Wow, okay. Riot, look.

inDJ·Sep 5, 2014·82 votes·4,850 views

FINAL EDIT: I wrote this when I was upset. While I still hold the views I express here, I apologise if I was crass or rude in their delivery. I would like to start a different, more meta dialogue rather than one that just involves game assets: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/miscellaneous/UIRmkYUm-riotopeli-and-tommy-gnox-groupthink-a-calm-discussion /EDIT

I'm okay with it if you think that the lore needs a rewrite.

I'm okay with it if you think that you want to give champions more agency.

I'm okay with it if you think that ending every lore entry with "and they found the Institute of War" was a bit stifling.

What I'm not okay with is if you feel like the game should be separate from the lore because it restricts the lore, because it's at the expense of giving the player agency. This is not a book. Video games are an interactive medium, and you're taking out the** interactive** part. Removing summoners from canon is a stupid idea that invalidates our presence. We're no longer influential, we hold no stake, you assume that the reason we play is because of the game mechanics alone, and so you're making a terrible decision based off that. A video game is more than what it is mechanically, and League of Legends was a game that was far more than what it was mechanically.

Sure, Uno doesn't have a story or lore to keep us playing, there are only the game mechanics, but Uno is a social game. We play it with friends and family, we play it to bond with them and to have fun with them. We don't play league to bond with our opponents or with our solo queue team mates, so if you remove our agency in this game at the expense of the champions, what do we have left?

We loved that agency because we felt involved with the game. You can't tell us that removing our feeling of involvement is a good idea for the lore, because then you're telling us that the lore is more important than us, your players.

"You're just being entitled," you might say. Okay, maybe I am.

So I'm sorry that thousands of us have sunk millions of dollars and man hours into your game and don't like being subject to your whims alone. I'm sorry that we have literally wasted parts of our lives on your game because it made us feel important. I'm sorry most of all that your team of writers feel like their idea of a better story is more important than the players' idea of a better game.

EDIT: Another thing. I think the lore team has this odd misconception that more things to read about = caring more about the characters. This simply isn't the case.

Take The Legend of Zelda, for example. Link doesn't say a word (beyond HUAAAAA) in the Zelda games, and beyond introductory cinematics we're told little of the characters in their world. Yet, look at the Zelda fanbase, they care deeply about Link and Zelda and Ganon, to some extent - not because they were given a chapter of their background stories to read, but because of how the players affect the world when they play as these characters. Sure, there might be exposition mid-way through the game, but it's more for flavour than it is necessary to comprehend the characters.

We don't need the Institute and Summoners retconned out of canon. Riot Opeli, if you truly do want us to care more about the characters, and if that's the goal of this whole retcon, then you're going about it the wrong way. We need to be made more relevant to the lore, not less. You could write an entire novel without us in it and it wouldn't matter as much as if you simply engaged us in the story, because this is a video game.

EDIT AGAIN: Have any of you played StarCraft? I remember why I started playing League now. The original StarCraft involved you, the player, as an agent in its plot. You are a part of everything unfurling: the fall of an entire species, the rise of another and everything in between. StarCraft II didn't have that. Its writing is absolute rubbish - not entirely because the player is no longer a character in the game, but definitely partly so. League offered that to me again, but now you're taking that away.

StarCraft is a paragon of interactive storytelling, StarCraft II is not. Please, if anything, follow the former in its execution, not the latter.

24 Comments

mi ramfanSep 5, 201436 votes

RPers and Fanfiction writers have done more for Riot's lore then Riot ever has or will.

KorazulSep 5, 201416 votes

True it was thanks to a poster that we found out that Lissandra is blind.

(Yes I know that a Rioter confirmed it)

LunaeonSep 7, 20145 votes

just found out she was blind xD

ZhuganSep 5, 201418 votes

It would be nice as a player to have agency within the overarching plot structure of the game instead of merely being a part of a farcical daydream that is in no way canon.

VardenSaladSep 5, 201416 votes

Pretty much this. I've never felt this strongly about the fact that years of feedback has fallen on dead ears. This means that somewhere high up the chain of command in Riot, someone said, "Lore sucks. Eject." and that's it. It's over.

MotajoSep 6, 20149 votes

Since I began playing League in 2010, Riot has never disgusted me as much as they have with this decision. This is beyond a retcon; this uproots, discards, and mocks the entire premise of the League.

My favorite character--in any work of fiction I have ever watched, read, or played--has just had her character development as good as torn away, simply because Riot was too lazy, incompetent, or stubborn (likely all three) to work with the premise they had. And they did this to an extent to every character with connections to the Institute.

I am pissed.

MaganarSep 6, 20149 votes

Was it Morgana for you too? ;_;

Whether it was or not...

Morgana was always the reasonable one to me. Kayle believed in purgation, Morgana wanted preservation of all magical arts, even those that may be termed "dark" or "black" magics. She accepted the practitioners of those arts, and moreover, allowed herself to be corrupted and to master these arts in defense of those who wished to practice them. Then she was summoned away from her world, but rather than demand to be returned and yelling "screw you!" she looked for a way to find a mutually beneficial partnership and humbled herself to be used as a servant of these summoners who were completely alien to her in exchange for the chance - just the chance - to buy her people freedom in the form of new magics that could turn the tide of the war. She became the sacrificial lamb, and I always felt so deeply attached to her for that reason. I felt I had a responsibility to the character as her summoner to not further abuse her in combat and to live up to her expectations from the summoners after she had laid herself down to be used as nothing more than merely a tool in order to sacrifice for her people and to make her service count by winning battles. I made me want to win.

Now, in lore, I, the summoner, do not exist. I have no responsibility to her or to win with her, and her lore will have to be rewritten to accommodate for no summoners to help her turn the tide of the war she was fighting. As they have down with other characters that were intended to have lores implying questionable motives in the past, they will probably now turn her into a generic baddie rather than this desperate, sacrificial angel.

Hell, even if you were referring to Kayle I'd understand your agony simply out of my own for Morgana for the above reasons. I don't have to ask you to "Feel my pain," because I know you do whoever it was you were referring to.

Morgana

I, too, am pissed. And sobbing.

MotajoSep 6, 20145 votes

It was Lux, but I have always liked both Kayle and Morgana.

Lux was released a few weeks after I had just begun playing. On her first free week, I decided to try her out, and quickly I fell in love with how nice and positive she was (not to mention having fun gameplay). Later, I read her lore and found her Judgment. It revealed her past--how she was taken away from her home and forced into completing missions for Demacia. It was a painful reminder for her, and she realized League was the only thing she had left. But despite this hardship, she kept her chin up following her Judgment. I believe her old classic splash art captured it perfectly--showing positivity with a hint of sadness, her playful and reserved nature... but I digress.

And you're right; I did feel that drive to help her win, like I had a responsibility to help give her last home some meaning and worth. Like you, I only dread what this massive retcon will mean. If her Judgment is completely tossed away, I doubt they'll take any of her depth into consideration. I fear they'll either make her into some naive child, or shallowly extrapolate her laugh and make her into a one-dimensional crazy girl. I probably don't need to state how much I hate both extremes...

When they retconned summoners, they both severed the immersion of helping a champ to victory, and stripped away Lux's character development. Riot's decision knocked the wind out of me more than any kick in the stomach ever will.

You're among like minds here.

EdasichSep 8, 20142 votes

For me, it was Varus, the last champion to receive a League Judgement.

First off, I strongly believe that in a sense, I created him. His background and subsequent descent into darkness mirrors those of an old champion concept I wrote years ago: a prodigal, esteemed warrior from Ionia broken and deranged after losing his family to Noxian encroachment, and then moved to take up dark power beyond comprehension in exchange for gradual but certain self-destruction.

Second, judging from his lore, you wouldn't think much of him except as one more anti-Noxian vendetta. But from his League Judgement, you'd know significantly more. Even as the bloodthirsty abomination he has now become, he wonders if maybe he has gone too far in trying to avenge his family and village, especially after donning the very evil he once swore to keep out of enemy hands. We may never even know what that evil was, because it may completely destroy him before he can finish his mission.

None of the lores--not even the newer ones--have that sort of depth. For the champions or the Institute of War.

SgathachSep 6, 20145 votes

I honestly never thought of Summoners as being part of the lore itself. That was OUR interactive part, so we weren't part of the history or the story, nor did we influence the outcome.

The thing that did make me sad was hearing about the Institute. I felt like that was actually an interesting mechanic (yes this is my first MOBA), and it brings into question why they're even all there for me.

What about the finding of the Nexus? What about everything Ezrael found? What about champions like Brand who are imprisoned on the Fields? How will their lore change?

These things were SO interesting to me and I really liked the concept for the game because of that. Now I feel like it'll be lost. Whatever happens, I hope they have some good content planned--not something that's just flashy.

KhodexusSep 7, 20144 votes

I can't honestly say if this decision is good or bad, but it is definitely worrisome. I joined the League of Legends, specifically because other people got me involved in the lore. I didn't do it for the game mechanics. Frankly, I think this game has alot of mechanics that just feel like RTS leftovers, not that I can see an easy way to change/fix them.

If they change the lore, and it's even better, then great. But they're taking a huge risk, because they might just lose clients like me who became invested in their game because of their engaging lore in the first place, if the new lore does not fulfill our expectations.

This decision, more than anything else I've seen since joining League of Legends, has made me want to look into other MOBAs and see if there's something better out there that's not going to just erase everything I've spent so much time and money immersing myself in.

MaganarSep 7, 20145 votes

Sadly, most other MOBAs have absolutely zero lore at all. League was different, even if they had abandoned lore and stopped adding it but what had been written was still there. That lore still made everything else new they added feel connected through the lore about this IoW and stuff. Now, there is nothing to justify the in-game combat... just like every other MOBA out there.

In short, don't expect to be impressed as you start searching elsewhere. Riot has forsaken people interested in playing MOBAs with lore, and there is no one else to turn to. We have been cast aside, and we cannot be saved unless Riot completely fixes their stance and finds some way to either retract this decision or somehow justify these in-game battles with the new lore (which they expressly stated they did not intend to do).

Earl EulrichSep 7, 20142 votes

hmm as much as i dislike EA...but dawngate is looking somewhat promising, i guess i´ll give it a try if Riot is alright with slaughtering the lore like that. They even have community-influenced story-telling in the current beta.

The setting is kinda interessting and nicely presented: http://dawngatechronicles.com/prologue/41/

Lord HuckingtonSep 8, 20143 votes

Something about EA just doesn't jive with me, after the Westwood buyout, the Mass effect fiasco, and buying of and exploiting of IP for mass cheap games. I really cannot Trust an EA title.

as for lore we all know what happened to mass effect lore happened, even the third book had to be retcon and changed.

Cameron WoofSep 6, 20143 votes

I understand your reservations, but honestly, Summoners, the League, and the Institute are and have always been a flimsy backdrop to try and justify the MOBA mechanics. No sensible story can be written about a game where Noxian Assassins and Demacian Generals play for the same team just as often as not.

If they stick to the idea of the League then big, interesting things just can't happen. When there's a group of omnipotent dudes just hanging around waiting for war to happen so that they can snap it out of existence, nothing interesting ever happens.

What does the League even accomplish? Why are these people fighting when nothing they do in said fights matter at all? "Noxus declares war on Demacia! A series of football games will take place to decide who would win in the event that an actual war were allowed to happen."

If Riot wants to break that leash and do something actually interesting with it, I'm all for it. More power to them.

KairosCrowSep 6, 20141 votes

I'd have to agree. Losing the League will be better in the long run, I hope, but we can't know for certain until they reveal what they've been working on lore-wise.

Lollop LadiesSep 7, 20143 votes

if i say the only lore that matters is draven's Draven lore can i be funny

FlemmanSep 8, 20143 votes

As they don't post here where everyone can enter the discussion (maybe they are afraid :p), here is one of the last post of the Lore team

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=49817319#49817319

(can't copy and post all the thing due to text limit? :s)

The thing that bother me in this post is that, it seems like the though Orianna without the league (just a second daughter) is a good thing. Well, in that case, why in the world did she have claws and fighting abilities if she was supposed to be like a normal girl.

There is so much small thing they seems to overlook in this new lore, I'm kind of worried of where they want to go

(the thing about champion keeping their vibe is kinda weird too as skarner switch from pacifist to ferocious beast >-<)

ploki122Sep 6, 20142 votes

Hmmmm... You probably played a fighting game like Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, Soulcaliber, Tekken or any of those... can you tell me the story of any of those characters? Because there's a lot ot them that's not explained in the game... What about Hearthstone? You do realize that every hero and cards are part of the lore and not canon... does that make the game actaully worse? You probably already heard of the game series called Star Wars? Guess what, not canon (actually, there are differences even in the movies).

Honestly, there are more examples of big franchises taking the lore outside to add more liberty to both the game and the lore than there are of the opposite.

inDJSep 6, 201412 votes

You're assuming two things.

Firstly, that the same rules apply to all games (they don't. I'm openly admitting that here.) I just think that these values should apply to this game, seeing as they did before. They're not just changing the lore, they're changing the core narrative values of the game, and that's what bothers me.

Secondly, I did not say that removing our agency as players will make the game unpopular or flip the switch in my head from "I want to play this game" to "this game sucks balls I'm never touching it again." Street Fighter and all the games you mentioned are absolutely solid fighting games, but they never previously had any connection between story and gameplay (beyond throwaway excuse plots) that the League of Legends had.

You might argue that the IoW and Summoners WERE the throwaway excuse plot (to which I disagree, seeing that the Journal of Justice fleshed out the political state of the world so well), but if that's the case, I still see no reason to pretend they never existed. Throwaway plots don't cheapen the experience of playing as characters, but I agree that they may be stifling; What I don't agree with is that instead of giving it a dignified in-canon ending, they just pressed delete and now they're gone from history.

I'm not opposed to the idea that lore and gameplay can have a disconnect, I'm opposed to the idea that they're just going to remove things they don't like at their convenience without providing adequate closure, and I'm opposed to the notion that removing us as players in the narrative would make us "care more".

VeraJonsonSep 6, 20143 votes

I completely agree

AychAychAychSep 7, 20142 votes

What is exactly the problem here if I wonder? Is it that unless Summoners are all-powerful, you cannot introduce wide array of champions to behave together that would normally not? Void monsters would be destroying the world, cats eating all the mice and so worth. I can understand this and I agree. Summoners were stupid because they were all-powerful, all powerful elements in fiction can create lopsided scenarios where nothing matters because God can intertwine and stop everything from happening, which is kinda what happened in the whole Crystal Scar storyline. War broke out, summoners and Zilean pop out a overpowered time bubble and snap the war is over.

But you took the jig too far. Just because summoners were too powerful does not mean that they are unusable. You have issues with power, not agency. So why do you not do the logical step and REDUCE THE POWER OF SUMMONERS? Just do it. Instead of being the police over the world, make Summoners into de facto entertainers slash press people. See, where Journal of Justice succeeded was that it was a window into the lives of the champions. From time after time it has been proved that people care about character personalities rather than faction power levels. Are people who watch GoT fans of the people or the kingdoms?

Make a lore explanation why ingame stuff is merely an illusion of the real deal. Summoners summon images, fakes from the stories of Champions that then battle for the amusement of the people, betting and maybe even official struggles like the old lore suggests. Would it be a queer reflection of the IRL League if Summoners were actually treated like a sport even inside the game and summoners were not old bearded wizard as much as young rock star wizards who control illusions based on famous Runeterra legends to win games and swoon hot honnies?

This way you can separate the fates of the Champions from the Institution while still keeping the narrative that the players are explained by the lore and do not feel disconnected from the story.

Also skins exists because summoners can now dress their favorite superstars in skimpy clothing even without their approval, to much disgust of some populace.

metriccyberneticDec 24, 20141 votes

Just because summoners were too powerful does not mean that they are unusable. You have issues with power, not agency. So why do you not do the logical step and REDUCE THE POWER OF SUMMONERS?

REDUCE THE POWER OF SUMMONERS? #REDUCE THE POWER OF SUMMONERS?#

/thread

JayViSep 8, 20142 votes

To me the League was created to settle little disputes/Problems that COULD turn into wars. Generals who joined were put on the same side as their enemies for minor things and this was one of the things the league said would happen if they joined so it's their fault if they dislike it. (Knowing Garen I bet he doesn't mind fighting alongside Katarina but i'm sure he hates the thought of being put with Darius) The league was also made to stop the bloodshed, like a ceasefire if you will and created to hold some more deadly champions (Like Brand) I guess this is all my speculation of how the league works. It holds people or things locked away that would harm society, let's others get revenge or atonement, and settles disputes to prevent war.

(But there still is the lingering threat of the void coming though.. would they have to get rid of all that lore too..? :c)