League of Legends' Gangplank Has Been Removed From Play

[Steven Bogos]

League of Legends' Gangplank Has Been Removed From Play

It looks like Miss Fortune has killed off Gangplank... permanently.

Well here's a new one. Fans of Riot Games' MOBA new champions [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/league%20of%20legends] added to the game, but this time Riot has flipped things around by seemingly removing a champion from the game... permanently.

The champion in question is none other than the pirate captain Bildgewater Event [http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Gangplank]. Essentially, as part of the event's "story" long-standing Gangplank rival and bounty hunter Miss Fortune finally offs the saltwater scourge, which has resulted in the champion being removed from play in any game mode.

But is this a real "death" or a Dragonball Z death, where Gangplank will be back next week? At this point, we're not sure, and Riot isn't giving us too many hints.

"Champion death is unprecedented in League of Legends and we do not take it lightly." posted Riot in an F.A.Q [http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/tXjcpYAU-act-2-questions-about-the-bilgewater-event-we-got-you-covered]. "We encourage all Gangplank fans to remain calm for a few days until we can fully assess the situation. At this time, we are not addressing refund requests for him or his skins but please know that over the next several days we'll do our best to make things right for everyone."

On the one hand, the "we do not take it lightly" comment suggests that he is gone for good, but on the other hand, the fact that Riot isn't giving out refunds yet may suggest he will return, at least in some form.

What do you guys think? Is Gangplank gone for good, or will Riot bring him back?

Source: Riot Games [http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/tXjcpYAU-act-2-questions-about-the-bilgewater-event-we-got-you-covered]

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[Kopikatsu]

Although I haven't had time to play LoL in a month or so, I did own every skin for Gangplank because he was my favorite champion. Of course, I didn't like the rework they gave him all that much, so he was kind of gone even before they killed him off.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Eeh, they're probably doing the same thing Valve did when they removed Skeleton King from Dota 2 for "pressing ceremonial reasons" and replaced him with Wraith King instead.

 

[Legion]

He was given a brand new rework to his kit as well as every single one of his skins just over a week ago. As little as a day ago those skins were available in a bundle and in August one of his skins has already been listed as going on sale.

So no, this is purely for the event and not going to be permanent. At least on the game-play side of things anyway. The story could go either way.

 

[Harlemura]

I wonder if they're going to add him back in as a ghost, with his "Spooky Gangplank" skin being the default and his classic one becoming a what-he-looked-like-before-he-died skin. That'd be neat, though would probably make everyone that paid good money for the Spooky skin a little mad.
Either way, it's super unlikely Gangplank's gone for good. Don't know why they'd have put so much effort into a champion's visual rework if it was only going to be in the game for a week.

 

[Thatguyky]

He's not permanently removed from play... Rito is just trolling because of the recent MF/GP reworks, and the emphasis on their stories. Gankplank actually needed to be disabled because there was a bug. Another character, Draven, could stack a buff/ability infinitely on one of Gankplank's barrel moves. I can assure you, it's not a permanent death. xD

 

[Rednog]

Meh, we all know they aren't killing him off.
If you try to select him it even says temporarily disabled. Riot would never permanently disable a champion because it would essentially be stealing money from their consumers. Especially with a bundle just rolling out this week. It's cute that riot has gone out and been like omg nope guys we're totally serious he's dead and gone forever! Except that we all know it's complete rubbish.

I honestly wish they kept his rework underwraps, killed off the old gangplank and replaced him with the rework. Do something along the lines of Lobo in the DC universe and be like omg that old gangplank was an impostor this new reworked gankplank is actually the real one!

 

[RJ 17]

Considering how they just reworked both his visuals and his kit, I have to assume he's just dead for the remainder of this special event and will be popping back up once this special event is over...perhaps as a completely re-worked undead champ born of the Shadow Isles.

 

[Imre Csete]

Free ghost Gangplank skin for everybody!

One can hope

 

[Davroth]

I hope he comes back as zombie Gangplank. Although, between Gangplank and Miss Fortune, not surprised he lost out. Since, you know, Miss Fortune is a champ that sees actual play.

 

[fix-the-spade]

That'd be neat, though would probably make everyone that paid good money for the Spooky skin a little mad.

That's easily resolved, make the classic skin a premium and unlocked for anyone who bought the Spooky, or give them all credit for the equivalent they paid (like World of Tanks does when vehicles get removed). There will still be some mad folks, but there are always mad folks.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Pretty sure GP was disabled because of an imba bug; which isn't anything new for Riot.

Over the past 3.5 years, Yorick's been disabled and removed from the free rotation several times for much the same reasons (creating some sort of game-crashing or imbalanced interactions).

 

[llubtoille]

Had they not just recently done an entire character rework on him, being a new model, animation, audio, splash art, and abilities, then I would think it potentially possible.
As they have just completed said rework however, they're not going to remove him entirely, that would be an utter misuse of resources that would haunt Riot for some time.
I think he will be back perhaps when the event is over, or possibly under a new name: Gang Jr. Son of Plank.

 

[conmag9]

He just recently got an overhall on his kit. I'm going to go with "hell no" he's permanently gone.

It's just a storyline thing. Even that might be pushing it for some people who like playing him to not be able to access him for a few days, but it's kinda neat for a short bit, if you ask me.

Plus, the moment you start introducing champion removal entirely, you suddenly get nobody wanting to spend money on you, lest their favorite be next. Riot would have to be bludgeoned over the heads for about a decade before doing something that stupid, and even then their latent business sense would mutter "is this really a good idea?"

 

[MrPhyntch]

While the quick blurbs around the site and client say GP is dead, reading the actual story for today actually indicates otherwise, at least to a fairly savvy person. Miss Fortune blew up GP's ship, and everyone in Bilgewater (who was gathered around to watch Graves' and TF's executions) saw it go down, and started spreading the news. So while everyone in Bilgewater starts freaking out and even MF's own crew is celebrating and asking her what she's gonna do now, she knows that they can't call it quits till she finds his corpse.

In other words, we're hearing that he's dead, but they have yet to produce a corpse. So don't worry yet.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

That announcement is worded in the most surprised tone possible. It's like they didn't know they were going to kill him. I don't get why they speak like this.

He'll prolly be a zombie or something now.

 

[laggyteabag]

Seems a little stupid, to me. Putting story over gameplay in this instance just seems a little odd, especially considering that nobody that I know gives a rat's ass about the lore in LoL. If I were a Gangplank player, and then the character was removed from the game, even if it is temporary, that would kill the game for me for as long as the character is removed for. It would be like if Blizzard came out saying that all mages suddenly lost their magical abilities in World of Warcraft, and then all mage characters were unable to be played during that duration. Sure there are other characters to be played, but putting lore over gameplay in an instance like this, just wouldn't fly.

 

[sagitel]

Seems a little stupid, to me. Putting story over gameplay in this instance just seems a little odd, especially considering that nobody that I know gives a rat's ass about the lore in LoL. If I were a Gangplank player, and then the character was removed from the game, even if it is temporary, that would kill the game for me for as long as the character is removed for. It would be like if Blizzard came out saying that all mages suddenly lost their magical abilities in World of Warcraft, and then all mage characters were unable to be played during that duration. Sure there are other characters to be played, but putting lore over gameplay in an instance like this, just wouldn't fly.

as they said before GP had a game breaking bug that had to be addressed. so instead of saying we temporarily disabled him they went with he died to be more in line with the current event. so its actually gameplay that is being put in priority

 

[Legion]

Seems a little stupid, to me. Putting story over gameplay in this instance just seems a little odd, especially considering that nobody that I know gives a rat's ass about the lore in LoL. If I were a Gangplank player, and then the character was removed from the game, even if it is temporary, that would kill the game for me for as long as the character is removed for. It would be like if Blizzard came out saying that all mages suddenly lost their magical abilities in World of Warcraft, and then all mage characters were unable to be played during that duration. Sure there are other characters to be played, but putting lore over gameplay in an instance like this, just wouldn't fly.

as they said before GP had a game breaking bug that had to be addressed. so instead of saying we temporarily disabled him they went with he died to be more in line with the current event. so its actually gameplay that is being put in priority

Riot have outright denied that this is the case and said it very much is due to the lore.

EDIT: And he is back with a new look to reflect the injuries he gained. He will be playable again from the next patch which comes out next week.