Cheating in League of Legends

So I have been following the League of Legends Championship.  Not quite at religiously as Trevor, but I’m still enjoying it. I think it is great that an E-Sport has gained such a massive following and is getting such big attention.  One small step for League, one giant step for gaming kind, I suppose you could say.

 

However, it has come to light that Azubu Frost will be fined $30,000 for their cheating during an internet outage during a match.  While I am tickled pink that cheating is being taken seriously and hope that this will make other players realize that there are indeed consequences for their actions, and perhaps stop some of t he mure unscrupulous behavior that happen, at the same time I’m conflicted.

 

These outages were occurring all weekend, for random amounts of time.  The referees seem to just be telling players to look forward at their own screen and don’t do anything else.

 

I’m not sure if these refs are human.

 

That is incredibly difficult to do.  I mean you have all these sounds, motions, and lights around you while the main focus is dead and you expected to keep looking at it?

 

This is what we in the emergency management industry call a bad plan.  There was no back up for what to do if the time got out of control for these outages, nothing to stop these players from looking backwards.  If the internet goes down, take that main screen down.  Not that hard to Alt Tab away from it and to a blank something.

 

Escort the players away if the time is going to be extended to a back room.  Allow them to talk amongst the team, but not have access to phones, computers, etc.  Have a ref on hand to ensure this.

 

While I understand while the match will not be replayed, what would constitute such a decision being made?  This is another thing that once written down would stop raising so many eyebrows.

 

I don’t particularly remember how long this downtime was.  I was here there and everywhere this weekend, but I hope that Riot will take the information they got from this event and start to think more advanced on how things will be done and share this with other gaming events as well.

 

And Riot, if you read this, I’m all for writing all plans having to do with your company.  And then testing them as best as possible before we get to this point.