Boards›[ARCHIVED] Miscellaneous

Here's something Riot doesn't seem to understand.

Forlier··31 votes·2,448 views

Forum link: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=49757471

Besides the Summoners, the Fields of Justice and the Institute of War, your lore is meh. Simply meh. There are little to no original ideas in it, it's mostly cliché after cliché after cliché. There was a time when you were all about subverting clichés. In those times, perhaps Riven was a secret disciple to Yasuo's master, and she murdered him because he was going to sell out the temple to Noxus. But those times are past.

Tell me, what's unique about Frejlord? Demacia? Noxus? Noble-Warrior-Race-land, Typical-Honor-Before-Reason country, and ******bag-City, with a taste of Social Darwinism. Piltover's punk city, making it every city in every steampunk setting ever. Zaun's "THE DANGERZZ OF TECHNOLOGY GUYZZ!!1!1!" without any proper positive given to them besides "In it Zac was born". The only unique nation is Bandle City, home of the Yordles, who by themselves are every dwarf cliché combined into one furry package.

You know what made this tasteless, paper-maché disgrace of a story worth a damn? The Institute of War, and the unique social-political consequences it brought. It is such a good, interesting idea, with so much to explore in it. But now? Why would we care what happens in this game? Why should we care about bland, unoriginal city-states and the people which they represent?

This is a huge mistake, one which will destroy the already-diminished lore fanbase you had. You took a great, unique feature on your game (Lore which, unlike DotA2, was actually cool, interesting, and worth a damn) and took one giant dump in it. So congratulations Riot, for ruining your own work.

25 Comments

oddeyeoval10 votes

I agree with you on all the IoW stuff, but I have to disagree with the point that Demacia and Noxus are static, flat places. First read Lux's League Judgement. Then tell me that Demacia is a generic place. Noxus, okay, we can agree. I think Zaun is a fantastic place to write a story, and it has its good and bad sides, just like any facet of industry. I think that all these places have the potential to grow and expand as the game does, and the interactions with the IoW make it even more exciting. Yeah, cliche worlds do exist, but they are that way for a reason. Not every writer can come up with a world that is totally unique and original. The worlds are made more interesting by the characters and figures that live in them and give them depth. Just give a bit of credit to the world that exists.

Garlyle Wilds3 votes

The worlds are made more interesting by the characters and figures that live in them and give them depth.

This is exactly it. The parts of League that are interesting, lore-wise to me, are not intricately, irreversibly connected to the Institute. The champions themselves are what gives League personality and identifiability to me. That's not going anywhere.

Doctor Ivellius8 votes

But League Judgments are non-canon, so we can't take that as an indication of what Demacia is like anymore.

Motajo2 votes

But League Judgments are non-canon, so we can't take that as an indication of what Demacia is like anymore.

Oh, even if uprooting the entire premise of League didn't piss off enough people, touching anything with Lux is only going to incite more rage. If Riot ever gets around to actually retconning everyone, shifting their gaze to Lux will instantly cause a mass of anger to coagulate from the walls. That anger likely wouldn't amount to anything, but we can hope, right? ...Right?

SecretAgentHulk1 votes

I think you're missing a delicate point. While the League may be no longer non-canon, that doesn't mean the world-building isn't. I don't think Demacia is going to change just because Lux's judgment is no longer canon; Riot will simply have to make other ways to show us the same Demacia.

Donovan Du Bois2 votes

I think you're missing a delicate point. While the League may be no longer non-canon, that doesn't mean the world-building isn't. I don't think Demacia is going to change just because Lux's judgment is no longer canon; Riot will simply have to make other ways to show us the same Demacia.

That's the problem, Demacia is super boring and cliche. It is not unique, but the people who make that place their home makes it interesting.

Doctor Ivellius1 votes

No, but literally all their world-building focused on the League of Legends, so without it being canon we have no way of knowing what things are still true and what aren't. They can say "we want to keep the same characters" (whatever that means), but everything has changed and we don't know what's left.

And there's certainly a difference between a Demacia that sees how bad the world is and wants to arrange an alliance to restrict the use of magic versus one that doesn't.

Arkna3 votes

It's literally just a reworked Imperium of Man from WH40k. Military dictatorship that prides itself on tradition, order, and magnificent/awe inspiring visuals? Check. It's not the only parallel either, just look at the void. And while the steel legion/commando skin lines aren't really canon, they clearly show the source of their inspiration (Grey Knights and Imperial Guardsmen).

MrSc0tty7 votes

No, much like a lot of the work of the relaunch team and the splash art update team, it's not about destroying your own work, it's about not seeing someone else's work as valuable.

Look at Karma or Trundle. The entire vision of whoever created them got thrown out because they weren't popular enough and anyone who liked them was just labeled as wrong. Look at the new splash arts for Vayne, Sivir, Garen, Nasus...there's just some artist who thinks conveying a characters personality in the art isn't important and everyone needs to look AWESOME instead (and he has a ten year olds concept of awesome.)

The lore team is just doing the same thing. Oops , too much work to fit within these constraints, better change everything.

Gespens5 votes

Old Trundle's lore had no connection to anything. At all. Even if it did, Trundle's story was complete and there was no way to expand on it.

MrSc0tty8 votes

Yeah? You know who else's lore had no connection to anyone when they were the only representative of that faction?

Teemo.

Blitzcrank.

Ashe.

Nasus.

Caitlyn.

Gespens3 votes

Trundle didn't even have a connection to his own faction, if you read his Judgement. He is offered by summoners to cure both him and his tribe, but Trundle is more like 'Nah, let them suffer.'

MrSc0tty6 votes

Gosh you don't think that might set him up as a great villain for another heroic character from that faction? You know like they did with Viktor? Give him a hero of the troll people dedicated to ending the curse, confront him with someone from the past, maybe a female troll as an old flame. See where that goes-oops, sorry now he's the Ice Troll. But he's connected, see ! You can tell he's connected because he says Freljord in his VO and his color scheme is the approved Ice Blue and his weapon is super secret mystical rare True Ice (which every Freljord champion has a big ass chunk of somewhere.)

Gespens5 votes

Except the entire thing about Trundle's old lore was that he was the strongest troll (in terms of regeneration) of his tribe. To make a hero from his tribe after he took all of their curses upon himself would not make any sense since they were supposed to be incredibly weak and lost all of their regenerative power. Since you know... Trundle was a representative of his specific tribe of trolls.

So when you have Trundle bogarting the power of his tribe... how can you have anything else from it? You can't give him a rival from the tribe, since they'd just get blown away by some harsh winds. Can't make it someone else from another faction because making Trundle into a straight up mustache-twirling villain would be even more offensive than this current lore. Hell, even viktor's lore painted him to be a brilliant mind driven mad by the promise of aesthetic and functional perfection. Don't go saying 'VIKTOR IS AN ANTI-VILLAIN GUYS!' No. No he isn't.

I'm not saying that Riot's new direction is any good. The True Ice thing has the stupid problem of 'The weapon makes the hero.' At least in Trundle's case though, it actually works since it fits perfectly with his fighting style of 'smack it till it breaks.' I mean, he has an unbreakable weapon, right? An unbreakable club, right? It really is a matter of who is the strongest when it comes to that... doesn't make True Ice any better though (Looking at you Ashe).

The fact of the matter is, Troll King Trundle's lore of tying him to the Freljord was probably one of the best decisions that could have been done with Riot's lore at the time. It gives him direct relations to the other characters in the league, without needing others to be made in the future (What happened to Kassadin's daughter? Or Irelia's brother?).

Vongeo3 votes

How about, idk the Bonecrafter Evil necromancer guy who both has a name a unique form of magic and incentive to kill. If you read the JoJ or the judgement closely you'd see the direction. The summoner tells trundle the tribe is doomed regardless of what he does and he can only help them temporarily. People don't get that after he saves them he is rejected again. There are so many directions you can take without deleting a rejected savior in favor of a generic Ice troll

333lom8 votes

Riot obviously thinks that just making all champs wear matching outfits, and say the same lines, depending on which of the ~7 parts of the world they come from makes great lore. They should be using their imagination instead of scrapping everything and doing a repaint of now empty characters.

Doctor Ivellius7 votes

Which is an awesome personality hook, by the way. That's good storytelling.

Dies to Wolves9 votes

Look at Karma or Trundle. The entire vision of whoever created them got thrown out because they weren't popular enough and anyone who liked them was just labeled as wrong.

it's funny because recently meddler stated

Some concepts are naturally going to have broad appeal, others niche, and that's something we're fine with. Generally though we're looking to make characters that appeal deeply to some people, rather than characters that appeal a bit to almost everyone.

when the whole reason they "reworked" (killed) Trundle was because he wasn't popular enough

Old Trundle's lore had no connection to anything. At all. Even if it did, Trundle's story was complete and there was no way to expand on it.

oh yes, good thing they expanded new trundle's lore so much, right? And by the way, his story wasn't complete. He just didn't have an active quest or something like that. It's like he finished an arc in his story, but rather than giving him a new arc (new motivations / objectives based on something else happening), riot decided to simply scrap him out and create a lame ass ice troll with the same name

I honestly feel like Riot just did this shitty reboot now to get back at people complaining about their new lore sucking.

Kitae used to say "just you guys wait, we got a big surprise coming for you! We just can't tell yet, but we have big news about lore!". Turns out their big surprise was removing lore from the game.

If that's a joke, it's really un-tasteful, riot.

Gespens4 votes

Yordles are gnomes. Just saying. A cliche dwarf would be all like 'FUCK YEAH! LETS WORK WITH METALAND MAKE AWESOME WEAPONS!' when you have only one known hamp like this (Poopy).

PhailRaptor2 votes

Piltover does take this to an extent, because a significant population of Yordles left Bangle City to live in Piltover, chief among them being Heimer. True, Piltover has a lot more actual science involved than the sterotypical dwarven setting, but that same component is still there wearing different clothes.

Stephenizgod2 votes

Nothing is really original if you think about it, and as long as they make the Lore interesting it should not matter how they change it. I think everyone needs to calm down and wait, you don't know how it will turn out yet. Unless you can tell the future, can you? No i think not so you have no clue whether you will like it or not. Remember what they say about when you "assume", because you are going to feel foolish when it turns out you really love what they did with the Lore.

Voicing concerns is good, its what Riot wants, shows them what was popular and that they did a good job in certain areas. This straight up crying and whining though is not helpful, it is actually hurtful to what they are doing, and it is useless because they are going to do it regardless of whether you throw a tantrum on their forums or not.

So my advice would be to calm down and wait for more Dev Blogs, if there is something you are concerned with then let them know why in a rational way.

SecretAgentHulk1 votes

I'm SecretAgentHulk, and I approve this message.

Athryil1 votes

Originality is a lie. If you look hard enough, someone has always done it before. Our ideas are simply a combination of others' ideas that we had experienced. People play this game for the GAME, not the story behind it. You should be grateful that they have a team that goes to great lengths to add this dimension of lore to the game.

PhailRaptor4 votes

But the only reason I like(d) this game was because it had a compelling story behind it that drew me to it in the first place.

And not everyone plays games to just mash the buttons. Some of us freaks actually like to learn about the characters and the world we are mashing the buttons in.

SerBlaise1 votes

Noxus is basically ancient sparta, with a twist of evil and machinations. But I wouldn't call it cliche, or any of them too cliche. I think the problem is we just don't know enough about them yet. There is so much potential. I don't know that removing the League of Legends is necessary to expand on the factions, but I really would like to learn more about Noxus, Ionia, Demacia, etc.

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