It's been a long-running joke within the League of Legends community that Riot Games don't deserve the 's' in their name with the MOBA being the companies only major video game title.
In October it will be nine years since LoL released and it could finally be time that we see the game's rich group of characters explored in a different genre.
Riot Games has released an interactive map of League of Legends fictional world, Runeterra
After the community's great reception to the map, Merrill teased the possibility of a LoL MMO
Back in October last year, Merrill and fellow Riot co-founder Brandon 'Ryze' Beck took on new roles within Riot so that they could be more involved with game design again.
The duo have dropped most of their management responsibilities to work closely with their team on creating new games. Riot bought Fighting Game company Radiant Entertainment back in 2016, my blog leading to rife speculation that a LoL fighting game would be released.
However, a simple tweet of 'Should we build a MMO? Yay or nay?' from Tryndamere set the LoL community alight as fan's imaginations and excitement ran wild.
Seeing Demacia populated with thousands of online players would be quite the sight to behold
If you were able to create your own character, can you imagine making yourself as a Yordle
The tweet is Merrill's most engaged post ever with over 17,000 likes and 3,000 retweets at the time of writing. Many high profile names from LoL's esports community such as pro player Yilliang 'Doublelift' Peng and commentator Isaac 'Azael' Cummings were quick to show their support for the idea.
There are 141 characters in LoL which is more than enough to populate any genre of game and would certainly lend itself to an MMO. Boss battles against Void monsters like Cho'Gath, stopping the Ice Witch Lissandra's diabolical plans or even exploring the Yordle forests with Teemo are just examples of possible quests.
Exploring the fallen desert empire of Shurima would be a difficult but breathtaking adventure
Climbing Mount Targon would be a perilous journey but surely worth it with this kind of view
The interactive map does a wonderful job of displaying how diverse and intriguing the world of Runeterra is. From the on-going conflict between the dual city-states of Piltover and Zaun to the fallen desert empire of Shurima - there are many lands and stories to be explored.
Climbing Mount Taragon, becoming a pirate on Bilgewater, protecting Ionia with Shen and the rest of the Kinkou Order, exploring the Shadow Isles or taking part in the war between Noxus and Demacia - the possibilities are endless and that's exactly what you would hope for from an MMO or MMORPG.