marc-merrill
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Is League of Legends greedy? No, says Riot Games president
Responding to claims that Riot Games is being greedy and lazy for failing to create an updated client for League of Legends, President Marc Merrill posted a sharp-tongued rebuttal on Reddit yesterday. "It's pretty frustrating when people try to position us as greedy," Merill began, "because look at it from our perspective: We build pretty much the first successful free online game in the west that core gamers actually really like and play. We did this by building a really fun game, constantly investing over and over to grow and improve this game and by NOT selling power or being money hungry." Merill said that "millions upon millions" play the game for completely free, which is completely fine with Riot Games, and that the studio does the right thing in the end such as its response to the e-sports contract controversy. "I completely disagree with your greed accusation and yes, it pisses me off because I've spent the last eight years of my life building this company, game, and team to deliver great value and to treat players well," he wrote.
Hacker reveals League of Legends collectible card game
Things got a bit weird in the League of Legends community last night when a hacker took over Riot Games president Marc Merrill's Twitter account. The intruder, working under the sinister alias, "Jason," used the opportunity to out League of Legends: Supremacy, a collectible card game built from the League of Legends universe. In a series of tweets from Merrill's account, the hacker posted images and files related to the project including card art and the main sign-in page for the game. According to "Jason," Supremacy was fully completed but never announced or revealed to the League community. Riot did trademark the Supremacy name last year, lending credence to the hacker's claims. Marc Merrill eventually recovered control of his account, noting, "We're always working on a variety of new ideas for League and beyond. Lots of experimentation that may never see the light of day." Make of that what you will. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip]
On the ground at the League of Legends World Championships
It was about 1 p.m. at the Staples Center on Friday, and there was already a crowd. Five hours later, the mass of people would swell to many times the size, as security officers struggled to cram people into the building. At first glance, one could confuse the fans flooding the street as normal sports fans, but then you notice the cosplayers, the Intel-sponsored jerseys and an enormous Tryndamere statue. The Staples Center was packed to the gills with fans all eager to watch one thing: the final matches to determine who would walk away with the Summoner's Cup and the title of League of Legends World Champions.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Stopping the endless rage in League of Legends
Tryndamere is one of the most overrated champions in League of Legends. This is not to say he's a bad champion; he's a strong pick in both Summoner's Rift and Dominion. However, he's considered by many players to be overpowered and nigh-unbeatable. He has a combination of two elements that contribute to this: He's easy to play and hard to counter. An inexperienced player can get a lot of success by being a huge bully as Tryndamere. I find this to be unacceptable! Tryndamere's rage is hardly endless, and dealing with him is one of the best early matchups to learn. Once you know how to deal with his tricks, he's much weaker, and you can walk all over him. People who rely on Tryndamere's gimmicks to win games will be stopped cold once you've mastered the counters.
League of Legends accounts compromised
Given League of Legends' immense popularity, we knew it was only a matter of time before a large-scale hacking attempt succeeded against Riot Games' MOBA juggernaut. The firm sent out an email this weekend notifying EU West and EU Nordic and East customers that their account details may have been compromised. PC Gamer reports that players' "email addresses, encrypted account passwords, and dates of birth have been leaked." Riot bigwigs Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck posted an apology on the EU West forums and implored users to change their login credentials, as "more than half of the passwords were simple enough to be at risk of easy cracking."
Riot Games' Marc Merrill on the Tencent acquisition and the future of League of Legends
Last year's "focus," if you can assign such a thing to the Game Developers' Conference, was probably Zynga and its Facebook games, but for 2011, there was one company that kept getting brought up in the hallways and various panels in San Francisco: Riot Games. Not only did the makers of free-to-play MOBA League of Legends clean up at last year's GDC Online awards, but last week, the Riot booth was constantly surrounded with developers, all wanting to get in on one of the quickest-growing companies around. Riot President Marc Merrill kindly sat down to chat with Joystiq about the game and the company, and we talked about the recent acqusition by Chinese giant Tencent, why Riot is growing so fast, and what's next for the game affectionately dubbed LoL. And yes, LoL players, we asked about Magma Chamber and the Mac client.
