Riot ends “Event of the Year” early due to too many players – LoL is bigger than WoW and Call of Duty right now

Riot Games is having some technical issues with League of Legends in Summer 2022. After the problems with the PvP tournament “Clash”, there is now also trouble with the LoL event “Star Guardian” 2022, which for many was “the 2022 event”. On Friday, August 12th, Riot had to cancel the free missions early and is now compensating the players. The reason is apparently too large a rush of players. LoL is currently more relevant worldwide than WoW and Call of Duty.

What is this event?

• The Star Guardian event was scheduled to run in League of Legends from July 14th to August 15th.
• For some players it was “the biggest event of the year” because you could earn special skins from champs like Kai’Sa, Sona, Ekko, Nilah or Fiddlesticks, although the skins were criticized beforehand.
• Players could use Riot Points (“RP”), real money currency, to purchase a pass that unlocked certain missions. There were also the missions about “Another Sky”, which you could get and complete without spending money.
• If you wanted all the skins, you could get the “Megabundle” for 12,391 RP – that’s around €90.

Essentially, the “Star Guardian” event runs on: “Give us money and earn special skins” – LoL events have developed in this direction in recent years, which a fan once criticized harshly, who then got a job from chief was personally offered.

“Much more players and rewards than we expected”

what went wrong Riot Games can no longer cope with the rush to League of Legends. Already on August 7th, RiotBrightmoon reported: The rewards are coming slower than expected. Players should stay tuned. It would just be “too many players and too many rewards” — it’s taking longer than expected (via twitter).

These problems have worsened in recent days: players have not progressed in the story and have not received any rewards.

Riot Games cancels event 3 days before – paid missions continue

This is the decision of Riot Games now:

• Riot Games turned off the free missions completely on August 12th, 3 days before the event ended. It says the reason is “some problems” (via twitter)
• Now you just give players all the rewards of free rewards as long as they only have one account in LoL. The entire “Another Sky” story is also simply unlocked.
• Paid missions will be extended until August 24th. As long as the special shop is still open.
• Players should be patient, the rewards might not come right away.

Much criticism of the technical side of LoL: “Client is fucked”

What’s the reaction? Somehow the fans seem to be resigned at the moment. Recently, some events have failed due to technical difficulties. Above all, many players still have bad memories of the “Ruiniation” event from summer 2021 (via reddit).

Overall, you seem sobered, especially if you’ve taken the trouble to grind the event for rewards:

• One player says, “Another win for people who don’t grind.”
• Another says: “I’ll never buy a passport again”
• A third: “Worst event ever.”

In general, the League of Legends client is viewed critically. There is probably something technically wrong: events do not work and there are repeated problems with the rewards.

The biggest twitch streamer on LoL, Tyler1, had called for the responsible teams to be fired at the end of July.

LoL is more relevant than WoW, Battlefield and Call of Duty right now

Why is the rush on LoL so big? A lot comes together:

• Due to Covid, there has been a lack of major new releases in gaming for over a year. Almost every game people were looking forward to in 2022 has been postponed.
• In addition, there is a weakness in the perennial favorites, the service games such as Battlefield, Call of Duty or WoW. These games have recently lost relevance. In League of Legends, the relevance has grown. Although Fortnite is still significantly larger than LoL, it is also shrinking.
• LoL has reached a new audience with the Netflix series Arcane. The boom in streaming services such as Twitch and e-sports is also strengthening LoL. League of Legends is consistently the biggest game in the world on Twitch.

The strength in LoL comes largely from the weakness in the rest of the market. But the League of Legends client doesn’t seem to be able to handle this strength.

We have dealt extensively with the rise of Riot Games on MeinMMO:

The studio behind League of Legends, Riot, is becoming the new Blizzard