Welcome to another developer blog entry! Today we’re talking about something different: our approach to teaching new League of Legends players. If you’ve ever tried to teach friends or family how to play, you might know what a challenge (or pain in the ass) it can be, and many of you have given us great feedback about improvements you’d like to see. Today, we’ll dive into the principles we use to think about how to improve onboarding for new players, and give you a glimpse into an upcoming mode that aims to add a hand-hold onto the MOBA learning cliff.

The guys at Riot are always researching something it seems. As it turns out, they’ve been paying attention behind the scenes to figure out exactly how hard learning LoL is.

Previously, we’ve erred on the side of a steep challenge. In fact, a non-trivial number of our new players end up losing Battle Training, which is intended to be a tutorial. We’ve observed some of those same players go on to become Gold-tier ranked players, so this isn’t a problem with the players – it’s a problem with how we teach them.

With Intro Bots, we’re aiming for a more approachable difficulty that gives all new players a manageable first experience. At the same time, we’ve designed many features to be dynamic based on a player’s performance so the mode isn’t a pushover – players quickly performing appropriate actions and behaving like an advanced player will see fewer helpful features and lightly amped-up difficulty. Novice players should be able to enjoy several games of Intro Bots and steadily learn the basics, while more advanced ones will quickly grasp the essentials and move on to greater challenges in other modes.

Players looking to check out the Intro Bots before they go live will be able to do so on the PBE very soon. You can read the entire article at http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/node/18580

In a statement to the community, Riot announced the immediate closure of their official public chat rooms.

The official public chat rooms have grown rife with RP sellers, scammers and Elo-boost spam. The default four rooms we established can be used by a tiny fraction of our players at a time. Given the number of League players, most conversation spills into private, community-created rooms.

Unfortunately, private chat rooms and even the awesome community hubs like Dominate Dominion and Summoner School lack moderation tools beyond the ignore button. While the experience in private chat rooms is better than the public versions, we still want to provide tools to address unwelcome drop-ins and toxic behavior.

Long term we’re exploring and working on major and minor improvements to chat and chat rooms aimed at enhancing usability and adding new functionality.

As an immediate action we’re going to disable the public chat rooms until they’re useful and accessible. In their current shape they just don’t work and can actively create negative experiences for many players (especially new players).

We’ll keep all private chat rooms and messaging available to everyone, and bring the official public chat rooms back as soon as we can.

Players that are hell bent on using chat rooms may still do so in the form of private chat rooms on the site. All is not lost when it comes to the public rooms though. According to Riot, they want to re-evaluate them and possibly re-introduce them with improvements later on down the road.

You can read the entire statement on the official League of Legends community page

The team clearly has put a lot of thought into the redesign with a focus on shades and colors helping to convey different types of information to the player. While the map is still a while away from going live, players will get an opportunity to test out the new map thoroughly on the PBE in the coming months.

If you’d like to learn more about League of Legends, head over to http://leagueoflegends.com/

With the hiring of a highly influential member of the WoW design staff it seems appropriate to wonder if Riot is possibly considering a game in the MMO genre? A League of Legends based MMO that explores the lore and characters more in depth could be a truly amazing game if done correctly. Imagine making your own yordle and doing quests for Teemo out in the forest. Or fielding a guard regiment on the command of Garen. The lore behind LoL is quite deep and it seems almost logical to extend the brand into a different medium that can tell the story better than a traditional MOBA. An MMO isn’t exactly a ground breakingly different medium compared to a MOBA but done correctly there’s likely no way that Riot could fail in attracting an audience and making loads of money.

This years event is even more exciting than normal. On top of the yearly Christmas themed skins up for sale we also get a brand new  1v1 and 2v2 Howling Abyss game mode.

You’ve shot off five Final Sparks and achieved immortality through constant Chrono Shifts, but now it’s time for a Showdown.

For the next Featured Gameplay Mode, you’ll be able to duel it out with friends and foes alike on an icy battlefield that promises contests of epic proportions.

With three paths to an honorable victory, will you go full ham and draw first blood, wave clear your way to 100 CS or channel your inner Ziggs and demolish the turret before your opponent?

If you queue up with a buddy for the beatdowns, you’ll notice that you need two kills to earn the dubya, or the two of you can combine to hit that century CS mark.

Sharpen your swords and ready your hextech revolvers. The Showdown approaches this Snowdown

$10 – 1,380 RP
$25 – 3,500 RP  1380 x 2.5 = 3450 (bonus = 50 rp)
$50 – 7,200 RP  3500 x 2 = 7000 (bonus = 200 rp vs 2 $25 cards or 300 rp vs 5 $10 cards)

Here’s an updated list of where you can find prepaid cards:

US

• Gamestop ($10, $25 and $50)
• Walmart ($10 and $25)
• Target ($10 and $25)
• BestBuy ($10 and 25)
• 7-Eleven ($10 and 25)
• Toys “R” Us ($10 and $25)
• AAFES ($10 and $25)
• Fry’s Electronics ($10 and $25)
• Play N Trade ($10 and $25)
• Walgreens ($25)
• CVS ($25)
• Speedway ($25)

Canada

• EB Games ($10, $25 and $50)
• BestBuy ($10 and $25)
• Future Shop ($10 and $25)
• Walmart ($10 and $25)
• Toys “R” Us ($10 and $25)
• 7-Eleven ($10 and $25)
• Mac’s ($10 and $25)
• Couche-Tard ($10 and $25)
• Target ($10 and $25)
• Shoppers Drug Mart ($10 and $25)

• Atlantic Fonecard ($10 and $25)

“Over 32 million fans watched SK Telecom T1 earn the Summoner’s Cup in front of a sold-out Staples Center,”.

“At peak, more than 8.5 million fans were watching at the same time. To put those numbers in context, the Season 2 World Championship was watched by 8.2 million fans, with 1.1 million watching at the same time. In short, we’re beyond humbled by your passion for and commitment to League of Legends.”

This smashes the previous e-sports viewership record and possibly sets the stage for another record breaking turn out for Season 4.

A truly unique skin for the Egyptian dog monster is coming soon to LoL players worldwide. The skin features new particles, shadows, animations and a unique second form during his ultimate. Expect to pay a decent amount of RP for this one, but long time Nasus players will likely find the skin very worth the cost.