As part of Riot’s efforts to manage communication with the community, the company launched the Riot Ambassadors this week. It was a…strange launch, something I doubt much of the community was expecting. I mean, Riot Ambassadors? Isn’t that the job of every Riot employee?

It remains unclear exactly what purpose of the Riot Ambassador team will serve. Some speculated that the RAs (yeah, it’s a thing now) would be around to deliver bad news so that the reds behind the posts wouldn’t have to suffer negative press. According to Tamat that’s not the case.

We actually don’t want them to be anonymous, which is why they sign every post they make with their handle. That being said – there are a few reasons that we’ve chosen to have them use central names after a lot of discussion, and we’ll be able to reveal more of them as we make progress on the program.

RAs are signing their posts, so no free forum karma for the bearers of bad news. Wait, there’s no forum karma to begin with? Ah well, you get the point. It looks like anyone posting bad news will be doing so under his/her own forum handle. Joy. The official RA purpose seems to be in here:

League of Legends has grown exponentially in the last year, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. This growth makes it easier for questions to slip by unanswered and concerns to go unaddressed. Our goal is to help fill in that gap, and enhance the quality and quantity of information flowing from Riot Games. As Riot Ambassadors we’re here for everybody; no question is too small, no issue too big.

I’ve rarely faulted Riot for the quantity of information or even the quality. My only real problem is that the information isn’t compiled in one easy-to-access location. That’s the issue. More answers in more places won’t be a solution. Also, isn’t it more confusing to have posts made by the Riot Ambassadors and then signed by the person that wrote them? Wouldn’t it be easier to give Ambassadors, if we’re really tied to this idea, a forum badge denoting them as such?

Don’t get me wrong, I hope we see better communication from Riot, but I think they might be missing the point.