IronStylus

"Currently we're looking at a full Visual & Gameplay Update."

IronStylus

"Here's how I see things:

We have plans and opportunities.

The plans include a lot of the known big updates, the Visual & Gameplay Updates (VGU's) which are planned out usually super far as they need a lot of planning for execution. The projects can take months to do (maybe a year). They're heavily comprehensive. They're often used for the worst offenders in our game, often characters that need complete gameplay, art and thematic rebuilding, sometimes one of those aspects, sometimes all. The Sions, Tarics, etc. We slot and fantasy slot these far in advance.

The opportunities include lower scope Model & Texture Updates (MTU's) which aren't planned quite as far out, and are usually jumped on when we see an open slot, or a new gameplay update has been cracked, or we have the ability to borrow art resources from another team. Also when they're themeatically "safe". Nasus was done in this way. The legendary skin enabled his VU. These MTU's are usually built on what we have, existing rig, tweaked animations, etc. The reason being is that if we made them as high scope as full large-scope projects, you wouldn't see them for a year or more. We simply can't accomodate doing 8 Sions a year.

While yes, a lot of these champions could benefit from complete tear-downs, we have great opportunities that present themselves. In Kassadin's situation, Tokkelossie, being a big Kassadin fan, had made a completely new model on his own time. So boom, we had a start. Additionally, we started working with an outsourcer that has proven really, REALLY effective in making quality models, and we've begun to leverage them on skins, especially existing skins for VU's. The fast ramp-up can be attributed to having the existing new base model, some work the skins team had been doing, his VFX being in a good place, and a 3D external partner able to handle both reconcepting and remodelling the existing skins allowed us to jump on this.

Would it be nice to burn everything down and rebuilt it from scratch? Sure, if we can do that in an optimal time. We could knock down the house, re-pour the foundation, build a new frame, etc. But sometimes, because the opportunity to save time and resources is there, we build on top of a workable foundation with the frame intact."

"We've taken that honest look, and given time, planning, resources, etc. This is what we can do to deliver some badly-deserved quality for Kassadin in a timely manner."

IronStylus

"Weeks to months rather than months to years :P"

C3 Sound

"Hey Siachi!



A lot of time goes into writing the backstory, bio, script, the in-game text, recording the VO, editing, processing, localizing, casting and recording in 15+ languages around the world...

If we were to do this with every champion we wanted, we wouldn't be putting out a new update but once every so often. So while we take our larger projects through this longer pipeline, we cant take every project champion update chooses to touch through the process.

That said, we arent ruling out VO for future projects just yet. We are deliberating what can take the longer road for the upcoming year.

Thanks!

C3"

IronStylus

"Right now, with the current outlook, Kassadin VO wouldn't be in scope with what we're planning. It's of course a nice-to-have, but right now the bandwidth we have is mainly in the modelling department. Given the current constraints we feel what we're planning will add value in a time frame that won't leave players hanging for a year."

IronStylus

"She's currently in pre-production, I may or may not be personally working on her.. cuz.. ya know, armor."

IronStylus

"Cho'gath is pretty massive in scope. Currently he's someone we'd like to fantasy slot, but it'll be entirely dependent on technical resources that are allocated to the team. Right now there's not enough animation bandwidth to do what we'd really want to do. That said, we may try experimenting with him on the Battlecast rig which might allow us to speed up development, that's not an immeidate priority right now but it's one I'd personally like to see us take on sooner than later."

IronStylus

"No idea. This is a tough one and will need probably the same amount of pre-production time as Sion, if not more."

IronStylus

"Currently we're not planning on continuing with traditional skins, as we haven't seen as much value payoff as we initially thought they'd provide.

That could change, but currently that's our stance."

Riot Repertoir

"Taric is pretty far along in the gameplay design process already. He's my other current project, along with Ryze."

When asked about the scope of theupdate,When asked whyis slated for a model / texture update instead of the whole VU package that someone like Sion received,He continued As for when to expect thevisual updates,When asked about a new voiceover foralso added in: As for whereis at in the production cycle,also shared his opinion on an eventualVU, explaining As for wherestands,also commented on traditional skins:Over on reddit, commented thatis pretty far along gameplay wise: