It’s been a tough weekend for League of Legends fans. What should have been the highpoint of LoL’s Season 2 playoffs collapsed amid accusations of cheating and match-halting connection issues; the event was eventually abandoned, and has since been rescheduled for another venue. But it was a tough weekend for developers and hosts Riot, too, and as internet-based fury reaches its crescendo top players have stepped in to defend them.
“I’ll be sincere letting you know that all the stuff I’m reading through these days is making me not feel comfortable,” writes SK Gaming leader Ocelote.
“Community is misunderstanding everything quite a bit, and I would like to clear things out. Some of us work hard, bringing a professional behaviour to the table, trying to reach the goal of making eSports something that everybody knows, talk about and even practice in a daily basis…
“And then? The catastrophe happens. Internet issues, discussions about some teams cheating, rumours surrounding us…. All this, killing the purpose of reaching professionalism. And all this, in the S2 Grand Finals. Disaster.”
Ocelote assured fans that Riot were not responsible for the internet connection issues that plagued Sunday’s play, though the developers would never say as much themselves: “That’s not the way they handle things. And that’s definitely something laudable.”
CLG EU captain Wickd weighed in to agree with his comments, saying: “Riot is doing sooo much for esports.”
“They are new to it and they do make mistakes, but they admit the mistakes and work really hard on them! You can really see that they are doing everything in their power to make everyone playing the game happy and you can see their love for the game. That’s why I would never get mad over the issues that happened.”
Ocelote added: “Instead of finding excuses to cover themselves, they rushed [to find] a way to make the customers happy. Ordered pizzas for everybody there, gave out stuff and entertained the crowd however they could.”
Did you watch Sunday’s playoffs? Let us know whether you agree with Ocelote’s assessment in the comments below.