RIOT APOLOGIST TO THE RESCUE, EVERYONE BACK THE FUCK OFF
In this post, I will be addressing misinformation about Riot's products, and seemingly overwhelmingly slow pace. In many of the posts criticizing Riot, I see a lot of comments making assumptions and accusations which are flat out wrong, or just simply stupid.
Replay System
Why does it take them so long to make it? 3rd party sites have already done so! They promised us this since beta!
They have made a replay system, which many of you may have forgot, or just don't know. It was on the PBE for quite a while, until being removed around 2 years ago. The reason is that having replays put too much of a load on their still-growing infrastructure; Riot was a completely new studio, without the luxury of time like Blizzard and Valve. They just didn't have the server power. I assume that they believed they would have a replay system out after beta; but the huge influx of players was just too much and unexpected, so they had to cancel it.
Sanbox Mode
RIOT BUILD SANBOX ALREADY! You've had so much time!
A Rioter has said that they think it would not be fun, so they won't include it. Honestly I think that is bullshit, but this is what /u/Hamoodzstyle [1] had to say about Sandbox.
I talked to a few rioters about sand box mode and the whole point of not releasing it (riot already has it on their in office servers) is because they would have to do one of 2 things to release it:
1) They could create a whole global server for "sand box" mode, this would require them to put up a whole new server (like pbe for instance) that wouldn't be used for much.
2) The other thing they could do is to allow your own computer to create the sandbox mode locally, the problem with that is that it would mean they would have to release the game code publicly which I was assured would be completely out of question (mainly due to hacks/exploits that can be found)
Both reasons hold a lot of merit. Opening a new server system for every region across the world would cause millions on millions of dollars and time. The second reason is painfully obvious. Although I am not an employee at Riot, I would bet they have some type of infrastructure problem that doesn't allow them to put it on live servers.
Riot Employees and Revenue
Riot has 1k employees. Valve only has 330, and many different games. Why don't they do shit?
Many people underestimate the inane amount of employees it takes for a company to just BE global. Translators, publishers, marketers, etc. have to be different for every region. Not to mention that Valve outsources a LOT, and that Riot manages the NALCS and EULCS, and also has its own support team. There is a reason Valve's support is notoriously bad, and many know about Valve Time. All this globalization is expensive. Take a look at Riot's careers page (http://www.riotgames.com/careers[2] ), and look at the crazy amount of jobs and where they are. Also, a lot of Riot are art too.
THIS[3] comment
If you built a system this fucking hard to improve you need to just man up and rebuild it because your initial shortsightedness has fucked you and us for long enough. If you are unwilling to spend a small fraction of the insane amount of money we give you then we need to come together and boycott until you do what you should do. If you simply lack the talent or knowledge to compete then hire someone who doesn't lack it.
Oh come on. I don't even need to explain why that's such a dumb idea. Rebuild the whole thing? How is this a top comment? And do you really believe the employees just go, "Oh hey let's not do anything! Yeah. Okie dokie! Let's play some video games all day and not try to do work!" and that Riot does not spend most of that revenue back into the game then you're clearly naive. I can't believe that got gilded and was top comment.
put more money and employees into it
As I already pointed out...ugh...whatever.
Transparency (This is a new segment)
Riot doesn't talk to us! If only they talked to us, we would forgive and accept it.
This is simply not true. They tried to be transparent and showed off Ao Shin, a concept, and people thought of him as a near champion, when even in the main announcement they said he wasn't. Believe it or not, what Rioters say can be twisted, like a game of telephone, or talking in an echo chamber. Also, Riot Lyte opened up an ask.fm and answers it VERY frequently. He answers multiple times per day, and convinced Ghostcrawler to open one soon too. Riot is actually probably the most active "big" gaming company that exists; Rioters often chime in on Reddit posts and many times in their own forums. Not only that, they make Patch Previews which go in-depth into their balance philosophy, and make dev blogs which go into other areas.
Keep the discussion non ragey and civil. Remember that Riot employees don't all have super thick skin when reading criticism. Also, don't downvote just because you don't like the opinion. As long as it's though out well who cares.
EDIT: /u/riotBoourns [4] on the sandbox
Regarding sandbox mode: That's a pretty accurate statement of what would happen if we tried to release our current "cheats enabled" version of the game. We're unlikely to ever do that, it's far too dangerous and open to abuse. The play team's mutator system that they use for featured game modes like URF is an alternative that could be used for keeping a training mode isolated from the rest of the game (it's a more modern and modular version of what we did for tutorial/battle training). Even still, it would require re-implementation of everything for that mode. We absolutely hear you though, and it's something that a many people within Riot talk about. Please keep the feedback train rolling, but try to remember we're real live humans on the other end and try to keep it constructive. :) We fight every day to be worthy of your passion and engagement with league.
EDIT 2: /u/Pwyff [5] (riot employee) chimes in here[6]
I am not a Riot yes man. I just think that a lot of the criticism is unfounded. I personally also believe they should be rolling out at a faster rate, but at the same time I understand their struggles.