I'd like Azir 200% more if he'd shut up.

^

Riot has decided that the more oooh and aaah they put into characters, the deeper the character is. Big-time no-no mistake made by elementary writers. I used to think exactly that way in early high school, then I took writing courses and read more books and, in particular, more of the true classics of literature. That's all it took to realize "cool" is not "deep." This is really not good when I of all people, a science major that is only a writing hobbyist, have to point out a mistake made by "elementary writers."

They made a guy who is super obsessed with his empire and goes crazy over it, a pretty cool concept. He also is utterly shallow about how he obsesses over it. He just rants about it and even though he more or less rose from the dead, he doesn't even bat an eyelash at that or have a single line of VO (that I've run across at least) that mentions his thoughts on being fricking resurrected because he seems so obsessed with SHURIMA FTW that he can't even stop to think for a second "Wait... did I just come back from the dead? Wtf?"

This is Riot's entire idea for their new "lore." It's catchy, it's cool, it's got Las Vegas lights on it to draw you in... and there's nothing there. Like Las Vegas though, they will still happily take your money. For example, I was blown away with the epicness of it when "A New Dawn" came out; then I watched the behind the scenes and was struggling not to die laughing when they were going on and on about how this was "story-telling" and they were "developing" the characters and giving us a "connection" to those characters. Woah, wait what? There was no story in that cinematic; it was a random brawl. There was no development; the characters were skilled fighers, some of which had a couple interesting quirks but nothing more to distinguish them. And lastly, there is no connection to them watching them fight; that's what we get from mentally roleplaying and feeling like a summoner that delves into the intricacies of their minds immersing ourselves in their very essence and - oh wait, never mind, we don't do that anymore. We don't even exist.

So, essentially, Antipath: expect a lot more of this. Their entire new approach to producing new content for the game for the last few months has been entirely consistent with this pattern and they finally came out with their big reveal announcement that they are re-approaching the way they make new content... and it was merely a confession that they will not go back to actually interesting creative work. At first I was apologetic as I criticized them, but their total unwillingness to address these concerns publicly other than to just say "Give it a chance; we think you'll like it in the end" (hell no) has been utterly dishearteningly and I'm not going to sugarcoat my appraisals of the quality of their work anymore. What you see written here is what I think. Summary? League is a game that is already full of really awesome, creative, and inspired content - just don't expect them to make any more. The new content they continue to make is going to be unimpressive. This is solely in terms of deep characters, though. The other teams (namely, not the "lore?" team) have been doing a great job lately. To use and example that I think most people can all agree on: reworked Sion looks like a fascinating re-envisioning of old Sion with great aesthetics (kudos to art department), fun gameplay (kudos to game design department), and a story limited to "I died but was too useful so I was turned into a bloodthirsty bio-weapon of a zombie that sort of find my old self again if I rip people apart" (a really cool concept that I suspect will end up getting another completely shallow delivery, kudos of the deficient "story" department).

But we need more champ dialog to tell the lore we won't write -Riot 2014

So much this it hurts... SHURIMA

"WOW RITO DOTA2 HAS TONS OF VOICE ACTING WHY CANT WE GET CHAMPS WITH 10 MINUTES OF VO WORK!?"

"ok sure here you go"

"WOW WTF RIOT AZIR TALKS TOO MUCH"

Make up your mind guys

Having a lot of lines is great.

having a guy with a lot of lines repeat the word "shurima" over and over and over and over and OVER, is not.

Nyx Assassin or whatever (the purple girl with the traps) whenever she says revelations there's something about the way she says it that really bothers me.

"WOW RITO DOTA2 HAS TONS OF VOICE ACTING WHY CANT WE GET CHAMPS WITH 10 MINUTES OF VO WORK!?"

"ok sure here you go"

"WOW WTF RIOT AZIR TALKS TOO MUCH"

Make up your mind guys

There's a difference between the "joke" and "taunt" dialogues (which the player activates) and the automatic dialogue that champions say every time you right click or whatever.

"WOW RITO DOTA2 HAS TONS OF VOICE ACTING WHY CANT WE GET CHAMPS WITH 10 MINUTES OF VO WORK!?"

"ok sure here you go"

"WOW WTF RIOT AZIR TALKS TOO MUCH"

Make up your mind guys

I'd rather have just a few lines than have my champion spout exposition every couple seconds. Azir doesn't even imply stuff; he just fucking blurts it. There's no mystery.

"Shurima will return. Shurima is awesome. I'm from Shurima. Shurima is a desert."

That's because those two are fucking nuts!

Once, my friends and I made a 5-man-Demacia team. The rules:

1. Only people who mention Demacia in their voice lines. Garen, Jarvan and Lux were obligatory
2. Every time you killed somebody, scored an assist or got killed by the enemy team you had to write "DEMACIA!" into the all-chat
3. During the game, in the Teamspeak channel, the only word you were allowed to say was "Demacia", though you were allowed to use all the syllables of that word in any order and change your pronounciation to convey emotions (Dema, Dema, Demacia!), basically like a Pokemon.

Well said.

Those puns are amazing Now accept our onion haired bloody savior All thoese puns are definitely A positive

Well, he is emperor after all.

At least it's not as groan-inducing as Vlad's blood puns.

Would you say their blood-curdling?

SHURIMA!!!!

Did someone say SHURIMA??!?