#Riot Forge

[aurelion-solar]

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story - Ult Portraits

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Yes, I've seen this, and yes, it's a fucking clownshoes travesty. Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja and Marc Merrill can both eat a big fat sack of shit, the executive class at that company is staffed by incompetent vultures who will throw five hundred people's lives into turmoil because interest rates aren't zero anymore, but who will never so much as shave the five o' clock shadow on their own compensation packages.

If they gave a single solitary shit about sustainability, they would have built a company that can operate when the interest rates are Anything Other Than Zero. They didn't do that because they don't actually care about that, and these layoffs are ENTIRELY about appeasing shareholders and meeting quarterly growth targets, no matter how pathetically Jadeja may protest that He Would Never.

Legends of Runeterra struggled because Riot catastrophically mismanaged it, as evidenced by the DOUBLE 180 degree turn they've now done on Path of Champions as a product. Riot Forge is getting shut down so Riot Games Inc. can go jerk off Saudi Arabia with PR laundering esports events and gag on MBS' veiny, shriveled faucet of oil money, I remember when the LCS tried to get away with promoting NEOM.

Since I cannot repeat it enough: eat shit, Riot CEO Dylan Jadeja, and also Marc Merrill, you incompetent fucking vultures.

[proudchimera]

A Sacred Place.

[marianamakesart]

Hey ya'll this is my piece for the Farewell Riot Forge Zine that was organized on Twitter. I was assigned to draw for Bandle Tale so I drew my two favorite yordles in one of the locations of the game 🧙‍♂️🧚‍♀️

[riza-hawks-eye]

Jinx: Pow-Pow wants to give you a kiss.

Ekko: I do not want Pow-Pow's kisses.

Jinx: POW-POW WANTS TO GIVE YOU A KISS.

[kishiskolaash]

I LOVE THE MAGESEEKER OKAY

[league-of-skins]

Riot Layoffs

Below is a list of Rioters (especially creatives) affected by the recent layoffs. Some seem to point to the generous severance package as reason for why Riot is a “good company” but I think it’s the least they could do considering that many received no warning of their termination and had to find out at the same time as the players while others were left to wonder if they still have a job.

Small edit based on some of the responses I’ve been seeing on Twitter: League of Legends is as successful as it is because of the passionate people behind it. Your favorite skin concepts and music groups and even Arcane only exist because of their creativity and determination, not because Riot, the company itself, created them.

I will try to keep updating this list.

George Ahlmeyer - Concept Artist

Stephen Auker - Design Manager (I also want to highlight that he was the lead gameplay designer for Shyvana’s VGU and this may lead to a delay)

Audrey Axt - Concept Artist

Ellie Beutler - 3D Environment Artist

Matt Burdette - Senior Environment Artist

Luana Bueno - 3D Character Artist

Sonny Burge - Animator

Crystal Chang - Illustration Lead

Zoë Chang - CG Animator

Angelina Che - Illustrator

Jason Cura - Sound Designer

Caytie Davenport - Marketing Writer

Sabrina Futch - Narrative Editor (Comics and Cinematics)

Christopher Hsing - Senior Animator

Emmanuel Lagumbay - Sound Designer

Graham McNeill - Principal Narrative Writer

Jon Moormann - Senior Designer

Natacha Nielsen - Senior Character Artist

Nick Oei - Concept Artist

samiiybl - Riot Games Music Creative Producer

Julia Shi - Senior Story/Visual Development Artist

Beckett Snedecker-Short - Riot Games Music Creative Director

Tyler Soo - 3D Character Artist

Riot Llama - Champion Designer

Tart - Concept Artist

Sean Tay - Art Lead

Tomukus - Principal Visual Designer

Nicholas Werner - Narrative Editor

Maisie Yang - Principal Concept Artist

[navibruh]

Arcane, thoughts & conclusion

I really, really loved the second season of Arcane. There is no nuance to that. It blew my socks off.

Yes, there were pacing issues. Yes, there were one too many plotlines to wrap up. Yes, it ended nothing like I expected and did not tie into mainline League.

The achievements of the show really blow most of these issues away for me plus I think if you wanted this show to just become mainline Runeterra after the fact, you had the wrong vision for it. That also goes for the whole "Arcane is the main canon" comment made two years after the first season, total bogus bollocks that tries to infantilise any Arcane watchers who try LoL after the fact.

Episode 3, 5, 6 and 7 were the major highlights for me but I do not have an episode I look back upon with an ounce of true negativity.

My biggest gripe with the show, however, that I don't think can be justified by accepting that Arcane being so big and such a grand story with so many characters is the handling of Vander/Warwick and Sevika.

Sevika just got shafted. I think that is the easiest way to put it. No real dialogue after the first act and no valuable screentime. Her tidbits in episode 9 felt like breadcrumbs. A massive shame for such an amazing character who should have gotten more... ending her story on a teaser of her in the new Piltover council is nice but unbaked.

Warwick got pretty much the same treatment but I have a little more to say about him because I think his portrayal in act 2 was utterly perfect.

His new design was also good for the context!

Why, after everything they put into developing the return of Vander somewhat, did he just go? A lot of people 'died' during the Glorious Evolution but having that be the final goodbye to everything with Vander was unceremonious. It would have been better for him to have died alongside Isha in my eyes, the cycle repeating again and again. More justification for Jinx's determination to break said cycle by stepping away.

His use as nothing other than a big bad attacker in the final fight did not help, the presentation was wicked and the shots of him standing tall and robotic were intimidating but nothing more than the initial moment of "damn!"

Even if he was not destined to become like mainline Warwick, which I knew not to expect as Act 2 rolled in, there was surely a more satisfying conclusion than Vander dying with his memories being absorbed by Viktor and his body going up in smoke.

But, what now?

Arcane's first season was an easy ten out of ten in my eyes.

Arcane's second season was a strong nine out of ten.

In my eyes, this show was the last gasp of hope for Runeterra and her lore: we no longer get colour stories, the state of start-of-season cinematics is dubious after the tainted legacy of 2023's shitstain, Legends of Runeterra is dead and Riot Forge is no longer with us.

One HELL of a last gasp and I am happy that we will at least have Arcane to look back on for years after the fact.

The future shows we have been promised mean nothing till we see them, I believe Arcane was the final labour of love we'll ever see. Nearly a decade in production, £250 million and Fortiche's mastercraft culminating in this stellar show.

I pray, as an enjoyer of League's mainline lore and Arcane, this is not the end but the horizon is bleak. Knowing Ambessa will get a book is a nice start but once Arcane disappears over that horizon, what next?

I don't know.

[explodingquails]

Morgana and her animal friend in The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story 💜

[dastardlydumb]

there’s a very cute note in the convergence game from Zeri featuring her and blitzcrank getting into some shenanigans in the sump.

[remosss]

my two pieces for the Farewell Riot Forge zine! had an absolute blast studying the styles of The Ruined King and CONVERGENCE 💜 (characters in the first piece are from the “Oaku and Urfson” lore journals, ft @wizardmilfs’s character Rusty from my Runeterra ttrpg campaign!)

[aurelion-solar]

Riot Games are eliminating 530 roles - laying off 11% of Rioters globally.

They say they want to focus on their "core live games" - League of Legends, VALORANT, Teamfight Tactics, and Wild Rift. Development of R&D games such as Project L (the tag-team fighting game) will continue.

Legends of Runeterra will be significantly hit, because it "has faced financial challenges since launch, costing significantly more to develop and support than it generates".

Riot Forge will also be shutting down after the release of Bandle Tale as they "don’t view this as core to our strategy moving forward".

You can read Riot's official statements here:

https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2024-player-update

https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/2024-rioter-update

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Since Riot Forge has been offed by management, what other characters and storylines would you want a game about?

Honestly, not even necessarily champions. You know what would be cool? An honest to god Stardew Valley style farm simulator where you're, like, trying to run a farm in the Demacian hinterlands. All the usual mechanics: growing crops, mining, crafting, maybe some light combat, lots of dateable NPCs, your grandad's ghost appears and judges you if you haven't gotten laid by the end of year 4, all the usual normal stuff.

But then also there's a mage or two who lives in town, one of the villagers who helps you out, that hot NPC you're trying to date. Maybe the kid you'll eventually have with your spouse could be a mage. And the Mageseekers come around every few years looking, and asking questions, and taking people away from your community, and you need to make some decisions about what you're going to do about that. Do you sell your fellow villagers out to the authorities, in return for rewards, or do you find a way to resist?

Like, that kind of a thing. Or a 4x or Total War style game where you play as a Noxian commander trying to expand and colonize the Valoran continent, pushing against the borders of Demacia and the Freljord. Crusader Kings-like set in Shurima where Azir is trying to unite his new empire.

Heartless Frostpunk-style management game where your goal is to help your Freljord tribe survive an especially harsh winter. Tavern management game set in Bilgewater where you're trying not to run afoul of pirate gang politics. Visual novel where you play as a tormented soul on the Shadow Isles trying to escape from Ruination by finding the Hallowed Mist manor from Legends of Runeterra.

This is one of the things that frustrated me about Forge, that it was still stuck in this "THE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS CHAMPIONS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF OUR UNIVERSE!" framework that League of Legends itself is stuck to, rather than trying to profile and expand the universe itself as an interesting setting that people might love all on its own, the way people love Middle Earth whether or not Aragorn happens to be there, or the Star Trek universe regardless of who's captaining the Enterprise that day.

Oh, also, dating sim set in Piltover and Zaun where none of the dateable options is a champion, but every playthrough, one of them is randomly selected to actually be Evelynn in disguise, and if you can't see through her act in time, she kills you in agonizing (horny) ways.

[proudchimera]

It's Ahri-versary~~~ yayyyy

[league-of-blorbos]

I don't think I had "Volibear wearing clothes" in my Song of Nunu predictions...

[riza-hawks-eye]

Ekko: So Zaun is in trouble right now?

Future!Ekko: If you would just listen, we’ll be keeping this city safe from...a devastating future.

Ekko: This must be about Jinx! You want us to stop her from working for Silco and blowing everything up! Right?

Future!Ekko: Huh, I guess we could do that too. I mean, It doesn’t set a good example for our kids to have mom blowing stuff up all the time.

Ekko: Our

Ekko: WHAT????