That’s a game from last night, shortly after Riot’s new service ticker alerted me that the company was aware of some general service issues and working on a fix. Loss forgiveness comes as a result of what’s known as “The Button.” The Button is a switch Riot can throw whenever there’s trouble that sets the game into a special mode to prevent players from accruing losses and losing ELO as a result of technical difficulties. In the game you see above, everything was fine until about the five minute mark. From that point forward there was a solid five second delay between a given command and the corresponding action. I’m glad to see I didn’t lose any ELO as a result. The Button does allow winning teams to still get the win and get ELO recorded, but at 50 percent the normal rate.

While I understand the idea behind the service ticker – more communication with the player base – I do hope Riot uses it sparingly. It could easily create a placebo effect, which might result in more backlash than if Riot just hadn’t said anything. I know when I see that yellow box all lit up, I’ll be looking for problems, and that’s not the way the game was meant to be enjoyed. If used sparingly, though, I think it could do just fine.

It’s finally patch day, and for real this time. Unfortunately this patch has one very serious problem – it can completely trash your installation. There are now several posts on the forums filling rapidly with reports of trashed installations after attempting a patch. I’ve experienced the same problem and had to reinstall, a long and painful process with the number of players forced to do the same.

I don’t hesitate to say that I’m a little worried for Riot. The company is having huge scaling issues. Between the server crashes, the large number of bugs/exploits that come with each patch, and the string of nerfs and buffs that seem out of line due to a lack of testing, I can’t help wondering when they’ll catch up. The list of open positions is enormous and shows some gaping holes in current company structure. Here’s a short list of what Riot’s missing: Technical Director, Database Administrator, Director of Operations, System Administrator, Senior Game Designer. That’s a short list, obviously not including junior level positions. All of those gaps are presumably being filled along with other regular duties by the current staff.

As excited as I was for this patch, I can’t help feeling more than a little miffed by all the problems. Oh, did I mention the Jax buff? Yuck.