Riot Games released this video today, announcing that the long anticipated update to the main game mode map is officially in the works. A crisp, smooth map has been presented, bringing a more realistic (and obviously, updated as technology advances) feeling to the game.
Riot claims that the new map will feature "a number of quality-of-life changes."
Components of the map, such as the Dragon, Baron Nashor, and the red/blue buff monsters also have received complete overhauls. The dragon in particular received some extra treatment, not only changing in visual appearance, but in it's own mechanics. Skilled players were able to manipulate his attacks to effectively make him do zero damage at times, and Riot claims they "eliminated randomness" in their attack nature.
Riot hasn't given any clues about when the update will go live, claiming that they want to be as thorough as possibly through PBE testing. They want to get as much feedback from the community and fix any bugs that inevitably will pop up with such a major overhaul taking place. The PBE is not available yet for public testing, but based on what we've seen, we can expect it to be available to play relatively soon.
Riot has also said that they are "laser focused" on developing and shipping out the Summoner's Rift VU, and don't have any current plans or ideas to update other maps (3v3 and ARAM). They also explained that despite the map's obviously improved appearance and game play, which will be more RAM intensive, players will not need to upgrade their computers to play it.
