There Must Always Be a League

Warning to Rioters: Parts of this are very salty, but there are points I wish you to understand

Riot Lore team. I know it must be incredibly hard for you guys to read the forums right now. There is almost nothing but rage and hate spewing from them, but I'm not particularly sorry(I'm angry). You have been quiet about lore for a long time, and this development blog that you wrote was meant to answer our thirst for knowledge has only hurt us and led to more questions. You made a big statement with that blog and if you can't follow up with at least some answers in a timely fashion then you will have burned all the faith people have in you.

Okay, salty intro demanding a Rito response is over. Now to my actual point. In your dev blog you state:

"At a very broad level, we’ve decided to push League’s story beyond its original focus on explaining in-game action and forge a new narrative path for Runeterra."

and then follow it up with the statement

"League as a game is about creating awesome gameplay, while League as a story is about creating deep, vibrant characters and factions inhabiting an expansive world. We don’t want to limit story because of gameplay, just like we wouldn’t limit gameplay because of story."

In dramatic terms, if this is your core philosophy to narrative development, I don't know why you are working at Riot [I]Games[/I]. As part of Riot's Narrative development team it is your job to explain how in-game actions affect the world in which the game is set(Runeterra).Once that relationship between gameplay and Runeterra has been established, you can then further develop the world of Runeterra by exploring how gameplay actions affect Runeterra(Ionia vs Noxus), or by simply exploring the world of Runeterra itself and its history (where do Poros come from and why are they so fluffy?). As of late you have been exclusively using the second option, and that was fine, [I]because you were building upon an already established gameplay to Runterra connection[/I]. So I was only excited for the added depth to character relations, but now I can't be excited about what things you are developing because I have no basis for where they are coming from. Now you have just freed yourselves, and your characters to tell better stories, by removing the players from any involvement in your precious narrative. By simply removing the League's existance without any replacement as you have done, you have stated that the players are a hindrance to your work, and you are not willing to deal with that hindrance any longer, and saying "You can still pretend that annoying summoner's and silly League of Legends still exists, but we are upgrading to new adult stories now"(condescending words added) does not make you actions any less cold.

In addition, your own work contradicts your words. If the gameplay of League of Legends is completely divorced from its story, why have you put so much effort into creating the Ascension gamemode to go along with your development of the Shurima story? Why is WookieeCookie so excited at the possibility of a void invasion mode? It's because you guys know inherently that the biggest lore excitement is generated when lore and gameplay collide. When did the Shadow Isle's get a lore boon, when the Twisted Treeline was revamped. When did people get excited about the cold North, when Murder Bridge became the Howling Abyss. Half the reason I choose the Winter's Claw over the Avarosan, with whom I more morally align, was because of how much I played the champions of the Winter's Claw (Udyr,Sejuani,and Volibear too stronk). Those were just little icons with a tiny bit of gameplay attached, but the got everyone invested in lore and what in the world the three tribes of the north were. Hell, despite having to use the JoJ, I think the Crystal Scar's release was an amazing triumph(R.I.P my dear Dominion) for both lore and gameplay. It didn't matter how clunky things were (Oh Dominion, I still dream of you sometimes) the fact that you worked the lore into a map and a champion all in one stroke made me that much more excited to explore the wonderful world that you created.  You've put history into every other map.Don't sell yourselves short with the map that started this whole adventure  So look at your own work, at your own excitement for that work and you will see that tying the world of Runeterra to the place where I grind for ELO and IP makes both much more exciting.

But even if the League of Legends must always be, it must not always be the same League. I have seen a few good ideas in the forum (I'll hunt down the source later). One idea that I like, turns the League from a current organization into an entity near the end of time. Instead of dictating current events they are merely reliving history for their own purposes. Perhaps so they will never forget it. A lesson [B]everyone[/B] should learn. There are plenty of ways to make sense of a League of Legends without hindering the stories of its champions. It doesn't matter how you do it, but there must always be a League in which Legends clash, what there eventual fate is is up to you.

tl;dr If there is no League of Legends connecting gameplay to the world of Runeterra there is no reason for players to be connected to the lore that you write no matter how deep and awesome it is.

P.S. I posted this in the Lore Forums, but they are trolling me and I have no idea if it worked