Similar to the Twisted Treeline altars/Dominion towers, what if "wards" were actually persistent locations on the map that teams can capture to grant sight? (more like Dominion Towers in terms of capturing them)
These could be, like Twisted Treeline, competitive objectives that are locked for 30-90 seconds after capturing them - and maybe they only last for 180 seconds before they automatically become neutral and have to be recaptured. Perhaps neutral wards grant sight for both teams, and capturing them only hinders the enemy team. So you get a 30-90 second window where you know the enemy team has no sight. Or, you only ever capture them for 60 seconds and they are neutral the rest of the time.
Introduce variations of
and to Summoner's Rift, as well as some other items others. Perhaps change them to only grant standard sight, and then change to make it grant those items true-sight (e.g. "Nearby wards (5500 range) and nearby allied sight-granting-item-effect (1200 range) grant true sight for the next 4 minutes.").I'm by no means saying there is anything wrong with wards, or saying there isn't, merely an idea. We know Riot is overhauling supports and sight in season 4, and that they want to upgrade Summoner's Rift - so I'm just theorycrafting in the blanks.