Good day all

First, I would like to thank you for taking time to visit this petition,

PLEASE NOTE: My aim is not to make this as another "Aid Africa, we need your help topic"etc. in anyway, all I am showing you is evidence of Gaming in SA, commitment, enthusiasm and potential and you can make up your own mind!

BUT take the time and read the WHOLE post!

SA LoL Community

I have created this to convice Riot Games to invest into a Southern African Server, to not only make our ingame experience more enjoyable by decrease latency ingame, but also to improve our skills by including us Southern African's in the Riot family, and so improve our skill and and eventually allow us too, to participate in our VERY OWN REGIONAL FINALS, and for the first time ever, let a AFRICAN LCS TEAM go to World's!!!

I have created many threads, started many discussions regarding a African Server, many people have been scepticle, and critical about this matter, HOWEVER

Many have also been for it, agreeing that in the long run, it will be beneficial, according to:

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@RIOT_Nicolo: reddit post:

"

Hey there,

Yeah, we've done our own research a couple of years back, and as some mentioned in the thread, we have to get confident there will be enough players concurrently playing to ensure a good game experience.

If you don't have enough players, then matchmaking will be super long or inaccurate, most queues won't be turned off, and you will have generally a lower quality experience. Players will jump back to other servers and you'd end up in a vicious cycle.

Also the other problem is the internet infrastructure. If we set a "Africa" server in South Africa, mostly only South African players will have a better connection. For countries in the north of Africa (Morocco, Egypt, etc... who are a pretty big player base too, kudos to you guys!), they would still get a better ping through our EU servers...

So really the question for us is are there enough players to ensure the appropriate level of CCU for South Africa country. Last time we did look into that (2-3 years ago), our conclusions were no...

But...

1) we are about to look at it again (and a few other regions). I want to manage expectations here but I'd guess our conclusions will be similar. But we are planning to review a few more region by the end of the year, for potential new launches next year.

2) Have you tried connecting to Singapore server? you might have a better ping actually. Although, can't really promise because the internet infrastructure has a logic my own logic can't follow sometimes... But I'd say it's worth trying.

I know it's probably not the answer you'd expect but hopefully you understand the logic behind this.

"

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After reading this, I myself decided that after Turkey having their own server, Australia too, why shouldn't Africa, being a extremely large continent, be denied a LoL server since Riot does not see it a beneficial investment, I say too hell with that!

Here is an email I sent to the following companies/organizations (incl. email addresses):

Tenecent Holdings Limited: China's major ISP, a major stakeholder of Riot Games and a sponsor to Chinese LCS teams

(rexwang@tencent.com; bingsun@tencent.com; Thomastang@tencent.com; Minren@tencent.com; Sarahchang@tencent.com; intlbiz@tencent.com; IED_BD@tencent.com; belindazhang@tencent.com; kathyxing@tencent.com; tianatian@tencent.com; helending@tencent.com; joannajia@tencent.com; florazhu@tencent.com; annazheng@tencent.com; gillzhong@tencent.com; tingting@dayuw.com; nana@tencent.com; hebehe@tencent.com; tracy@tengchu.com; RTXpartner@tencent.com; qbsales@tencent.com; QzoneApp@tencent.com )

Riot Games (info@riotgames.com)

But naturally, I have yet to recieve a response from them(sent on Wednesday 17/9/2014 10:19 CAT)

I quote from my email:

"Since the League of Legends World Championships are starting in less than a day, it saddens me with the thought that NOT EVEN ONE South African player has participated in ANY LCS of League of Legends"

 

WHAT IS A WORLD's LCS if not including the WHOLE world???

 

What if, here in SA we have 2015's world's winning team, what if SA can set the standard for a new level of gaming the world has never seen, NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!!! We haven't been given the chance, but since it is Africa, the rest of the world thinks, what good can come from Africa!

 

GIVE US A CHANCE!!!!

 

If we aren't  as good as expected, help us grow then, help us improve of gaming community, help us improve our country, help us improve ourselves!

 

There is a saying, only one person is needed to make a stand for the right, help me and be that person, I can only do so much, I need YOU!

EMAIL READS:

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Good day Sir/Ma'am

I understand that Tencent is a major stake holder of Riot Games, thus this reason I am sending this email to you!

I am approaching you - the investments and online department - as a gamer from the RIOT games EUW server, I reside in South Africa

I enjoy online gaming, referring to specifically League of Legends and have many a time wanted to go into professional gaming, multiple times but have so been
unable too due to the reasons:

1. Since South Africa is a 1st world developing country, we have internet infrastructure, but very limited, i.e. we use copper wires mainly, thus limiting
our internet speed to 10Mbps in privileged area's, on our exchange server we have a 4Mbps connection which is just enough to stream a p720 YouTube video!

2. Since we use the WACS cable system, our ping to Europe ranges from 160-240ms at the furthermost points, but in actual fact, that is excluding our local ping
delays caused by our national ISP provider Telkom, and since Telkom is not only major internet provider, we pay +/- $80-100 per month 4Mbps uncapped
(which as I understand is still capped and throttled if a certain limit is reached)

3. On the RIOT games EUW website, there are hundreds, even thousands of posts and threads regarding a South African Server, but yet they are mostly/if not always ignored
 by RIOT, and thus RIOT never responds to the massive fan/player base in South Africa since it is assumed that South Africa is not a viable investment! Since it is assumed that

    a.) We don't have enough players to make it a profitable investment
    b.) As a fact, many South Africans have moved over to Dota 2 since its servers are hosted locally, thus they are able to play with out problem, issue and enjoy the experience

Here is South Africa, we have a idiomatic expression- "Ek sit my kop op 'n blok" which roughly translated means putting your head on a stone, about certainty aka as sure as eggs are eggs!

A major factor that is a big reason why RIOT does not consider a SA server is the queue times, BUT, many people will agree when I say this, and this should be logical too, since many have moved
over too Dota SOLELY because of a local server, the queuing times will at first be long, but as time progresses and I dare say 2 months even, the queue times will have halved, even gone down by 75%,
thus given enough time, South Africa will so start developing professional team that ARE ABLE to compete at a LCS standard, but since we have 1 challenger tier player in South Africa, and a handful in the Diamond tier, we are very much limited by being excluded by competition since we do not experience any competition from the outside world, except that which we see on live streams or from LCS tournaments

As a major stakeholder in RIOT games, I would approach Tencent Holdings company as a whole and hope that You would consider this and strive for the best for the company and its clients,

however

Since the League of Legends World Championships are starting in less than a day, it saddens me with the thought that NOT EVEN ONE South African player has participated
in ANY LCS of League of Legends, reason you may ask?

It is not because South Africans are unskilled in anyway, but since we are all human and thus we can, everyone of us, acquire said skills over time to not only move up along the ranks
of a local server, but also participate, possibly, in the LCS next year!

BUT reasons for us not being able to participate at the same level as local Europeans with 20-50 ping are among many others, opportunities!!!

Since South African Universities ban ports for us League fans to play, denies the gaming community even further more, but if you ask yourself why it is banned, the answer is simple

And it all comes back to this root cause, as a economics/business major student, I have a fair amount of knowledge on how economies function, and it is quite clear that the lack of foreign investment
in South Africa makes life much harder for us here at the bottom of Africa, and as the leader in Technology on the African continent, we are expected to set a standard, but we are not able to achieve this
solely on our own, we need outside help,

Thus, I ask You, Tencent, as a simple individual hoping to make a difference, to not only benefit myself, actually not even myself, but for the greater good of this country, I know that South Africa has great potential and can achieve many great accomplishments, but we are set apart from the world, and we have gotten so used to standing alone that we have the mentality of "we need no help",

That is why I am asking Tencent, as a stakeholder, a investment company, and internet service provider:

Consider, at least consider investing into South Africa, we have one internet service provider, thus Telkom is holding the monopoly on the Internet Services in South Africa, with a lack of service, we surely will fail, consider investing, helping and growing South Africa, I ask this to bring a community of individuals together to work together for a sole purpose, the betterment of the Gaming community in
South Africa, and hoping it will have far reaching effects on our economy as well as the attitude of South Africa as a whole!

I ask you as a friend in need!
Good day

please note, I am emailing this from my university email address, I am not afraid to stand alone, I am not afraid to stand for what I believe is right, South Africans are a strong willed nation, if we want something, we will achieve it!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Please vote, help make a difference!!!   credits: image created by Micheal Higgo