On the Riot MMO, my title was EP (though I am not a producer). I hired a great production director and game director, and then found that I had worked myself out of being directly involved in the game as much as I wanted to be. For this new MMO, I am the game director. As studio head, that may not scale forever, but it feels great right now.

(1/7): Hey internet. Thanks for all the support over the past few months while I was afk I am back now with some big news to share: I have decided to step down from my role at Riot Games

(2/7): A combo of personal and professional considerations led me to down this path. We experienced some devastating personal losses last year and I want to be closer to my surviving family.

(3/7): But while I was on break I got to think a lot about my career. Grief has a way of really bringing into focus what matters the most to you (still don’t recommend it overall though). And after nine years at Riot it feels like it’s time for something new!

(4/7): I said from the beginning that building a League of Legends MMO worthy of you all was going to be a long journey. The most important job I could do as part of that was to build an amazing team, and while I try to stay humble overall, I will brag about this team all day!

(5/7): The MMO is in good hands and it’s the right time to hand over the reigns for the next phase I plan to stay in game development and I have had a number of exciting opportunities presented to me already. And I will be with you all playing the Riot MMO when it comes out. Hugs, GC

(6/7): I know one typically hands over the “reins”. I was trying to be too clever about someone leading the project. Also

(7/7): I tweeted that from a park since the house is being shown cuz I gotta move so cut me some slack

Full interview w/

@Ghostcrawler is now up! Sorry for the delay. Thank you @riotgames for the opportunity! <3

https://www.youtubecom/watch?v=EBKrj8bYpUc&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Kanon

Question: @averuki asks,
Awesome interview, good questions. I somewhat agree about the one man army but I would gladly tank for my friends or heal for them if I could do it on my main character. Having to log on another char kills the immersion for me. I like to identify with my character.

Greg Street responds,

There are pros and cons to the FF job system vs stable of alts system. Most likely we won’t be able to make everyone happy there. But the one thing we do want to avoid is feeling like you are don’t need other players at all because you can do it all yourself

I was a guest on Kanon’s podcast. To set expectations, the discussion is about my career and MMO design in general, and not about the upcoming project. Also the link here is just to the teaser not the actual discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxL1yfYyK_0&ab_channel=Kanon

(1/2): I don’t get excited about workplace tools much (I’m not *that* kind of a producer!) but miro has done sooo much for remote collaboration. I can’t imagine going back to whiteboards, even in person.

(2/2): It’s not that I now hate whiteboards, but think of all the way Miro beats them: Better for remote Never run out of space No problems with handwriting Adding images is easy Lots of people can be adding stuff at once Nobody has to write / photo to save it all after Drag and drop

Question: @The_Mr_X_ asks,
in IRL meetings do you all have tablets/laptops or do you have giant touchscreens which you use as pseudo whiteboards?

Ghostcrawler MMO Tweet

We either have our own laptops or ask the person driving to make changes if it’s not a ton of new content (e.g. a review instead of a brainstorm)

Want to hear the secret to game development? It’s not true every time but it’s true a lot of the time. “You likely need more engineers”

My two forms of exercise are boxing and yoga. I do one every single day. Been boxing for 4-5 years and got my first blackish eye today. It’s not that bad but people are definitely looking at me.

Question: @TheHumanPT1 asks,
Ok, but hows the mmo progression going?

Greg Street says,

Expensive. But (shrug) that’s what MMO dev is like.

We are looking for a Senior Director of Operations for the MMO! This is a production role focused on organization and delivery, which reports to me. Given the scope of the role, it does require a fair bit of experience

https://www.riotgames.com/en/work-with-us/job/4593279/sr-director-operations-unpublished-mmo-los-angeles-usa

(1/5): When I or someone on the team tweets about almost anything it can turn into a news article. We understand. Players are eager for info and the media wants to support that. And we are grateful! Just take it all with a large grain of salt.

(2/5): Don’t expect that you are going to be able to connect the dots from articles here and there and suddenly have a complete picture of the game. (But I would do the same were I in your shoes! I get it.)

(3/5): But the game is still evolving. The challenge of MMOs is that everything needs to come together and you often can’t evaluate how it works until many pieces are near complete. This is where efforts can lead to long term flaws and the very thing we are trying to avoid.

(4/5): So speculate away, but remember it is all just speculation. When we have announcements to make I assure you that you will not miss them. Though even those may shift and evolve over time, live games being what they are.

(5/5): Again we are grateful that you are excited. We are excited as well.

(1/4): As the head of this MMO team, I don’t do a lot of actual “making things” type work. One exception is that I do brainstorm and problem solve for creatures, especially things to fight. It’s something I’ve done a lot both for work and in D&D, and I love doing it.

(2/4): It’s satisfying for me to consider both the creative side of what they are, and the gameplay side of how things fight, as well as making them sensibly fit in a (fantasy) ecosystem.

(3/4): I am careful to never tell the team that they must use my ideas. It’s fun for me to see which ones they get excited about and which ones don’t go anywhere.

(4/4): Largely thanks to LoR, there are a fair number of creatures in the world already, but (we and other games!) are going to need so many more!

Question: @KC_flo_ asks,
Btw how the project IS going on ? Do you have faith on it ?

Greg Street answers,

It is going well and I have a LOT of faith in it. The team does as well.

Question: @Distrbeachboy asks,
what do you do then

Greg Street Twitter

Lots of meetings. I hire people, make sure the team understands and is following the vision and goals, playtest and give a bunch of feedback, and collaborate a lot with other teams at Riot.

Question: @LantzGaming asks,
You probably can’t answer, but I’m wondering if dungeon bosses can/will be any champions we know of? I keep imagining struggling to take down a GIANT cho’gath and it has me really intrigued.

Ghostcrawler Tweets

We want to treat the champions with a lot of respect. I’m not saying you will never fight any of them, but we aren’t just going to turn to them anytime we are short on boss ideas.

Re: Ruination novel 1. You should read it! 2. Ant Reynolds is leading narrative for the MMO 3. One of the things great about this world is its breadth. So while there are grim and tragic stories (spoiler: this is one), other stories are heroic, happy, even silly

Question: @darkknightsolo asks,
If you could point someone in a direction of lore in order that should be read, or watched for that matter to put us lore geeks in the best position to be ready for the MMO what order would that be?

Greg obliges,

This seems like a good request. We will consider the best way to approach it.

Question: @IvanEGerber asks,
So how much of the league of legends lore is going to be considered canon to the MMO? will some stuff be retconned or ignored for example?

Ghostcrawler responds

I could write a whole novel just on canon. Short version: You have to make the right choices for the medium, whether that’s a novel, a TV show, or an MMO. But you also have to respect those invested in the lore or they will quickly learn that nothing really matters.

Example I use a lot: Twitch (the rat) wasn’t in Arcane. Was that the right call for the show? Absolutely. It had more than enough characters. Does that mean Twitch is no longer part of Runeterra? Nope.

What makes me even happier than getting my #Spelljammer box in the mail? Seeing my friends and former coworkers @Dayntee and @pwnieride in the credits!

Question: @IsmailovOskar asks,
i have a question about mmo. you said that you and your team still don’t know what mmo about Runeterra should look like, I had an idea that if the game will be isometric but it will possible to switch to open camera movement, what do you think about it

Ghostcrawler responds,

Oh, the team knows the answer to questions such as camera angle. I just often ask players what they think because we aren’t going to make big game announcements on my personal twitter account

I don’t always get to fully watch these videos about our game, but I am happy to draw attention to them and let you choose yourself. It is a very happy, very passionate team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL1_CTD4THE&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=Zoofus

Question: @zeolish asks,
It does make me wonder if the development in terms of initial release features will be influenced by discussions around the game.

Ghostcrawler Twitter

Of course! That’s why we discuss it

Question: @daniithegamer asks,
Hey Greg! I was really curios with all the league lore hype going around right now, do you have any insight on how serious the story’s/quests in game are going to be? are we going to experience some very dark, deep story telling or is most of it going to be safe/fun type story’s?

Greg responds,

I mean, our IP has both. That’s one of the things I really like about it

Question: @HandsomeSpork asks,
Heya! After some late night browsing of the web I came across this MMO y’all are working on and I’m already itching to see what you guys have done. One question I have (if you can share), Will the game be subscription based? Or is this too early to say/Undisclosed?

Greg Street replies,

We haven’t shared this yet, but philosophically it will look like other Riot games

Question: @MuadDib01575720 asks, [Tweet Deleted]

Greg Street explains,

The challenge is that you have to pick a name that is legally available in many countries, but as soon as you start asking those questions, you end up leaking the name. So there is no guarantee we could use a name we liked.

What kinds of things will we share about the MMO when we can? Probably things that look a lot like the messages to players that Riot’s Project L just dropped!

Question: @I_Am_Chubbstock asks,
But will you be the face of them, like Tom is in this video?

Greg Street answers,

It won’t just be me (and I doubt it will just be Tom once that game is close to launch)

(1/25): One of the most common questions we get is why we announced the League MMO in such a weird way and when we will provide more real information. There was actually a strategy in place here!

(2/25): The announcement was the idea of our CEO. We thought it made sense to low key announce to help with recruiting (we need a lot of MMO vets), to excite players, and because we thought it would likely leak anyway.

(3/25): Often in this business, you worry about someone scooping you, but that is harder to do with an MMO. Everyone more or less knows how to make one. The challenge is actually doing so, and the massive cost and time it takes.

(4/25): The other big risk of announcing early is sustaining the momentum. It’s hard to keep players engaged and excited for years. They might get impatient with the trickle of information, or even worse, interpret the normal rate of development as something gone wrong.

(5/25): Since usually you don’t hear about the games so early. Games aren’t often announced until they can come with a feature set, some representative art, and maybe even a cinematic.

(6/25): Another consideration is usually framed as “protecting the team.” You need the ability to pivot your direction, sometimes massively, in response to internal testing and external market forces.

(7/25): When developers are under a lot of pressure because they know players are so eager, it can make it harder to toss out designs that aren’t working. Games are hard enough to make when you game is secret and under wraps let alone with a bright line shining on you.

(8/25): So the reason we announced kind of low key this way is we knew it would predominantly reach actual fans and not go too mainstream. Now I’m not pretending we are all keeping some kind of big secret together.

(9/25): But it’s easier for the industry and mainstream media to ignore the ramblings of a few developers than it is a constant barrage of screenshots and feature announcements.

(10/25): Media need eyeballs on their articles, so it’s also hard for them to sustain interest when they don’t have much to talk about either. That’s just the way the business works.

(11/25): So we know when we start releasing actual information, such as features, the story, a look at the art, shit is going to get much more real. And it will also make it harder to undo those features, change the story, or update the art.

(12/25): Players and media may again interpret this as “something must be wrong” because they aren’t used to seeing those changes (which are very normal) in public.

(13/25): We will do big announcements and answer big questions when we have more confidence that the direction will stick. We don’t need 100% confidence. But we need more than we have today.

(14/25): One of the challenges of MMO design (heck, maybe THE challenge) is that all of the systems have to work together in an intricate fashion. One bad feature can topple the whole experience. If dungeons are based on combat, and the combat is mediocre, then the dungeons are mediocre.

(15/25): We still vow to talk to you early and often. This isn’t going to be an E3 type deal where the game is mostly done before you see it and we keep having to say “Sorry, but it’s too late to change anything.”

(16/25): We want the ability to make massive pivots if the feedback isn’t what we were hoping to hear, even if that means delaying the game. It’s worth it to make sure the game exceeds your expectations, which are already pretty lofty I might add. 🙂

(17/25): I have a lot of empathy for you. We want to talk about the game more. We are very proud of it and we think we have something truly special. But we know it’s not time yet. We really appreciate your patience and even your impatience. 🙂

(18/25): I am a huge believer in communicating to players. We want you to understand why we chose to do things in a certain way. It might help your enjoyment of the game and you all are likely to be thought leaders who can help explain things to the less engaged.

(19/25): Then even if a feature isn’t quite working, you will at least understand our goal, and can direct your feedback accordingly. We also aren’t afraid to make big changes even after the game is live. That’s how good MMOs endure.

(20/25): I have never led a game before, and I am humbled and grateful that the team and the company have faith in me to do so. I couldn’t do it without this amazing team that we have assembled. Some of the names you know and some you don’t know yet and more will join all the time.

(21/25): We aren’t going to have a rigorous spokesperson model where only a couple of us are empowered to engage with players. You will hear from engineers, artists, producers, writers, audio, voice actors, QA, community. Basically anyone who is interested in doing so.

(22/25): And I will know we are doing a good job when I see someone on the team say something to you like “Yeah, I admit that I had my doubts on this feature as well, but when I was walked through it, I understood the goals so let me see if I can explain them to you.”

(23/25): If it’s too hard for you read my often inane tweets hoping for a morsel of information, I sympathize. But you probably won’t find it here. When we make a big announcement on the game, you won’t miss it.

(24/25): We don’t want to be in the position of trying to “save” a game after a rocky launch (though games are successful at this surprisingly often). We want you to jump in and say “Yes, this was worth the wait. This is what I wanted.”

(25/25): So sorry / not sorry about that wait. /thread

Question: @Huckleberrytini asks,
Without revealing too much detail could you break down what the development schedule for an MMO looks like? I understand it can be a 5-10 year endeavor at a minimum but I’m curious as to why that is.

Greg Street explains,

It is because every aspect is complicated. Thousands of items. Hundreds of assets (trees, rocks, torches). Lots of complex systems. Huge technical hurdles to have clients agree what to show you when they disagree while keeping responsiveness good. Severs that won’t fall down.

Anytime someone mentions team rituals, I really want to bust out the animal bones and candles

Question: @bathezenith ask,
I really want to understand if Riot MMO is Project F. If it is not then, is there any person who leads Project F like you so i can follow on Twitter.

Ghostcrawler Tweets

The MMO is not Project F. We have not released screenshots or concept art of the MMO yet. I don’t want to speak for the other team.

I can confirm or deny nothing, but I can help Necrit’s viewer count

Question: @Fahim120000878 asks,
Do you plan to reveal anything this year?

Ghostcrawler says,

I would love to, because I like to talk to players and overshare. But we have to make sure there is something worth revealing. Hand waving a bunch of concerns away can be worse than no information at all

Question: @Angrykook happily states,
It’s really fun seeing the lore of Runeterra through LoR cards, it certainly has been hyping me for the MMO. Can’t wait to explore the universe you guys are building

Greg Street responds,

This game owes a lot to LoR

Question: @iAmGomance requests,
I just want good combat. None of that half-assed stuff. Well thought out combat that is fun in and of itself. (Like WoW and LoL) I think you’ll nail the storytelling/quest design, ngl.

Ghostcrawler agrees

I agree. I am really picky about combat as a player. Most games I play I will say it was fun but wish it had better combat

(1/2): Okay on a happier note, actual MMO discussion. This is not a reveal. Sorry. We won’t do that on twitter. But we have been talking about how much MMO skill should be adaptation to new conditions versus execution on a known situation.

(2/2): For example, a dungeon “pull” could be so predictable that you always know how it will go… or when you can skip it. Or it can be so unpredictable that responding in real time is a big chunk of the skill check. Pros / cons?

Question: @iAmGomace asks,
Also, could we get some reveal about what sort of combat you’re looking at? Will it be hack and slash, tab targeting, or something in between (LoL/PoE), or is it secret

Greg Street Tweet

We haven’t answered that yet

Question: @TheAmalli says,
It’s too broad of a question without knowing what kind of combat you plan on doing and too contextual to different games.

Greg Street disagrees,

Not sure I completely agree. I think you could say at a high level that as a designer or player you valued execution, reaction to limited information, and game knowledge about equally, regardless of genre. Most PVP games test all three. Many PVE games just pick 1 or 2

Question: @agaeliow asks,
Don’t know if you guys are “ready” to answer this yet, but will the player’s view be isometric (LoL; Lost Ark) or in third person (WoW)?

Ghostcrawler explains,

We haven’t announced yet. It requires some nuance to explain because if you boil it down too much, it’s easy for some players to panic and think it will be too boring or too stressful

Question: @MetaphorsXD asks,
What about mmo PvP? Will it be competitive orientated? How serious will balance be compared to WoW PvP (lacks heavy balance)

Ghostcrawler elaborates,

There are a couple of axes upon which to design PvP (which sadly won’t answer your question): Should there be a level-playing field or should my better gear matter? Should PvP use the same rules as PvP or be hand-tuned around fairness and fun (e.g. DR on CC, smaller crits?

Another question I should have asked was whether the PvP is small scale or large scale. You need a really different model if you are trying to do armies of PCs.

(1/3): Sorry. I try not to talk politics much. I know you are here for MMO thoughts or at least crab trivia. It’s just pretty depressing right now

(2/3): Crab trivia: those yummy king crab legs are closely related to hermit crab legs (more so than they are blue crab, Dungeness, stone crab legs etc)

(3/3): MMO thoughts: As amazing, experienced, smart and deeicated as this team is, if we can’t make a great game, then I am just a terrible, terrible leader

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Great. My COVID puppy Mediocre Dane (I call him that because he’s half Great Dane) is strong and smart enough to open the sliding glass doors now.

Question: @RicardoJonesT asks,

Hola Mr.Ghostcrawler Buenos días, Hablando del Mmo ¿ Que posibilidad hay de que tengamos Mascotas en el Mmo ? A modo de compañeros que nos animen el viaje y nos den alguna estadística pasiva como Reputación de facciones y que los demás nos vean mejor. Espero su respuesta

Greg Street responds in both English and Spanish,

I feel like players would be angry if we didn’t have pets in some form. Siento que los jugadores estarían enojados si no tuviéramos mascotas de alguna forma. (Google translate.)

I have so much affection for Arcane and the team. I worked closely with them for several years, and it just shows the crazy stories we can tell in the League IP, including of course one future MMO 🙂

https://twitter.com/arcaneshow/status/1546923839774265346/photo/1

Question: @EduardLefter asks,
Will some Champions be enemies or will we avoid fighting them. It would feel weird to kill Rek’Sai in the MMO while she is still in League of Legends playable. Could be an opportunity for reworks though, like the burning tide with GP were he was “killed” by MF. Could be cool

Ghostcrawler says,

We have to respect the champions. They are someone’s main after all. If we have any as villains they would need to be epic stories and not just the villain of the week to be killed in the next raid

I’ve been making games for something like (jeez) 24 years. In that time I have never really dealt with imposter syndrome. But man on this team there are so many smart people. Always aspire to be the dumbest person in the room 🙂

Question: @kavontataylor hopes,
I hope there’s some one on your team that enjoyed elden ring and realized that RIOT MMO doesn’t need waypoints and quest markers to be a good game.

Greg Street says,

We have played many, many hours of Elden Ring. I have completed it twice already. I find their quest design to be a little too dependent on Google, but I love the simple maps not covered with icons and activities.

Question: @Deathleecher87 asks,
A quick question. What is your opinion on gating content for the 1%? Like mythic raids in wow. They are so hard now a day, that most people will never do them. Meaning you use alot of time for the few

Greg explains in detail

A lot of players may not run the 1% content and still appreciate them. For example, very few players play LoL professionally but esports are exciting and aspirational for the game as a whole.

If you are spending a ton of resources making content that nobody will see, it’s good to ask if the ROI is really there. But rarely used doesn’t automatically mean useless. I play a lot of D&D and even though few campaigns reach level 20, it’s nice to see what level 20 brings.

So for mythic raids, if they are aspirational, if a lot of players follow the race to world first, if it’s exciting for the game as a whole, then they can definitely be worth it. We have a plan for how to make this work.

Question: @Masterxuser asks,

Greg Street responds

Nope, we don’t know. We really want to share information that you will find useful and exciting and not just “Well maybe we will do it this way, but we are still testing it, so we don’t have details yet and no it’s not ready for you to try out”

We do want to talk about the game often and early so that we have time to make changes. That’s the whole point of us talking about it already when we haven’t even shared a name

Question: @AlyssarEU states,
hope it’s going well. even when you feel the dumbest in the room, you should still challenge ideas even as the minority

Greg Street Twitter

I get to challenge ideas because I lead the project. But I try hard to trust the judgment of the team

It’s windy of course and the wool blows like tumbleweeds

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1536073996130713601/photo/1

Question: @fakeyimlayn asks,
hello Greg. I know these kinds of questions are annoying but Do you think the Alpha version of the MMO will be ready for 2024?

Greg Street responds,

That’s a long way away. I would hope so but sometimes you uncover a systems or pacing flaw only after everything comes together. No promises.

Question: @ConcealedUser asks,
Do you find these frequent questions about the MMO annoying? Or you see it positively that it already has interest even though nothing is known publicly about the MMO?

Ghostcrawler responds,

No, we love that people are already invested. And the kind of questions folks ask give us a good indication of what players will be interested in

The dogs really want a walk but I am drinking alone (except for you all I guess) in this half Irish half Scottish pub and I really want another Guinness. I am bad father

Question: @MabritoMason jokes,
Quick, while your drinking, spill the beans on the name of the game!

Ghostcrawler jokes back,

But then we would have to go secure all the rights in every country before squatters do

Here is another MMO topic. As before, the team has a vision. We aren’t crowdsourcing. We just want feedback. We don’t expect you all to agree. That’s okay! It’s a discussion. What do you like about guilds, clans, companies? What rules do you like or not? What games do well here?

This is what it’s like for designers to work with engineers (with credit to one of my coworkers): Designer: Can we get this feature? Engineer: Impossible. Engineer. Wait a minute. Engineer: [types like exactly 3 lines] Engineer: It is done.

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Question: @royalplus666 [Tweet Deleted]

Ghostcrawler says,

I actually agree in software development that “can’t be done” is pretty rare. But should it be done? Is it worth being done? Are there other things with a better ROI that can be done? That’s how we talk about decisions internally. It may be a good change, but is it worth it?

(1/2): I am playing Elden Ring again from the start and while I found some things I missed before, it’s remarkable how much faster it all is now that I know where to go next, what to skip and so on.

(2/2): If they can ever make a game that randomizes more (those mini dungeons seem like a prime candidate given that Bloodborne already had random dungeons) then I will be big time hooked. And yes I know there are randomizer mods already.

Question: @elit_ghost asks,
I am actually abit curious, is there anything from Elden Ring that you’ve found would really work in an MMO or that you maybe are thinking of integrating into your upcoming one?

Ghostcrawler responds,

yes

Everyone, thanks so much. I am still going through all the responses but it is a trove we will keep delving into for some time

Question: @MagicSlinky asks,
I have a question: Is there really a reason to make an MMORPG if you don’t want players to be able to play it for a long while? Or maybe, did you mean you don’t want players to feel like they need to play it all day everyday.

Ghostcrawler explains,

Playing because you are having fun and want to do more – good! Playing because it feels like a job or a commitment or you don’t want to fall behind – less good

Question: @ggBecario asks,
Will be multilanguage? like spanish,german, etc…

Greg Street Tweet

Will we have localized versions for different regions? Yes. We don’t know yet what that whole list will be, but looking at what we do for League and VAL is a pretty good guess.

Question: @mqh0623 says,
Hello, producer, I’m a game player from China. I’m 32 years old. We grew up playing MMO mode games since childhood. I hope it can be produced as soon as possible and with high quality. By then, I believe at least 200 million Chinese will play it. Thank you for your hard work.

Ghostcrawler responds,

I think 200 million Chinese players might try it, but we need to make sure a lot of them also love it and stick around

(1/14): A lot of the comments we received (thank you!) were about “artificially” increasing the time you have to play an MMO. A quick thread…

(2/14): I put “artificially” in quotes, because the entire product is pretty virtual at the end of the day. 🙂

(3/14): But this sentiment comes out when players may not be having fun in the moment but feel like they have to log in or risk falling behind or letting their friends down.

(4/14): A *little* of that sentiment is probably healthy. It’s the same thing that gets you to actually show up at the party you were sort of dragging your feet to, but then end up enjoying.

(5/14): I showed up for raids for years even on those days I wasn’t excited to, because in the long run it helped out my friends and our goals as a group. But you can definitely overdo this!

(6/14): The real heart of the problem IMO comes when players say they are bored. They did the raids, and the alts, and the economy, and whatever else, and they kind of want something else to do. This is especially true if they are paying by the hour or by the month.

(7/14): If you add too much to do, then you’re asking most progression-focused players to just play more. But if you make the content really optional feeling (“Hey why don’t you go finish this low level quests you never ran?”) then it doesn’t feel like real content.

(8/14): This is the kind of thing we will have to playtest the heck out of, but if I had to guess, we will probably come in on the side of not having enough to do. Yes I am serious!

(9/14): We don’t want to be the only game you will ever play. If another game comes out that you love, or god forbid you love more than one live game (say VALORANT), you should be able to play those too!

(10/14): If you don’t have another game you want to play, great. Read a book. Catch up on TV. We will make more content, and then you can jump back in.

(11/14): If you really, really love our game, well thank you, and we will make sure there is something you can do if you just want to play more and more hours. But it will probably feel pretty optional.

(12/14): The TLDR of all this is we want to respect player time. Now please don’t misread that to imagine we are making a small game. We are not. It is a very large game. The reason you are going to have to wait so long is because it is a large game. But we can still respect your time.

(13/14): And you can help remind your friends when they say they’re bored and wish there was more to do, that the developers didn’t want it to feel like a second (or third) job. They didn’t want you to have to play 4 hours every day without fail. They didn’t want every session to be epic.

(14/14): Can’t wait until we can share more! And remember, if the kinds of things I am describing end up sucking, we will change them. /thread

I suppose I have to add that we aren’t crowdsourcing the design of this game. I am just curious where our features might require a little more explanation or even selling. Feedback is always helpful.

Question: @Haileaus asks,
Hey Greg, what kind of feedback is especially helpful at X stage of development? I’m a pretty good guesser but having guidance helps a LOT and can help foster useful community discussion.

Greg Street Twitter

At a high level there are going to be 3 stages. 1. You don’t know anything and can just talk about what you like or not. 2. You know the game at a basic level and can react to announcements. 3. You have played the game and can provide feedback.

I am not being flippant. I really think about it that way.

Question: @Trilleaux asks,
Are you making a game for everyone, or a segment of the MMO space? It’s hard to hit the scene with enough content to satisfy the Hardcore players which are typically the most influential presence on social media which carries a heavy burden. Make it fun, replayable, and memorable

Greg Explains,

You can’t make a game for everyone and have it be loved by anyone. We know some of you won’t agree with our choices and maybe not even like the game. That’s okay.

Question: @_sparksen asks,
I’m curious how late into the development cycle you plan on unveiling more details about the game (not expecting an answer, though). Riot does well with feedback, I hope that we learn about the game at a time where meaningful change from feedback can still be made.

Greg Street reassures,

Early enough that we can still make changes

Question: @jonathanmelian asks,
And what if you were ? Who would be mad on designers looking for ideas

Ghostcrawler explains,

It just leads to speculation of “They have no idea what they are doing – they had to ask players what kind of game to make.” It is a way for us to gather feedback before we have announced much.

So let’s be a little more negative for a moment. Without bashing other games, what features do you NOT want to see in this game we are making?

Question: @alex_esp5 does not want,
TP to going from x to y. One of the best things about immersive experience in wow was the “take a zeppelin or a train, or fly with an eagle”. Tp just feels so anticlimatic.

Greg Street asks,

I agree in theory but what do you do when you ask a friend to join and they are 30 min of travel away?

Question: @GriffiththeSecond does not want,
Transmog systems. I understand you want a “look” for your character and having things match but some games just use it as an aggressive monetizing system.

Ghostcrawler notes,

You realize I coined the term transmog for WoW? (I didn’t make up the word.)

Question: @Steeezy_izzyy mentions,
I played the elderscrolls online for many years and quit it cause the class & meta changes are so frequently. If you grind and upgrade for weeks and then a new patch with changes is coming a few weeks after you’re done with, than it’s just frustrating af.

Greg Street explains,

Part of the Riot formula is to update frequently rather than throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do. We know not every player enjoys that though.

Question: @beastmode14791 does not want,
Lack of communication from dev to community. Not saying every comment, but at least something out before every patch explaining why some of the changes are going through.

Ghostcrawler reinforces,

This is one area I am pretty confident on which we can exceed expectations. You (plural) won’t always like the changes, but you’ll know our reasoning at least

Question: @Wiik_ does not want,
Transmog

Ghostcrawler says,

Transmog was kinda my baby tho

Question: @maximum says,
Correct. I imagine he made this just to hear some of the points argued to understand better.

Ghostcrawler adds,

It also helps us prep for when we are going to have to do a little more explaining to help players understand why we designed some things a certain way.

I tend to make my own worlds for D&D, but I will say Spelljammer is my second favorite official IP right after Planescape.

Question: @himeur_nassim asks,
Will there be dragons in the mmo ?

Greg responds with irony,

Are there dragons in LoL?

Question: @syllvaeon asks,
What kinds of worlds are your favorite to make?

Ghostcrawler asks,

Ridiculously detailed, politically complex, often darkest before the dawn themed, that don’t have an obvious “this is supposed to be England” vibe

Last world has something that is somewhat Polish (because I love Hussars) and a fallen Persian-ish empire of elementalists that use glass swords. And sky dwarves.

(1/3): I see some internet.confusion about my use of the term “stacked team.” It’s gaming slang (in the US only?) for when you put the good players on one team and the other is all scrubs, resulting in an uneven match. It just means our team has a bunch of brilliant and experienced devs

(2/3): Also a stacked deck of cards, which is like cheating

(3/3): I see a lot of supportive notes about how people will misinterpret anything, but I also understand that players who don’t read English as a first language try to follow my “news” (heh) as well

Question: @Brandon82476215 believes,
Will the game be subscription based or cosmetic microtransaction based. I feel like, in order for an mmo to be successful it would need to be subscription based. I would like class skins tho if overcrowding with to many classes is a problem.

Ghostcrawler responds,

We haven’t said yet. There are pros and cons to about every system. Maybe we will do something crazy and new. Maybe.

(1/4): A few weeks ago I made a tweet where I intended to emphasize what a commitment I had made to this MMO. Some players and media latched onto the “might never ship” part and extrapolated that the development was not going well. Spoiler: It is going great. This team is so stacked.

(2/4): But there is no guarantee any game in this business will ship. Anyone who makes that promise is essentially saying they will ship even if the game is disappointing. We won’t ship a disappointing game. (We also won’t crunch just to make sure the game is as good as it can be.)

(3/4): Do I think Riot will launch an MMO at some point? Absolutely. There are so many good reasons to do it. Maybe I am not the right leader, or this is not the right team, or our design isn’t the right one. But the company will keep at it until the game is worthy of your expectations.

(4/4): Thanks for your support and patience. We got you.

Question: @ScripeWoW asks,
This all sounds great but will there be competitive raiding like in wow?????

Ghostcrawler responds,

I don’t like to confirm many things on twitter. It’s not the right format. But GC loves raiding.

Question: @flov94267713 recommends,
So the worst part of the MMO’s is the communication between devs and players, that can ruin the whole thing! We dont care if the game isnt perfect we just want you to open your ears and listen the community. Dont hesitate to ask anything when youre at latest stage of development.

Ghostcrawler adds,

We want to have a really open dialogue with the community. We want to get as close as we can to players feeling like they are on this journey with us, without getting to the level of “vote on what this class name should be.”

Question: @Dannycasual22 asks,
This probably isn’t a fair question to ask you, but any idea if we will see anything about this game at some point this year? I have no idea where it’s at development-wise. Glad to hear things are going well. Can’t wait to see what you all are cooking up!

Ghostcrawler Twitter

We don’t know yet. We want to have something meaningful to talk about when we do so that it’s not disappointing. “Riot releases information on MMO with no actual information.”

Question: @Papy_608 proposes,
This kind of makes it sound like you’re doubting yourself or your team?

Greg Street responds,

I’m not sure overconfidence leads to great games. I’d rather try humility.

Related to my long thread on getting into the biz, we would like to hire some people with no prior experience to work on the MMO. It won’t be for awhile and there won’t be 500 of those jobs, but we think the perspective will help us, and we can give back to the community a bit.

Question: @Neeko2loTV asks,
How would one apply for such an opportunity. Asking for a friend

Greg Street Twitter

Keep an eye on the Riot recruiting website, but I will also blast it out here when it happens

Question: @ChrisHolfield
Would this still be game devs? Or are you trying to be in “players” to help make sure the game feels good or the story is insane etc. I’m sure there’s enough cc’s that have played some amount of every mmo. That could help prevent mistakes etc

Ghostcrawler answers,

No, game devs to work on the game. We will need a ton of playtesters as well, but not quite yet.

Question: @TheDiggerton asks,
Any chance there’ll be anything for people interested in going into Narrative Design and the like?

Ghostcrawler replies,

Yes

Question: @ShugunShah asks,
If it’s okay to ask, is this opportunity open to game developers from around the world?

Greg Street clarifies,

The US has some complex immigration laws to say the least, which can make acquiring visas challenging but possible. We are opening up studios around the world, though obviously not many all at once.

Question: @Raviolllllie asks,
Is there any chance that there will be jobs related to UI/UX Art?

Greg Street replies,

Yes.

(1/2): There is no guarantee this game will ship. We are optimistic, but you just never know until it does. However assuming it does, this will be the fourth major franchise I have worked on (AoE, WoW, LoL), and likely the last. And I am very okay with that. It will be a good final act.

(2/2): I started to say things like magnum opus, but that sounds like it is my vision, and it very much comes from the team. I just steer the ship and watch for sea monsters.

Question: @Tauna_YT asks,
Is the MMO not a part of the LoL franchise anymore? Not set in Runeterra?

Ghostcrawler answers,

It is Runeterra but I meant franchise like LoL being a moba.

Question: @QverSoul asks,
I think literally every league player and mmorpg player is hyped for this MMO, what would cause it to cancel if players want to play it and spend money on it?

Ghostcrawler replies,

If it’s not good. If we think it will disappoint players. We don’t want to be a game that is hyped for 2 weeks and then fades from view.

Question: @MarbritoMason asks,
Okay, but how’s it looking so far….

Ghostcrawler answers,

It is looking good. Best team I have ever been on and I have been fortunate to work with some great teams.

Question: @Huckleberrytini adds,
Taking the most optimistic reading of this Tweet to assume that it’s a franchise you see yourself dedicating the remainder of your career to, which I for one am very much looking forward to. Best of luck with the development!

Ghostcrawler adds,

Yeah games like this are a commitment. The hard part starts after it ships. 🙂 So I am imagining a long journey ahead.

Question: @CRONUT_boy remarks,
The wording on this i don’t like it, seems like things are not going so well is the vibes I’m getting

Ghostcrawler explains,

Things are going super well. I am just being honest that Riot’s game standards are high and so are the expectations of players. We won’t ship a disappointing game.

Question: @OGKeemu states,
I hope it does, I also hope you guys start taking suggestion and feedback early on in the development. Soo many MMORPGs getting made now a days don’t until beta and then core issues with the game can’t be solved because they got pointed out way too late.

Greg Street reassures,

Even if problems get pointed out late, we will fix them. That is where so many of these games go wrong IMO

Question: @eugen0te suggests,
Look, it might be a crazy idea, a little naive, but it would be interesting to establish a dev blog. A MMO is a big deal and has a tendency to fail if the foundations aren’t strong. The dev blog can show the arts, ideas, sketches… To exchange opinions and set expectations

Ghostcrawler agrees,

I could see us doing something like this for sure. Maybe not quite yet. 🙂

(1/2): I’m barely a designer these days, but as a designer I have always enjoyed randomness. I like it when players have to adapt to the current situation instead of just focusing on rote execution.

(2/2): It’s possible to overdo it of course. Player actions, even when adapting, should have consequences (good or ill). If things are *too* random then player actions can’t drive the outcome.

Question: @ProvanaRodmajor asks,

Sir, please tell me if Riot’s MMORPG has plans to release Chinese language, and Chinese servers. And how do I qualify for the closed beta?

Greg Street Twitter

I don’t think this is a big secret. Chinese players are big fans of the Runeterra IP. As for beta, when we announce it I think it will be hard for you to miss.

Question: @himeur_nassim asks,
Game when ?

Ghostcrawler responds,

When it’s good

Question: @Kreldur asks,
Just a random question, how do you feel about cosmetics in MMOs in terms of having them be rewards for clearing content and micro transactions? Been seeing a lot of movement towards microtransactional cosmetics in MMOs recently when content based rewards seem more rewarding to me

Ghostcrawler answers,

Cosmetics make good rewards since they don’t inflate power. They also make good microtransactions in a world where players have soured on things like subscriptions, DLC or even paying more than 50-60 USD for a game that costs a whole lot to make.

Question: @inotrobot asks,
This Post reminds me somehow of MoP, where “Know Thyself”(knowing your spec/talents/etc) was the foundation of success and how one survived&thrived on unexpected inputs. Your randomness, is it enemy&environment behavior, unreliable playercharacterspells&procs, or something else?

Ghostcrawler adds,

I think all of that. It’s “easier” in PvP when you can’t predict the other players’ actions. But not all situations can be PvP.

Question: @Voiceof82927672 asks,
Why not randomness. But not random results.

Greg Street explains,

We like to say that input randomness (don’t know what’s going to happen) is good, and output randomness (I decided to do a thing and the game said I failed) is riskier. But even the latter is a staple of a lot of combat e.g, D&D.

Question: @Blastuch asks,
Don’t you think that unpredictability would be a better concept? So the situation can’t become solved, but outcome is somehow tailored to circumstances.

Greg Street responds,

There are a lot of forms of unpredictability. Other players is a huge one. Having systems so complex that the outcome is hard to predict is another. But good old randomness also has its place IMO.

Ant is a good friend of mine, plays in my D&D group, AND is working on the stories we’ll tell in the MMO!

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1506820672500101125/photo/1

Alright apologies to Elden Ring’s crabs. They indeed have the correct number of legs. There are tiny front ones that are mostly hidden by the claws. Spoilers: There is a different anatomically correct decapod as well.

Question: @jay_keeper_ asks,
the thing I’m most curious about the upcoming MMO is: Is it gonna be first person, third person, top down isometric?

Greg Street Twitter

We haven’t announced that yet. A big challenge of games of this scale is innovating just enough without innovating so much that you lose the magic or move completely out of the genre.

We are still looking for a brilliant, experienced combat designer for the MMO. Riot has a lot of internal experience with this, but we want to increase our knowledge.

https://www.riotgames.com/en/work-with-us/jobs

I made a slide the other day showing games that influenced the direction of the MMO and I put Elden Ring on it. Mostly as a joke. But I somehow expect it may not be.

If you have made the dubious decision to follow this account, you are going to hear about a lot of random crap. Yes, much of it will be game design, but this discussion about spears was good for my soul. I now want to turn to the copepod.

Question: @MoxieMuramasa asks,
when the time draws near will you go on AllCraft with Asmongold and Rich to discuss the MMO?

Greg Street says,

I tend to never say no

Response: @Asmongold says,
🙂

Greg adds,

When we get closer. When there is more to talk about.

Runeterra will be very historically accurate while I am involved. (I am kidding – it will be a fun magical world with hopefully a bit of verisimilitude.)

Question: @AtlastLodric asks Greg,
How much focus is there on your team’s end with regards to building up the story of the world. It seems like a lot of modern MMO’s do the bare minimum in terms of worldbuilding/story simply because it is just expected and the story is always minimal as a result.

Ghostcrawler responds,

If you look back to our initial announce/not announce, I mentioned how I took a 2 year detour to focus on worldbuilding

Question: @ArrashKing asks,
Nice, keep up the good work Greg 😀 Is there going to be like a channel for dev updates or page specific to the MMO? 😮

Greg Street Twitter

When we get closer, sure. I’d love to dev watercooler type articles again

Question: @Qumoodo hopes,
Sounds great; I hope you’ll be including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ in the development process, in how cultural inspirations for the story in-game are being represented, and in making sure to include & address issues of anti-black racism/colorism and gender representation.

Greg Street confirms,

Yes. You have my word on that.

Question: @mrfroobs requests,
I’m a full supporter of those causes, but please don’t do it for the sake of it. Don’t let the characters that represent those things have it be their one defining trait. I would hate to see it done purely for diversity’s sake, and it end up being “Oh, so this is the diverse one”

Greg Street adds,

Part of the reason of getting the advice of subject matter experts is to make sure they feel like real people (or people-like races) and not hollow shells. Real people have many characteristics and few can be boiled down to just a few adjectives or values.

Question: @croissantia remarks,
as long as its not modernised or political, i’m game.

Ghostcrawler says,

It will be political, but like nations scheming against one another. Like Arcane. 🙂

Question: @AyyProphey wants to know,
Can you confirm or deny if i can play a hunter esque pet class

Greg Street Twitter

No, I cannot confirm or deny. Do you want to? The AI of the pet is always a challenge.

Question: @TheLucaBlue would like,
Love that it will be a mix of both! I really hope it manifests in the class design as well with some unique takes we havent seen before. I’d love to see a class based off these cards from LoR

Ghostcrawler says,

We have a lot of veterans from the LoR team!

Okay, after lots of garbage posting today on my part, *we did put up some roles for the MMO today*. Some art roles will go up soon, and some of these will work for our Bellevue WA office. These positions do require experience, but not all of them will

https://www.riotgames.com/en/work-with-us#product=MMO

Question: @OurMoney asks,
Do you know if there will be any audio jobs? I live very close to Bellevue and this would be a dream job. I have tons of experience.

Greg Street replies

There will be audio jobs for sure. I can’t tell you yet when that might be.

Question: @Sumo_cide asks a great question,
Totally off topic question, but I’d love to hear what part of League lore has been your favorite since I’m guessing you’ve looked through old and new lore in prep for the mmo! Always excited seeing your tweets

Greg Street answers,

There are a lot. I do like how Noxus feels less like evil empire now and more like a place that espouses a particular world view of merit over inherited titles.

So I think in the last hour or so, I have somewhat committed to 1) Just calling our game “the unannounced Riot MMO”, 2) Having crustaceans, 3) Only having cat people as a playable race. Narrator: Only number 2 turned out to be true.

Question: @devolore asks,
wait so does that mean cat people or nah

Greg Street responds

You see Josh, if you buy a cat person, then you actually own them! You can be a cat person in any game! (Just because I know there are people here who read English as a second+ language, I am NOT serious)

Question: @Tolkien_TBS remarks,
Soo… just for the history books… the first thing people knew about Riot MMO was it have crustaceans

Greg Street Twitter:

Shit you might be right

Question: @meeix_ says,
so angry about no cat people

Ghostcrawler answers

I sad no to only cat people

Question: @oheyspun says,
I’m over here editing a video on tweet speculation and now you release this info? Can you just pause tweets for the day

Greg Street responds,

I don’t think there is any real info I am releasing here. Except maybe the shrimp.

Greg Street Tweet within the Thread

I’d be okay with 10 leg arthropod people, but 6 leg arthropod people are a hard pass

(1/3): When I was a scientist, we would commonly send animals back and forth to colleagues when they had trouble collecting them. I once shipped a big box of grass shrimp +grass +water to NY. Despite my attempts to zip tie the bags closed, the box became a little leaky in route. (1/2)

(2/3): I labeled the box CAUTION LIVE ORGANISMS but the post office read that as CAUTION LIVE ORGANS and the leakiness therefore induced considerable concern. (The shrimp were fine.) (2/2)

(3/3): If you are the kind of person (like me) who has a favorite type of grass shrimp, these were Palaemonetes, which are kind of common and boring. My favorite is Tozeuma, which has a beautiful green color and unicorn horn. (Googling arrow shrimp might work if you are interested.)

Question: @burakcati inserts humorous sad meme due to unrelated mmo tweet
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJ-QGQ2WYAARHIy?format=png&name=small

Greg Street Twitter:

There will be crustaceans in our MMO. Better?

We are flattered and happy with the kind words about our game so far, but also want to acknowledge it’s easy to talk big about our aspirations, but the proof will be when you get to playtest. (Which won’t be soon.)

(1/2): I didn’t realize EO Wilson had died. He studied small arthropods (ants in his case) as did I. He was one of those authors who felt so familiar from his writing, that he seemed like a friend even though we never met.

(2/2): A favorite quote from The Ants: The foreign policy aim of ants can be summed up as follows: restless aggression, territorial conquest, and genocidal annihilation of neighboring colonies whenever possible. If ants had nuclear weapons, they would probably end the world in a week.

Question: @Sleepysama_ [Tweet Deleted]

Greg responds,

We can’t answer that yet, but in general you want a game that can let people show off their high end graphics cards while also not eliminating a sizable chunk of players who want to play and don’t have access to an expensive rig

Not going to confirm or deny the speculation of course but I thought it was a really thoughtful video|
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xb5ZNu_m3M0

Question: @Hastes requests,
Sincerely hope you don’t abandon the pvp crowd, I know many times it’s been stated that “the game won’t be for everyone” but I think many are praying that we will have some stake in game.

Greg Street explains,

The challenge is even if I say we will have PvP (and we will), that can mean so many different things, from ganking, to epic battles, to looting, to dueling, to arenas, to even esports. So still probably not for everyone.

Question: @sufflexi asks,
Question, is marc merill and brandon beck involved in making the mmo? was listening to a 2020 npr podcast with them on it https://npr.org/2020/12/10/944978668/riot-games-brandon-beck-and-marc-merrill… was interesting to learn they worked on a mmo before kind of as a consultant (it flopped? and they said they learnt alot from it

Greg responds,

Yes, we talk to them all of the time about it. They love the genre.

As someone who obsesses about game rules for a living, I am really impressed by #pathfinder2e (I still love D&D too – this isn’t a console wars post). The 2e rules are elegant, sensible but flexible, and they include a lot of guidance for exploration and downtime activities too.

Question: @JoshDoesDamage jokes,
WHERE IS THE RIOT MMO INFO IM NOT ASKING ANY MORE

Greg Street respectfully answers,

We will share more, but expect it to also be a dialogue where we go back and forth with interested players. For example, we might say group size is 6 players and players respond that they prefer larger or smaller for reasons

Question: @shipporeyes requests,
I only ask one thing, please that the camera is like wow :c ….please <3 I love that experience of feeling that you are the character <3

Greg Street explains,

I’ll just say generally that there are aspects of the game where we *do* want to challenge the status quo, but we need a really good reason when we do that beyond just innovation for its own sake. We would need a really good reason to try a unique camera angle.

Not this week (don’t @ me quite yet!) but soon, we will have roles for the MMO team up here!
https://www.riotgames.com/en/news/riots-opening-an-office-in-the-seattle-area

Question: @kiogamedev asks,
but will you have JUNIOR roles…is the real question.

Greg Street answers,

We will have junior roles. It is going to take an army.

Question: @MaxPower__89 [Tweet Deleted]

Greg responds,

We don’t have an office in Irvine (at least not today). Our SoCal office is on the border of LA and Santa Monica, and yes we have roles here. Not sure if / when we will expand this team to the Bay area, but there is a Riot office there as well.

We have been working remote for so long but I was in the office today and had my first “hey roll over here and look at this” in a long ass time. Missed it.

Question: @Tyrsfal asks,
Hey Greg, do you know if or when you might be able to share any sliver of mmo news?? Been dying in todays climate to hear anything about that! Cheers

Greg Street responds with,

It’s a challenge. If we talk too much about it too early, then players can get exhausted at the slow roll out of news, or the media even starts calling it vaporware since they are more used to grand reveals.

We very much are looking forward to talking about it, and we want to share info early enough that we have plenty of time to respond to (extensive) playtesting and feedback.

If you liked Arcane or the Ruined King game and are interested in more League, I recommend checking out Legends or Runeterra if you are interested in the lore, or Wild Rift if you want great multiplayer. Yes, we are building an MMO for you too.

Question: @Hogman announces,
I’m very ready for this MMO, Greg.

Greg says,

same

Question: @PKashine adds in,
“Just remember an mmo should make me Want too waste my time. Not actually waste my time.”-Asmongold 2021

Greg Street agrees,

“Respect players’ time” is one of our mantras

Question: @MagicSlinky asks,
Is it going to be an MMORPG? Or just an MMO?

Greg Street answers,

MMORPG

Arcane very soon! So many people worked so hard on this project. I hope you like it.

Question: @repsej shares in excitement,
If the MMO is of the same caliber as these episodes was, gorram we’d all be living in Runeterra forever. All those hand painted textures, the music, the story flow. Best animated show I’ve seen in a long time. Hyped for next week!

Greg adds,

That’s the plan. But an MMO also has to entertain for 1000+ hours so we will be busy. Glad you are enjoying it.

But I mention this just because I take joy when people make fun of me. I end every (meandering) presentation with this slide.

Question: @SantusMattia asks,
i have a question about the new mmo that will come in the future (if i am writing to the wrong person, i’m sorry and tell me to whom i should do this question cause i do not have an idea!) Will it be free to play like all the other games (with at least transactions on cosmetics?)

Greg Street replies

We have not announced the business model yet.

Question: @Joshoshbgosh says,
Seriously can’t wait to see what you and the team has in store for us with the new MMO.

Greg responds,

We can’t wait to show you

(1/2): Since a lot of you have reached out, we are committed to hiring some folks with no industry experience to work on the MMO. I think fresh eyes will benefit us & it’s also a way to give back a little to the community. We aren’t ready for that yet – maybe next year if all goes well

(2/2): We will also particularly be interested in the kind of fresh perspectives and diverse voices that come from folks who are currently under represented in the gaming industry. This game needs wide appeal to be successful

Question: @KadexeWasTaken asks,
Say if you’re still alive, I wanted to ask you – how do you prototype a game as large and complex as an MMORPG?

Greg Street responds with,

You can’t prototype much of it obviously and a lot of it requires many players and long time periods to answer e.g. is end game good?

So you typically choose the areas that are higher risk or where you really want to innovate and prototype those.

Question: @Spideraxe30 asks,
Are you guys still building teams at the moment and still need leads

Ghostcrawler answers,

Yes. We have our most senior roles filled, like tech director and game director, but we will also need people like a lead rewards designer or lead tools programmer

Heck I will go as far as to say lead rewards designer is one of the most important roles on this or any MMO. We need a superstar here

Question: @ItzCharlieScene [Deleted Tweet]

Greg Street says,

Players have different motivations and there are even regional differences. So yes we need to hear from a lot of voices. I am an older person myself. 🙂

When we are ready, you’ll hear about it. But if you just can’t wait, you can use this link. Being in the system is less prone to losing you than my DMs. But again, no rush.
https://www.riotgames.com/en/mmo-recruiting

(1/2): Scanning LinkedIn for more MMO folks. Some of the titles cracking us up. Strategy Ambassador. Imagination Architect. Shackle Breaker. If I ever need to look for a new job, I know what to do.

(2/2): There was no actual shackle breaker. My buddy Andy came up with that title. If anyone deserve it IRL it’s him.

Question: @Shadowjay1431 suggests,
I appreciate the effort, but maybe look for non-enfranchised folks? Many MMO’s miss that magic, and I think many devs treating it like a 9-5 instead of their passion is a real problem. We could really use fresh faces in the mmo scene. Maybe single player rpg people?

Greg Street responds,

Riot is kind of a weird place and we don’t have many 9-5 type devs. But your point is well taken and I agree with the single player perspective. (However as much as I love them, this is emphatically not a single player game)

(1/4): I used to think the difficulty I had working on design problems that I wan’t passionate about was a sign of immaturity. These days I am less convinced that’s true. (1/4)

(2/4): Sure I can pitch in and do any unglamorous work (bug fixing for instance) when it’s needed. I try not to be a prima donna about it. (2/4)

(3/4): But I know I do my best work when I am really engaged, challenged or interested i. the design problem at hand. A good example is I will do extra research, sometimes almost to the degree of diminishing returns. (3/4)

(4/4): I also know that when I am bored of a project I can tend to tinker, not because it will make something great for players, but because it keeps me entertained and engaged, which isn’t the best reason. (4/4)

Question: @TitanOverMars1 ask
speaking of game design, can we get an update on the MMO? Maybe a couple of pictures or a teaser video? Or even progress on the dev team, current goals, development timeline? Would be neat if y’all asked for generic input/suggestions through polls throughout development.

Greg Street says,

We will absolutely ask for feedback and input throughout development. That’s the only way this thing will be good. Just a bit too early yet to share more details.

MMO healing is a topic on which I have a lot of thoughts and at least some experience. It’s hard. If too much is on the healer, they get blamed and their life is stressful. If there isn’t enough, then the healer gets bored. And there is always the solo question.

These aren’t like impossible unsolvable paradoxes. Like much of a design, they are just complex problems with a lot of ramifications.

If I was making WoW today, I’d campaign for all races for all classes, and remove racials, so race could just be a cosmetic choice up to each player. I know that removes some decision making, but appearance is such a subjective and personal choice.

This is an important point to remember, and one I have to remind myself about. For some, just filling the role of keeping everyone alive is inherently satisfying without the mastery / challenge aspect. And some players might still want the latter but still enjoy a break at times

Question: @an_inked_geek says,
I’ve healed quite a bit in WoW since Vanilla & IMO in general it’s enjoyable with a consistent group and not in matchmade activities with disposable players. Would love to see more games take more of a “hybrid” route with classes. Less “Tank” & make “Brawler” viable for example.

Greg Street adds,

Almost every aspect of the game is more fun with friends. Matchmaking or queuing solve some problems even as they serve up others

Question: @Theopt_ says,
There are so good healer archtypes in D&D to get some inspiration 🙂 I still prefer traditional healers. Hydrids are hard to balance and people nowadays just want immediate gratification 😡 hard life

Greg Street says,

Fortunately I have more hours in D&D than probably any other game 🙂

Question: @JuanMedinaCode makes a point,
A thing interesting is content progression. When players progress in the content they always do more DPS/mitigation, meanwhile, the healers need to heal less and ends with boring gameplay. Some games fill this making the healer doing DPS but feels strange if you like just to heal

Greg Street agrees,

Right or the group wants to get faster so they swap a healer for another damage dealer, so then your job gets even harder and it’s the opposite problem

Question: @InfexiousGaming asks,
Thoughts on disc and absorbs VS balance and player perception? If blizz could go back would they introduce shields to begin with? Seems like it created a huge balance issue thats a constant difficulty even though the flavor is nice

Greg Street answers,

If it was up to me, I’d keep the shells. We shouldn’t remove all flavor in the interest of making things easier to balance. Class differentiation is good… just challenging 🙂

Question: [Tweet Deleted]

Greg Street says,

This is an important point to remember, and one I have to remind myself about. For some, just filling the role of keeping everyone alive is inherently satisfying without the mastery / challenge aspect. And some players might still want the latter but still enjoy a break at times

Question: @humblebard asks about healing,
I love these little insights to MMO development. What is your opinion on healers being “forced” to do damage? I was always a healer who enjoyed harder focused healing vs. easier healing & weaving in damage. MMOs these days seem to prefer the latter.

Greg Street answers,

I think healers being able to do enough damage to solo is a good thing. I think forcing all healing classes (a few is fine) to weave in damage with healing in a group context is rough.

Question: @ArtuniasDPS asks,
Do you think an MMO could thrive without the tank/healer/dps holy trinity setup? Something I’ve thought about lately trying to make groups the last couple of years and always seems so hard to find those tank/heals. Just more parts of it being a complex problem, hah.

Greg Street responds,

There are games that take on the challenge of no trinity. But that becomes a major design focus, which means you aren’t innovating on something else, and the trinity does mostly work. Besides there are lots of players who just really want to tank or heal.

Question: @Tawster_Tawney asks,
Do you like the M+ healing/dpsing more or the classic spam long cheap heal gameplay? I think if we look at Wow Discipline/Fistweaving is the most popular but hardest to balance, while boring Druid/Holy healing is for ppl who do boss mechanics/Casual players.

Greg Street says,

As a player I just haven’t done much mythic+ healing since I took such a long break from WoW. But I love both the epic scale of raiding and how everyone has to wear many hats running dungeons

Question: [Deleted Tweet]

Ghostcrawler says,

If I was making WoW today, I’d campaign for all races for all classes, and remove racials, so race could just be a cosmetic choice up to each player. I know that removes some decision making, but appearance is such a subjective and personal choice.

MMO development is like today we made 100 arbitrary decisions… but *one* of them will end up spawning 1000 conversations with players, cost us millions of dollars, and developers on the team 15 years from now will refer to it as the Day Everything Changed

Question: @Nazuvious asks,
But can I transmog it?

Greg Street says,

No promises about anything yet, but I will take credit for that meaning of the word (I did not make up the word)

Question: @Eckitis adds,
How else will we remember the before times and the long long ago if it isn’t epic stories like these? The imperfection is what makes it so great (likely, because we dared to try something new).

Greg replies in delight,

Sabrina! And yes we are already archiving everything, which sounds a little arrogant, but we’d regret not doing it if the game does end up doing something amazing

Question: @pastor_plays asks,
Slightly concerned that there are that many “arbitrary” decisions made daily in building an MMO. I can see a few maybe, but don’t the VAST majority of even the tiny decisions have a HUGE impact on the game world and systems, over time? Name something for me that doesn’t matter.

Greg clarifies,

It all matters. But you still sometimes need to put a stake in the ground and move forward without weeks of obsessing over the alternatives or you’ll never finish the game.

Arbitrary may not be the right word, but they are often decisions with no clear right or wrong answer

Question: @Somebody1490784 suggests,
data scientists may help you, when there’s not only binary answers

Greg Street replies,

And we use data scientists for sure. But when you need to make a million decisions, you can’t give huge time and resource to all of them. You need to take each one seriously but there still has to be some sense of triage and prioritization

Question: @RiotCindyr jokes,
So you added fishing today. I’m in.

Greg Street reveals,

Don’t RPGs have to have fishing? I think it’s in the bylaws.

Question: @MagdalenaDK asks,
Do you feel like you and your team are in a better place to make informed decisions, given that you’re able to draw lessons from the development history of multiple existing MMOs?

Greg Street says,

I mean that’s the theory

Question: @KuruzuIshikawa asserts,
Im no developer, but i would say find a line between being receptive to your community and keeping your own vision for the game firm! Also make a game thats not only fun for us to play but for you guys’ to play too!

Greet Street reaffirms,

I’m a developer, and I think that’s exactly the right formula. You need to have a vision and understand that not everyone will love it, but you also need to make sure that you are listening to the players that you believe should love it

Question: @Spideraxe30 asks,
Is early early game exploration always like this

Greg Street says,

There is an element for sure, but MMO development arguably has the most decisions to make, and all of the systems flow into one another, so they are also arguably the most complex

Question: @Anthonnyy17 says,
As long as I get to meet Corina Veraza, and help her in any way I’m good. 🙂

Greg Street says,

All I will say is we love the many, many wonderful additions that #LegendsOfRuneterra made to the IP

Question: @TheNecroKing pleads,
Please don’t make me hyped up for an MMORPG they usually flop, I know you guys are good devs, but its really hard to make an MMORPG

Greg Street reassures,

Yep. However one big problem with MMO development is that the dev team is always trying to convince the publisher not to rush them and to give them enough resources. Riot wants to make this game and wants to make it right. That’s a big risk mitigated already.

Question: @offlinescarab [Deleted Tweet]

Greg Street responds,

I’m exaggerating but you do have to make all of these calls up front. It’s a million little things like can you cast while moving, can your buffs stack with someone else’s, do you lose the resources on a fizzled spell, how do you get health back?

Question: @atanae and @HonorsHammer [Deleted Tweet]

Greg Street responds

I think it’s safe to say that we are not aiming for a niche product. Some games do great with 500,000 very loyal players who love the game. That’s awesome but that’s not what we’re going for

Some of you responded to my cultural appropriation concerns by saying someone will always be offended. I think that’s the wrong take. This is something *I* care about, and as the head of this team, something I want us to get right.

Question: @goldman_1990 asks,
just to understand, what do you mean when you say get it right? as ppl said, some will be happy to be represented(even misrepresented to some point), other will be offended, because (prolly not the correct way to say it) discrimination works differently in different cultures

Greg Street clarifies

We want players to appreciate learning about our (fake) cultures and feel like they are accessible and worth investing in. If they are too shallow, simplistic, something you’ve seen too much, or just kind of weird (as in they don’t fit), then it’s hard to deliver on that goal.

Question: @DaveyBuilks says,
You contradicted yourself in your tweet, Greg. U can’t get it “right” if it’s always wrong/someone is always offended. What is the goal? To have less than 5% of the player base find something distasteful? Less than 1%?

Greg Street reiterates,

The goal is to make something aspirational that a lot of players love. Getting cultures right is like getting the art and gameplay right. It makes the game better.

Question: @Matt_Drawings [Deleted Tweet]

Greg Street responds,

It’s not. We won’t please everyone with our cultural and faction design. But we can still aspire to do something really epic.

(1/9): I think a lot about cultural appropriation in fictional worldbuilding. Yes I know this is a spicy topic, and yes we are in the middle of a lot of worldbuilding right now. I have earnestly tried to research the topic, but it’s complicated and of course people have different views.

(2/9): You can take the stance of making every culture in your fantasy world very novel with few parallels to the historical world. That’s very hard to do well and its easy for your work to be inaccessible for others. And let’s face it, that’s just not the world of Runeterra in any case

(3/9): You can take themes and visual styles from a real culture and then try to put a new spin on them. That seems quite risky. You may come across as ignorant at best and offensive at worst. Imagine an extreme case like the historical x culture, except they are all cannibals. 🙁

(4/9): You can try to combine bits of real cultures – super risky. Double the chances of ignorance and offensiveness. But I think there is also an uncanny valley (to use a tired metaphor) where a culture seems so much like a real world one that then the deviations really stick out.

(5/9): You can consult with experts or people from a culture you are trying to honor or emulate, but often the goal *isn’t* to model that culture accurately. You *want* to deviate because you want to make a new world.

(6/9): (You just also want a made up place to feel accessible, to give your audience some familiar bits as a gateway for them having to spend energy to learn the exotic ones.)

(7/9): I know it’s wise to just completely avoid hurtful stereotypes of entire cultures. I know it’s wise to avoid boiling down even a made up culture into a simple stereotype.

(8/9): But worldbuilders do need to explain all these complexities quickly at times to their audience / players, which is why so many fantasy cultures end up boiled down to proud, or honorable, or warlike, or greedy, or sneaky. 🙁

(9/9): A question I ask sometimes, mostly rhetorically, is do they use chopsticks in Ionia? Ionia has strong Asian thematics for sure but how strong do they need to be? That’s it. No answers. Just more questions.

Question: @NoahMullins add,
It’s tough. I do a lot of world building as well and the only solution I’ve come across is to just go very deep into world building a particular culture. What may start off as an obvious irl culture evolves as you go deep enough that cultural appropriations start disappearing.

Greg agrees,

Yeah and the more deep and diverse you can make your fake cultures the more real they seem to be. It’s just hard to impart all of that to a player/reader/viewer right away. You have to dole it out over time.

Question: @CenturiEU offers,
Depends on what do you really mean by culture appropriation but if I understand you correctly I would focus on developing fictional cultures with a bit of inspiration of real ones, but with enough changes that nobody could realistically compare the in game culture to the real one

Greg Street adds,

Like if you give your Asian-esque hero a katana then it’s hard for them and perhaps your entire made up culture to not feel Japanese

Question: @AdamHolisky [Deleted Tweet]

Greg replies,

(1/3): Yeah I was trying to say that cultural stereotypes are not awesome storytelling to begin with, but that I think the issue goes far beyond just avoiding stereotypes.

(2/3): Like say you take a historical costume just because it looks cool and sort of don’t pay attention to whether it was used ceremonially or in times of warfare. That still rubs me the wrong way.

(3/3): But then consider the opposite where you then go the extra step and try to completely adopt a culture. “On this planet the dwarves are just Maori down to the language and diet.” You try to be very accurate about it but to me it STILL feels super weird.

One thing I can say about “unannounced” MMORPG is that you won’t all love every feature in it. We’re going to make some choices that you may not agree with. Players want different things in their games. That’s fine. Some of you (shudder) may not love the game at all. Also fine.

Question: @Mvphasa says,
I just hope this isn’t a excuse for any mistakes they make and may change according to the demands

Ghostcrawler explains,

Look, we will also make a ton of mistakes. Something Riot tries to do is to explain our goals and be prepared to pivot if the design isn’t meeting those goals or the goals need to be changed.

Question: @_Eodis_ questions,
So it’s a MMORPG ? So far i only remember hearing “MMO” about this game and i assumed it would be more action oriented fast food MMO. So you are saying we’ll also get the game design deepness the letters “RPG” imply ?

Greg Street Twitter,

It will almost certainly have RPG systems like stats, gear, dungeons. We’re not ready yet to talk about how much it is or is not like other games out there. What defines an RPG can be a bit academic in nature, but I call it an RPG.

Question: @mattweiner38 asks,
Hey Ghostcrawler, thanks for being so open about the development of this totally unannounced game. I’ve always been a gamer, but have never played an MMORPG. The genre has never really spoken to me. Do you think this game will be beginner friendly for people like me? Thanks, GLHF

Ghostcrawler reinforces,

I think it has to be. There are a lot of players who missed the MMO train the first few times around.

Question: The co-founder of OTK implores,
Please don’t neglect the leveling experience Greg! Give us a smooth, drawn-out progression curve with lucrative/memorable milestones that we earn along the way. And please allow that experience to exist in a persistent, unsharded world where we see the community around us!

Greg Street provides insight with,

Making a good leveling experience isn’t super super hard (*nothing in MMO design is really easy). But then the first expansion lands and then you’re like do we salvage the old leveling experience? Do we make a giant new one? Do we catch people up?

Question: @Liam__Gregory asks, Oooo. Interesting that you’ve come out and said that. When more is announced of it, will do be doing dev blogs on certain decision making? I feel that could be really good and help players understand the thought processes behind the designs/mechanics/areas etc.

Ghostcrawler confirms,

Absolutely

Question: @eatingisamood requests, Loving this open communication. My only thing would be to please not have daily quests, because then it becomes a chore rather than wanting to play it. Used to play blade and soul religiously in the past, it was an annoying aspect .

Greg Street opens up and says,

One of the things I really want to talk to a bunch of players on (and not yet but at some point) is how much they want to play per day, per week, that sort of thing.

Question: @CrizFN says,
The problem with any MMO imo is that Youtube, Content Creation, and really any form on information monetization ruins them. There’s no adventure anymore and everything is essentially told to you on how to play or Min Max the game. You’re basically just following a guide now

Ghostcrawler replies,

Keep in mind WoW was developed before a lot of that stuff even existed. I think it’s possible to make influencers part of the experience instead of somewhere you go when you’re stuck on a boss or don’t know the right rotation for your class.

Question: @BobertoEl says,
Might not be really game design important, but having a UI that can be modded and altered to the level that WoW’s is would be incredible. Having to use a stock UI is one of the reasons why I haven’t gotten into other MMO’s. Its an underappreciated part of WoW’s success.

Greg Street adds,

As the guy on the other end at the time who had to adjudicate the “arms race” of what we should allow mods to do and not do, I can also confirm it was a huge pain in the ass 🙂 Glad that effort was worth it for some folks like you.

Question: @CabbageBroVT says,
It seems like you guys are going in the direction of “We will take things players ask for into consideration but also do a lot of what we want and what we believe will make the game good” which is awesome because games often lean too far to one of those sides.

Ghostcrawler agrees,

Yeah. You don’t want to say “Please players design the game for us because we have no idea.” You also don’t want to say “Hope you like this cuz if not we are screwed.” You float things and see what the reaction is and double down on stuff that works.

Question: @JorgeAyMo asks nicely,
Hey Mr. Ghostcrawler, I really hope you guys don’t announce or release a sneak peak of the game at SummerFest/E3 because since it’s too early in development I wouldn’t wanna see a Cyberpunk 2077 incident.

Greg Street Twitter:

Well we weirdly kind of announced already but we won’t show much for a long time. Don’t look for anything this year at least. We do need to start showing stuff pretty early though so that we have time to react to feedback before it’s too late.

Question: @JeanSebastien12 says,
Would be cool if you guys did polls on potential systems during the game’s development to see the amount of interest.

Greg Street says,

We will definitely gather tons of feedback. Not in a “we don’t have a strong vision” sense, but in a “We want to validate our decisions with actual players” sense

Question: @meLivingWoW talks about raiding,
Please make the raiding enjoyable. This is the only thing I ask for. Enjoyable raiding with cool complex bosses and fun rotations. Rest of the game can be tailored however.

Ghostcrawler responds,

I would be crushed if we failed on this

Question: @BelliNova says,
Riot games has historically and currently had severe short comings when it comes to toxicity in their games- should we be worried they’ll have the same complicity in an mmorpg? How will that translate into party finding and raids if they notoriously ignore behavioral toxicity.

Greg Street Twitter:

It’s a challenge for any team based game, maybe any multiplayer game. It will be a challenge for us as well but something we will take seriously. The solution I use as a player is to try to play with friends. Now if your friends are toxic… 🙂

Question: @LunaFatalex asks,
I’m really hyped for the game and I know it’s still early in development… But when can we expect more infos or maybe even some pictures?

Greg Street responds,

I don’t have a good answer to that but it’s something we are actively discussing. The challenge is that it can go from “so excited about this game” to “what is taking so long – there must be something wrong” in a heartbeat. I don’t want to ever hear this project called vaporware.

Question: @Zatshot says,
1 good thing about Riot is that they listen, at least when it comes to league they do listen to us when we’re angry and spam everyday about a nerf they eventually do it but they listen and everything is clear dev wise. I know an MMORPG is different but i hope it will be the same.

Ghostcrawler confirms,

It will be the same

Question: @Azorgs asks,
Would world content feel like an unnecessary unenjoyable afterthought to the instances? or would world content have enjoyable challenges? and where would it take place? in LoL universe or somewhere new?

Greg Street replies with something interesting,

I think we have dropped enough hints that a lot of the League IP work was to help prepare for this

Question: Unknown User [Tweet Deleted]

Greg Street replies,

I don’t want to get into specific features yet especially not just over twitter like this. But anyone that knows me from my WoW dev days would know that I love dungeons and raids as a player.

Question: @insegnos [Tweet Deleted]

Ghostcrawler answers,

It will be a Riot game and our partners don’t just make changes without our blessing. But different regions do have different laws and customs. Sometimes the choice is 1. not launch in a region, 2. lobby the government for change (lol), or 3. make local changes

We need an experienced level designer to help with our “unannounced” MMO! This is the kind of position that could grow into our lead level designer.

Question: @SpirrieBot asks, Is there any chance of entry-level or internship Narrative position in the future?

Greg Street Twitter:

Absolutely. This is going to be a big project and we are committed to hiring some folks with no previous game experience.

There is SO much I want to tweet about MMO design, and have a conversation with y’all about what works and what doesn’t, but I don’t want that to feel like it’s trying to be hype for the new game trying to figure out how to navigate that

Question: @Valor_Bot asks if and where we can provide feedback for the upcoming Riot MMO game.

Ghostcrawler says,

I promise this. Don’t know the specific avenues yet.

(1/4): We are building an MMO and we are hiring! This is an unusual approach because we are going to need a lot of people, and we know there is a lot of interest, so you can use this link to express your interest even if we don’t have an open role for you yet.

(2/4): We can’t add 200 people all at once, so please don’t sit by the phone after you have sent your information. We are going to be working on this game for years.

(3/4): Early on there is definitely a need for industry veterans with MMO experience, but we will consider folks with no industry experience down the road.

(4/4): Also we are currently hiring for LA-based Rioters for this project, but we plan to expand outside of the USA as well.

Question: @Necrit94 The infamous Necrit jokes, I can be your Red Shirt Guy.

Greg jokes back,

Pretty sure you already are, and we are better off for it

(1/2): As part of my job, I get to interview a lot of people for positions at Riot (MMO or otherwise). One of the questions I frequently ask of experienced managers is how you detect potential in a junior team member. Not performance – potential. The ability to someday do more. 1/2

(2/2): A common good answer (which maybe means I need a new question) is *curiosity.* The junior person wants to know how everything works. They want to see the big picture. Maybe that will help some of you junior folks or managers or interviewers 2/2

Question: @TweetsbyNacho chimes in with,
Most potential job candidates will fake interest in the company. Most young people are just so eager to obtain a position in their field they cram research for that company the night before. I know I’ve been on both sides. Maybe not all but most. I would look for passion.

Ghostcrawler clarifies,

Yeah I’m not talking about the interviewer trying to detect potential in an interviewee. That’s hard given limited time. I was talking about how a manager decides which of their reports to invest in because that report is going places.

Question: @Hamlet adds,
I look for any time a new hire has taken a risk, preferably if that risk didn’t pay off, what lesson did they take forward from it? If someone’s sticking their neck out and always trying something new, that person has potential.

Greg Street agrees,

Yes, a willingness to take risks on something new, and to learn from missteps along the way, is another good answer.

Question: @frankjohnsen_ asks, what’s a common bad answer?

Greg Street Twitter,

Performance. But you can have a high performing person on your team who actually isn’t going to do great with a larger role. They may have just really found their niche. (This is particularly true of more senior folks. Nearly all associates can advance to some degree.)

Question: @gulder_ [Deleted Tweet]

Ghostcrawler clarifies,

Drive can show motivation to do what you are currently doing really well, so it’s more about performance. Curiosity demonstrates an interest in what’s above and beyond your role today.

(1/3): A follow up about hiring for the new project. Yes, we are serious about hiring. These kind of games take a lot of developers. Like any R&D project we will start small, but we will grow. The best way to apply is to visit the Riot Games website. (1/3)

(2/3): New roles for this project will likely appear in January and we will add more over time. If you are an industry veteran with MMO experience, it’s less important to wait for the role to be posted. Those folks can DM or hit me up on Linked In. (2/3)

(3/3): Finally, please do be patient. We are thrilled with the excitement around this project, but every aspect of development, even hiring, is going to take time to do it right. We absolutely don’t want to disappoint you. Our goal for many things at Riot is to exceed expectations (3/3)

Deleted Tweet: @ChaosSmurg [No message]

Greg Street’s response to an unknown tweet

They will figure out quickly when our answer to every question is “We don’t know yet.”

Question: @Perial51 asks if the upcoming game will be MMORPG or MMOARPG

Ghostcrawler provides interesting response

Which do you prefer?

Question: @HeartHextech asks Can I apply to be a developer for growing friendships and wholesomeness in the team?

Ghostcrawler says,

That sounds pretty useful TBH

Question: @eelektrik1138 humbly asks, Any entry level openings for recent grads?

Greg informs her with,

Riot strives to hire recent graduates all the time. We haven’t posted any for this project yet, and they likely won’t be the first to go up, but over time we will need fresh eyes.

Question: @TimIsenman says, Let me know if you someone to build rockets into the MMO 😉

Ghostcrawler says

Summoner icons to rockets was kind of a leap

Question: @lolWolfer asks, A big question me and some of my friends have is, is it going to be a tab target or action combat MMO?

Greg Street Twitter:

My answer to a lot of these questions is which do you prefer?

Question: @TheranTemere asks, So, to confirm, we shouldn’t expect any updates on it for the next few years?

Ghostcrawler says,

There won’t be much news, no. It is already a little unusual that you all know about the game though, so we’ll see how much we share as we go along

Question: Private User [Unknown Message]

Greg Street Twitter:

Most of our offices are still WFH and we have hired a lot of Rioters who have never seen our main campus 🙁

I have news!

My recent job at Riot has been to help develop the League universe, which we’re going to need!

Because it is time. My new job is to kick off a big (some might say massive) game that many of you, and many Rioters, have been asking us to create.

PS We’re hiring

Question: Asmongold Commenting on Greg’ Street’s Riot MMO Announcement Tweet

Don’t you play games with me Greg

I’m nervous but I’m quite excited

Greg Street’s Response to Asmongold

I think nervous and excited sums it up on our end as well. Seriously though, we find the sky high expectations to be exciting. It’s a lot to live up to!

Question: @RichelleLOL Asking Greg Street if what he’s working on is an MMO

tell me now… IS IT AN MMO? Will I be able to pick my waifu’s clothes and hairstyle?!

Ghostcrawler Announcing Riot is making an MMO

It is an MMO

Question: @Timanth referring to Marc Merrill’s interview to confirm long-term timeline

dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/marc-merrill-says-that-if-riot-were-to-make-an-mmo-it-wont-be-any-time-soon… Uhhh, I guess a year later is “Not any time soon.”

Greg Street Twitter

I can pretty much promise you that we won’t launch it anytime soon

Question: @190R99 asking for a estimated release date

Greg Street responds with, he doesn’t have a release date

Greg Street Twitter

I’m not trying to be cryptic, but we really don’t know. MMOs are so dependent on all of their different systems stacking up and interacting and if you rush that, you risk collapse. It’s a blessing (but can feel a bit like a curse to y’all) that we can take all the time we need