Riot Games, the makers of hit Esport MOBA League of Legends, has been pushing to improve the atmosphere of the game, especially in the competitive sector. This has involved the banning of players and that practice has continued with three more pros getting dropped from the upcoming series.
However more than that, as both Khaled ‘StunnedandSlayed’ Abusagr and Nicolaj ‘Veigodx’ Jensen have actually received lifetime bans – the toughes punishment ever doled out by Riot. This might seem harsh, but as with the banned players that went before them, these two were some of the most reported in the game's history. In fact Abusagr has been recorded making physical threats, while Jensen publicly admitted to DDOSing high level ELO players.
The third player was Simon ‘Rayt3ch’ Näslund who hasn't received quite as strict a punishment, instead only being banned from competing in the upcoming Season 3 championship. These LoL players have impacted their team beyond their own bans though, as because they all come from Team Solo Mebdi, the entire team has been disqualified from the upcoming tournament.
“Of course, nobody wants to take actions like these so close to a tournament event, but it takes time to carefully investigate, review and uncover all of the relevant historical facts of players (especially when they’ve operated under multiple banned accounts), and we never make decisions like these lightly,” explained Riot Senior eSports Manager Whalen Rozelle (via PCGamesN).
“As always, one of our top goals is to ensure that players seeking to compete in the LCS represent the principles of good sportsmanship and clean play.”
The cleaning house all started with a single ban but that one quickly became three as these Riot described, “toxic” players were given one year suspensions from competition and all their accounts permabanned.
KitGuru Says: Keep it up Riot. The nastiness of some players is why I have to take breaks from LoL every few months as it's hard to justify playing a game for “fun,” when you can spend whole games getting s*%t talked by your own team.
This is pretty much the exact reason i gave up on this game. I think it mostly comes from the free to play aspect of the game, where as because there is no financial investment as such, players say and do what they want with little or no consequence. I think I.P bans would work better. Then they don’t come back with new accounts.