In a thread on Twitter, Greg “Ghostcrawler” Streetexecutive producer of MMORPG project in the Runeterra universewanted to give information about the game as well as explain the announcement of the latter in 2020 which was not followed by any major progress.
The MMORPG in the League of Legends universe is one of Riot Games’ most anticipated projects. The expectations of the players are enormous, but those of Riot Games are just as great. Also, the developer wished to remind that the game is not guaranteed to be released. The MMORPG project can absolutely remain a project forever.
The ad was our CEO’s idea. We thought it was a good idea to make a low-key announcement to help with recruiting (we need a lot of MMO veterans), to get players excited, and because we thought there would be leaks anyway. Often in this industry, we fear that someone will steal the show, but that’s harder to do with an MMO. Everyone more or less knows how to make one, the challenge involved, and the cost and time it takes.
The other big risk of an early announcement is maintaining momentum. It’s hard to keep players engaged and excited for years. They may become impatient with the trickle of information or, even worse, interpret the normal pace of development as something wrong. You don’t usually hear about games so early. Games aren’t often announced until they come with a feature set, some representative artwork, and maybe even a cutscene.
Another consideration is usually phrased as “team protection”. You must be able to pivot your direction, sometimes massively, in response to internal testing and external market forces. When developers are under a lot of pressure because they know players are very impatient, it can be harder to reject designs that don’t work. Games are hard enough to make when they’re secret and confidential, and even more so when they’re in the spotlight.
The reason we made this low-key announcement is because we knew it would primarily reach true fans and not be too mainstream. Now, I’m not claiming that we’re all keeping some kind of big secret together, but it’s easier for the industry and the mainstream media to ignore the ramblings of a few developers than a constant barrage of screenshots and feature announcements. The media needs to draw attention to their stories, so it’s hard for them to sustain interest when they don’t have much to say either. That’s how business works. So we know that when we start posting real stuff, like features, story, art preview, things will get a lot more real. And it will also be harder to undo those features, change the story, or update the artwork. Players and the media may again interpret this as “something is wrong” as they are not used to seeing these changes (which are completely normal) in public.
We will make big announcements and answer big questions when we have more confidence in the direction we are headed. We don’t need 100% confidence. But we need more than what we have today. One of the challenges of designing an MMO (if not THE challenge) is that all the systems have to work together in complex ways. One bad feature can flip the whole experience. If the dungeons are combat-based, and the combat is mediocre, then the dungeons are mediocre.
We are always committed to speaking to you early and often. It’s not going to be an E3-like event where the game is pretty much over before you see it and we have to keep saying, “Sorry, but it’s too late to change anything”. We want the ability to make massive changes if the feedback isn’t what we were hoping for, even if it means delaying the game. It’s worth making sure the game exceeds your expectations, which are already pretty high, I must say.
I have a lot of empathy for you. We want to talk more about the game. We are very proud of it and we think we have something really special. But we know it’s not the time yet. We really appreciate your patience and even your impatience. I believe a lot in communication with the players. We want you to understand why we choose to do things a certain way. It can help you enjoy the game and you’re all likely to be thought leaders who can help explain things to the less engaged. So even if a feature doesn’t work perfectly, you will at least understand our purpose and can direct your feedback accordingly. We’re also not afraid to make big changes, even after the game goes live. That’s how good MMOs survive.
I’ve never run a game before, and I’m humbled and grateful that the team and society have confidence in me to do so. I couldn’t do it without the amazing team we’ve put together. You know some of these names, others not yet, and still others will join us. We’re not going to have a rigorous spokesperson model where only two of us are empowered to engage with players. You’ll hear from the engineers, artists, producers, writers, audio actors, voice actors, quality assurance, community. In fact, anyone who wants it. And I’ll know we’re doing a good job when I see a team member say something like “Yeah, I’ll admit I had my doubts about this feature too, but when I was shown how to do it, I understood the objectives, so let me see if I can explain them to you”.
If it’s too hard for you to read my often nonsensical tweets hoping to find some information, I sympathize. But you probably won’t find it here. When we make a big game announcement, you won’t miss it. We don’t want to find ourselves in the situation where we have to try to “save” a game after a rough launch (although games surprisingly often manage to do this). We want you to jump into the game and say, “Yeah, it was worth the wait. That’s what I wanted”.
Really sorry / not sorry for this wait