Spotlight On - League of Legends Updates (at E3 2010)

E3 2010 is still in full swing at the Los Angeles Convention Center. On a completely different note, we recently visited with Riot Games to check in on new and upcoming updates for League of Legends, the studios free-to-play competitive strategy game released last year. The team is currently working toward its "season 1" update, which will implement a full-scale competitive tournament in which serious players with characters that are at least level 20 can compete for prizes that will include in-game perks. These include new items and user interface skins and will also potentially include high-end computer hardware and even some cold, hard cash.

As part of the new season, Riot has completely redesigned the game's interface to better display your account's status and any achievements you've picked up, such as placing in the top tiers of various match queues. The team also plans to eventually implement clan- and team-based achievement interfaces at a later date.

A big part of the first-season tournament will be champion drafting, which will take place between two teams that take turns selecting each champion for each team member from a pool of champions that includes all heroes unlocked by both teams, as well as the rotating 10 champions that are refreshed each week as part of the game's free-to-play content. Teams can vote to ban certain champions they don't care to see in battle, and in addition, draft picks are "exclusive," meaning that once a team picks a certain champion, the opposing team may not choose that champion for its team, so Riot hopes this feature will enhance tournament strategy by adding a counter-picking element to drafts. You'll also be able to choose your champion's spell abilities with a single mouse click and even rearrange your runes and spells after the draft is over if you like.

Aside from various interface updates, such as a clearer callout of the difference between highly competitive ranked and more casual unranked games, Riot representatives tell us the studio remains committed to constant updates every two weeks that include balance tweaks, new playable champions, and other content. The studio has not yet revealed when the first season will start, but it will make an announcement to that effect in the next few weeks.