Today’s broadcast of the play-in stage at Worlds was fraught with technical issues, resulting in not one, not two, but five separate in-game pauses while the broadcast and technology teams tried to get things sorted.
In total, the pauses delayed gameplay by about an hour, and Riot even had to break out the Chronobreak tool to correct one of them.
Related: Fnatic pick up two vital victories on day three of the play-in stage at Worlds
The pauses had several causes, and aside from sounding like a Dr. Seuss book, it wasn’t a good showing for the broadcast team at China’s Wuhan Sports Center Gymnasium. Most of the issues were seeded within a broader network connectivity issue, and according to Riot’s statement on the topic earlier today, these network issues have nothing to do with the fact that Worlds is being held in China, which means it’s a Riot infrastructure issue.
Riot still hasn’t figured out how to fix it, but it’s “working on investigating these issues further,” and it’s planning on “putting in place solutions to help avoid future disruptions in play.”
Unfortunately, network issues weren’t the only culprits behind the interruptions. There were also audio issues and other hardware issues that resulted in pauses themselves. One pause, in the Hong Kong Attitude vs. 1907 Fenerbahçe game, lasted 25 continuous minutes.
Hopefully, tomorrow’s games will go more smoothly, because today wasn’t a great showing.
