Tryndamere was kind enough to set up a Q&A session with the comunity over IRC tonight! Heres a recap of the questions asked and the answers given!

Tryndamere: ok everyone, thank you for joining us today.  As most of you know, my name is Marc Merrill – aka Tryndamere – the president of Riot!S orry to keep you waiting briefly The way this will work is you will send questions to ByronicHero and he will hand me questions to answer. He already has many rolling – so we’ll go ahead and pick one! First question is from…

Q) Encased Shadow: What sort of marketing do you hope to doin the future? Will we see more partnerships like Razer? People want their plushies!

A) Tryndamere: We plan on doing a lot of different things to continue to market League of Legends and have some special things planned for Season one.  We will also see additional partnerships with companies like Razer, and we are working on getting some great merchandise options available for the community on www.leagueoflegends.com. while I can’t guarantee Teemo plushies in the short term, there will definitely be some awesome things available to the community – including things that will allow our community to demonstrate their creativity and cool designs to other people!

Q) Dragonglove: When is season 1?

A) Tryndamere: Well there is something that we obviously expected to see… ;) . Pre-season will be over in the near future and we plan on launching season one in all of it’s glory this summer.  Season One will mark the official kickoff of competitive League of Legends and there will be some very exciting events and partnerships planned for it.

Q) Timlankey: We obviously know that Season One will be coming out sometime this year and we know most of the features but, what sort of new features has Riot planned to be implemented into Season One that we may not have heard about yet? Also, Riot has announced that they do not want to show (even only to the summoner) Normal Matchmaking ELO. Do you guys have any plans to ever cater to the “Casual” level 30 players who want to see progression in some form of a number but do not want to play ranked matches?

A) Tryndamere: Great questions Tim! A couple things that people may not know about season one… first, players will need to be summoner level 20 in order to participate in ranked games.  We think it is important for the players of ranked games to be veterans and to have access to T3 runes. The addition of ranked games is very important to League of Legends – many players have asked to see detailed stats – and we will be showing stats in all of their glory for ranked games, including rankings, player ratings, aggregated stats of all kinds, etc. We are intentionally differentiating ranked games from normal – in that we want normal games to be for players who are looking to have fun and not necissarily always want to be “tryhards” ;) – ie trying out new champions, earning IP, etc. Ranked matches will be ultra-competitive and will be the place where Summoners compete for status, glory and special end of season rewards. Additionally, we are exploring ways to enhance progression in normal games – per your question – because the gamers who do not want to play in ranked games are extremely important to us as well

Q) Vallhala: What are the plans for new maps and maybe gametypes for league of legends future?

A) Tryndamere: There are awesome plans for new maps and game modes.  I’m not going to announce specifics here unfortunately, but rest assured that we do have full teams of top men working diligently on modes that will be EXTREMELY different from our current modes.  They will be well worth the wait. Additionally, as you guys probably know, we are hiring like crazy so we can do even more in parallel to continue to support the growth and expansion of League of Legends. Head over to www.riotgames.com/careers  for details – and send in your applications! Technical designers, system administrators, and java & C++ engineers are highly desired

Q) Fayd: Marc, could you give us a general “road map” of where you intend to take League of Legends? What sort of features are intended, and how far along are they? Earlier in the closed beta, I felt like we had a fairly good idea of what Riot was intending to put into the game. Now? I am lost; adrift in a sea of confusion. Where is this game going?

A) Tryndamere: Fayd – I feel for you!  Our sincere apologies that sometimes we haven’t been super clear about what’s coming – it’s not from any intentional desire to not be transparent – quite the opposite in fact. We love interacting as much as possible directly with the community and love hearing your feedback.  We have a lot going on at once, and we really feel that we are at the very beggining of League of Legends.  Lots of new features, content and game modes will be coming – the game is truely in it’s infancy… we also plan on having exciting international tournaments, so you players that weren’t able to participate in

Q) Haigoeo: What you plan to do with GOA’s poor performance?

A) Tryndamere: Our players in the EU are very important to us and we’re doing everything we can to help the situation.  We are confident that many of the issues that EU players are experiencing will be resolved.

Q) The7eleven: As the president of the company, what are the challenges you face when running a company?

A) Tryndamere: There are lots of challenges, but that’s also what makes it so fun :) There are always a million different hurdles, from personnel issues, to strategic issues, to technical problems, financial considerations, budget concerns, investor relations — not even to mention product development! My favorite part of the job is when I’m able to work directly on issues that are impacting you guys directly – but one of my main responsibilities is to ensure that when there are issues, that we as a company identify the root causes of the problems (either technical, process related, talent related, etc) and resolve them in a sustainable way so the company continues to always improve. We take the long term view, and always want to improve as a company.  We also have a fun, risk-taking culture where we promote creativity – which is why we’ve come up with so many cool champions and fun community events like Urf and Urfwick! I’m really proud of our team – and I’m proud of our community – it’s an honor to have you guys play our game and we always are extremely thankful for your support.

Q) RandomPug: Why is your LoL counterpart so dang underpowered?

A) Tryndamere: I ask our designers the same thing!  =p. jk – in all seriousness, he’s a challenging character to balance.  He’s very “snowbally”.  There are some balance tweaks coming up for him that should help, but we’ll see what you guys think!

Q) Morzas: My question is this: what’s your name’s origin? I heard it was a character you had in an MMORPG or something.

A) Tryndamere: That is true ;) Tryndamere was the name of my Barbarian warrior (twink) in EQ – on the Tallon Zek pvp server.  I was a member and ultimately leader of a guild called Human Retribution (single team pvp) – and still have a lot of great relationships with friends from past games.  Shoutout for TZT! Another fun fact is that Warmog’s armor was named after a friend of mine from there as well – Warmog was a Troll Warrior who was pretty legendary.  At Riot, many of us have been members of online communities for a long time and we really appreciate and understand what it means to want to help a company make the game that you play a lot and care about better. It’s why we really appreciate our players and listen to your concerns – we have been in your shoes and are fans of our game in the same way you guys are, so we want the same things.  We love finding ways to have the community help us out, because there is lots to do!

Q) TildeMerand: How are you planning on making support players like myself (Soraka, Morgana) more viable in games? Noone seems to care that we bust our chops trying to protect and support. =\

A) Tryndamere: I love playing support characters – our design team are doing many things, including changing the way the assist system works to favor support champions more. That is currently on the test realm right now – and is pretty darn awesome.

Q) Thenadathor: How does Riot prioritize these three areas: Summoner/Metagame (Masteries, Runes, Levelcap, Summoner spells), Infrastructure (Matchmaking, New maps/content,) and Balance?

A) Tryndamere: As the Executive Producer on League of Legends – ultimate team prioritization is one of the central parts of my job. If something isn’t getting done – blame me – not our guys :( . To answer the question, prioritization is difficult and a constant challenge.  If everything is important, than nothing is truly important. Thus, we have to make tough trade-offs all of the time.  That being said, the team is structured into two main components (sub-teams). We have a LIVE team which is 100% dedicated to constantly fixing bugs, working on balance, scaling the system (to support our awesome growth) and adding new content like champions and items. We also have a FEATURE team which is shielded from the chaos and urgency of live to work on longer term features and systems. IE – Things like Draft Mode, Ladders, Ranked Games, Replays, new maps, etc. Both are constantly moving in parallel, because both are important.  It’s also why we’re adding lots of people to the team, so we can continue to make faster headway on key long term features. We know you guys have been patient with us, and we appreciate it :) we hope to not disappoint and that our features will be worth the wait. We have an almost complete revamp of PvP.net coming that is pretty darn sexy and epic that we think you guys will really like as well.

Q) Bigbit: Are there any plans to port the game to other platforms?

A) Tryndamere: Currently no – our “expansion” growth is initially focused on additional territories – China, SE Asia, Korea, etc. There are a lot of gamers around the world itching to play League of Legends and we have some great partners in Asia to help us make League of Legends a truly global and successful international game.  We’re really excited about the long term prospects of the game.

Q) GearsPowered: Do you own an Ipad?

A) Tryndamere: Not yet!  But I’m going to get one.  Two people at Riot have them – our CEO (my business partner) and one of our Producers that you guys may know – Volibar. I don’t have an i-phone, I use the BBerry, so I’m excited about traveling with it for iTunes type media

Q) zigmover: I am seeing Ninja characters requested because a pirate character was in the game. Will there be any Vampire characters since there is a Werewolf in the game? We all know Vampires and Werewolves are mortal enemies.

A) Tryndamere: maybe… ;)

Q) Lier_X_Agerate: Those end of season rewards Tryn was talking about, would one of the rewards happen to be a all expenses paid date with Tryn?

A) Tryndamere: Well, I’m recently married – so I don’t think my wife would be too into that… ;) but the rewards will actually be much cooler than that, so be happy!

Q) Mechanicus: Gentleman Cho’Gath:  Fact or Fiction?

A) Tryndamere: Legend… ;)

Q) Vallhala: Will you release a Clan/Team feature in the future?

A) Tryndamere: Absolutely yes – we’re working on revamping our player profiles… when we roll this out, you’ll see a LOT of cool stuff that will be added to them.

Q) Kazuz: What is the thing you want to accomplish with League of Legends and Riot Games?

A) Tryndamere: Well, there are lots of things… One – we really wanted to prove to the entire game industry that we thought that there was a better way to create and deliver games to users.  We fundamentally believe that games are better when operated as a service – ie. constantly updated and growing in collaboration with the community. As former members of many online communities, it was also so disappointing to feel that the company that made the game you loved didn’t care what you thought or wanted.  We want to try to change the paradigm – and prove that it’s BETTER to be transparent and to deliver games FREE before expecting any user to actually pay. that is a heavy burden on the publisher – because if your game is bad, you can’t fool anyone into paying you up front for it – you have to actually deliver great value, and continue to deliver value! That’s what we’re really excited about – we feel like we’re actually helping to change the entire games business by demonstrating that you can make fun, high quality games and deliver them for free – and it CAN work if you really deliver value to your users and care about them. We also want to continue to make great games, but before even doing that – we want to make League of Legends one of the most widely played games in the world – and we think we can do that by continuing to grow, evolve and expand it – and by working directly with you guys to help it improve

Q) Hellatightjr: Does your endless rage ever affect work in the Riot office?

A) Tryndamere: Unfortunately yes – it’s why my “special ability” on my bio on riotgames.com/team is called “Night Merrill” – I’m slow to anger and generally a patient guy, but when I use my ultimate, it can be scary!

Q) The___: is there any reason to worry about the non paying players, i mean how do they help keep the company afloat?

A) Tryndamere: No, non-paying players are an important part of our community – we’d rather have a large, passionate, fun community than a smaller one that we monetize the heck out of! We believe part of the magic of online games comes from having a large and vibrant community –  hence why we want to do everything we can to support it’s growth, even if we have to sacrifice money

Q) PawL: Will we be seeing other competitive leagues out side of PVP.net/LoL like cevo esea or MLG/gamebattles?

A) Tryndamere: Yes indeed ;) as I mentioned before, we’re just getting started.  Our growth has been very steady as word has spread, and many of the big leagues are taking notice.  Rest assured, the competitive scene will be quite healthy when we’re ready to focus on it, and we have lots of cool stuff coming!

Tryndamere: On that note, we’re wrapped!  Thank you everyone for coming – have a great weekend and I’ll see you online!