We feel like we left as much of as good-faith attempt
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People have asked us to accept donations time and time again, and LoL accounts we received a whole lot of bribery attempts from people trying to buy access to the job - the biggest sum provided was $800 for a slot on the testing team. It goes without saying that we declined any and all these offers. Real-money content like skins was of course also made unavailable to testers.
We feel like we left as much of as good-faith attempt to respect the letter of this law and boundaries with Riot Games as much as is possible with a project like this. While we do know and recognize that Riot Games has the full right to push for a legal settlement regarding this project, we're incredibly disappointed by the way they decided to manage the circumstance. We aimed to demonstrate that there is a location on the planet and huge interest and possible for all these old versions of this game, to another developer that sensed a variant of"You think you do, however you do not". We were open to a conversation about the future of the project - granted it extended beyond"give us the code or we will sue you". There were lots of potential avenues for cooperation, rather than this unproductive hostility. The expectation was on Riot to comprehend the potential of something this difficult to recreate for a group this little, brought to life out of passion for a game over a decade old which people were asking to experience again for many decades now.
The only direct contact we did get was with someone conveying in a way so unprofessional that made everyone presume this was another scam try to get a grasp of this project, not an official agent of Riot Games. You've probably read the word"disappointed" frequently enough the last few days, but this is the feeling the team is left with.
Our concluding thoughts go out to cheap LoL smurf accounts all of the people that helped us in analyzing and development, and exhibited tremendous passion for your job.