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League of Legends expanded far beyond the original MOBA. It has a mobile game, a card game and an entire series on Netflix. Arcana was a masterpiece in its own right first, secondand third acts. But the A League of Legends MMO may be its most ambitious project yet.
The League of Legends universe spans much more than the original game. Backstories, cartoons, and more created a rich lore. It is easily one of the largest and most diverse universes in gaming.
However, the MOBA doesn’t do much with that. In fact, you can only access character backstories through the client. And your champion will say a few things here and there. But, you will have to go to the official website or alternative media for more.
Of course, Arcana has done a lot to show how interesting its world can be. That said, a massively multiplayer online game would be perfect. There is a lot to cover there. So, it could even rival World of Warcraft.
Unfortunately, the developers have been very quiet since the announcement. Other than a few Twitter responses and statements, we know little. Luckily, Kanon revealed an interesting bit from his interview with the game’s director. You can watch it below:
It’s just a bit of a full 2 hour interview. The whole thing has not been published yet. I’ll be sure to cover more as soon as he releases it!
For now, let’s recap what they talked about.
Cancel the game if it’s not enough, not because of budgeting
Each city is a whole world to be discovered. (Image credit: Riot)
The main topic in the entire interview was budgeting and pricing models. It was an interesting view of the money side of MMO game development. Plus, it shed some interesting insight into how Riot works.
The first question was whether Greg Street (the director) was happy with the budget. In his answer, he mentioned that this was one of the nice things about working with Riot. They won’t run out of money anytime soon.
Instead, the developer seems happy to fund according to their needs. That is, as long as the quality of the product justifies it. League of Legends’ success is enough to finance the company’s project.
That said, that doesn’t mean the project is 100% safe for release.
Certainly, money is not a reason to cancel the game. But Street did say that “Riot will cancel the game” if it’s not enough. Naturally, that’s money Riot could invest in League of Legends or Valorant. After all, both titles are already very successful.
As such, the approach here justifies the budget. If the team can do things well, they will get more. The opinion of testers and quality assessment is key to the success of the game. At any time, the game could be canceled if it does not meet their standards.
For many, that might paint a dire picture. Many players, including myself, have been waiting for the game since its announcement. Still, it’s nice to see the developer’s commitment to quality.
Subscription-based VS. free-to-play model in the League of Legends MMO
Towns like Zaun and Piltover could be a considerable budget challenge. (Image credit: Riot)
Naturally, this led to a conversation about monetization. After all, a huge game like a A League of Legends MMO is expensive Riot will have to recoup their investment and profit from it.
The thing is, making an MMO game is huge. It basically needs mechanics from every game genre. It must also be online at all times. In addition, it needs regular content updates and maintenance.
That idea took the interview into talking about subscriptions. Basically, the question was what the director thought of them. Of course, subscriptions are often associated with the MMO genre. World of Warcraft demonstrates how effective this model can be.
Now, Street did not explain what the approach of the game would be. Both models have advantages and disadvantages. However, he pressed the tight commitment that subscriptions generate. Also, he mentioned that it is possible to fund the game with cosmetic content.
Thus, there is a big chance that the game could follow a similar business model to Riot’s other games. However, nothing has been confirmed.
Fortunately, he stated that players don’t have to worry about “pay to win” features.
Other things we know about Riot’s MMO so far
Other than that interview, we barely know anything about the game. We are only certain that it will be an open-world MMO game. And, it will likely feature the many regions of Runeterra. But, there is a lot of ground to cover there.
In total, there are 13 regions in the League of Legends universe Each has different locations, landmarks and characters. You can see why it can be a huge challenge to develop.
We want to treat the champions with a lot of respect. I’m not saying you’ll never fight any of them, but we won’t just turn to them whenever we’re short on boss ideas.
– Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) September 13, 2022
Speaking of characters, that was one of the questions answered on Twitter. Someone asked if we would fight League of Legends characters in the game. The developer said they wouldn’t use champions as a crutch. But, fighting them could be an option.
Probably, we will meet many of the characters. It’s safe to say they’ll at least be NPCs. It is also likely that they will give quests to players. Other than that, it’s too early to say anything.
We’re flattered and happy with the kind words about our game so far, but also want to acknowledge that it’s easy to talk a lot about our aspirations, but the proof will be when you get to a playtest. (Which won’t be anytime soon.)
– Greg Street (@Ghostcrawler) January 20, 2022
Finally, we don’t know anything about a release date. Street tweeted that it won’t be anytime soon. So, maybe end 2023 or 2024 playtest version will be available. However, we cannot say for sure. In fact, the game was announced just because it would have been leaked anyway. It was still too early in development.
Featured image credit: Riot.
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