Riot Games loves to give players of the popular MOBA League of Legends a special insight in champion creation. The journey from concept to in-game reality is a long one, and not always the smoothest ride, but for those that enjoy these intricate characters – it’s a great chance to see a side of a unique champion that you may not have paid attention to the in the past. The latest spotlight features “The Fire Below the Mountain” Ornn and how he came to be the living forge we know today.
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With Riot calling the beginnings a “spark and a dare,” the feature opens up with how he came to be 4 and a half years ago. Riot Games held a contest, as they often do, for aid in creation a new champion. The contest was open to anyone, any style player could pitch their ideas, and the best of the best were sent higher up for further speculation. Eventually the team whittled it down to their top ten picks, and then the dev team started a “hot or not” portion of the voting process to see if actual development was possible.
“Player Support Lead Rammi “DigitalRam” Mohammed dared me to enter the contest and place in the top 10. With gusto, I came up with three champion pitches. One was really bad. Like single-digit-votes bad. Another almost cracked the top 10 barrier, but missed it by that much. My third entry endured two weeks of fierce voting, finally ending its run in second place. That idea? “Living Forge”—a warrior who crafts his own weapons.”
From this player’s third entry, the process officially began. It was time to meet with the full creative team to see how these ideas could transpire from pencil and paper into the Rift for real. But the road to reality wasn’t without its bumps, and this champion’s design was met with many delays along the way. Eventually fall of 2013 brought more success and the team began to flesh out the details, “Where did Living Forge come from? Who or what is Living Forge? What do we want him to do and be in the game? And, in what turned out to be a pivotal moment: How can we make him break League of Legends?”
The end all answer? “Make him a mobile shop.” This laid the groundwork for making this character a blacksmith type and not only that, but made it believable. The foundation at this point has been laid, and it was time to explore the expansiveness of this budding champion.
“In the next meeting, we continued exploring Living Forge—and here the first of several surprises appeared. Turns out Art Lead Joshua “HUGEnFAST” Smith had also come up with the idea of a Living Forge-type character for Hot or Not, and had even drawn out several sketches of his creation.
Merging the ideas was a no-brainer. With the combined strength of an idea people liked, some sick art to match, and the enthusiasm of the team, Living Forge seemed ready to enter prototyping, with a possible launch in early 2014. Except he wouldn’t launch in 2014. Or 2015. Or 2016.”
Unfortunately, Riot Games began doing some serious re-working in their champion production routine, and the Living Forge unfortunately fell into the “ice-boxed” category to be delayed indefinitely. The new process of pitching began, and it felt like an uphill battle for much of his conception, especially mid-2014 when the team found a design flaw with the “forge in the stomach” concept, which was already slated for another champion.
After multiple (and we do mean multiple in the most expansive meaning of the word) reworks, the champion started to come to fruition. The spotlight comes to a close on a successful note:
“However, in late 2016 the Champion team slotted a new Vanguard for development—but didn’t have a locked champion idea to go with it. League needed someone to start fights, live in the top lane, and change the momentum of a game at a moment’s notice. As ideas floated around, someone remembered an old chunk of coal that could easily be polished into a sturdy top laner and provide a unique, team-wide benefit. With a single spark, Living Forge’s embers reignited and he entered the running against two other ideas for the coveted Vanguard release.
This time around, the theme, design, and timing were all in Living Forge’s favor. The champ that started as a dare—and suffered years of hurdles, delays, and from-scratch reinventions—won this last popularity contest and finally entered the real production pipeline. After years of work, what would become Ornn was finally ready for the forge”
