League of Legends has a reputation for being a pretty toxic game. This includes streamers and smurfs who ruin the experience for many newcomers. Now, Riot Games is adjusting its rules and is taking a tougher stance on penalties.
League of Legends has a rather mediocre reputation despite having many players. The game is said to have a toxic community. Despite many popular and friendly streamers, there are also black sheep who only play to ruin the game for you.
This naturally also makes LoL off-putting for newcomers. Riot Games has now announced that they will update their Terms of Service, explicitly regarding content creators. They want to take a tougher stance against toxic behavior and against providers of smurf accounts.
One of the friendliest LoL streamers is probably NoWay:
Streamers will soon need to watch what they say in streams
What will Riot change in the Terms of Service? Riot has announced on their official website that they will be making some changes and additions to the Terms of Service. The focus of these changes is mainly on streamers and content creators, who will need to be more careful in the future.
The first point is aptly named by Riot as Behavior outside of platforms
. Riot states that there may be in-game penalties if a content creator behaves poorly outside of the game. This is intended to apply to content creators who engage with games from Riot Games. This is meant to protect players outside of the game who like to engage with the games on other platforms.
The second point deals with platforms that sell accounts. If someone promotes such platforms in their content or is sponsored by them, it could even lead to bans. This includes social media posts or discussions during streams or videos. Smurf accounts are popular among players and streamers who want to play against weaker players in lower ranks.
Players will be punished more harshly for stream-sniping. This is currently being tested with Valorant streamers.
They want to ban individuals who are negatively noticeable in a Riot game from accessing other Riot games if they commit serious violations of the Terms of Service.
Riot states in the official post that they will give streamers until January 3, 2025, to adapt their content to the new rules. Smurf accounts have long been a thorn in the side of many players in League of Legends. Some content creators also like to use such accounts for impressive videos where they dominate weaker players. Riot has been trying to counter this for some time: LoL is adopting the best change from Dota 2 in recent years, aiming to ban annoying teammates
