Red Post Collection: Viktor up for a Gameplay update, Vesh on Diana, World Championship Preliminary Schedule

[ Update: Added more from Solcrushed on the Viktor gameplay update! ]

This morning's red post collection features a few notes on Viktor being added to the champion update schedule, Vesh and IronStylus discussing Diana, Lyte  on behavior that is unwelcome in LoL, the newly announced World Championship 2014 preliminary schedule, and more!
Continue reading for more information!



Viktor added to the Champion Update Schedule

Viktor has been added to Riot's official champion update schedule page! While this doesn't give us a time estimate, it confirms he's one of the next champions to receive a gameplay update. The page also currently lists Soraka and Sion.

In a reddit thread discussing this addition, Solcrushed teased this image:

When asked why Viktor was added to the list and not Gangplank, Darius, or any of the others mentioned in recent time, Solcrushed commented:
"They didn't have a newbie designer (ME) with no understanding of the release pipeline or resource constraints who decided it was a brilliant idea to share a pet project with the public a year and a half ago"

When asked what he is changing, Solcrushed noted:
"On the scope of the upcoming GU, its not intended to be a full scale rework and is geared mainly toward his Q and passive. W E and R will remain quite similar to their current form (although with tweaks)"

Vesh on Diana & IronStylus Diana Discussion

Vesh Lunar Rushed on to the forums to reiterate Diana's current balance situation:
"Diana is a difficult problem to adjust with just numbers because she is a tank burst assassin with an all-in pattern and no success case except for taking a guy 100 to 0. As far as any potential gameplay balance updates, that's up to our Core Gameplay team who handles patch to patch balance changes. 
We actually had a really passionate producer who loves Diana who did some experimenting during our latest Thunderdome (sorta like a hackathon where you can work on anything you want) and he had some cool ideas. Diana is definitely on the board for changes, and it seems from the many threads like this that have been made in the past that people are fairly opposed to a bruiser direction. The key will be pushing her more towards the light fighter/assassin pattern in healthy ways which means not just going Q->R->R and mudering a guy."

On a different forum thread, IronStylus also kicked up a forum game where he challenged players to Redesign their own versions of Diana's kit for fun and discussion:
"So, I'm not a designer, obviously. But! I've seen a lot of Diana threads pop up, and indeed she is on our list of low-hanging fruit on the potential gameplay update of the ChampUP team but she's not a priority at the moment. I'm actually jamming with Vesh and one of our new dudes, Paul, just ideating on stuff for a potential update. She's obviously close to my heart, so any discussion surrounding her peaks my interest. Many times, discussions say fighter Diana, some say Assassin Diana, but a lot of what I see on the forums focus around numbers. Thing is, a lot of our design internally focuses on creating holistic characters and cohesive themes, not just a walking spread sheet of base stats augmented by QWER mashing. 
SO! Community, I present a challenge. Make Diana a kit, but don't use numbers. 
Whether you take from her current kit, give her an entirely new kit, or change the order/effect of her existing kit, dandy. Just don't get into the nitty gritty. In this scenario, granularity is the enemy. Take a look at theme. How does the moon create an opportunity for this character's play style? Does moonlight application open up different abilities? Does she make the entire map dark aside from a single AOE damage zone? Does she have an entirely resource system different than mana? Is she a symbol of grace and uses her blade as sword play? Think about it. Think about synergy and the completeness of the experience. Think about Diana as a person, as a character through which you can feel is expressing her personality, motivation and core characteristics through her mechanics, not just an icon that's a series of numbers.
I'm interested to see the suggestions :)"

[Continued] Lyte on Player Behavior

In a thread where a summoner asking for a explanation of why he was banned, Lyte dove into a discussion on what sort of behavior is not ok in League of Legends:
"This is a pretty nuanced topic. There really isn't a list of phrases or words somewhere that dictates what's good or bad, and usually it comes down to the attitude and the harm you're inflicting on other players. At Riot, we don't conjure up a list of "what's OK or not OK" in League of Legends; in fact, we simply use the data provided by systems like LeaverBuster, Tribunal, Reports, Honor and more to determine what the community thinks is OK in the game.

To the toxic player, that concept sounds crazy because we're "letting toxic people decide what's OK in the community," but actually, that's just flawed logic. If the average player is good (and we know for a fact they are neutral or good), then letting the community decide what's OK or not OK should pretty much reflect real life society. Not surprisingly, that's pretty much what we find.

In real life, there are small percentages of people who may think racism, sexism or homophobia is OK, but they are the minority--they assume more people are like them, that others agree with them, and they perceive that these behaviors are more common than they are.

For example, in your own chat logs, it's not cool to throw around "rape" so casually. It doesn't matter if you said it for years in other games, this community doesn't believe that's acceptable here. In real life, we're starting to see this trend as well. So, when you say "I raped your ass" or "he'll f*cking rape me," it sounds trivial to you because you might be used to it, but the community has agreed that stuff needs to go.

When you say stuff like "i smoke weed all day and get b*tches, im not a kid," do you think that's a respectful comment towards women? Now you start stringing your lines together and you see stuff like, "i raped your ass. stfu, i smoke weed all day and get b*tches, im not a kid" and you start to see why the community disagrees with your behavior. Do you really think you can go to a random school, mall, university, library, factory, retail store, or stadium and say stuff like that and actually believe everyone around you agrees with that behavior? Here's the truth: everyone is staring at you and thinking, "That's unacceptable. Why is that person doing that?" Do you really think when you get older that these behaviors are OK? How many of us throw around phrases like "dude, raped them b*tches" at work?

In other examples, it's not cool to make light of Nazis, or threaten to AFK, or call people ******* and morons non-stop in games. You might have been doing these behaviors for years--I get that. Other games might not have punished you in the past for these behaviors, I get that. But, these behaviors aren't acceptable online, or in real life, and that's what this community has decided. You might think these behaviors are OK, but we don't.

If you don't agree, just stop playing League, and spend your time elsewhere. Don't be another reason people in real life think gamers are terrible human beings. We're not, and we need to start showing that we're not."

World Championship 2014 Preliminary Schedule

With the 2014 World Championship about three months away, Riot has posted up a slew of details about the event!

Here's Redbeard with more info:
"It’s getting closer and closer to the ultimate showdown in Seoul on October 19th where we’ll crown the League of Legends World Champions 2014. 
As teams from around the world battle to come out on top in their regional leagues, here’s a glimpse at the group stages, quarter-final and semi-final that are going to take us towards the final showdown at Sangam Stadium. 
First of all, here’s a quick guide to how this will work. Each of the 16 qualifying teams for Worlds will be drawn into one of four groups (four teams per each group). Two out of the four groups will play the entirety of their group stage games in Taiwan, and the other two groups will play the entirety of their group stage games in Singapore. During the group stage, each team will play every other team twice (once on blue side, once on purple) - meaning that each team plays six games and there are 24 games per location. For more information on how this will all play out, check out our Worlds rulebook - and look out for more information on lolesports within the next few weeks. 
Calendars at the ready - here are the dates and times for the upcoming stages. 

GROUP STAGE ONE: September 18th - 21st

Taipei, Taiwan 
Local time - 5pm - 11pm
PDT - 2am - 8am
CEST - 11am - 5pm
KST - 6pm - 12pm

GROUP STAGE TWO: September 25th - 28th

Singapore, Singapore 
Sept 25th - 26th 
Local Time - 5pm - 11pm
PDT - 2am - 8am
CEST - 11am - 5pm
KST - 6pm - 12am 
Sept 27th - 28th 
Local Time - 2pm - 8pm
PDT - 11pm - 5am
CEST - 8am - 2pm
KST - 3pm - 9pm

QUARTER FINALS: October 3rd - 6th

Busan, Korea 
October 3rd 
Local time - 5pm - 10pm
PDT - 1am - 6am
CEST - 10am - 3pm 
October 4th - 5th 
Local time - 2pm - 7pm
PDT - 10pm - 3am
CEST - 7am - 12pm 
October 6th 
Local time - 5pm - 10pm
PDT - 1am - 6am
CEST - 10am - 3pm

SEMI FINALS: October 11th-12th

Seoul, Korea 
Local time - 5pm - 10pm
PDT - 1am - 6am
CEST - 10am - 3pm

FINAL: October 19th

Seoul, Korea 
Local time: 4pm - 9pm - (3:30 Opening Ceremony)
PDT - 12am - 5am (11:30pm Opening Ceremony)
CEST - 9am - 2pm (8:30am Opening Ceremony) 
Tickets will be on sale for all of the stops very shortly so check back into lolesports.com to secure your spot for the upcoming stages."

Be sure to check out the World Championship rule book for more info, including a break down of the event's two million dollar + prize pool.

Riot Games Summer Intern Q&A

A dozen or so of Riot's summer interns have taken to the boards to host a Q&A session, with topics ranging from their average day and what they are responsible for to where they studied and what they hope to do after the internship.

Check it out here, in Riot's Rioter Rundown mode!

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