The 'mote in LoL's Eye

Meant to post about this yesterday but spaced it I guess, and also there was that other thing to write about as well so no injury done. Playing enough Overwatch lately that going back to League, for a moment there, felt like it was missing something in not having sprays (these graffiti tags, unlockable and individualized per character, which you can spray one at a time onto walls and stuff just for fun, like if you're waiting for the gates to unlock or if you want to give the payload some character as you escort it.) 

I say "for a moment there," though, because right as I began feeling this way, yesterday there was a new feature introduced in League called emotes. Which are, what they sound like. Not really sprays, very much, but still something fun like sprays which League had been missing. There's a chat feature, and ping effects, but sometimes you want or need to be quicker than that, have some character, and so it's just a fun, neat system. 

The only way to unlock them (so far?) is by spending actual Riot Points, though, which you pay money for instead of earning through play, but-- League is free download and play, while Overwatch you need to purchase it, so I've already sunk in more money into Overwatch than I have into League... the money sunk into Overwatch is necessary and intrinsic though, so it's kinda ~makes shrug sound.~ I'd feel bad purchasing RP for anything unnecessary, which equals everything you need RP for, especially considering how I've been going on lately about how poor I am and how it'd be nice to have a job and yakkity yakkity yak. 

I wouldn't mind receiving RP as a birthday or Christmas gift though... gift cards make great stocking stuffers...

EDIT: Some stuff I spaced to get to. Announcement link here, with pictures: lank! Be sure to catch the comments too; so far the reaction seems to be along the lines of "emotes op please nerf," only "too expensive" instead of "overpowered," and "maybe cost blue crystals instead of Riot Points, seriously why would I spend money on these" instead of the other thing. Which is, understandable, looking at the dollars-to-RP conversion rate, it looks like $5 for a single emote.

Yeah.

But really what I wanted to talk about were my initial reactions, which I didn't have enough time to get to earlier apparently:

This is good for artists. Like, way good for artists. That was one of my very first thoughts at the announcement. As an art student with art student friends and art teacher teachers and living in a world where everyone's an artist,  I know it's something that video game companies do a lot of, hiring art talent, and with cute little stickers that don't have to follow any particular house style there's a lot greater room for artists to get in now. 

I'm not sure the system Riot have in place for asset management, creation/collection of game artwork whether they have an in-house group like Blizzard or if they hire freelance like most others, but it's probably the latter and either way this is a wonderful door that's just been opened. I'm sure that Riot must have shelled out a lot of money on this project, and wants to make it back; the price is probably going to go down on these.

Another positive thing about emotes apparently: going off of one of the commentators who'd seen emotes in action in the beta, there's a lot less toxicity in the chat if you can just express your displeasure visually. Which is always good.


Also anyway as long as I'm on the topic of gaming which I totally only do on the side as a hobby and don't let become too big a distraction honest, Overwatch has been doing this really cute Halloween theme recently?