Riot games is one company that takes a real stand against negative elements in its community. Its banned everyone from professional players right down to individuals, if they violate the Summoner's Code and it's pushed features that are designed to encourage teamplay and cooperation over aggression and flaming. One place it hasn't had much effect it seems though is the official chat rooms, which have become awash with RP sellers, scammers and spammers, so it's taken the bold step to shut them down entirely.
"While the experience in private chat rooms is better than the public versions, we still want to provide tools to address unwelcome drop-ins and toxic behaviour," the developer said.
Going forward, private rooms will still function, but the publiic rooms have been completely ripped out. In the future, Riot plans to introduce new systems that give overarching control to the users themselves, letting people set up little communities for friends or fans to talk in. They'll have complete power over them though and will be able to promote moderators, ban toxic individuals and invite into them who they want.
"At the end of the day, when you log in you should feel like you're surrounded by active players that like to play League the way you do," Riot said on the official forum.
"You should be to able jump easily into games with those friends without having to send game invites one by one."
What do you guys think of this move? Will it do much to improve the atmosphere surrounding League of Legends, or will it just see the spammers and scammers move to private chat alternatives?