Red Post Colection: Known Bug with Cone Abilities, 3rd party App update, Longer Lore still on the way, and more!

This morning's red post collection features a heads up on a known bug involving champions with cone targeted abilities,  Sargonas with an updated on Third Party Applications, Meddler commenting on a tentative new item that builds into Essence Reaver, Carnival Knights reiterating that longer lore is on the way, a Riot Games article on the recent R&D job listing, and much more!
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• Red Post Collection: Upcoming Changes to Refer-a-friend, "Suggested Players" discussion, Semifinals MVP Bundle, and more!
• Commemorate the 2014 Season - Championship Shyvana, 2014 Championship Ward, and 204 Championship Summoner Icon Now Available

[BUGS] Known Bug with Certain Spells being cast immediately after another ability

Here's Riot Superfoxman with heads up on a bug currently causing champions with cone abilities to fire in the wrong direction after immediately casting another ability:

"We're currently aware of a bug where cone targeted abilities (e.g.: Annie's Incinerate, Nidalee's Swipe, Kassadin's Force Pulse, etc) are reversing their direction when cast immediately after using another ability (e.g.: the Flash Summoner Spell, Nidalee's Pounce, Kassadin's Rift Walk). 

Champions who rely on cone targeted spells to finish their combos are most impacted by this, like: Nidalee, Kassadin, Pantheon, Annie (Flash + W), Darius (Flash + E), Singed (Flash + E), Riven (2nd cast of R), among others. 

We're currently tracking this to find a proper fix (due to the nature of the bug we can't make any promises on a timeline) but, in the meantime, the best workaround is to slightly delay your cast combinations to accommodate. 

Sorry for the inconvenience!"

Third Party Applications Update

Following the initial announcement of Riot's stance on third party applications, Riot Sargonas has returned with good news for mod enthusiasts - the current versions of Curse Voice and Razer Comms "no longer violate" the current guidelines and are safe to use.

"Hey everybody!

I wanted to jump back into this discussion to share some updates. As those following this topic know, back in the spring we made some clarifications that 3rd party applications with particular functions were considered against our Terms of Service (that link goes to the old Forums thread, which is a mirror of this one), and that the use of such applications was prohibited (and could even potentially lead to disciplinary actions). One of the several contributing factors to this topic was the early beta of Curse Voice and recent updates to Razer Comms, and the conversations that arose around them.

Over the past few months we have been working with the developers of many applications, including Curse and Razer. Because of this, the latest revision of Curse Voice (version 6.1.X) and Razer Comms (version 2.1.X) no longer violate our current guidelines. I should note, however, that with all third party apps these situations are subject to change as programs evolve, and this issue may be revisited in the future if the situation warrants it. Also... Curse Voice, Razer Comms, and all other 3rd party programs are not supported by Riot. Because of that, we can never guarantee the user experience when they and other programs are run in tandem with League of Legends. We always suggesting disabling such programs in your first step towards any troubleshooting, should problems arise

Hopefully this clears up any remaining confusion out there."

When accused of "flip flopping" on their earlier decision, Sargonas noted:

"I've seen this mentioned a few times this morning, and while I can understand why you might feel that way, I don't think we've really flip-flopped. We outlined functionality that these applications had that was against our policies. In the months since, these applications have removed these features, and therefore are no longer in conflict with our policies. We've never changed our stance, they simply changed how the applications work."

[Tentative] Testing a subcomponent item for Essence Reaver

In a thread discussing the viability of Sivir, Meddler mentioned they are tentatively testing an item that builds into Essence Reaver and also offers a blend of AD, Lifesteal, and Mana on hit.

"We're testing out a couple of changes to Essence Reaver at the moment that might help her out a bit there . We're considering giving it a subcomponent that's a mini version with a bit of AD, lifesteal, mana restore on hit. Might also up the CDR it gives (and then up the cost a bit if needed). No guarantees those changes will make it through testing yet though of course. Goal is to help out ADC casters, need to investigate some possible abuse cases on AD assassins however and ensure it's actually helping as intended."

Janna's Tattoo

Janna currently has a brand new splash up on the PBE but a few summoners have noticed she is missing the shoulder tattoo that

Riot Baconhawk swooped in to comment that the tattoo is not actually in-game and that the base splash art is based on details from the in-game model:

"FYI Splash tends to take more liberties with artistic content, but is always based on the in-game model.. In-game models do not change (often) based on splash."

She later returned to clarify the origins of the tattoo:

"These are good points, but note I didn't say we never alter an in-game model to match the splash. I said rarely. Janna's tattoo, as I understand it, was an addition to an otherwise plain splash. Sona's tattoo was really prominent and added a lot to her character (Pentakill band member...? yeah, tattoos work there). A tattoo on Janna is not really befitting of her pure, windy self. (That last part is totally my opinion). Does that make sense?

This is not to say we won't ever add it. But as it stands now, we are not adding it to the ingame model."

Longer Lore on the Way

In a thread asking about the short-form lore entries for the Shurima champions and the similarly short bios for Shadow Isles champions on the PBE, Carnival Knights emerged from the shadows with a reminder that they are currently working on the longer biographies:

"This. We're also hoping to serialize lore on the website, so that in addition to the 'long bios' we can add new stories as we go without erasing anything."

Carnival Knights continued:

"Yes, story progression. Champs doing things that progress forward on a linear timeline. With the in-client tech issues we (sadly) could not showcase this, but with the website we can."

and:

"This is our feeling as well. Like, say we think of a baller Hecarim story. That shouldn't have to erase the existing Hecarim pieces and take their place, like a pod person. Or those They Live! sunglasses ghouls. The other side of the coin is that we shouldn't have to throw out the new story because there's already an old story there."

Putting the "S" in Riot Games

Lastly, we have a recent post from the Riot Games website about a Research and Development department. While not specifically tied to League of Legends, it certainly is intriguing.

"Today we posted this somewhat ambiguous job description for talented, risk-taking pros who love the open-ended path of R&D (research and development). Of course, we’re also still seeking those who love the ongoing challenge of constantly shipping content and maintaining a live service like League of Legends, but R&D teams require folks eager to work in a more experimental kind of dev environment.

We know posting a JD calling out R&D initiatives will raise some questions and kick up some speculation, so we’re sharing a few thoughts about all of our open development roles, including R&D.

We’ve mentioned developing games other than League of Legends in the past, but we’re not ready to announce, discuss, or launch any new games yet or anytime soon™. When we are, League of Legendsplayers will be the first to know. These future games might be from large teams or smaller teams at Riot, but no matter the size of the team working on them, they will be the types of games that we all love to play.