Riot Games and the Revival of the MMO - General Columns

SBFord

Riot Games and the Revival of the MMO - General Columns

Riot Games recently released an impressive interactive map of Runeterra, the original setting created for its massively successful, but lone title, League of Legends. What happened after that stirred up a lot of excitement in the world of MMO fans. Riot co-founder Marc ‘Tryndamere’ Merrill quoted the tweet promoting the new map and asked if people would be interested in Riot building an MMO. This was either a cruel joke or a serious hint at what the studio has been working on all this time.

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Thupli

I've been waiting for this one, for amazons several studios, and magic mmo from Wizards of the coast.

CAN wait for something good and fully made, not an "in development" release!

Amathe

I would love to see them build a new mmo.

Steelhelm

the map and art in it is just spectacular...

Xarko

Well if they, by any chance, have something interesting in their hands, now is the time.

berlight

Instead of 3 lanes you'll have 3 continents with 3 factions. Instead of towers you'll have forts. There you go. Open world full loot pvp LoL. You're welcome.

FrodoFragins

As long as they reinvent there's a chance. But even blizzard couldn't make their Project Titan work so I'm not optimistic. I think the next leap in MMO's will be tied to VR and that's along way off. I used to think AI and true living worlds would be the next step but I've given up on that after GW2

3dom

LoL lost 20% users to Fortnite in Q2 alone. "Suddenly", devs got an MMO idea - which will take them around 5 years to complete while their company may go belly up in a year or less.

I'm not too excited about this.

heerobya

Riot Games hired Greg Street for a reason... all I'm saying.

Sabrac

Interesting reading, and indeed Riot is in a unique position right now they already have a big audience, made them invested in their lore. the monetization i think they got it figured out already with LoL and there is a drought of MMOs with only the usual candidates around (GW2/ESO/FFXIV) and the kickstarters ones that may or may not live to expectation will come out in several years, so it will all depends on how they implement the gameplay and mmo mechanics.

If they succed, i can easily seeing this as a new Boom for MMOs like what blizzard did with WoW back then and if they failed it will be only one of many failures in mmo history, regardless of what type of mmo will be, i wish them good luck, hope that they can pull it off.

InebriatedSkunk

I never got into LoL (more of a DOTA guy though I don't play anymore) but I hope they can go somewhere good with this.

Gutlard

I'm always down for some fresh blood in the water! I'm not a Moba guy, but can def respect some solid lore and MMORPG mechanics!

Gut Out!

Aeander

A League of Legends MMO? I'm assuming every single raid boss and group encounter ever will be played by sending your tank top, dps & support bottom, mage mid, and someone to farm adds in a jungle.

(I used to love League of Legends, but it sure became a repetitive chore after the standard laning phase setup became law). 

Scellow

They should have started the work 5 years ago already, i'm disappointed..

Kasheram

I would love MMORPG league of legends runeterra heck even now I'm thinking how much fun if it comes out how much fun and what I hope it turns out to be really good #runeterrabegins #cantwait #loveleagueoflegends

jusomdude

If they can come up with something fresh I'd give it a shot... but if they just want to make more of the same with a LoL skin, they might as well save their money and time and forget about it.

Ricardo5802

I really hope so, they dump so much amazing lore into this pvp only game it's just sad and feels like a waste, almost like burning books...

Iselin

heerobya said:

Riot Games hired Greg Street for a reason... all I'm saying.

He's not the only one. Nick Konkle who was the lead gameplay designer for ESO is has been Design Lead at Riot for 3 years.

No question that they have the in house talent if they really want to do it.

Shaigh

So they ask fans if they want riot games to build an MMO that they have already worked on for 3+ years or are we talking about hitting the lucrative survival sandbox market.

Ganksinatra

.....I smell a "World of League of Legends" coming.

Manestream

If they did it RIGHT, not just another REHASH of whats already available, FUN and INTERESTING. Quests and storylines, What you do in the world makes a CHANGE. Player run ECONOMIES side games (a bit like a game inside a game). Nice graphics, easy control abilities, both solo and group stuff. PvP but you can get disliked not just by players but NPC's too for this meaning if thats the route you choose things will become extreamly hard and difficult for yourself with nowhere to go to re-equip, repair and sell. Some options for surrender, mercy etc as emotes.

In other words if your going to make an MMO in this day and age, then do it right, take whats been in MMO's in the past, take whats in the current survival games, add new things and you will have a hit on your hands that will take over from wow............ do it wrong however and you will just have another total failure and flop.

Azaron_Nightblade

Ganksinatra said:

.....I smell a "World of League of Legends" coming.

World of LoL(s)

Azaron_Nightblade

Gorwe said:

They sure do have in game explanation set up for an MMO and probably a damn good one at that: Namely, I bet there are a lot of people supporting either Demacia or Noxus and that are probably itching to put other side into their place.

I would imagine so too.
They're both names most LoL players know rather well.
Or at least the ones that are into the lore do!

Scot

Kasheram said:

I would love MMORPG league of legends runeterra heck even now I'm thinking how much fun if it comes out how much fun and what I hope it turns out to be really good #runeterrabegins #cantwait #loveleagueoflegends

Welcome to the boards, good to see you now know there are more things on the internet than hashtags.

Aeander

My first thought on seeing this world map was how artistically similar it is to Tyria's world map, specifically the GW1 Tyria map. My brother said pretty much the same thing on seeing it, and he barely plays Guild Wars.

It does kind of lend credence to reports in the other LoL MMO thread on at least one of 9 prototype games previously being in development by Riot having been inspired by Guild Wars.

Aeander

Gorwe said:

Aeander said:

My first thought on seeing this world map was how artistically similar it is to Tyria's world map, specifically the GW1 Tyria map. My brother said pretty much the same thing on seeing it, and he barely plays Guild Wars.

It does kind of lend credence to reports in the other LoL MMO thread on at least one of 9 prototype games previously being in development by Riot having been inspired by Guild Wars.

Yeah, I can see general similarity. A grassy continent that is flanked by a desert continent to the south and there's an Asian continent + Corsair islands. But that's rather generic description, don't you think? That could've been Europe + Africa + Japan + Tortuga / Carribean as well. Plus, there are no equivalents of Crystal Desert or Charr lands or mainland Cantha(China + Mongolia here), let alone Vabbi or Jade Sea / Echowald Forest. Likewise, there are no real Mt.Olympus(Mt.Targon here) or Noxus or Yordle or Piltover + Zaun concepts in Tyria(ok, there are Asura, but they're both more tech advanced AND alien / monstrous than Yordles). So, there's that I guess.

I was referring more to art style than geology, though there are slight similarities in that regard. By no means am I accusing them of ripping off of Tyrian geology. More likely, they liked the visual style of the Tyrian map and thought something visually similar would fit their own setting (which it very much does).