More from Hippalus, the new eCommerce Director.

Posted on at 4:07 AM by Moobeat
In the wake of his his introduction yesterday, Hippalus has been a very busy eCommerce Director! He has taken the time to field questions from Summoners about various new features, pricing, and other info relevant to his position.
Continue reading for answers about future IP reductions, champion Bundles, and tons of other stuff!

I've wrangled up the most interesting or relevant of his answers and prefaced them with the topic he was replying to:
[ On an increase to the rate in which players gain IP]: " ...there are no plans to change the standard rate of IP gains. Reducing the IP cost of content either permanently or through sales should help that IP work a little harder for you though" 
[ On making all champions F2P to match competing games, such as DOTA2]: "As a player I preferred playing LoL over those games for lots of reasons, despite not having access to all of the champions. Fortunately, millions feel the same way. I think having players unlock champions provides both direct benefits (eg. more skilled play) and indirect benefits (RP purchases allow Riot to spend more on making the game better), so I have no plans to try to change that model. "
[On Global Ip boosts, such as double IP weekends] "I agree global IP boosts can be a great reward for players and can encourage more playtime. I'm exploring a couple ideas along these lines."

[On more frequent IP Price reductions]"I'd like to come up with a permanent policy tor IP reductions that players can rely upon, but am still gathering info to make sure we get the policy right. "

[ On the chance of getting skins for RP, something like 20k IP turned into 975 RP Skin]"If enough players wanted something like that, I could probably make it happen. But only if they promised not to call it a grind!"

[ On additional bundle options ] "I think there is so much more we could do with bundles, including themed bundles and some version of create your own bundles. It will take some time to make this happen, but I will start a specific bundle thread in the coming days as I'd like to get your feedback here."

[ On bundle prices being reduced if you already own champions in that bundle] "This is a great idea and the technology for it is already being worked on. I'll address this in the new bundle thread as well."

[ Additional question on "Pick Three Champions" style bundles] "Yes - there are some technical hurdles that prevent this from happening overnight, but everybody agrees it is a good idea."

[ On new things to buy ] "We are working on a few new types of (cosmetic) content that will allow additional customization, but I can't talk details at this point. "

[ On older 3150 IP champions receiving RP cost reductions ] "The long term pricing plan will address this."

[ On achievements and incentives for good behavior ] "There is a lot of focus here on achievements and rewards for positive player behavior, but it's not my area and I don't want to mispeak. All I will say is I fully support using pricing or special access to content as a reward for players who make LoL a better game."

[ On price reductions for Runes] "There are no plans to change rune pricing anytime soon. You have a good point, but players seem more concerned with rune page and champion pricing, so I'm focusing there first."

[ On why the new $100 RP price point is only temporary ] "It is temporary because there is a risk that it will prove too attractive for credit card fraudsters or create some other problem that I wasn't smart enough to see in advance. If no such problem emerges, and if players like having that option, we'll consider making it permanent."

[ On Riot continuing to expand in other countries and the use of different currencies ] "There has been a fairly steady pace of expansion into new countries and I don't see any reason for that to come to an end any time soon."
[ On the "one time refund" policy ]"Refund policies that make sense and can be implemented uniformly without being abused are tricky. Possible improvements to the policy are being discussed and you should hear more about this very soon."
[ On the possibility of a limited skin for big spenders] "You definitely have my appreciation and I like the idea of rewarding big time supporters with a special skin or some other reward. This hadn't occurred to me until this thread, and will take some time to plan and execute correctly, but please ping me again on this if it hasn't happened in the next few months."
 [ On larger free champion rotation pools] "We have taken steps to improve the selection of champions in the rotation (glad you noticed!), but no, there are no current plans to change the number of champions. In our surveys, most players think the rotation works well today, and there are bigger player concerns to solve."

This is some very exciting news! New bundles, new "other stuff", and an overall better sense of what the community seems to want. I can't wait to see Hippalus roll out some more of his initiatives!

33 comments

  1. New types of cosmetic customization stuff sounds awesome! Really excited now.

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    1. Probably gonna be pulling a Gaben.. :<

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  2. With the uniqueness of every champion comes a unique way to make use of runes... Sad that rune price reduction isn't being factored. :/

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  3. As a skin collector myself and spending so much money on skins and champs, it's really awesome to know that we will get a unique skin as a form of appreciation! Can't wait to see what it is... probably a "Big Spender" Kassadin skin... where he would toss his Q in form of a dollar and say "Shut up and take my money!"

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    1. Being honest: I laughed. But you could also give it to other champs with a cone-throw skill :p

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    2. To say the same phrase only cho gath has a cone silence skill... but Cho already got his Battlecast skin, so it won't be nice. Next comes Malzahar with that wall. I think Kassadin fits perfectly for the catch-phrase :P

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    3. Soraka's E: Shut up and take my bananas!

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    4. Duh, Mf's "Make it Rain"

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    5. He said "he would toss his Q in form of a dollar", not his W... why do you keep talking about cones? o.o

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    6. Rumble, money shooter

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  4. Annoucers are coming? INSTABUY FOR YORICKSTYLE ONE!!

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    1. Im only interested by the option "trade a bunch of IP for some RP" you can keep the rest...ok maybe not all the other answers, if i can buy some summoner icones without RP it's kinda cool.

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  5. Things i would like to see.

    1) Ingame achievements, with small rewards like +50 IP or 1 rune, or maybe one of those summoner icons. Not all achievements should have rewards but like few, kinda like in WoW.
    2) Custom Announcers, i'm really tired of the current old hag talking, could use some champions voice or some hot chick.
    3) Rune page price drop or increasing rune page default by one.
    4) Server and name changing are bit too costy.

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    1. If acheivements ever do come out i hope its something that doesnt enciurage people to play eradicaly harming their team in the name of unlocking an acheivement.

      Something like score 25 kills in a ranked game would be a disaster.

      Now somethin like win 10 duo que games would be more "healthy".

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    2. I like the "old hag" reminds me of TF2.

      The Unreal Tournament style announcer of DOTA 2 and HoN grits on my nerves, its like a Radio commercial for a monster truck show or something.

      That being said champion specific announcers would be great, lulu announcer anyone?

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    3. Think of the amount of voice recording it would require for champion specific announcer. Maybe it would be a bonus to the Theme Skins but i don't see anything like that in the near future.

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    4. rammus announcer =}

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    5. Kill: OK
      Double Kill: OK OK
      Triple Kill: OK OK OK
      Quadra Kill: OK OK OK OK
      Penta Kill: OK OK OK OK OK
      There, his script it done

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    6. ^ I love this idea.

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  6. Everything is either soon or not planned

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  7. The new Bundle ideas sound great! It's nice to be able to customize it the way you want it to be.

    And the IP trade for RP it's even a better idea. But 2K sounds like too much so maybe 1500 should be good?

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    1. 1500ip for 200rp sounds reasonable

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    2. yeah thats crazy talk the best would maybe be 10k ip for 500 rp I think at least

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    3. I think most people will be happy to see that there is a opportunity to change ip into rp, no matter what the trade-course is, but i think that a lower amount of ip for a lower amount of rp would be better. for example like 5k for 200rp or like it said before 10k for 500rp

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  8. I would like to sell some runes. Something like get 80% from the ip back

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  9. Interesting stuff... I like these types of post that give us so much precious information.

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  10. Moobeat please fix the part about 20k IP=975 RP, that is wrong. The actual question was about 975 RP skin that one could grind for, ergo few more common ones that can be bought at high IP costs, not paying with IP to get RP.

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  11. Cosmetic stuff... HATS FOR THE PEOPLE!

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