Things have been extremely quiet at Riot headquarters of late. The forums have been utterly devoid of red posts concerning Dominion, the end of Season One, and the beginning of Season Two in the last week or so. This wouldn’t be all that shocking – Riot has always struggled to provide good communication about timing – but we had been hearing about those things and in quantity for the three weeks or so prior.

From the time Dominion was announced until about three weeks ago, Riot was pumping the Dominion hype. We got the Dominion minisite, gameplay vids at the major gaming news outlets, plenty of screenshots, and chances to play the game at several industry events. We saw Rioters play pros, Rioters play Rioters. We got excited.

Next we were told about the end of Season One and the rewards that end entailed. For the first time since the launch of Season One players had something more than just winning/losing/farming IP to worry about. It was a great announcement, and hopefully a challenge a few people enjoyed as much as I did.

This past week, though, it was dead silent. I thought that meant Dominion was on the way. I thought that meant we’d see it before Q4 of this year, which is when every other game I’ve been excited about for the past several years is coming out. Sadly, that’s probably not the case. RiotRara finally posted in the forums today regarding the timing of Riven and the patch that follows her.

Here’s the quote:

Riven, and the changes within her patch, will be coming next week. As we previously announced, Season One will conclude with our next scheduled game update. Therefore we will also be calculating the Season One Ladder rankings and rewards during downtime for this patch.

Additionally, there will be an extra week (3 weeks total) between the Riven patch and the patch to follow. This extra time will ensure we bring you the best content possible in League of Legends.

I can’t imagine “best content possible” is code for anything other than Dominion. Three weeks from next Tuesday is October 4th. I’m not impressed, Riot. Not at all.

Things have been awfully quiet from Riot’s offices over the past two weeks. We got the Talon release a week-and-a-half ago, but since then the only thing we’ve seen is the Karthus/Cassiopeia disable. Red forum posts have mostly been of a community flavor, with really nothing in the way of significant game discussion. Obviously the prevailing theory is that we’re about to get our paws on Dominion.

I hope it’s true. By this time we usually have at least a Champion Sneak Peek and sometimes an Art Spotlight. Riot will have some very restless customers on its hands if Dominion isn’t ready by patch day of next week (which I would like to stress again is Tuesday).

The Dominion launch is sort of a precarious thing for Riot. People will obviously be shot up about having a new game mode to play, but we’ve also been promised all sorts of things in the past that just haven’t been delivered. I hope Riot gets this one right.