Welcome Southeast Asian players, to the rest of the League community. It's toxic, and you'll love it, or else!
Riot Games Pushing Out Garena to Self-Publish in SEA
While Riot Games are the developers and publishers of League of Legends, their own masterpiece, they do not run all of their worldwide servers on their own. Some of those regions are handed over to third parties, with varying degrees of competence, the same way they do with most of their projects.
One of those server hosts, aside from Tencent having exclusive rights to it in China, and their 20 servers, is Garena in Southeast Asia, which has been hosting League of Legends for 12 years now. But that may be changing.
Will Garena Stop Hosting of League of Legends?
A recent rumor has started circulating around that Garena's hosting will be taken over by Taiwan Mobile in Taiwan, the way it's done with Valorant and League of Legends: Wild Rift.
"Per Ettoday, they reported that in Taiwan the publishing will be moved to Taiwan Mobile, they already publishing @PlayVALORANT and @wildrift in TW."
And, unlike most rumors, this time it turns out to be true, and to player's delight, the changes will not stop there!
Who Will Host League of Legends in SEA?
After a 12-year partnership with Garena, Riot Games will begin self-publishing League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics across Southeast Asia in January 2023.
Players will need to transition their accounts from Garena to Riot. As a welcome to Riot, once players transition their accounts they will receive a suite of in-game rewards as a gift! In addition, Riot are planning some welcome events and local activities to further enhance the player experience.
All Champions from the Shadow Isles
This is all done to get SEA players up to speed on the enjoyment the rest of the world had with League of Legends when it's hosted by Riot Games. After all, no matter how bad we had it, those playing on Garena had it worse.
How to Move Accounts From Garena to Riot Servers in SEA?
As part of the publishing transition, Riot is launching new League and TFT servers across key Southeast Asian markets in January 2023. Garena servers will also cease operations at that time.
To ensure that players transfer and retain their existing account data in time, Riot and Garena are working closely on an account migration process that will open for all on November 18, 2022.
The process itself is very simple, and there is a dedicated site for exactly that. Migration is the most important part of this project, so that players get to retain as much of their progress as they can.
Will Migrated Accounts Retain Ranks and Purchase History?
Riot Games say they intend to help players retain key account content, such as emotes, skins, champions, and in-game currency through the migration process. Some of these items include but are not limited to:
- Cosmetic Content: All cosmetic content will be transferred. If you already have a certain skin on both accounts, Riot will provide you with a loot reward equivalent to the value of your cosmetic content. You’ll keep your skins, plus something extra!
- Loot Inventory: All loot items and essence balances will be transferred and added to any existing loot inventory if you already have a Riot account.
- RP: All RP purchases will be added to the Riot account. If you have already made RP purchases on your Riot account, your final RP balance will reflect both your Garena and Riot RP purchases.
- Champion Mastery, Eternals, Level: Your personal champions’ specific stats will carry over in the transfer.
- Summoner Name: Your summoner name will be retained if you have played at least one game in 2021 or 2022
- Friends List: Riot will be transferring your friends' list to your Riot account. But note that your list may not appear complete at the beginning if your friends have not transferred their accounts. Your friends' list will be complete once all your friends have claimed their accounts.
Note that Garena Shells will not be available for conversion into Riot Points. However, you will still be able to use them on other Garena games.
Can You Migrate to the New SEA Servers From Other Riot Servers?
One of the tactics League of Legends players based in SEA used, when they got fed up with Garena, was to play on other worldwide servers.
For those of you, who have progressed your accounts significantly, and wish to play on new Riot Games SEA servers, and actually achieve good ping, you will be able to transfer your League accounts to the SEA server.
However, this is a one-way transfer only. Accounts from other regions can be transferred to SEA, but cannot be transferred out once completed.
Who Will Operate League Esports in SEA?
For all of you eSports lovers out there, as part of the transition Riot will continue to operate the Pacific Championship Series and will regain ownership and operations of the Vietnam Championship Series.