Posts by Biorage

Words smithed by Nikki Galvan

UNPACKING THE QUESTION, ‘WHICH JOB SHOULD I APPLY FOR?’

Random Daily Sketch — Riot Art Department

This advice isn’t only for people aspiring to become designers. It’s really for anyone who desires a satisfying and fulfilling career. A question I often get is: “Which job should I apply for at Riot? Visual Design or User Experience Design?”

The question’s innocent, but it exposes deeper issues many of us fall prey to. This blog post’s my answer.

FOCUS ON YOU — NOT THE JOB

Design discipline aside, it’s important to understand that a job’s temporary. It’s a single step in a long and successful career that evolves as you do. It’s better to shift your mindset from a focus on jobs, which are discrete points in time, to your career trajectory.

Instead of thinking about a job or title, figure out your motivations and passions.

What drives you? What are you passionate about? What are your goals? What do you aspire to be, not just today, but in five years? Ten years? What keeps you awake at night? Basically, what’s your long game?

This might be difficult to pin down, especially if you’re just starting out. It’s not an easy task to self-reflect, dig deep and come up with a clear picture of yourself and who you are. It takes no small amount of courage to put a stake in the ground and move forward.

Form a hypothesis about the path you want to take and visualize what you’ll need to do to get there. You can always come back and shift, edit and change this initial point of view but you’ll never know until you walk over that starting line. You’re the sum of the things you learn and do — a title, role, job, company, or paycheck have nothing to do with it.

Another way to think about all of this is: If you don’t know who you are and what you want, how can you expect a hiring panel to know either?

Focus on you.

IF YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT, DON’T WAIT; START NOW

You don’t need anyone’s permission to do, right now, whatever it is you’re passionate about. If you love running, you’re probably out there running regularly. The same goes for your career. If you love something, do it regularly. Don’t wait for the right role or job to start it.

Random Daily Sketch — Riot Art Department

Before I got the title of UX Designer I spent nights and weekends redesigning software I loved and thought could be improved. I’d make wireframes, writing down my logic and reasoning for the decisions I made for an audience of one. I’d read anything to do with user experience design and try to chat with well-known UX designers asking for advice or their favorite tools. Sometimes they answered, most of the time they didn’t. And that’s okay. I was happy to be doing it for the sake of doing it and it ended up teaching me a lot.

By creating and practicing you push your limitations and see personal growth. You start to form physical artifacts reflecting your opinions which allow you to get real, actionable feedback. It’s then a clear path forward emerges.

Passion is also something difficult to hide and it’ll read that way across all the work you do. In actively exploring and enjoying my passion, I developed my craft and consequently got noticed by Riot.

UNDERSTAND THE DESIGN YOU WANT TO DO

Design’s a large field with dozens of disciplines: Graphic, Visual, UX, Motion, Animation, Illustration, Game, etc. They share a foundation in design principles before wildly branching out to become unique and specialized.

If you want to be a designer, you should be deeply knowledgeable in at least one discipline/specialization.

Not sure which one to choose? Find a person whose work exemplifies the work you want to do. Or find a few. Research what their craft involves. What does their day-to-day look like? How did they get to where they are now? Ask them for their advice, ask their peers. Intern or apprentice with them. Do whatever you can to get an accurate picture of what it means to work in whichever specific discipline you’re exploring.

You’ll begin to notice expectations for disciplines share common themes. Often a discipline’s craft is evaluated with similar criteria regardless of industry or company. For example: a competent Visual Designer develops an eye for light, color, value, form, typography, hierarchy and composition. They understand how to tell a story through their visuals and how to implement them.

There’s variation depending on the specifics of the role, but overall it remains the same.

If you have to ask someone what kind of designer you should be, you’re not knowledgeable enough yet. Or passionately opinionated enough.

RIOT MIGHT NOT BE RIGHT FOR YOU, AND THAT’S OKAY

Random Daily Sketch — Riot Art Department

Everyone loves.

It’s not enough to love a thing — hell, many people love the thing that you love.

There’s gotta be more: compatibility, mutual interest, a continued path for growth and value added. This is especially true of any company you work for and may end up spending some number of years of your life with.

Too often the focus is on getting a job at this company or that company. Maybe they have a big name or shiny extras. They’ve probably got a slew of challenging problems and competitive salaries. That’s not enough. There are tons of places out there with challenging problems and money to burn. And it might be the shittiest job you’ll ever have.

I argue that fulfilling jobs are based on a mutual fit. Where your goals and vision align with the company’s and the path forward is one of mutual benefit and enrichment. Believing in the vision will get you through the dark days when your project is blowing up and there’s a million people calling for your head and you can barely keep the crushing stress at bay. This mutual fit will endure the inevitable hard days and ride high through the good ones to make for something so much more than just a job.

So remember, whether you’re looking for a job or being recruited, you’re interviewing them as much as they’re interviewing you.

TAKE CONTROL AND CREATE YOUR OWN PATH

No one wants you or your career to succeed as much as you do. The more legwork you do, the more you understand and research and create, the clearer your goals will be and the stronger your convictions to achieve them.

Have an opinion about your life, your craft, your progression. And the next time you ask for advice on jobs, I hope it’s when you’re being aggressively recruited for that amazing thing you made, by a great company whose mission you believe in. Then you can ask “How can we create value together?”

Random Daily Sketch — Riot Art Department

Want to create value together? Visit our Careers page for opportunities to lend your quill, axe, or bow to Riot and pursue your never-ending path to mastery. Join the conversation at the “UX Design at Riot Games” blog today, where you can read more from Rioters working in the experience design space.

:welcome:

:welcome:

:welcome:

Nu se lucrează pe stock-uri deja editate .

• Nume skin: Amy

• Poza: 

• Link de download: http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/11017264/amy/

• Nume skin: Cia

• Poza: 

• Link de download: http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/11017512/cia/

• Nume skin: penguin scarf

• Poza: 

• Link de download: http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/11017539/penguin-scarf/

• Nume skin: Leo216

• Poza: 

• Link de download: http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/11017543/leo216/

• Nume skin: soft pastel

• Poza: 

• Link de download: http://www.minecraftskins.com/skin/11017544/soft-pastel/

Verbs wrangled by Weszt Hart

INSIDE THE EXTENSIVE WORLD OF A LEAGUE OF LEGENDS  UX DESIGNER

Five years ago I didn’t know someone could be a UX designer for a videogame. I’d read plenty about UX for web and mobile, but next to nothing about gaming, so I just assumed that any UX work there had to mean creating in-game overlays, menu screens, maybe some user testing, and probably lots of site design. Most of the design work had to go to game designers: people well-versed in creating characters, levels, or art and figuring out the killer game play mechanics — you know, all the cool stuff.

But five years ago, I was on the outside looking in.

As someone who’s been in the gaming industry since 2011, I see a different world: a world diverse, rich, and full of UX challenges, yet lacking in UX designers. I belief this lack may be due to a perception there isn’t much of a place for UX designers in gaming — a perception I’d like to help change.

With this mind, I’d like to look inside the ever-expanding world of League of Legends through the eyes of a UX designer. Playing the game is a small part of a much larger core experience.

A taste of what UX considers in the world of League of Legends

THE CORE EXPERIENCE

• To play League of Legends, you install the desktop app (most folks call it the client). The client launches the game, keeps the game patched, and helps players stay updated on League news and promos. Social features keep players connected to their friends and clubs. The store helps players purchase in-game content and collection tools let them manage those purchases.

• When a player decides to play, they choose from a set of maps, modes, and queue types.

  • Rotating Game Mode regularly offers new ways to play.

  • Many players dive into ranked, with its champion-focused draft pick process.

  • Players can play with friends or alone and a matchmaking process assembles teams of similarly skilled players.

• During a game, players keep informed through the HUD, which includes a map with current player locations, a scoreboard, and other information. An options menu allows them to customize HUD, volume, and other settings. Text chat and pings help teams coordinate.

• At the end of a game, players can review post-game stats of both teams. If someone was unsportsmanlike during the match, players can report them; if someone was a great teammate, they can be honored or even sent gifts.

Across all these features, designers have to consider concepts foreign to many environments, such as mastery, sportsmanship, and teamwork, plus a healthy amount of arcane knowledge.

Many of features currently in our client weren’t originally part of it, but’ve been added and modified over time. Some were integrated pretty hastily, which led to a fair amount of tech and design debt we’re still paying off. Much like an operating system, the client’s a living, breathing space, where at any time various teams may be creating whole new features that ideally work together seamlessly.

It’s a complicated environment with many difficult problems still to solve, but it’s an environment where UX designers can have a direct influence.

COMPANION EXPERIENCES

Outside of the client, there is a large ecosystem of sites and apps that offer a wide variety of content and services. Here are a just few examples:

• Leagueoflegends.com

  • The primary website of League of Legends where the game is downloaded. Provides game info, news archives, and access to many (but not all) sites within the network.

• Lolesports.com

  • Focused on the League Championship Series (LCS) and esports. Provides news, match summaries, player and team information, broadcasts of competitions from our own studios and live events, and access to many related websites.

• LoL Friends App

  • The official League of Legends mobile app. Helps players stay connected with their League friends when they’re away from their computers.

• Riot Games Merch

  • Online store for physical merch.

In addition to these, there are dozens of smaller sites for player support, server status, short-term events, college programs, viewing parties, and more.

Because of the sheer number and diverse needs of all these websites, creating, connecting, and maintaining them is a huge challenge, but one that should be familiar to most UX designers. The spectating experiences of esports (live, web, and TV) are probably not as familiar a space, but again one where we need UX designers to contribute.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The ecosystem of League of Legends has experienced explosive evolution and the problems are sometimes at an imposing scale. As League has grown, a surprising number of features, services, and systems were needed to expand and improve the overall experience; at this point, the game itself is just a small — though crucial — part of it.

Video games have always been on the cutting edge of technology. The expectations and challenges will only grow. From ecommerce to esports, broadband limitations to broadcast television, there are plenty of tasty problems for a UX designer to help solve alongside us.

We can learn a lot from gaming about creating immersive, engaging, social experiences on multiple platforms (desktop, mobile, consoles, etc). Game designers have been hanging out for decades in some spaces UX is only just now entering — and vice versa. There’s a lot to learn from each other.

Five years on the inside has shown me tremendous opportunities for UX designers to bring their wide-range of skills and design methods to the rich world of online video games. In another five years, there’ll likely be even more opportunities and even more complex challenges.

If you haven’t already, I encourage you take a close look at the game industry. We could really use you. There’s a lot of work to do.

Want to take a closer look at Riot? Visit our Careers page for opportunities to join Riot or learn about what kind of trouble you could get up to here. Chime in on the conversation at the “UX Design at Riot Games” blog today, where you can read more from Rioters working in the experience design space. 

At Riot London, passionate Rioters strive together in a close-knit team. Gamers deserve better, and our dedication to delivering best-in-class experiences for local players rings true through everything we do. If you agree, we're looking for driven individuals to help us along the way to becoming the most player-focused game company in the world.

London Rioters craft unique experiences on the web and on the ground to support the growing League of Legends community in the UK region.

As a Rioter in London you’ll join an elite, cross-functional, results-driven team located in one of the world’s most vibrant and culturally diverse cities. London never sleeps and is a city that has it all: historic buildings such as the Houses of Parliament, a vibrant arts scene with some of the world’s best theatre and live music, and, of course, who can resist a pint in a great British Pub. London is connected insanely well to not only some of the most beautiful parts of the UK but also the rest of Europe. Within an hour you can be in Paris on the Eurostar or jumping on a flight to check out the colosseum in Rome.

Our office in West London is where we live and breathe games. We love League of Legends and our mission of supporting all players in the region, means we work hard and play hard.

We’re just getting started here, so if you think you can help us get connected to UK players check out the open positions below and send in an application.

GLHF!

Last summer, Player Support received a ticket from Tim, who wanted to do something cool for his friend Mason for Worlds in Chicago. Mason had been diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, and Tim hoped the trip to Chicago would be a chance to take his mind off things  After learning more about their friendship, how they met, and their history playing League, we tracked down every game the two played together and started work on a book with our, uh, semi-artistic reimagining of each one. The idea was to surprise Mason with a special Worlds experience and something to commemorate his friendship with Tim and their time spent in the game.

As we worked through the details of every match, Tim reached out to let us know Mason had passed away. The community is a big, if wonderfully dysfunctional, family, and with Mason’s passing we lost one of our own. We had bits and pieces of who he was as a player, and as we spoke to people close to him we learned more about who he was as a person - his sense of humor, what he meant to his family, and what it was like to be his friend.

We finished the book drawing on all 192 games between Tim and Mason, now recorded in a book, “The Odyssey of Welgo & Schnanners.” Together with this video, it tells an epic, often silly, always relatable story of two friends playing League. We’re grateful we learned Mason’s story both on and off the Rift, and we’re honored - with the help of Mason’s parents and Tim - to be able to share some of it with you. 

A spreadsheet with hundreds of games worth of stats tells plenty of tales if you know what to look for. Familiar patterns and funny moments reveal themselves to anyone who’s spent way too many hours with a good friend in a video game. There's the loss in their first game, when Mason boldly debuts his Lee Sin and Tim gives us the first taste of his Headhunter Caitlyn obsession. A few dozen games later and there’s the first marathon the guys plowed through, racking off five wins before getting together again a few weeks later to play some more.

Tim can’t stop himself from laughing as he remembers Mason playfully trolling a friend for feeding Yasuo, or the time they formed a ranked team in June 2015. They originally named their squad “Army of Chadgot” after Mason pointed out during Ekko’s cinematic trailer that the Zaunite brute Ekko fought looked kinda like Urgot’s off-brand brother named Chad. Mason would stop someone from tilting by slipping in a perfectly-timed dad joke, and had a weird knack for making incredibly difficult, game-saving plays after falling behind. It was hard to get frustrated when you played with him.

Mason was an imposing guy, with a wry sense of humor and a compassionate approach to others. Whether it was Snapchatting his dad singing in the car or joking with his little sister about base jumping off the moon together when he got well if she was feeling down about his health, Mason was sharp, intuitive, and empathetic, with a deep understanding of the power words hold. He made sure everyone else was OK before worrying about himself -  from being supportive of his sisters to keeping his family updated on the best ways to kill a zombie without first getting bitten.

---

As we looked through more of Tim and Mason’s League history, we found stretches of games spanning nights and mornings that looked suspiciously like LAN parties, or a game where the guys faced each other one versus one using their favorite champs, Graves and Caitlyn. They’d go on to challenge each other to several more grudge matches throughout their friendship, including one where they both went 8-8, the rare and unsatisfying “1v1 me, bro” tie.

We found Mason’s “Lee Sin phase” in late September 2015, and a random game where he played Urgot (it was a loss). As they grew closer, they played more and more together. Tim’s wife remembers getting up early for work and meeting Mason for the first time, the sight of two burly midwestern nerds holed up in her living room startling her for a moment.

Burkitt lymphoma hits hard and fast; although the survival rate can be higher than some forms of cancer, the rate at which it grows makes it difficult to catch and treat effectively. As Mason fought, he tried to keep the spirits of everyone around him high. Even during the toughest moments, Mason’s humor cut through some of the tension and uncertainty his family faced, letting them know their son was still his old self and wasn’t giving up. Tim sought to bring life outside the hospital and the familiar routines of home to his friend with his visits, telling jokes, watching shows, and discussing their ranked team. Mason’s family was with him when he passed, looking up some of his favorite songs online and spending the time singing and laughing with him.

The time we’ve spent in-game with our friends is easy to take for granted, and it’s rare we get a chance to look back and pick out all the small, silly moments that really mattered. Mason and Tim’s story reminded us of the joy in meeting someone who’s just as nerdy as we are; how 192 games is enough to start a friendship, see it morph into something weird and special and full of its own inside jokes and rituals, and to catch a glimpse of what kind of person someone like Mason was and what he meant to the people he chose to play with.

---

A huge thank you to Ken and Jennifer for sharing stories and memories of their son with us. For anyone interested in learning more about helping the cause against Burkitt lymphoma and other types of related cancers, Mason’s parents recommend the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an organization dedicated to fighting blood cancers. For families going through a similar struggle with a loved one, they suggest the Ronald McDonald House and their homes-away-from-home which help families affected by cancer stay close together.

You can learn more about both organizations here:

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society: www.LLS.org

Ronald McDonald House: www.rmhc.org

RESEARCH WITH RIOT

We’re truly humbled you want to do research on League. That’s awesome! We get lots of requests, and in many cases you might be able to answer your questions without any extra support from us. To find out if you need our help, and how to get that help if you do, read on!

FINDING DATA FROM OUR API OR BY REQUEST

The most common requests for collaboration we receive request data from the game. Maybe you’re running a lab experiment to relate personality traits to compatibility of bot-lane duos and need to know their current league, or maybe you need to know how many Trundle games your respondents have actually played. Stats like these, and so many more, are available on our public API. Check it out!

Additionally, if you’re pulling data from our API but the request rate limit is problematically low, consider applying for an upgraded developer key. You can read more about rate limits here but if you’re willing to share a little about your research we’re happy to help negotiate increases.

There are some types of data that aren’t in the API, and to be as transparent as possible, our default answer to requests around those is no -- we’ve got a lot of data, there're a bunch of reasons we don't share some of it, and the stuff we feel cool about sharing widely is already super public so please tap our APIs for that. If you still think we should share more of our data with you, convince us why specifically we should treat your proposal as a yes. We know our reservations here usually resonate with practicing researchers, but we still want to mention them up-front.

WE ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT SHARE:

• Any data with personally identifiable information without consent.

• Spending data, both player-spending and item-sale performance.

• Any data we determine could cause harm to players or their privacy.

AS A GENERAL RULE WE DON’T SHARE THE FOLLOWING DATA, BUT WE MIGHT BE ABLE MAKE EXCEPTIONS WITH PLENTY OF CAVEATS:

• Chat data - We take player privacy seriously, and chat data can be especially tricky to deploy appropriately in research collaborations

• Raw matchmaking data - Ranked League placements are a good approximation for many questions related to this.

• Behavioral (penalty) data - We’ve got concerns around player privacy here, too. Combo that with how some of the details of our secret sauce are drizzled all over this data set making this hard to share.

THAT’S FINE, BUT I WANT SUPPORT THAT I CAN’T GET FROM THE API

The API doesn’t have everything you need, and you still want to make sweet, sweet science with us? Your next step is to write up a research proposal.

Research relationships are a long-term commitment - they can take months or even years to complete. If you’ve got several hypotheses, your first proposal should focus on the hypothesis we can test quickly and expect interesting, shareable results from. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you, but it also helps quite a bit if you know your yordles from Skaarl or have a favorite champion.

WRITING A PROPOSAL

In just a few pages, tackle the following:

Main hypothesis or research question

• What do you hope to learn?

Specific data or support needed from Riot

• Be sure to check the API to see what data is already available

Get specific where you can, so we better understand your approach

• What do you expect to find?

We’re looking for research that makes a meaningful contribution, but it’s even more important to us that it puts players first!

• Tell us a little about yourself and why you’re an expert in the field. Where and how do you usually publish?

Methodologies and techniques you’ll apply to the data

• Predicted outcomes of the analysis

How does this advance the field?  How does it help players, or help developers make better games?

• Why are you the best collaborators to do this work?

SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL: TIMELINE AND NEXT STEPS

Once you submit a proposal, we’ll send you confirmation so you know we’ve got it. We’ll always share a rough timeline for when we’ll reply regarding whether we’re moving forward or whether revisions to the proposal are needed. We’ll try to catch proposals needing revision faster than a Rammus barreling down mid-lane, but sometimes we’ll need more details and clarification to proceed.

To submit a proposal, email thirdpartyresearchrequests@riotgames.com

In the New Delhi suburb of Gurugram, Riot Games’ newest office is just getting off the ground. We’ve assembled a nimble team of passionate Rioters dedicated to supporting and growing our local player base. Beyond that, we’re pioneering the path for players to experience high-quality gaming in India like never before.   

India presents a unique challenge: How do we grow a gaming culture that’s just finding its footing? The Riot India team will need to figure out unique solutions that work for India, so expect plenty of experimentation in publishing and community strategy in a startup-like environment.

We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we take work — and play — seriously. A visitor to Riot India has an equal chance of finding the team engrossed in a discussion around strategy and operations, as in a battle on Summoner's Rift. We're gamers and we talk, dress, and act as such. No suits, ties, or formal attire here.  

Riot believes in empowering our regional teams, so the vision, goals, and objectives of Team India will be developed by you in conjunction with your fellow India Rioters. What does success for Riot in India look like? You'll help answer that question.