The League of Legends public chat rooms just got killed due to "rife" scamming
League of Legends developer Riot Games has killed off the MOBA's public chat rooms due to "rife" scamming and dirty deals.
In a statement posted on the League of Legends forum, the team explained, "The official public chat rooms have grown rife with RP sellers, scammers and Elo-boost spam.
"The default four rooms we established can be used by a tiny fraction of our players at a time. Given the number of League players, most conversation spills into private, community-created rooms."
Riot highlighted the lack of proper moderation tools in public chat and community groups beyond their simple 'Ignore' button, and promised to look at long-term options for those looking to foster discussion free from toxic behaviour.
The team added, "As an immediate action we’re going to disable the public chat rooms until they’re useful and accessible. In their current shape they just don’t work and can actively create negative experiences for many players (especially new players).
"We’ll keep all private chat rooms and messaging available to everyone, and bring the official public chat rooms back as soon as we can."
The ultimate aim, Riot says, is to create a public space where players are surrounded by like-minded individuals, their friends and more-prolific players in the online circuit.
"At the end of the day" Riot stressed, "when you log in you should feel like you're surrounded by active players that like to play League the way you do. You should be to able jump easily into games with those friends - - without having to send game invites one by one.
"Whether we call them chat rooms, hangouts or communities, they could grow to serve many purposes. Players could build a community for junglers, a mentoring group, a champion theory-crafting channel, or casual ARAM or Team Ranked LFGs. Some great communities like these already exist in League but it's not easy to manage them well."
The team is now looking at feedback and we'll update you all once we hear more about Riot's new chat plans.
What would you like to see from the developer?
Via Eurogamer.