Feature Article and Analysis
The people that read IGN are gamers that play all sorts of games. My article will be specifically for League of Legends players and viewers as I am covering the Worlds event. People who read the article should have some prior knowledge about the game. The article will be mostly directed towards people who may have missed the in-game announcements or people who haven’t played the game in a while. It will ideally draw current and former players that have experience in the game back in to the game because of the exciting events. I should be able to use in game terms or gaming terminology as this article will be directed towards the gaming audience namely former and current League of Legends players. The article will not only feature the events going on in game but also the in-game rewards that are given out at this time.
I want to submit my piece to IGN.com. I plan to write about Riot Games and their game League of Legends and their season 9 end of season and worlds along with all the releases announced for their 10-year anniversary. IGN is a website that reports on video games. They write about and make videos about video games and video game related news. They either review video games, give overview about new and upcoming games, and write feature articles about events and upcoming video games. IGN seems to have a friendly tone when discussing their articles and end up very conversational. My topic fits in IGN.com because it is a large event in a popular video game. IGN already has an article about the 10-year anniversary, and it covers Riot Games’ new game releases but does not cover what’s happening in their main game, League of Legends. As the flag ship game that Riot Games owns, I see that IGN should cover these events happening in game.
League of Legends Turns 10 Years Old During League of Legends Season 9 World Championship
By Bryan Sit
Hugely popular online video game League of Legends is now over 10 years old. Since its launch in 2009, League of Legends, has grown to become the most-played PC game in the world. On October 14, 2019 League of Legends turns 10 years old. Riot Games, in conjunction with their game League of Legends is hosting a multitude of events over the months of October and November. During this time League of Legends will be hosting their 10 Year Anniversary Event as well as their Season 9 World Championship event. Players who haven’t played recently or are currently playing maybe missing out on some information about this event, but you can catch up on the festivities here.
In game Loot
Riot Games 10 Year anniversary kicks off with League of Legends in game loot featuring 10 days of loot plus 1 bonus day. Loot will be obtained through playing matchmade games and don’t worry if you miss a day, the loot rewards stack so you can always catch up. On the bonus day, players will receive the Annie-versary skin. A skin that was specially made to commemorate this monumental event. The in-game loot event starts as early as October 17th and ends on October 28th. Players will have over a month afterwards to obtain the in-game loot, which ends on November 19th.
“Your Shop” Returns and Creative Corner
Alongside the free loot incentive, Riot is also bringing back “Your Shop”. A personalized shop for players that discounts skins and caters towards the champions they play. Speaking of champions, Riot is also having a commemorative event during this time and giving the first original 40 playable champions special player drawn splash art. The first 40 champions will receive special splash art for the duration of the worlds and 10 Year Anniversary Event. Riot Games will also highlight a few community cosplays, music collaborations to show support to their community content creators.
More In game Events
Everyone’s favorite URF (Ultra Rapid Fire) game mode is finally returning on October 28th as a part of League’s 10th anniversary. This version of URF will feature full champion select as well as a fountain catapult and bans. The game mode will stick around until November 8th so enjoy it while it lasts.
Alongside URF, Senna a new champion has been announced for release on November 10th in conjunction with the Season 9 World Championship event. This champion will be available for playtesting in League of Legends Public Beta Environment or PBE starting October 28th.
League of Legends Season 9 World Championship
The League of Legends Season 9 World Championship will be held in Europe this year with the finals being held in France. Starting on October 2nd, professional teams from all over the world will meet in places in Europe like Spain, Germany and France this year to compete for this year’s Summoner’s Cup. Finals will be held on November 10th in Paris, France. Players are encouraged to watch the World Championship events as there will be special in game rewards for tuning to these events. Players are also encouraged to participate in the Worlds Pick’em, a fantasy football like draft for esports teams that are at worlds. Players that participate will receive special in game rewards like icons and blue essence.
Worlds 2019 Pass and Louis Vuitton Collaboration
During World’s, League of Legends will be offering a special World’s 2019 Pass allowing players who purchase the pass to earn “World’s Tokens” for skins and other in game rewards. Alongside this pass, general World’s Missions will also be available to both the players who bought the pass and the players who didn’t buy the pass, allowing all players to earn World’s Tokens.
Riot Games this year is also partnering with Louis Vuitton this year for the Season 9 World Championship. In collaboration with Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière, the Artistic Director of Women’s collections, is helping create the trophy and trophy case for this year’s World Championship. Along with the collaboration of creating the trophy and trophy case, Nicolas Ghesquière is also collaborating to help create a few skins with that LV flare. One of these Louis Vuitton collaborated skins will be featured in this year’s World’s Pass.
True Damage and the Season 9 Worlds Song
Similar to previous years, the League of Legends World Championship holds a closing ceremony that features special collaborated music specifically for the World Championship. This year, the world finals will be held on November 10th and will feature a new League of Legends hip-hop group True Damage performing their new song “GIANTS” on stage. True Damage feature musical artists, Becky G, Keke Palmer, SOYEON (G)i-dle, DUCKWRTH, and Thutmose. Each musical artist will have a corresponding champion and will be performing live on stage at the World Finals in Paris, France. Becky G will be depicted as Qiyana, Keke Palmer as Senna, Soyeon of (G)i-dle will be Akali, DUCKWRTH, and Thutmose will be depicted as Ekko and the champion Yasuo as a DJ. Each of these champions will receive a new True Damage Skin. Qiyana will receive a special Louis Vuitton skin which can be purchased through the Worlds 2019 Pass for 2000 tokens.
New Game Announcements from Riot Pls
On Tuesday, October 15th Riot hosted a special livestream where they revealed a multitude of projects that they have been working on in the past 10 years. Here’s a brief recap of what’s to come:
- Riot revealed that their Teamfight Tactics game mode will be going mobile early next year.
- Teamfight Tactics is receiving a new set.
- Riot Games revealed a new card game, Legends of Runeterra which will also be coming to mobile in the near future.
- League of Legends: Wild Rift a mobile port of the original PC is coming in the near future with a complete rebuild from the PC version.
- Project A a new tactical shooting game that is not related to League of Legends is in the works.
- LoL Esports Manager a game where players manage their own League of Legends team is also under development.
- A new tabletop game named Tellstones.
- An untitled adventure game teased in their livestream.
- An untitled fighting game teased in their livestream and at EVO this year.
- An Untitled shooter game teased in their livestream.
- Rise of the Elements a new League of Legends update.
- Dawnbringer Karma skin teaser.
- A trailer for Arcane (TV Series).
- A trailer for a Netflix documentary League of Legends Origins.
- An encyclopedia book Realms of Runeterra.
- A new comic teaser for Zed: Issue 1.
- League of Legends: Selected Orchestral Works.
- League of Legends Music Vinyls.
- Newly announced musical works by Pentakill, Legends of Runeterra, and True Damage Music.
For a more in-depth look at all that was announced, please check out our other feature article explaining everything that was announced at Riot’s League of Legends 10th Anniversary Celebration.
End of Season 9Of course, with a friendly reminder that the ranked season for Season 9 ends on November 19th 2019 at midnight. Good luck to all the new, old or returning Summoners on the Rift and enjoy this eventful time
Content Analysis and Content Writing
Organization Analysis:
Grinding Gear Games (GGG)
Grinding Gear Games is a developer of a game named Path of Exile. Path of Exile is a free to play dark themed online action role playing game. Path of Exile is Grinding Gear Game’s only product and its sole focus at the moment. GGG’s purpose and mission are to get new players to play their game and to continue to pique the interest of continuing players of both their game and other players of the action role playing game genre.
Path of Exile, GGG’s main project, appeals to gamers. Casual and serious gamers alike, the game offers a rich storyline and end game content for all to enjoy. Path of Exile’s home page attempts to appeal to people who are looking to play a free to play game as it is advertised on multiple parts of their homepage. Grinding Gear Games really drives the aspect of free to play and never pay to win in its home page.
Path of Exile has a large social media presence. They often advertise changes to their game on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and on their own forum. Most of their content is related to their game and how they are constantly improving it. Some of their content features and showcases their new in game purchases or MTX. Other types of content that they produce of their page are community based, showcasing art or devotion that fans have to the game. Aside from Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and their forum posts, Path of Exile also advertises their game and its content through streamers on twitch and on their own YouTube page. On the streaming platform, players of their game often advertise their game and developers also stream their game often showing off new features. They also produce a convention that players can go to and meet with developers and streamers of the game.
Style Analysis:
Stylistically Path of Exile’s posts on social media and their own forum varies. In game, Path of Exile is thematically placed in a dark fantasy world and often their social media posts include flavor text that accompanies that theme.
Their three main platforms of social media are Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. Through the three social media platforms, they share the same content.
For in game items, they advertise them with single sentences that describe the item’s lore and are accompanied by an image of the item.
For patch notes, developer posts, or in game purchases, links to their personal forum are posted to redirect the users to the content they are searching for.
GGG developers use their subreddit as a place for them to communicate with the player base and are much more conversational and personable. They often give hints, release dates, or teasers to upcoming projects and releases. Their developers often have fun and show a friendly manner and often use emojis in conveying their messages to their player base.
Most of GGG’s content for PoE is located within their own forums. Their content on their forums can be divided in to three major categories: development manifestos, patch notes, and MTX. All posts are accompanied with custom art banners.
All of the microtransaction posts include links to their YouTube videos showcasing the items in game. Microtransaction posts can be divided in to two subcategories of sale posts and new microtransaction posts.
Patch notes are numbered and listed in chronological order. Many of which are short updates to improve the game in one way or another. A lot of patch notes end with, “This has been deployed as a restartless client update. You will need to close and reopen your client to apply this patch.” Stating that the patch notes have gone live. Major patch notes on the other hand are huge long lists stating changes to balance and gameplay and are posted usually every three months before a major update. These major patch notes can get up to pages long and often thank players for their support while hyperlinking major update specific microtransactions in their closing sentence. As a result of their length, major patch notes also include a table of contents at the top of their respective forum posts. Patch notes are organized through bullet points and are written in complete sentences. Patch note sentences are all begun with past tense verbs like, fixed or improved. For both major and minor patches the patch notes jump right in with no introduction. They often include skills and items already in the game and because of this, new players would have trouble understanding the changes.
Occasionally there will be some Reddit posts that are similar to patch notes in style and structure they usually include edits to show that the developers are working on the patch.
Development manifestos state and address certain problems or issues with the game. They are often a few pages long and briefly go over the issues that need to be addressed and how they are going to be addressed. They are posted on the forums so players can read and comment their opinions on the developmental aspects of the game. These posts often go over the history of the issue and how the issue is today.
Aside from the three major categories their forum posts are made up of, GGG also occasionally posts community related content. Regular community related content consists of streamer interviews, community art, and their upcoming event Exilecon. These posts often end with thanking the community for their support.
As GGG is gearing up for its first live event in New Zealand, they have set up a website for this event. Exilecon is a live event for Path of Exile players to meet developers, streamers, and to celebrate Path of Exile. On their website they advertise tickets, flights, accommodations and things to do. Descriptions, dates, and disclaimers are written in lowercase but content information and highlights of things to do at and around the event are in all caps. Content for what to expect is put in to block like tabs that are accompanied by in game art. Ticket information is categorized by bullet points and are written in complete sentences but are not closed with periods. Prices for tickets are in USD. Complete sentences with periods are typically used for descriptions. This webpage is for Path of Exile fans that are familiar with the game and its content. The webpage’s disclaimer section is under New Zealand’s age restriction standards.
Reddit Post:
Known Issues List
Hey everyone,
As many of you know Blight league has been out for about a week now. Though Blight has been our smoothest launch to date, it is not without bugs. Here are some known issues to us currently:
- Channeling skills bound to Mouse 2 will prevent movement.
Piety fight causes a client crash.Using attack in place with channeling skills can require an additional click or two to move after using the skill.- Legion boss spawns sometimes cause a crash.
- Hit boxes with doors and boxes are off.
- Flame Dash casts twice when a single key is pressed.
Trade is API currently down.
The team is continuing to monitor and investigate all issues and will work on producing fixes for them as soon as possible. Please share any bug reports in the bug reports forum. I hope you enjoy Path of Exile: Blight! Thanks for hanging out with us the last few weeks.
Edit: We are currently building a restartless patch that should resolve many of these issues. I’ll update this post with more information once the patch is out.
Edit 2: Patch 3.8.1f has just been deployed. You will do not need to restart your client to get the elements of this update. You can find the patch notes here. I’ve crossed off the issues that should be resolved by this patch. We are still working hard on the others.
Patch Notes:
Patch 3.8.1F (Restartless)
Patch 3.8.1f Patch Notes:
- Fixed a client crash that would occur when tornado shot was used in large packs.
- Fixed some MTX not being displayed correctly.
- Fixed a bug where poison tooltip was incorrectly labeled.
- Fixed an instance crash that could occur during Blight encounters.
- Improved game and server stability.
This has been deployed as a restartless client update. You will need to close and reopen your client to apply this patch.
Web Page Copy:
EXILECON
THE PATH OF EXILE CONVENTION
NOVEMBER 20-22
Last year’s ExileCon was such a success and huge fun, we’re going to do it again! Once again held in Auckland, New Zealand, this year ExileCon is from November 20-22. ExileCon 2020 is a celebration of all things Path of Exile. Featuring: announcements of multiple future expansions, play unreleased content, watch the best Path of Exile racers compete in tournaments, attend talks given by GGG developers and hang out with other Path of Exile fans and streamers! New Zealand is a once-in-a-lifetime place to visit, but if you can’t make it, we’ll be streaming the highlights online for everyone to watch for free.
WHAT TO EXPECT AT EXILECON
ANNOUNCEMENT OF DECEMBER 2020 4.9.0 EXPANSION
ANNONCEMENT OF 5.0.0 MEGA EXPANSION
PLAY UNRELEASED CONTENT
RACE TOURNAMENT FINALS
GGG DEVLOPER TALKS
MERCHANDISE STORE
VENDOR’S HALL
MEET OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS
MEET TWITCH STREAMERS
EXCLUSIVE DIGITAL MICROTRANSACTION
THE EXILECON PARTY
EVENT TIMES (NZST)
Friday
November 20th
Badge Pickup, VIP Dinner
Saturday
November 21st
Convention and Vendor’s Hall All Day
Sunday
November 22nd
Convention and Vendor’s Hall All Day, Party in the Evening
LOCATION
NEW ZEALAND
AOTEA CENTRE, AUCKLAND
OFFICIAL STREAMING
THE ANNOUNCEMENTS AND RACE FINALS WILL BE STREAMED ONLINE FOR EVERYONE TO WATCH FOR FREE. NO DIGITAL TICKET REQUIRED.
GET YOUR TICKETS FOR EXILECON
BALCONY TICKET
- Access to entire ExileCon event
- Access to Vendor’s Hall
- Access to ExileCon after party with one drink voucher
- Exclusive Digital Microtransaction (Only granted upon physically picking up badge)
- Seating for keynote and talks is on the balcony (third-floor, balcony seating)
BUY
$160 USD
REGULAR TICKET
- Access to the entire ExileCon event
- Access to Vendor’s Hall
- Access to the ExileCon party with one drink voucher
- Exclusive Digital Microtransaction (Only granted upon physically picking up badge)
- Seating for keynote and talks is on the first or second floor
BUY
$180 USD
VIP TICKET
- Access to the entire ExileCon event
- Early access to Vendor’s Hall
- Access to the ExileCon party with one drink voucher
- Exclusive VIP Digital Microtransaction as well as regular Digital Microtransaction (Only granted upon physically picking up badge)
- Seating for keynote and talks is in the VIP area.
BUY
$480 USD
ADDITIONAL TICKETS WILL BE PUT ON SALE EVERY FEW WEEKS IN WAVES. WE’LL LET YOU KNOW IN THE NEWS SECTION OF OUR FORUMS A FEW DAYS THE WAVE GOES LIVE.
FOR MEDIA BADGES, CONTACT EXILECON@GRINDINGGEAR.COM
FLIGHTS
We recommend Air New Zealand. For more information and to book your flights, visit their website:
New Zealand is a beautiful place to explore. We recommend booking enough time to travel around our country to see what we have to offer.
ACCOMODATION
HOTEL DEALS
Use our discount code EXILECON10 for 10% discounts off advertised prices.
THINGS TO DO AND PLACES TO VISIT IN NEW ZEALAND
HOBBITON MOVIE SET
WAITOMO GLOWWORM CAVES
WAIHEKE ISLAND
RANGITOTO ISLAND
WETA WORKSHOP TOUR
BUNGY JUMPING
HIKING
AND MUCH MORE…
Attendees from outside New Zealand/Australia need to apply for an NZeTA before they can travel to New Zealand. This process can be done here.
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/apply-for-a-visa/about-visa/nzeta
ExileCon is a Restricted 16 event and the party is a Restricted 18 event. You must have photo ID showing your age to enter.
You can purchase up to three tickets per Path of Exile account. If you’d like to purchase more, please contact exilecon@grindinggear.com.
You must supply a name for each ticket that matches the photo ID you show when picking the ticket up and entering the venue.
Tickets can be picked up while the event is open, or on the Friday beforehand during specific hours.
Security checks will be done at the door. No alcohol, weapons, and flammable objects allowed.
Cosplays must be checked in at security check.
Bryan Sit 