Chapter 329: Welcome to the League of Draven
After arranging the matches for the holographic projection viewing area, Chen Mo returned to the fourth-floor studio.
For a competitive game like *League of Legends*, hosting large-scale tournaments is a crucial part of the promotional process and requires early planning.
However, *League of Legends* still had too few champions at the moment. If a professional league were actually launched, the balance and spectacle would inevitably suffer somewhat. With too many things on his plate, Chen Mo didn’t have the energy to deal with this yet.
So, for now, he’d just run events in the experience store to gain some experience. Once the overseas version was finished and the number of *League of Legends* champions gradually increased, he could start arranging official tournaments.
Seeing Chen Mo arrive, Qian Kun quickly came over to greet him: “Boss, I’ve finished reviewing the new version plan, but the April Fools’ event column you marked as ‘to be determined.’ When can we expect that to be finalized?”
Chen Mo thought for a moment. “Hmm… by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. You guys work on the new champions first.”
“Okay.” Qian Kun nodded and went back to work.
The next version update was scheduled for April 1st, which was April Fools’ Day.
It had only been a month and a half since the Spring Festival update, so the timeline was a bit tight. However, Chen Mo’s idea was to make the most of every holiday, launching new champions alongside holiday events for better promotional impact.
The five champions in this update were: Irelia, the Blade Dancer; Lee Sin, the Blind Monk; Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork; Draven, the Glorious Executioner; and Leona, the Radiant Dawn.
Obviously, this was a collection of troublemaking champions. Chen Mo’s attitude was clear: players, go ahead and show off—start your performances!
Moreover, these five champions were all classic evergreen champions with very distinct traits.
Irelia, who remained fun to play despite being nerfed countless times.
Lee Sin, one of the most enjoyable champions in the entire league, often called the “Monk of the Elementary School.”
Orianna, the eternal mid-lane backup.
Draven, who could take down a kid with one hit.
Leona, the straightforward support who just goes all in.
If these five champions were all on the field together, it would probably be a beautiful mess.
At the same time, there would be a special April Fools’ event: Welcome to the League of Draven.
In addition to the *League of Legends* April Fools’ event, Chen Mo also planned to create a very “soul-healing” game to purify everyone’s hearts.
…
Throughout March, the popularity of *League of Legends* continued to surge, helping Chen Mo’s Thunder Game Platform gradually establish an advantage in the competition.
Previously, the collaboration between Dìcháo Interactive Entertainment and the Shenhuan Game Platform had consolidated domestic channel resources to some extent. This was very unfavorable for the Thunder Game Platform, and many players and designers were watching closely, unsure who would ultimately win.
But after *League of Legends* gradually revealed its strong dominance on PC, the situation became clearer.
Although the combined platform of Dìcháo and Shenhuan still controlled most of the domestic channel resources and players, Chen Mo’s Thunder Game Platform could stand toe-to-toe with them relying solely on *League of Legends*.
Moreover, if Dìcháo and Shenhuan couldn’t find a good way to counter *League of Legends* in the future, their defeat was basically sealed.
It was like playing Hearthstone: even if you had more health, if your opponent had a 10-10 minion on the board that you couldn’t deal with, it was pretty awkward.
The entire Dìcháo Interactive Entertainment was very tense. *Primordial Cataclysm* had entered a period of intensive development, and this game was seen as the greatest hope for defeating *League of Legends*.
To speed up development, *Primordial Cataclysm* used many existing rules and designs from COG, but with full simplification and a complete repackaging, changing from a Western fantasy theme to a slightly Chinese-style primordial theme.
Dìcháo even considered collaborating with some top-tier web novel authors to produce literary works linked with *Primordial Cataclysm*, increasing the game’s buzz.
Everyone understood that the channel war would inevitably turn into a product war. Whichever channel’s product achieved dominance would hold absolute control.
If Dìcháo and Shenhuan couldn’t develop a game to curb *League of Legends*, their channel resources would only be slowly eroded by the Thunder Game Platform—it was just a matter of time.
…
April 1st, April Fools’ Day.
Just after midnight, Chen Mo posted a long Weibo post.
“Today, *League of Legends* will update its version. The update details are as follows.”
“1. Elementary School Student Badge is coming soon: Based on cloud computing data mining, we have a 96.43% probability of determining whether a player is an elementary school student. Once identified, we will assign a special ‘Red Scarf’ icon to that player. Players will be able to see this badge in-game. We hope everyone can approach the game with a more tolerant mindset.”
“2. New Champions: This update will introduce 35 new champions: Irelia, the Blade Dancer; Lee Sin, the Blind Monk; Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork; Leona, the Radiant Dawn; and 31 Draven, the Glorious Executioner.”
“3. New Event: Welcome to the League of Draven, along with Draven’s exclusive April Fools’ skin: Draven Draven Draven. (Also includes various icons and ward skins.)”
“Additionally, the Thunder Game Platform will launch a brand-new healing mini-game, *Getting Over It*. Completely free. Suitable for: players with poor hand-eye coordination or bad tempers. Playing it will give you a sense of spiritual healing. Everyone is welcome to download it.”
There were also images. The first image showed the *League of Legends* post-game screen, where a player’s name had a Red Scarf icon, marking them as an elementary school student.
The second through sixth images were the splash arts of the five new champions.
The seventh image was the Draven Draven Draven skin.
The eighth image was the game screen of *Getting Over It*.
Mixed in with a bunch of April Fools’ fake news, Chen Mo’s Weibo post looked… hard to tell what was real.
Everyone knew that since this post was released on April Fools’ Day, it definitely contained fake news. But which specific items were fake was unclear at a glance.
Players flooded the comments.
“You deliberately chose April Fools’ Day to post this—don’t you think it has zero credibility?!”
“‘Based on cloud computing data mining’? I don’t believe a single punctuation mark! Go ahead and mark me as an elementary school student if you can!”
“Did elementary school students eat your rice or something?”
“Clapping in approval! I’ve been saying for a long time that those elementary school students in ranked matches need to be dealt with. With this rule, they’ll have nowhere to hide—so satisfying!”
“The person above… do you need to recharge your IQ? This is obviously fake news!”
“All fake news, huh? Updating 35 new champions at once? Even if you worked yourself to death, you couldn’t make that happen!”
“31 Draven, the Glorious Executioner? What the heck, 31 duplicate champions?”
“This new event… looks like it might be real.”
“*Getting Over It*? Why does it sound like *PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds*? Is that on purpose? I really don’t see how this game is healing. And why is this person sitting in a jar? Does he have no legs?”