starting players. They included: Peng “Doublelift” Yiliang, AD Carry; Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, Jungle; and Vincent “Biofrost” Wang, Support.

In a recent interview, Andy “Reginald” Dinh, CEO of TSM, commented on the roster changes for the 2018 season. He said, “We had players that were weak at communicating and our shot calling wasn’t strong.”

These positions were quickly filled by Mike Yeung, LCS 2017 Rookie of the Year, and G2’s award-winning bot lane of Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen and Alfonso “Mithy” Rodriguez.

Teams are limited to only two import players and TSM hit their limit with the addition of Zven and Mithy. This automatically put Svenskeren at risk for replacement and with his poor performance at Worlds 2017 it was no surprise to see his release.

Other big names in NA, like Cloud 9 (C9), Counter Logic Gaming (CLG), and Team Liquid (TL) saw new additions too.

With the departure of Juan “Contractz” Arturo Garcia from C9, there was an opportunity to fill the open jungle role with new free agent, Svenskeren. CLG aquires Kim “Reignover” Yeu-jin and Biofrost to fill the jungle and support roles, respectively.

Doublelift returns to TL after being signed for a temporary contract in the 2017 Spring Split, where he saved the team from relegation.

 

 

Ethernet vs. WiFi

Source: na.leagueoflegends.com

By Eric Bryner

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that LAG SUCKS.”

That is a quote taken from this article,which certainly stands true. It is safe to say that every gamer has experienced lag at one point in their life.

Countless keyboards and controllers have been destroyed due to lag. An easy solution to reduce lag in online gaming is to shell out an extraordinary amount of money for your ISP’s package offering the fastest speeds.

However, before you spend money to upgrade network speeds, consider this smarter and cheaper alternative. Use an Ethernet cable to directly plug your PC into the router; This is known as “hard wiring.” By relying on an Ethernet connection, as opposed to a WiFi connection, you are reducing the time in which a packet travels to its destination before returning.

Check out this map for a better understanding:

Source: na.leagueoflegends.com

How is WiFi affecting my gameplay?

Viscarious, the author of the article, conducted research which determined that the “average ping for players on a WiFi connection is between 6.7 ms and 11.7ms higher than those using an Ethernet connection.”

When dealing with milliseconds, most people would assume that an increase of 6-11ms is unnoticeable. But, for a game like League of Legends where quick reactions can be game-changing, any slight delay could lead to missed opportunities.

And further research even proves that as the rank of players increase, so does the percentage of players using an Ethernet connection.

Source: na.leagueoflegends.com

My personal experience

When I started playing League of Legends in 2012, I originally used a laptop with a WiFi connection. At this time, Riot’s servers were located in California leaving me with an average ping of ~110ms. In 2015, Riot moved their NA server to a new centralized location in Chicago, Illinois.

After the change, I noticed a significant improvement in performance and a new ping of ~50. However, the issue many players encounter when using a WiFi connection is an abundance of “ping spikes.” These spikes are the primary cause for disconnections or laggy gameplay.

I made the switch to a hard-wired connection and didn’t notice any changes in ping. But, what I did notice was a huge reduction in ping spikes, resulting in consistently smoother gameplay and less disconnects. Disconnecting from games, especially ranked games, can lead to punishments including:

• More losses
• Increase in player-driven reports
• Potential account bans

There are clearly benefits to using an Ethernet connection, but I understand that not everyone can easily connect their computer to their router. Before running a 50ft Ethernet cord through your house, decide if the rather slight improvements are worth it.

 

Riot Reveals Ten 2018 NA LCS Teams; Four New Organizations

By Eric Bryner

Source: RedBull.com

After a new NA LCS franchising was set in place for the 2018 season, Riot Games have chosen the ten teams who have permanent spots.

Four of these teams are new ownership groups, including: Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, and OpTic Gaming.

The new teams were decided after a months-long application process, leaving NA teams Immortals, Team Dignitas, Phoenix1, and Team EnVyUs being ejected from the league in the 2018 season. Team SoloMid, Team Liquid, Cloud9, Counter-Logic Gaming, Echo Fox and FlyQuest will remain in the NA LCS.

Riot did not reveal why the four teams’ applications were rejected, however Jarred Kennedy, Riot’s co-head of esports, told theScore esports that they wanted to bring in teams with a certain set of skills.

“At the highest level, when we were building this new collection of teams, what we wanted to do was have a mix of organizations that had complementary skill sets and capabilities and experiences, and we were looking for organizations that had business acumen, the ability to build brands, the ability to activate and cultivate fanbases, a history of winning, understanding of our ecosystem and our sport,” Kennedy told theScore esports.

“And we think that the group that we’ve been able to bring together represents all of that in a really interesting combination, We think that combination is going to be great for the future of the NA LCS.”

Of the four new organizations, OpTic Gaming is the only one to continue using their existing brand. The Houston Rockets’ NA LCS team will be dubbed Clutch Gaming, the Cleveland Cavaliers will be 100 Thieves, and the Golden State Warriors team is the Golden Guardians.

This new collection of teams can be seen in action when the 2018 NA LCS Spring Split begins on Jan. 20.

 

 

NBA Team Invests in League of Legends Esports

By Eric Bryner

Source: lol.gamepedia.com

The Golden State Warriors make their appearance into the world of esports after being accepted into the North American League Championship Series (NA LCS) in October. Golden State’s majority owner Joe Lacob and his son Kirk led the charge into League’s competitive scene after spending close to $13 million as an entry-fee.

The 2017 NBA champions finished signing their five-man roster and dubbed their team as the Golden Guardians.

According to Kirk Lacob, the team’s acceptance into the NA LCS is an effort to access a younger, global fan base, as well as to become more familiar with how esports are consumed.

“It’s a totally globally-connected ecosystem,” said Kirk, in a recent interview with SportTechie. “When you look at esports as a whole, it’s incredibly young, yet massively huge. We need to capture some of that same magic on the basketball level going forward, but we also thought we could learn from it as the world shifts the way it consumes.”

 

Paid to Hack

By Eric Bryner

“If a hacker can crack our work, we’ll pay them (a lot).”

Source: Riotgames.com

This article explains Riot Games‘ new program set in place to boost their server security. Riot is responsible for creating and actively running a game that is safe to its millions of players, worldwide.

These millions of people who have League of Legends accounts are susceptible to identity fraud, much like the majority of other programs and services on the Internet.

Furthermore, many of these players also have financial information saved on the servers because of the “cash shop.” Any security breaches into Riot’s servers could turn into a disaster for both the players and the company. These potential threats led to the creation of what Riot dubs the “bug bounty program.”

The program’s purpose is to test the strength of “every bit of code” that has been written to ensure it can withstand any attempts to breach. David Rook, product lead of the Application Security says, ” if we don’t know about these security problems, then malicious people can exploit them and attack players. We’d always be reactive, panicked, and we’d rarely make the right decisions.”

I think Riot Games is making a smart decision to proactively test their apps using live hackers who can react in real-time as opposed to computer programs that are designed to test security. However, as the article states, many hackers do not wish to reveal their identity regardless of the above-average pay for finding bugs/exploits.

“Chronobreak” Tool

Source: engineering.riotgames.com

By Eric Bryner

This article discusses the Deterministic Disaster Recovery Tool aka “Chronobreak,” which has been developed by Riot Games. Prior to February 12, when Chronobreak made its first appearance, any game-changing bugs were handled by a full restart of the game.

The Chronobreak tool works by saving a recording of all inputs received on the server, which allows Riot Games to recover a game up until the point when the bug occurred, to maintain competitive integrity.

Tournaments for League of Legends or the League Championship Series (LCS) consists of teams facing off against each other in structured play. Some of these series can be either best of 3 or 5 games, with average games times of 30 minutes. However, some games can last up to an hour or more.

If players are in a game for up to an hour, a single bug could force a full restart, resulting in increased levels of stress on the players or could also be perceived as “unfair” to the team currently winning.

This new, breakthrough technology has the potential to drastically change the world of e-sports gaming, even beyond League of Legends.