Reign of Gaming

RoG Article Recap

• IPL 5 Las Vegas: What to Watch for in Sin City
• PBE Changes for 11/26
• Old Man Eyebrows' guide to Season 3 Masteries As of 11/27/12

Patch 1.72 (Season 3 patch) Within the Next Week

That's right! Today RiotNome confirmed patch 1.72 is the S3 patch, while Hippalus confirmed that 1.72 should be out within the next week!

Patch 1.72 should go out within the next week. The Name Change cleanup will be in the one after that, patch 1.73.

Karma Rework

We reported a few tweets in the past about a Karma rework. RiotGuinsoo is back with a few new tweets about the rework.

I'm getting excited for Karma. I'm buffing her Mantra Soul Shield today. It's not viable or interesting compared to Q or W

I'm feeling frisky, so here's what we're trying with Karma's Mantra Soul Shield: "Stuns in an area around the target, damaging targets...

... and shielding the target based upon how many targets were hit."

Summoner Name Cleanup and 50% Off Name Change Sale

When Patch 1.73 arrives in mid-December (the 11th at the earliest), we’ll be rounding up inactive accounts to make those summoner names available to players. To make it easier for you to pick up a new summoner name, we’re also putting name changes on sale for 50% off.

An inactive account is any account under level 6 that hasn’t played a game since January 1, 2012. To keep those accounts’ names, you’ll have to log on and play at least one game between now and Sunday, December 9, at 11:59 PM PST. If you miss the deadline, don’t worry – your account is still active, but you’ll be prompted to choose a new summoner name when you log in next time. Only inactive accounts are at risk to lose their summoner names.

From the release of Patch 1.73 through December 26, summoner name changes will cost 650 RP, down from their normal 1300 RP price. As part of your Season Three prep, why not upgrade your summoner name to one that foreshadows your impending domination?

We look forward to seeing your creative new aliases on the Fields of Justice soon!

Riot's Player Support Vision

Greetings Summoners!

There’s a lot of interest in our Player Support efforts, so I thought I’d bring some transparency to what we are doing.

Some of you already know me, but I’m Lance Stites and I’m the director of Live Services here at Riot Games – which includes our Release, Game Monitoring Operations, Localization, Live Production, eSports Production, Risk Management and Player Support teams.

In Los Angeles, for example, we have a robust Player Support team consisting of Account, Billing, Game, Technical, and Player Behavior specialists, as well as our outsourcing coordinators. We have Riot Player Support teams in Los Angeles, Dublin, Istanbul, São Paulo, Seoul and other locations, and this is a big part of our efforts to provide the best support we can to our players all over the world. And, yes, we do lean on some support from partners. To be clear, we have not fired a single Player Support Rioter in relation to outsourcing. Absolutely zero.

We’ve been using outsourcers for a couple of years now. Recently, we have been using more than a single outsourcer, including our group in the Philippines. Why do we use outsourcing? To provide the best service we can to our players.

Let me explain our vision for Riot’s Player Support. First, it’s paramount to what we do. We make a great game, but we also must service that game. We’ve shared the vision that everybody who works at Riot is a part of Player Support and the company embraces this value. Every single Rioter goes through Player Support Shadowing – a program that educates every Rioter directly on how important our Player Support efforts are. Yeah, some players have had tickets answered by Marc or Brandon. If you saw a response signed by Tryndamere, that was honest-to-goodness Marc Merrill taking care of it. This training is recurring and all Rioters will continue to experience our Shadowing Program on an ongoing basis.

The next steps are the expectation that Riot’s Player Support is the best in our industry. Beyond that, we don’t want to just be the best support in the video game industry - we want to be the best damn support anywhere in the world!

While it's true that we've wound down one of our business partnerships, I’d like to clear up a misconception about why we did it. Our support operation in the Philippines isn’t based on some kind of financial reasoning – it’s based on a commitment to quality. We evaluated all of our outsourcing groups side by side. The group we selected was demonstrating consistently higher PSAT% (Player SATisfaction), and provided us with 24/7 coverage. One key metric is that our 24 hour response rates went from 65% earlier this year to 90% today (our target is 100% but we are on our way).

All of our contracted agents are closely managed and mentored by the most experienced members of our internal Riot Player Support teams.

We don't like hearing that anybody lost his or her job, but we are committed to making sure that partners help us fulfill our mission of being the most player-focused company in the world. Anything less would be a breach of that mission.

Regards,
'Sturm

Later the Rioter known as Lomar came in to give some more details

Hey guys,

This is Lomar (also known as Brolaf). If some of you haven’t heard yet, I’ve traded in the suit and briefcase of the Legal Department and gone over to help Lance with our Live Services efforts, specifically Player Support.

Lance has outlined our vision, but I’d like to share some of the tactics involved in our Player Support mission.

To clear up a misconception, when we cut ties with our vendor in Austin, we gave a generous notice and paid (directly to the vendor) for that entire period. We required no work from our vendor during this time, but sent full payment anyway as we felt that was the right thing to do.

The decision to move away from one of our outsourcing vendors was not made lightly. This is a necessary step for us in order to ensure the success of some awesome initiatives our players will see in the coming year.

This is a sensitive issue and you may see this story painted in different ways by different people. We have an obligation to be transparent and I’ll be in this thread throughout the day to answer any questions you may have.

 Altar Problems and Future Changes

People have reported issues with the new altars in TT. Two problems brought up by a forum member where that of ranged classes being able to interrupt a melee trying to capture an altar, and that of backdoor alter captures.

Agreed on all counts here. We're going to be exploring a variety of counterplay solutions internally after 1.72 (Season 3) patch hits.