For the second time in as many days, Riot had a hard time keeping League of Legends stable. The servers were set to busy sometime this afternoon after recovering from a critical error. Players were none to pleased, as you might imagine. The forums exploded just before servers ground to a halt with posts like “Stability Issues 7/19 – reserving this for Riot” and “Want to know how many times VALVE Servers have crashed?”

I can understand the frustration. Last night’s FG LoL Monday was cut short due to service issues. Two days of problems are somewhat rare for Riot, but certainly still annoying when they happen. When coupled with the extended Leona release window and the downtime around her launch, Riot has a woeful lack of positive buzz around League of Legends. I’m sure the game will bounce back, but it would be very cool for the company to do some things to drive a little positive interest in the League.

This isn’t some “Riot doesn’t do anything” post – just today they’re bringing down the EU servers to split them into two regions to improve stability. It’s a good move, but it’s almost invisible to the player (except for the downside of not being able to play with friends across the EU servers). Riot could do some little things to help keep League of Legends players happy during the lull between Season One and Season Two.

The easiest suggestion would be an IP-boost weekend. Those seemed to happen fairly often in the game’s first year, but I haven’t seen one in a long time. Why not give double IP for a weekend here and there leading up to the Season Two launch? It could easily drive sales for other IP boosts – 4x IP rocks – and encourage people to spend some extra time online over the weekend.

What about a skin giveaway? Hell, they could even tie it in with a livestreamed tournament or event. Just make a reusable code for the store that’s shown on-screen at the end of a tourney stream and make it available for 24 hours after the tourney. People love exclusivity with skins and it would be a great way to drive traffic for a specific tournament. Riot could even use the stream they’ve been promoting during server downtime as a stage for this.

In short, Riot needs to meet the concerns of the player base head on. Show the people crowing about HoN or DotA 2 something that says, ‘hey, we hear your concerns, we know you could be playing other games, thanks for sticking with us.’ I love LoL, but Riot has to do more than say that they’re the most player-focused company in the industry. It’s time show it.

This post started as a brief thought the other day and has since been echoed in forum posts by other players and an email chain between a couple of my friends. League of Legends is definitely in a bit of a lull after the end of the Season One Circuit. Dreamhack was a very cool event, and Riot did a nice job getting players excited to see the top teams compete. It was an event that made me hungry for more, but my excitement has waned a bit over the past month and I’m not alone.

There have been quite a few threads criticizing Riot lately, some of which have received very thorough response. Most every communication from Riot involves a breakdown of priorities and why it’s hard to put some features over others on the to-do list. Players experience the game very differently depending on level and skill, so how can Riot prioritize one group’s expectations over another?

I’m curious what your top priority would be when it comes to LoL. You can only pick one, so pick carefully. I’d like to suggest avoiding server stability because frankly, the servers are remarkably stable for a game that scaled as quickly as LoL. Also, server stability is such a tired subject I don’t think I can take much more. Give me something that you think will have a dramatic effect on the game.

For me, it’s new game modes. I loved the different game modes that were available in DotA. Hvaving different rulesets available that modify the experience of the game would add incredible replay value. Random Deathmatch would be fantastic, but I’d love to see other custom rulesets like the progressive draft we occasionally play on FG LoL Mondays. New game modes would also carry over to newer maps, should they release, giving players additional ways to enjoy the new maps.

What about you? What’s your top priority for the future of League of Legends?

Servers are still down, and in the wake of the Milkfat fiasco (which I’m planning to cover in depth when I have the time to really dedicate to the issue), Riot’s having a hard time containing all the rage. When you stack a very short list of patch notes on top of it all, the community has exploded in a fit of rage.

Normally, I’d give you an extended rundown of all the problems, the issues at stake, what have you. I’m tired, though, and I can really empathize with Riot this time around. Last week I saw more literal, physical rain than I have seen in my lifetime (some accounts are saying it was six months worth of rain in five days for North Carolina), and after traveling home I’ve had more hangups, mixups, and unexpected turns of planned events than I care to detail.

The long and short of it – try to be understanding today. Though much of what Riot is dealing with is self-inflicted, it’s still a lot to juggle. Hopefully they can prove, as they have in the past, that they can handle everything and walk away with a little dignity.

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.

Riot posted in the announcement forums today with a thank you gift for everyone’s patience around the recent server instability. If you’ve played a game in the past 60 days, you’ll be getting a free, 4-win IP boost at some point during the next few days.

It’s a nice gesture, though I think a weekend boost would have been much cooler. We’ve lost a lot more than eight games to downtime (4 games at double IP) over the past couple weeks, and IP boosts don’t really have a negative impact on the economy of the store, unless I really misunderstand things.

Like I said, though, this is nice. And that it’s going out to ALL players shows Riot’s commitment to its community.