After a
gradually broadening beta that lasted for more than six months, Riot Games'
PC multiplayer action/strategy/RPG hybrid League
of Legends: Clash of Fates has launched. But as a free-to-play experience
with optional paid "customization and convenience," the work for the
Los Angeles-area developer is only just beginning. To generate revenue, the
company must continually add new content and features to its game, fostering a
community willing to choose to incrementally invest in the experience.
League of Legends is heavily inspired by
the mega-hit WarCraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, which pioneered
a gameplay mechanic that is being featured in an increasing number of
commercial products, and former DOTA caretaker
Steve "Guinsoo" Feak is a Riot designer.
Earlier this year, Gas
Powered Games released Demigod, which
draws from DOTA, while Riot will be
competing with S2 Games' upcoming Heroes
of Newerth as more direct DOTA
successors. DOTA's current custodian
is also now employed by Valve, creating the potential for even more big-name
competition.
That crowded
market means each individual studio has its hands full trying to attract the
large and vocal DOTA community while
expanding the reach beyond the existing hardcore audience out to the broader
market.
Gamasutra sat down with Riot Games co-founder and president Marc
Merrill and lead creative designer Shawn Carnes to discuss how the company
plans to do just that, from its low-cost business model, to usability concerns,
to breaking free of the grip of publishers.
You've had quite a long, relatively public,
beta leading up to release. Is that a necessary part of development for a
multiplayer game like this?
Shawn Carnes: Yeah. I like a long beta process. I worked for Blizzard, and when
we were doing [World of Warcraft], we
took a year or so -- it felt like a year, anyway. A long beta process is really
good, not just because we're working out the kinks of the development, but because
balance is such an integral part of the game.
Tom Cadwell
and the designers have been spending a lot of time [on balance]. I mean, we're
trying to balance 40 champions and making sure there's not an overwhelming strategy,
like one or two champions that outright crush. The long beta process really
helps.
It also ties
in a lot with our philosophy, which is we're nothing without our community. So,
during this time, we've been able to generate a lot of interesting and good
work through the feedback of our community, working with them, talking with
them, and them giving us great feedback. It's worth it. The short answer is, it's
worth it.
Can you speak to how the design has
changed as a result of the community?
SC: Absolutely. The strongest one that comes to my mind, because of what I do,
has been feedback on the colors of the map. We went through a huge pass where
we took another look at the whole color palette. Because we have a very
painterly style, it gives us a broad range of options into making champions.
However, that painterly style was really too bright, and it popped too much.
Eventually, if you get three champions on the screen fighting one another and
you get a bunch of minions, you can't really see what's going on. Our community
was invaluable about giving detailed information -- "Whenever three or
more champions are on the screen with all the big particle effects, here's how
I can't figure out what's going on."
Through
iteration, we've been able to help isolate the champion on the screen better,
all based on feedback from the community. We've been able to tone down the
color palette but still make it look rich and exciting. That to me, in my mind,
is a great example of how the community has really helped out.
I assume you expect balance to still be
a perpetually ongoing process.
SC: And it's actually going to be a really difficult process, too, because while
balancing 40 and tweaking things to make sure, at some point, you get to sort
of a maintenance point. But we're going to be introducing five champions a
month, or four champions or month, or something. It's difficult enough
balancing those four, but how those four interact with the existing 40,
sometimes you have to go back to square one.
That seems like a fairly quick pace.
SC: Yeah. Because we're offering the game for free, it's part of our credo. We're
in the business of servicing our community, and to do that, we have to
introduce not only new champions, we're going to introduce new maps, new game
styles for these maps. We're going to be introducing new customizable skins for
the champions.
We're really dedicating as many resources as we can to the
ongoing development of the game. I mean, it's really important. Without our
community and without a bunch of people playing this game, it's nothing, so we
need to please them.