Let's get a few things straight RE: lore "rewrites"

MrSc0tty··19 votes·1,029 views

Here is what a rewrite is:

Take a story, and either A) change it into a different story featuring the same characters, or B) retell the story with a few changes in a different medium.

Sivir has received a lore Rewrite. Ashe has received a lore rewrite.

What is not a rewrite:

  1. writing a completely new story with characters who are completely different except for the name. Examples: Trundle, Karma. This is known as starting completely over from scratch, and you should start with an apology to anyone who liked the old character.

  2. removing a characters lore and replacing it with a brief summary of the planned rewrite along with an IOU. Examples: Skarner, Rammus. If I stole someone's copy of Hamlet and replaced it with an empty VHS case of The Lion King, they would probably still think of Hamlet as stolen even if they had the brief plot summary and nice images on the case. This is a Lore Deletion.

  3. summarizing and condensing existing lore into a format that is objectively worse in every way. Examples: Amumu, Renekton. Copy/pasting the Wikipedia history entries on Paris and London would not be accepted as a Rewrite of Tale of Two Cities. This is a Lore Deletion.

So if we could please start using the correct terminology I think our discussions might actually get somewhere.

14 Comments

He Who is Pale3 votes

The only difference in Rammus' old lore and his current abridged summary is the removal of the completely unexplained maze. His story was always: "Armadillo, wizards happened, sapience."

MrSc0tty6 votes

"Armordillo, nobody knows how, nobody knows what he's doing, did he even make his armor? Sapience."

CupcakeTrap6 votes

I'm still trying to work out why anyone would look at a creature called an armordillo and ask "I wonder where that armor came from? Did he make it?"

"Strange! This fish seems to have somehow procured clothing made of scales."

"Where did that cheetah get all those tiny curved knives it's wielding?"

It's like some bizarre version of a creation myth.

MrSc0tty4 votes

Was he born with the straps holding it to his torso?

I think it's implied that the spikes n shyt were features he added himself.

He Who is Pale3 votes

I literally (actual literal, not misused figurative literal) do not understand objections to Rammus' lore rewrite. It is the same thing told in fewer sentences. Rammus never had a nuanced lore deep with complexities and relationships with other champions. He had 'okay'. That was it.

There are champions that had their lore vastly changed or edited, but none of them are Rammus.

OblongOtter2 votes

Imagine if they just changed his lore to "okay" and that was that.

He Who is Pale2 votes

That would be okay.

sp4413 votes

Honestly, I'm getting pretty sick about how every champion has to be "important". It's like we can't have lesser known or independent heroes around, no, everybody's gotta be the heir of a lost civilization, or the king of a warring nation or some crap.

MrSc0tty3 votes

There are unimportant champions.

Like say, Skarner. He's a rock scorpion sitting in a tomb who is angry and kills anyone who comes in. He's got no family, nobody to miss, no reason to be there, no anything really.

sp4412 votes

Yeah, but he was still linked to Shurima for some reason guarding something. You can bet that if they ever bother revisiting that, they're going to reveal that he was guarding the super important McGuffin or something.

MrSc0tty2 votes

Vi's just a cop. Olaf is hired muscle. Jinx is just a gal with no affiliation who blows stuff up. Quinn is I believe some kind of scout, nothing more. Lucian is a dude with a grudge and a couple guns.

Only "important" and "affiliated" recent champs have been: Lissandra (some kind of god queen witch thingy), Sivir I guess, Azir, Braum (folk hero is important I guess?), maybe Velkoz?

Quinn Zac Yasuo Jinx Lucian Nami Thresh etc are all relatively unimportant and either independent or not more than foot soldier rank in their various faction.

Sneak Dog2 votes

If Runaan is to be trusted, example 1 shouldn't happen. It has, compare old Trundle with current Trundles voice-overs (the background story came really close to being old Trundle, him being an ice troll is fine too, it's his identity that matters, being a swamp or ice troll isn't really important). Seeing how this happened already, I hope they'll go back when they make a mistake and fix it.

A bit off-topic, but I haven't seem many threads about Karma, and if I compare the two lores, included judgement, the only thing I see is that Karmas use of force is more of a process in the old lore than in the new. In the end, both stories have her using her force almost freely to end the noxian occupation. " Karma had heard enough tales of Noxian cruelty to openly question the elders' wisdom" seems to be the main line that I'd remove. I'd expect Karma to first try diplomacy just as the elders and then realize it won't do. Comparing voice-overs, the new one sounds a bit less aloof? I never was a Karma fan, so I'm curious how her identity was changed.

“But a certain character's entire story focused on his or her connection to the Institute of War!” Yeah, I know these things are sticky; we wrestle with them internally, too. Our philosophy with these characters is that whatever we do to re-shape them should hold very tightly to the “soul” of what a character was in the old canon. Nobody should feel like an entirely new character – their spirit, the “feeling” you get from them, those things should feel true, even if details shift in how they came to be that person.

Piece of a post from RiotRunaan on the na forums here

MrSc0tty7 votes

He keeps using the word "should" when the track record of his team on all those points is frankly abysmal, and his post of. "Bear with is, we'll fix it!" Doesn't do much to encourage me. We don't get the discussions from them that we get from Balance team and we sure as HELL don't get the level of mistake correction we get from the Art team (I.E. The only team at riot who actually puts things on PBE for feedback and editing.)

Why should we trust runaan? Because he was part of the team that did the good lore? He's been silent for years now and has nearly nothing to show as evidence of the good quality work of him or his team.

Sneak Dog1 votes

Make no mistake. I don't trust the current lore department. I'm not going to say I don't trust Runaan, he's probably a nice man/woman, in fact, I respect him/her for responding to us lore fans. But their department as a whole I don't trust until Trundle is Trundle again. Until then I have no garentee that they care about my favorite characters (clearly they care about lore as a whole, but Trundle?). Until then I cannot dive wholely into the new lore, I'm condemned to watching it from a corner with squinty eyes, cynical at every piece that comes out (ah irony).

It just felt unnecessary to add this paragraph. Also, all love for the art team, they do amazing stuff and have proven to listen to feedback, even if they sometimes choose to not implement it (for usually at the very least semi-valid reasons).

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