Ronnon:Will you still be active in the german forums?
Zenon:Of course! You'll get a new german CC that will take over the lead of the forums, but I will have even more to share with you, so expect updates "from the front"
Ronnon:Championdesign has many facettes, what will be your specific task? Mechanics? Design? Lore? Whatever?
Zenon:The job of a champion designer describes on one side the designer that makes the mechanical implementations (Converting >ideas about skills into real ingame skills) As champion designer you create entire kits completely on your own, but you're also responsible for the coordination between the named departments. You, as a champion designer, have the central imagination of what the champion will be, how the lore should be, how he should move, how he should sound and so on. You coordinate those ideas with all the other Rioters and give them feedback, so everyone works on the exact same concept.
Ronnon:How did you become a Champion Designer?
Zenon:Childhooddream :). I played "Civilization" when I was 11, and >every time when the Intro popped up, and "Sid Meier's Civilization" was displayed, I thought that I want to do the same. I wrote a super awful game in Quickbasic 4.5 (You were a farmer, could buy/sell tractos, sell or make alcohol with your cereals and gamble with your money at the equity market. The equity market was so OP that you'd only need to grow some cereal at the start. Was very realistic :P) Afterwards, I tried to learn C by myself and (when I was 12) failed at the pointers (which I still don't understand 100%). So I played a lot, A LOT, created maps, Mops and roleplay designs and so on. The real reason why I want to become a champion designer for LoL however is mainly because I know the game in and out, that I obviously love Riot and LoL and that I also know the european community quite well. We have a chinese designer in our designteam, and one from australia (<3 Meddler), but no european so far. That will change once I arrive.
Ronnon:Will you leak some champion infos in the german forum, like US >designers do regulary in the US forums?
Zenon:The answer is somewhere between maybe and yes. ;)
Ronnon:Will you still visit Gamescom and co. in the future?
Zenon:* I really hope so! As long as I'm mannered and ask Saergi very nicely, she'll hopefully invite me. Talk to her about that if you want to >see me at events.*
Ronnon:Will we still enjoy you as a shoutcaster, if yes, less often?
Zenon:Not so frequently, yes. Not sure how it will be, but I definitely >won't cast the LCS.
Ronnon:Do you already have some Ideas for future champions which >you (without guarantee that they will be made of course) can share with us?
Zenon:*Ideas aren't the problem. We have a lot of problems. We have a championpipeline, that reaches until July/August, and already enough champions in the concept/choose phase to be fine until 2014. The question is, which one will I take? An AP Mid? A Support? Something really innovative?
I really think a lot about terrain which can be made by players. We aren't in a good state with that atm. The J4 ultime hurts my heart everytime I see a bug report. Best thing would be to completely upgrade the way that our engine works with created terrain, but to get the approval for that, you'd need to get a champion into the pipeline that is build around created terrain...hmmmm..
Ronnon::Are you looking forward to move to the United States, or do you like Europe more?
Zenon:I'm european, and the thought of not living in europe anymore is really weird. It's like moving to the moon. Of course I'm looking forward to the new adventure, and I'm completely sure that I'll find a lot of good things about the united states, but the idea of the not living in europe anymore is just...weird...