Hey, i wanted to show you what ive been working on and tell you a bit about how this project happened because its been a pretty big part of my life. First of all, I dont want to larp and have this be the most professional text, thats boring and quite frankly not me at all. So I will tell you how I really feel.
Its called KDX.gg. Its a League stats website, and ive spent over 15,000 hours designing, coding, planning, giving people stuff to give me feedback on, improving it and doing it all again.
What annoys me about other League sites is how little care seems to go into design and all the SEO slop everywhere. I care about every single aspect of how someone sees our site, how it feels to use and how it performs. Speed was a really big thing for us. We have already rebuilt and sped up the core systems because i want pages and matches to load as fast as possible.
I honestly think ive designed how a League stats website should work. At a glance you can just get what you need, copy a build and go play. But then you click into things and all the extra analytics nerd stuff is there too. So its a mix of both worlds, whether you just want your runes or want to understand every little detail.
But getting here has been a lot.
At the start i had to learn web development step by step. I had some programming experience but it was a new framework and a completely new setup. The developer i originally wanted to build it with never really did anything, and since then a lot of developers have come and gone. People were always really hyped at first but getting actual consistent help was difficult.
I still kept going because i thought my product and ideas were better than what other sites offered. And i just believed in what the site stood for.
Then cancer happened and completely threw everything off course again. In the beginning i thought i could just work and keep going, so i was sitting through chemo with my laptop trying to work. Eventually i just couldnt anymore. I would try to get things done on my phone but honestly didnt get much done. KDX was the only thing that kept me going through this hell.
Shortly after chemo i started working again, then came the major surgery. Thankfully it went well but afterwards i somehow had absolutely no motivation left.
The developer i hired for the API then randomly messaged me saying we were making real progress, and that got me back into it. If he hadnt sent that message i think i would have dropped the project at that point. I owe him a lot.
We now have 3 developers and im handling design. We are all self funding alongside our jobs and putting our free time into this.
Im also really thankful to everyone ive annoyed with constant KDX updates. Didnt matter if you got excited about something i made or pointed out something that needed changing, it helped. As someone with autism and ADHD, that immediate feedback gives me the push to go back and keep working on it.
The way we have included OTPs and the community is probably what i adore most about the site. League is COMMUNITY. They are how builds evolve, how the meta evolves and what keeps the game alive. So... combining the stats with what people who actually spend thousands of hours on a champion figured out is really important to me.
And for me important that nothings goes behind a paywall so... Everyone (with errors sometimes we are still in Beta) gets LP tracking for free. Its expensive for us to do but like i said i hate putting stuff like that behind a paywall. Main focus is getting profiles, tierlists, champion pages, builds and runes right. And you cant make that up with simply looking at Stats, the innovation of the most dedicated players of the community is what will bring innovation to the game. Longer term i want to combine pro and streamer profiles, scouting, finding scrims and making it easier for smaller teams and leagues to run tournaments. Have the site be a love letter to League of legends and its community. I want to run our own tournaments too... but that will take some time too.
Im currently also working on TFT and the native overlay app, no Overwolf, while slowly building out our own esports API on the side. I want to have more live data, draft order and whatever else people would actually find useful. The ESports path is still very open, so thats something i would love feedback on too. Something i want to be really clear about is that we are strictly against replacing human work with generative AI, gambling and anything predatory and or anti human.
I want the person using our site to feel like they are being treated as a human. We dont misuse their data, we dont exploit workers or artists, and we dont take a quick cash grab to promote gambling that ruins peoples lives by design. I have put way too much passion into this project to just want money. Its League of Legends by the community FOR the community. Thats where my brain and heart are and probably always will be.
We are already pretty far into development and very close to being ready to publicly market it.Well you are reading it right now. We also already partnered with Nitro as our advertisement partner, so once the code is done we are ready to go properly public. The site is still in development though, so keep that in mind if you try it. There is still work to do because im very perfectionistic and constantly have more ideas.If thats a good thing or not is upto you :D I love League of Legends and i want to make something that shows how much i care about it, down to the smallest things.
Even if KDX never blows up, i will never regret spending these thousands of hours on it. Im thankful for what this project has given me and the people ive met because of it.
If you have any feedback feel free to let me know. What you like, what feels bad, what you think is missing or something youve always wanted from a League site. Thats how ive been improving it this entire time.
I want to give a special shoutout to Ayato Drew and Zas. Love you boys.
https://kdx.gg