RiotMeddler

The skins team was one of the groups that needed some rebuilding and support in 2022. We should be able to deliver about the same amount of personalization content in 2023 as in 2022, weren't in a position to have someone speak to it cohesively as much when we were filming those videos though. One thing we'll be particularly focused on as well is having new thematics for biggest events (Worlds, MSI, Summer etc), rather than going back to established ones like Project, Star Guardian etc again

If we don't end up going forward with some or all of the original intent then yeah, I'd be down to work on getting a bunch of concept art out. Don't want to do so just yet in case we conclude best option is to complete things as originally planned (would undercut things if so)

We don't currently have a VN underway or planned. Not saying we won't ever do one again, maybe we will if we can find a way to make it feel fresh again. Nothing current being worked on in that regard though

Not going to try and make any promises about when, especially after missing last year, but we haven't forgotten/aren't ignoring NB and will be bringing it back

Improvements to anti-cheat we mention in the video will improve bot detection amongst other things

I don't know when yet, but in addition to the 2v2v2v2 mode mentioned we'll also be bringing Nexus Blitz back. Realize we said that last year and failed to do so, so not going to guess a timeframe without some confidence, but do want to mention we haven't just forgotten it, aren't ignoring it or anything similar

Yeah, I think the first time actually worked really well (it was novel, pardon the phrase...) but trying to run it back didn't work well.

I'll represent that feedback (and the folks who'll be building a plan for said cinematic are likely lurking here too, so they should also be seeing your thoughts direct)

I miss those days, despite some issues I did enjoy doing posts through Boards. Going to get back into more comms this year, I stopped in large part because I felt I couldn't talk about the state of the meta and game balance sufficiently anymore (just not close enough to that work compared to before) and that's such a big focal point for player discussion. Definitely a lot of other topics worth covering too in retrospect, even if I'll have to defer to others on balance discussions etc

I'm not sure yet. One of the options being discussed for that 2024 cinematic is to make what we intended to make for 2023 with some adjustments to tie into planned themes for 2024. Very possible we do that, also very possible we go in a different direction.

"He technically did end up in the cinematic anyway... lol"

Oof. I mean, you're not wrong but...

2023 should have more in it than 2022. Some things do take quite a while to ramp up and deliver so will take multiple years, other stuff will be quicker however

Thoughts appreciated on mediums and channels. Agree on visibility being an issue, though I do think we should be doing better on approach and what we talk about too, in addition to better visibility

A brief timeline:

1. We identify TFT as something we want to build and think it's something a lot of League players will love. We draw on a few different teams, with the League Modes team being the largest source of developers for the project
2. TFT launches, I think hits the mark well, and initially we're pretty focused on stabilizing the game and team. There's extremely high overlap between League and TFT players at this point, so we feel we're serving mode interest well for League players
3. The games become more independent, playerbases separate etc. This is where I think we f*cked up in retrospect, failing to realize we needed to put more priority on rebuilding the modes team, since investment in TFT was great for TFT players but wasn't delivering for League players. We did get a replacement team in place, who did some great work under the circumstances IMO (e.g. I think Ultimate Spellbook's a really good mode, as is the art update Nexus Blitz got). It w...

Client work is part of the tech investment section. Didn't have any specifics to mention, and some of the work will take quite a while, so didn't want to build up expectations by using it as an example. Definitely one of the areas of investment though

I believe we've got some thoughts on the LCS being shared sometime next week

Ah ok, yeah, as some folks have mentioned below apparently thinking was that this is pretty janky, quickly thrown together stuff compared to what we normally use the YouTube channel for, so some potential weirdness and clash of expectations from putting it there. Still discussing, but was a deliberate choice not a failure to think about YouTube

Chatting with some folks to see what I can share on the lore side of things. Might not have an answer for you today, but posting to at least clarity not ignoring or missing this question.

Brink of Infinity (what shipped earlier this week) isn't what we were originally building. Once we knew we wouldn't be able to deliver a cinematic like other season starts we looked at what we could do with limited time, Brink of Infinity was the result. It wasn't intended to be a replacement or at the same level as a regular cinematic, thinking was it would be better to try something that do nothing. In retrospect we should have definitely talked to you all in advance about how things had gone wrong and arguably might still have been better off not shipping Brink of Infinity (was something not up to standard much worse than nothing etc)

It was planned, got scripted, we got partway through development. The reason it didn't get finished is something I can't share specifics on, and I'm really sorry about that because I know it's a frustrating answer. I can say I'm very certain we won't hit the same issue with a cinematic for next year's season start.

Edit: Actually, to add a bit of tangibility - we saw some speculation that Aatrox would be in the season start cinematic because of the Aatrox ward skin, just like Ornn and the Ornn ward skin last year. That was indeed the plan, Aatrox was one of the featured champions.