Last year, Shane “Jason” Duffy had his house raided by the Australian cybercrime unit for repeatedly hacking Riot's popular MOBA, League of Legends. Duffy managed to stay out of jail on bail but it turns out that during this time, his hacks were earning him $1000 a day. How did he pull …
Read More »Riot trialling immediate bans for toxic behaviour
Riot has announced a new temporary system that's being trialled on each server, that will see it banning all toxic players on League of Legends, either temporarily over a two week period, or permanently if they've been given a warning before. Part of this is to do with a new “machine …
Read More »US University to offer League of Legends scholarships
It's the classic saving grace for the jock in every feel good high-school movie. He might be the bad boy that's fallen in with the wrong crowd, but by the end of the film he plays his heart out and wins a scholarship to play “football,” at the university all …
Read More »We all watched a lot of Esports in 2013: 2.4 billion hours
If anyone thinks Esports aren't a force to be reckoned with or are a flash in the pan, perhaps some raw numbers will convince you otherwise. In 2013 alone, fans around the world tuned in to Twitch and other sources to watch over 2.4 billion hours of Starcraft II, League …
Read More »Too many cooks spoil LoL team builder broth
Riot Games recently launched its new League of Legends Team Builder, which allowed players to pre-emptively select the position, role and character they wanted to play, thereby only matching with people that wanted to do different things and therefore securing a much more in-fighting free game experience. However, the problem …
Read More »Riot makes LoL Team Builder official
Riot has been trialling its Team Builder system since early March and already its considered a success, as it's rolling it out as a permanent queue option for League of Legends. Announcing this news with a new trailer, Riot breaks down some of the best parts of the new matchmaking …
Read More »Australian accused of LoL hacking, selling player data
After six months of investigation, in a joint effort between local police forces, the FBI and Riot games, a 21 year old Australian man has been charged with hacking into online MOBA League of Legends and selling player data to other nefarious individuals. Shane Duffy purportedly stole player IP addresses …
Read More »Xbox #dealwithit tweeter on internet toxicity and mob rule
Adam Orth is a man that should know a thing or two about aggressive, online mob tactics. Why? Because he's the man that sent out the Xbox One #Dealwithit tweet last year when gamers reacted negatively to the console's always on design. This led to him receiving thousands upon thousands …
Read More »Riot debuts Team Builder beta
Riot Games first talked about the much requested Team Builder feature in League of Legends back in October last year, but it's taken until today for it to open the tool up for public beta testing. It's available to try for the next two days and will allow players to …
Read More »MSI to offer prize packs at epic.LAN 12
MSI has announced that not only will it be attending this weekend's upcoming epic.LAN 12, but that it will be giving away prizes in the run up to and at the event itself. You'll either need to be lucky or good at League of Legends (preferably both) to stand a …
Read More »Riot enforces LoL no poaching rule
While it's one thing to be a team manager and attempt to lure players away from one esports team to the other, it's another thing entirely to do so as a player. Riot doesn't mess around when it comes to this stuff either and to prove that point has fined …
Read More »League of Legends not patching? Could be those porn filters
Remember those David Cameron porn filters we talked about potentially causing problems for gaming? Well that could already be happening with certain games, most notably League of Legends and its patcher, which contains files that due to their nomenclature contain the word sex and could therefore be blocked by these …
Read More »Riot bans handful of Oceanic pro LoL players
Riot is continuing to enforce its professional code of conduct with its pro player base, with several in the Oceanic region being hit with the ban hammer, three of which came from the same team – which you would imagine is going to cause more than a few problems with …
Read More »Riot talks League of Legends Magma Chamber
Since League of Legends was debuted and people have been screaming at each other about how much their opponents suck, there've been the calls for one vs one matches. Often that was simply a “meet me here,” type of deal that was more akin to a fight after school than …
Read More »League of Legends email verifies everything now
We all have that one game that we've poured enough hours into that we almost wish Steam would stop reminding us just how many: for me it's Mount and Blade: Warband but for many gamers, it's League of Legends. Of course with any such game, especially one that's 100 per …
Read More »Riot president retorts ‘greed’ accusations
Marc Merill, president of League of Legends developer Riot Games, has hit back in a Reddit post at critics that suggested he and his company are greedy in their business practices, citing many reasons why that's not the case and simply the fact that he and his main partner and …
Read More »New to League of Legends? You’ll want to keep this handy
In a game like League of Legends, where time is of the essence, you'll often come across acronyms and abbreviations. This can be confusing, especially if you're just starting out and you don't have a history of context to draw on to figure out what it might mean. You don't …
Read More »Pro League team Evil Geniuses dissolves
One of the longest standing rosters in professional League of Legends, the Evil Geniuses, has effectively been disbanded in Europe, with three of its old members set to now compete under the EG brand in the North American circuit, while too remain in the EU and are now operating under …
Read More »New Riot Games API released
Riot Games has announced the release of its new API in beta form, meaning anyone with a bit of coding knowledge can now make much more interesting apps and tools to help users play the game. In the past this has been limited to simple functions like manual reset timers …
Read More »Riot circles wagons, bans pro streaming of other games
If you'd said a decade ago that there would be not only gamers like Fatal1ty making the big bucks by being a professional at it, but that teams of people would be able to do it for a living too – some pulling in as much as a million a …
Read More »MSI giving away all sorts at Multiplay i50
If you're heading to the Multiplay i50 event, not only can you be on the lookout for yours truly, but MSI's notebook booth is also worth a visit, as it'll be giving away all sorts of goodies over the four day event, including Steam games, tickets to the next insomnia …
Read More »32 million people watched the League of Legends finals
If there's still any doubt that Esports isn't a modern cultural phenomenon that isn't going anywhere, just look at the numbers Riot is quoting for its recent Season 3 World Championships. According to the developer, as many as 32 million people watched it online and that's on top of the …
Read More »League of Legends ranked stats not resetting until 2014
If you've logged into League of Legends recently, you might have wondered why you ranked stats haven't been reset yet. The reason for this, is that it's not happening until the beginning of season 4 sometime in the next couple of months. While this might sound counter-intuitive, since season 3 …
Read More »Riot is shaking up LoL’s league system too
Riot Games has been talking a lot about the changes it's making to League of Legends' pre-season, but it isn't finished yet. Next up on the chopping block, are small LP gains in ranked matches and tier-dropping immunity. Explaining it in a recent Reddit post, “Riotsocrates,” (all we are, is …
Read More »Riot talks Rune and Mastery changes for LoL S4
Riot has been talking up its pre-season changes for the fourth season of League of Legends over the past few days, with the final post discussing runes and masteries. Today we take a look at what the MOBA developer feels about the current climate of these out-of-game options and how …
Read More »Riot details League of Legends pre-season Jungle changes
The last few days have seen Riot release a lot of information about its upcoming pre-season changes to the Summoner's Rift, with tweaks to the meta, objectives, items and a lot more. Today though, it's talking Jungle and what can be done to make it more viable for more champions …
Read More »Riot discusses LoL Season 4 Support changes
Following on from its recent post about changes to vision items and map control in League of Legends season 4 and its preseason, Riot has posted up another break down of changes it's going to be making to the game, this time affecting supports and the items they usually take, …
Read More »Big changes to wards in League of Legends Season 4
With the League of Legends Season 3 now done and dusted, it's time to look forward to the next season, where as usual, Riot is planning big changes to vast swathes of the game in order to improve balance, competitiveness and up the ante on potential strategies. It's going to …
Read More »HBO Real Sports looks at LoL and MLG
HBO's Real Sports segment, which purports to show you what happens behind the score board and “off the field,” took some time out from its usual coverage of real world action, to instead focus on esports, interviewing key players in the League of Legends pro scene, people at Riot Games …
Read More »Strapped for cash? Start playing League of Legends
I think all of us have wished we could make a living from playing games at some point, but unfortunately to do that you have to be really, really good. One league of legends player is living that dream: in an interview with Spanish newspaper ABC, Carlos “Ocelote” Rodriguez revealed just how …
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