Riot Compensates League of Legends Players for DDoS Attacks

If you’re European and play League of Legends, Riot wants to give you something for putting up with recent DDoS attacks.

League of Legends can be a very complex game where victory and defeat both stand on a razor’s edge, and a player lagging or disconnecting at a bad time can make all the difference in the world. The game’s servers have been coming under heavy DDoS attacks in recent weeks, resulting in sub-optimal performance and the president of Riot’s EU division took to the forums to apologize.

“League of Legends has grown from an idea to a worldwide phenomenon at a pace that’s both thrilling and humbling,” wrote Riot’s Tryndamere. “Our player base is now several million strong and spans over a dozen countries. Unfortunately, this has garnered us some extra attention from cyber bullies.” He acknowledged that this had been “detrimental” to the gaming experience of those affected, and said that Riot wanted to make it up to its players.

To offer recompense, he said, Riot would be giving 550 Riot Points (the game’s microtransaction-based currency – about $4) to every player who had logged in from June 1st to June 23rd. Players would also be granted “Leaver Amnesty” if they disconnected from any games going back to the 1st – that is, they can’t be penalized for disconnecting, if it wasn’t their fault. (League of Legends takes people bailing on games very, very seriously).

This is very cool of Riot to do, and all the more so because League of Legends is a free to play game. Some players do spend money on champions and special skins, but many don’t – and Riot essentially just handed all of them a free $4 for service below what it hoped to deliver.

If only every online company could handle service troubles so gracefully. Now, how about giving those 550 RP to North American players, eh? With that, I’d have enough to buy the Brolaf skin!

(League of Legends – thanks to WolfLordAndy for the tip!)