Red Post Collection: October Sales Schedule, Worlds Merch Preview, Fiora Bundle, LCU Alpha Update, & more!

Posted on at 4:30 AM by Moobeat
This morning's red post collection includes the October sales schedule, a preview of the upcoming 2016 Worlds merch, a Fiora bundle & Headmistress Fiora in shop for a limited time, context on several recent PBE changes and content, a note on the Singed live disable,  and much more!
Continue reading for more information! 



Table of Contents


October sales schedule 

The sales schedule for October 2016 is now available, including upcoming champion & skin sales as well as early sales for next month!
"Check out all the champs and skins on sale this October! Like previous sales schedules, we’re not posting the exact dates for each champ and skin, but they’ll all be on sale sometime next month. 
Just a heads up – since we’re publishing these in advance, we won’t offer partial refunds on champs and skins purchased before they go on sale."


2016 Worlds Merch Preview

The Riot Games merch store has put up a preview of the upcoming WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP 2016 merch that will be available starting September 28th, including a new Championship Riven figure!

This includes:
  • Championship Riven Figure -  
    • "The Exile has returned. Throughout Worlds, the Championship Riven figure also includes a digital unlock of her in-game skin. $30"
  • 2016 Worlds Hoodie 
    • "The official hoodie of Worlds. Be victorious. $65" 
  • 2016 Worlds Tee
    • "The battle for the Championship begins. Who will rise? $25"
  • 2016 Worlds Snapback 
    • "Get hyped. Rep' the official snapback of 2016 Worlds. $30"
  • 2016 Worlds Bomber Jacket
    • "Celebrate Worlds in style with this limited edition jacket. $120"

Look for all these items to be available in the MERCH store on September 29th!

When asked if all these products will be available in person at Worlds 2016, Zephyreal noted:
"Quote:
Are all of those things going to be available physically during Worlds? (esp. San Francisco)
Yup, all 4 locations of Worlds have a reserved number of stock of all 2016 Worlds items to be sold during the tournament

The 2016 World Championship starts up on September 29th! Check out this primer on Group Stages for more info.

[LCU] Now Testing: Loot and Clubs

Here's Cactopus with more info on upcoming LCUA testing areas for Loots and Clubs:
"Waddup, alpha testers! 
A quick update: as previously announced, loot and clubs will hit the alpha during this patch. 
Loot works pretty much exactly like it did in the legacy client, but we've rethought club functionality and given it its own tab in the Social tab's sub-nav. Instead of incessantly popping up from the bottom of your screen, you'll find all your club management tools there. 
You'll also now be able to resize the client! We've only sort of halfway got this feature working right now: you have to use the CTRL key and the plus (+) or minus (-) keys to resize it at the moment. We're working on getting in the ability to drag the corners to resize as well. 
Unfortunately, we hit some snags that have delayed the launch of ranked. We've got it working internally, but we made the call to delay it so we can focus on smoothing out some performance issues that have been hitting players on lower-end PCs. It's actually not memory usage or CPU load causing the problems—mostly just lag between user inputs and expected UX outputs. Many testers have pointed out how prevalent these problems are in the alpha, and so we've committed ourselves to fixing this stuff before releasing ranked and moving closer towards the open beta.

We've also delayed the ability to purchase RP in the store. Otherwise, the store works fine, but you'll need to use the legacy client to stock up on our fake internet money. If current plans hold, we'll get it—and custom games!—working next patch. (Current plans often do not hold.) 
We won't have a changelog this patch since we're mostly focusing on tuning performance. In the meantime, it's not too late to sign up if you haven't already. We still need your help!"
Sign up for the live LCU Alpha [here].

En garde! Fiora Splash Update 

With Fiora receiving updated Nightraven and Royal Guard skin splash arts in 6.19, a new bundle featuring all her skins and the legacy Headmistress Fiora are available through September 28th!
"We’ve made some striking updates to Fiora’s splash art. School your opponents in the art of the duel with Headmistress Fiora (Legacy) for 975 RP, or own the full skin bundle before both dash away on September 28, 2016 at 23:59 PT. 
The Grand Duelist Bundle - 3461 RP (4077 RP if you need the champion) 
Available until September 28, 2016 at 23:59 PT
  • Fiora
  • Headmistress Fiora (Legacy)
  • Royal Guard Fiora
  • Nightraven Fiora
  • PROJECT: Fiora
  • Pool Party Fiora"

Meddler Grab Bag - Azir & Vlad, Scrapped concepts, & more

As usual, Meddler hit the boards in the last few days, covering a multitude of topics including thoughts on Azir and Vladimir, some old champion concepts, and more!

When asked about the current state of Azir, Meddler commented:
"No, we're not happy with Azir's current state. Still figuring out exactly what response to it we want to take though (just balance changes? mini rework? mixture of the two? a larger rework? etc)."
He continued:
"In case it's unclear one of the big things we're unhappy with about Azir is present is that, for most players, he's too weak. We've put him there because of how oppressive he can be when he's strong, we don't want him to be as weak a choice as he currently is for the average Azir player long term though."
When asked about thoughts on the current state of Vladimir, Meddler commented:
"The Live Gameplay team's working on Vlad buffs at present. They'll push those to PBE whenever we get sufficient confidence they're worth testing wider. Current direction involves a higher Q AP ratio and higher E ratio. To improve balanceability/counterplay we're also looking at wider E missiles (counterplay of stand behind stuff isn't working as well as it should) and having interrupts cancel the channel rather than causing it to cast at its current point. Overall goal is to buff, but while also improving enemy counterplay."

When asked about the change to Kled's R range change in 6.19, Meddler replied:
"The shield and damage both ramp up to max at around 2000 units traveled, regardless of the rank of the ult. That's the same value they hit max at in 6.18 too."

He also commented on potential pre-season jungle changes:
"There'll be some changes yes. Tweaks to jungle items (balancing more than reinvention), adjustments to jungle camps (creating stronger contrasts between single target and multi target junglers to enable different strength profiles) and some other stuff that's not yet ready to be talked about."

When asked about a dev blog on creating champions, Meddler commented:
"This dev blog's going to be looking at prototype versions of existing champions that shipped, not completely cancelled champions. So things like Rek'Sai's kit when it had a bunch of different things on it. Some of the individual skills shown that didn't get used on the champions they were on then could certainly show up elsewhere though. 
Apologies, but I'll leave revealing the details of the Talon update to the team working on him. Expect we should be able to share all the details sometime in the second half of October for what it's worth though."
In a thread on the boards asking about cancelled champs and abilities, Meddler commented:
"We'll often reuse abilities that were good, but didn't work on one champ, on another. 
We'll sometimes also go back to an idea we've tried to make previously but haven't been able to find the right version of. Kled for example is kind of the progression of a character we called 'Swordle', a Yordle with a sword and a really exaggerated personality from years ago who didn't work out at the time. 
There are a lot of ideas that also just don't hit the mark for one reason or another that we don't go back to. Sometimes things don't work as well in game as you hoped on paper, sometimes we'll conclude there's too much overlap with an existing champion, sometimes a concept just doesn't resonate with the players who should be its audience."
He continued:
"Oh, one point of followup. Something we will be able to do at some point though is give you folks some insight into what some champions looked like during their development (somewhat different abilities etc). Currently working on a dev blog about that with some videos of older prototypes, guess it might be ready sometime next month or so." 
Meddler added:
"Quote:
On some of the champ lol wiki pages (link here http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Champion_Skins_and_Trivia) 
The trivia sometimes says how some champs have leftovers pieces from other champs.
The Wiki there does have some interesting history on some cancelled concepts. It's also got some stuff that's just pure speculation though. Looking at Gavid's page for example there's the comment that 'Zyra closely mirrors Gavid's abilities and thematic' which isn't accurate. To the best of my knowledge the gameplay designers working on Zyra never even played Gavid's kit let alone decided to take any abilities from it."
He continued:
"Quote:
Can we know other tidbits we NEVER heard of ?
A few off the top of the head (apologies if we've already talked about some of these).
  • The art that looked a lot like Jhin's release release skin was actually the same art we started with for Kindred's concept too. They were originally a single bounty hunter (gender undefined) who collected bounties, rather than an embodiment of death.
  • Ao Shin never had a proper in game model. We did some prototyping on kits for him, that was just using the old SR dragon with its wings removed though (wings removed to make it extra obvious it was something different). It bobbed up and down in a cute, if goofy, way.
  • One of Lucian's first prototype kits had an ammo system (like Graves and Jhin now use). The idea showed some promise, it didn't fit as well with the constantly moving, nimble, rapid firing vibe we wanted to hit on for Lucian though, so it got shelved for quite a while.
  • Bard's Q at one point was a similar ability to Taliyah's Q (mini Lucian ult with a bit of a rhythm to it). In his case the hits weren't AOE, but if they all landed the target got stunned.
  • An early version of Jayce could place Sensor Beacons around the map. They worked kind of like Rek'Sai's tremor Sense, though had a smaller range and limited lifespan. They weren't particularly useful, but were a lot of fun to play around with.
  • For the upcoming Rengar rework one of the Bonetooth Necklace versions we tried was a ward that destroyed other wards that were really near it's location (a predatory ward if you will). The idea showed some potential, it was overkill on Rengar though (he doesn't need additional ability to get onto targets unseen). Thematically it also felt a bit weird on him - general feedback was it felt more like a hextech effect (signal jammer or something) than a mechanical trap like Rengar would use."

Context on Nunu PBE Changes

After the tentative changes to Nunu hit the PBE this cycle, Riot Axes took to the boards to provide notes that they are experimental changes:
"We're experimenting with stuff - what you see on PBE is not necessarily what will ship. In particular we're not likely to ship the 'Starving' effect, just seeing how different types of approaches to those effects play out in test."

Feedback on Star Guardian Poppy VFX

Riot Ve1vet responded on the boards to concerns about the coloring of Star Guardian Poppy's visual effects:
"Hey! I think the reason we never really caught onto this is because Poppy in-game is 75% gold hammer, so the VFX never felt off. Looking at the splash and how blue it is we understand the disconnect and are looking into it. We have heard the feedback!"
Over on twitter, Riot LoveStrut added [1][2]:
"Right, Poppy's passive and W are gold for gameplay clarity and Q E & R were made gold for cohesiveness"
"HOWEVER, the team is currently looking at ways to pump up the blue accents in her abilities! :D"

[BUG] ManWolfAxeBoss and Meddler on Singed disable


After a Singed bug was reported on reddit and consequently resulted in Singed being temporarily disabled on live servers, ManWolfAxeBoss popped in to explain what was happening:
"This is due to some special casing in Baron (and Vilemaw) scripts to ensure Singed can poison them. Due to their model sizes, Singed was unable to get close enough to poison them initially. 
Singed is currently doing 4x damage to Baron. Have a fix ready that will hopefully go out tomorrow. 
"Fun" fact, the special casing never took Singed's AP into account so he was only ever doing his base Q damage values to Baron. Fixed that. Singed buff..."
Meddler added:
"Quote:
Its only Baron that didnt get the memo about the changes. it doesnt affect anything else.
Vilemaw as well, though yeah, the Baron effect's the big problem."

Meddler also gave context on why Singed was disabled immediately, when Graves exploit was not:
"The Graves issue requires a scripting exploit. We're perma banning for it as a result given it's way over the line and extremely clear that someone's doing it deliberately. The Singed bug by contrast doesn't involve any file modifications and may not be a deliberate attempt to exploit on the user's part (in some cases it's just unavoidable). 
Edit: I think we also had a fix for the Graves issue in last night's patch, though not 100% certain on that (might still be in testing to go out later)."

Riot Whist on Kog'Maw Animation

Riot Whist popped on reddit, passing along the message from another animator that Kog'Maw's old W animation is returning soon following his partial marksman updated revert in 6.19:
""Fixed it." ~Animator who fixed it (he doesn't have a red reddit account) 
Kog will have his old animation back on PBE soon (probably tomorrow)."

[RE-INTRO] August "groovylord" Browning, Champion Design/R&D 

August "Groovylord" Browning, designer of Jinx, Jhin, Vi, and Ekko, took some time on the boards to reintroduce himself and do a small AMA after a name and department change.
"Hi friends, I'm August.
I did an intro post a couple months ago and I figured now would be a great time for another as I'm about to both change my screen name AND change teams. 
WHO AM I?
I'm a megagamer who loves thinking about how to design resonant characters. I grew up in Alaska, majored in economics at Dartmouth, and then started at riot immediately after graduation. This month marks my 4 year anniversary with the company and I've loved every day of it! I used to be an almost-pro TF2 Scout/Medic(logged like 1400 hours into that game) before switching to League around the Malzahar patch. Am currently a D2 support main. 
On the subject of the name change. I've used the name "gypsylord" for the past 12 years. It was a homage to my first doggo, Gypsy. Growing up in the US (and Alaska especially), I never realized how racially charged the term "gypsy" is in parts of Europe. I've gained a more global perspective over the years and so I'm making the personal decision to move on from my old handle and start with something new. 
Here's a list of the things I'll be changing (basically all the social channels I use to interact with you guys) 
League: gypsylord ---> "groovylord"
Reddit: u/riotgypsy ---> u/RiotAugust 
Twitter: @RiotGypsy --- > @RiotAugust 
Twitch: twitch.tv/gypsylord ---> twitch.tv/jinxylord 

WHAT DO I DO AT RIOT?
For the last 4 years I've been a champion designer. I designed the mechanics for Vi, Jinx, Ekko, and Jhin. Also worked on Gnar w/Meddler I spent the first 4 months of this year working on what was to be my final champ, but ended up handing him off to Jimmy "BeatPunchBeef" Steorts in May. He's still a long ways off, but you guys are gonna love him for sure. Super exciting character, can't wait to see where Jimmy takes the concept. 
As of about a month ago, I've moved off of champion and onto a team in our R & D department. Sadly, I can't say much about what I'm going to be doing asides from we're still trying to get that "S" into Riot GameS and I'll be continuing to leverage my strengths at designing characters. Hoping to learn a lot and eventually deliver some awesome experiences to all of you in the far future. 
Asides from direct mechanics design I have done other things! 
  • Was heavily involved in early concept ideation for many of the champs developed in 2014 and 2015.
  • Headed up the keystone mastery project with Stashu and Squad5 and convinced them to add a 3-hit passive to every champion in the game. Thunderlord's wooooooo.
  • Worked with our skins team on gameplay clarity (if there were any unclear skins released over the last year you can blame me D:)
  • Moonlighted as a live designer for a month and half where I proceeded to bop Kindred (hopefully for the last time) and attempted to Unbench the Kench. 
WHAT DO I WANT TO TALK ABOUT? 
This will be similar to my last thread. Feel free to ask me about any of my past champs or projects. I'm their #1 fan and know A LOT about them, be it theme, lore, or mechanics. Also , if you want to know anything about growing as a designer (or just as an employee at a company) I can speak to some of that. I started out here as a baby, and had the immense privilege of being able to learn from a lot of talented people older and more experienced than myself. Perhaps I can pass some of those learnings on to you! 
And of course, if you have anything you want to talk about outside of those topics feel free to bring it up. This can be an AMA of sorts. Can't guarantee I can respond to everything, but I'll try when it falls within my sphere of knowledge. I'm on a recruiting trip in Boston at the moment so I'll be hopping in and out to respond to things over the next week. 
UPDATE --- I'm off to a design panel, but I'll be back LATER TONIGHT to answer more questions (and will continue to do so for the rest of the week). Ask away :D"
[Check out the thread for dozens and dozens of responses from August on champions he's designed, thoughts on current balance, and more.]

VonderHamz on Star Guardian Music & Champion VO

In the reddit thread for the 9/21 PBE update, VonderHamz teased something else had hit the PBE along with the Star Guardian minions:
"Quote:
They really are going all out with the "Star Guardian" theme. I didnt expect star guardian minions to come out. Im sure the Star Guardian line of skins basically prints money for Rito.
Annnnd there's more too.... Someone jump into game playing a Star Guardian with sound set to default and see what happens."
When asked if this was referring to newly added music on the PBE, VonderHamz  noted:
"Quote:
Seems like a small music clip plays at start of game if you use a Star Guardian skin? 
edit: here's the sound file, plays for a bit at start of game.
That's the one :)"
VonderHamz  continued:
"Quote:
Is it temporary for the Star Guardian skins? Or permanent?
It's for the SG patch when you're playing with a skin on your team. Depending on the reception, I might toss it on the skins after the patch is done."
VonderHamz  also added:
"Quote:
I'm just wondering, is there going to be a "full" version of this? I just love the way it sounds and want to listen to more.
Right now, this is as much of it as there is, though I may try to extend this one just for fun later this week. This piece was meant to be for the start of an SR, so it couldn't go too long, but I would have some fun turning it into a full on piece!"


Vonderhamz also stopped by the boards to talk about what goes into replacing older champion voiceovers and why they are included in larger scope champion updates:
"This question comes up quite a bit - It's something we would love to do! I'd love to go in and update old sounds and particles and all that too. The reality is that right now, we just don't have the bandwidth to accomplish something like that in audio, and a few other areas too. I'm in audio, so I've gone through the process a few times. 
To revamp the VO of a champ, we'd need to write a new script, make sure it still feels like the champ, find a record date with a voice actor, get a studio and record, edit recordings, process them, send the way we processed them out to localization, implement them in game and make sure everything works the way we intend it to, make sure everything gets localized in a ton of languages, and more. There's a ton of people that are involved in something like this. Doing the VO for a new champ or Legendary skin actually takes a few months! 
So this is why I love the Champ-Up team. Any time they do a full rework they do all of this. It's actually a ton of fun watch them search for the perfect actor for a champ and then test out a ton of different lines."

[VOD] Ivern PBE Q&A and Livestream

After Ivern's champion reveal and debut on the PBE, Squad5, the designer for Ivern, and Scarizard hung out for a while on the League Community Twitch channel to talk about his development, answer players questions, and play a few games to demo our newest champion!


[VOD] September Q&A with Ghostcrawer

It's time again for the monthly Q&A with Scarizard and Ghostcrawler, covering topics ranging from balance and design to new champions and more!


Patch Chat with the Playtest Team - 6.19, Kog'Maw un-rework 

With 6.19 out on live, Riot Aesah &  the Playtest Team  is here with a Patch Chat for patch 6.19:
"Hey guys! Welcome to Patch Chat, a Dev Corner thread we make to talk about our new patches every two weeks: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-619-notes 
I'm Aesah on Riot's Playtest Team, a group of Diamond+ players who play with the new champions, reworks, balance tweaks, items, and map updates before they are released. It's our job to the test the changes that our designers come up with and ensure that we're introducing positive changes to LoL in terms of both balance and fun. We'll be watching this thread to answer as many questions as we can. 
6.19 is a relatively quiet patch, with the most notable change being the revert of Kog'Maw's "press W then AFK" rework. While some players will miss turret-Maw, we're expecting most to enjoy his new (old) playstyle more. There's been quite a lot of changes (itemization and meta) since we've seen this iteration, so we'll be watching his performance closely and make sure he's in a good spot. In other news, Mundo and Corki received some buffs while Soraka, Kled, Twitch, Anivia, and Cassiopeia were nerfed by varying degrees to bring their power levels closer to "fair". Udyr got some damage shifted around which hopefully makes him more satisfying to play. Some stuff happened to Aurelion Sol too, I'm going to refrain from commenting as I personally have no idea how it will affect him but I'll make sure our resident dragon expert Cezium shares his thoughts for you guys. 
All of us on the Playtest Team are avid gamers so feel free to talk to us as fellow LoL players! 
Adam "Afic" Cohen
Preston “Hinderaga” Bunker
Ben “Cezium” Burkhardt
Shawn “I Am The IRS” Currie
Don “Aesah” Ding
Nicolas “Gleeb” Haddad
Dan “penguin” Hardison
Miles “Daydreamin” Hoard
Bao “Bao” Lam
Robert “ROBERTXLEE” Lee
Nicholas “Nickwu” Smith
Blake “S0be” Soberanis
Trevor “ThEntropist” Thernes"
Be sure to check out the boards thread for more questions and discussion!

[MERCH] Gnar Figure & Plus Restock

The popular Gnar Figure and Gnar plush are back in stock over in the Riot Games merch store.

Legends Rising Season 2: Episode 5 - Contender

A new episode of of Legends Rising Season 2 is out - check out Episode 5: Contender:

"Revolta might just be the best League of Legends player Brazil has ever produced, and he wears that success and admiration with a smile. But his outward confidence belies an inner turmoil that pushes him forward, from the CBLOL championship to the International Wildcard Tournament and, if all goes according to plan, beyond. While INTZ readies their push for Worlds, WildTurtle and Immortals face their toughest challenge yet as the regular season draws to a close and the playoffs begin. 
Legends Rising Season 2 follows six of the game's greatest pros through the hard work and sacrifice necessary to achieve greatness, in a six-part series. Do they have what it takes to become a legend? 
Legends Rising Season 2: Episode 1 - Spring: https://youtu.be/W62IJtPwwx8Legends Rising Season 2: Episode 2 - All In: https://youtu.be/c9a5HqS0ZC8Legends Rising Season 2: Episode 3 - Revolver: https://youtu.be/J58PfeZ3dCwLegends Rising Season 2: Episode 4 - Endurance: https://youtu.be/6bImQGHGaSU"

Poppy's Hammer - League of Legends - MAN AT ARMS: REFORGED

Next up we have an episode, of Man at Arms: Reforged dedicated to creating a replica of Poppy's hammer, the Hammer of Orlon.
In the past they've also created Master Yi's sword, Leona's sword, Diana's blade, Katarina's daggers, & more!

/ALL Chat | Tiny Lantern, Tiny Wife 

/ALL Chat is back with a new edition of the Summoner Showcase.

"On this episode of Summoner Showcase, Sam and Jessica check out an insanely detailed Poppy cosplay, a tiny Thresh lantern that holds itty bitty little souls, some Dota 2 vs. LoL stick figure action, and more! If you’ve got a favorite piece of fanart you’d like to see featured on the show, send it to the hosts on Twitter or leave a comment below! 
**ALL CHAT ANNOUNCEMENT: NOW MONDAYS AND FRIDAYS!** 
That’s right! ALL Chat is moving to both Mondays and Fridays. Twice the ALL Chat each week!"

REMINDERS

To round out tonight's red post collection, here are a few reminders on current promotions or limited time events!
  • The 2016 Worlds Pick'em is available now through the 29th! Earn summoner icons and more by participating and guessing correctly!
  • Riot is currently in the process of distributing their 10 year anniversary gifts to players! Look for Riot Kayle (or a mystery gift if you already own) and a poro summoner icon to hit your account soon if you've played a game in the last 60 days or before September 19th! Please note that they may take up to a week (September 23rd) for everyone to get! Keep up with distribution here.

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