Has Riot ever taken a champion concept?

Chromatic Eagle·Jan 12, 2015·2 votes·1,059 views

Not to discourage people, if anything I like reading ideas, but has it ever happened? Think it happened with Braum right?

27 Comments

AbominateJan 12, 20153 votes

Quinn was one

The person even got the champion/ skin for free because they pointed it out

Chromatic EagleJan 12, 20151 votes

Oh wow that's great! Grats to the person.

HoffmiscJan 12, 20151 votes

I don't think that happened...

I'm pretty sure there would have been a bit more... "publicity" had that been the case.

But as far as i'm aware no fan-made champion has ever been released by Riot.

As for Braum his character was inspired by a fan made concept but if you look it up, isn't that similar at all.

VesarixxJan 13, 20151 votes

There could have been, Quinn has been out for a while now.

HoffmiscJan 13, 20151 votes

Riot has stated that Quinn was originally a melee only character slowly evolving to what she is now. If you can find solid proof that Quinn was made by a fan than please link it to me because that is something I want to see. But until then: http://www.newsoflegends.com/index.php/tag/riot-quinn/

And: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=46663371#46663371

VesarixxJan 13, 20151 votes

I started league after quinn was already released, can't help you there, my point was that if there was some publicity for it at the time it would have probably faded from peoples memories by now.

HoffmiscJan 13, 20152 votes

I understand what you meant its just that if there is a slight thematic similarity between a champion and a concept people feel inclined to immediately claim that Riot made their champion. Unless it come from Riot you can't really trust it.

TheRatsInTheWallJan 13, 20151 votes

I was playing when Quinn was released, and I followed the news pretty regularly. There was no publicity that suggested a fan made Quinn. That doesn't mean it didn't happen though. I wasn't on the forums then.

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

Didn't Braum start as a female Piltover mechanic? That champion went through a lot of iteration to become what we see today.

HoffmiscJan 13, 20151 votes

I have absolutely no idea where you got that...

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

Well, here's part: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-skins/8Omcbq3X-braum-qa-art-sound-completed?comment=00090000

He actually started off as a female support character.

I'm sure the rest is buried around somewhere, but it's at least enough to show the character wasn't always a manly man.

HoffmiscJan 13, 20151 votes

I feel like that just reinforces the fact that Braum wasn't made by a fan.

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

Skim the rest of the Red posts on that thread, they list what inspired his final design. The concept you mention wasn't part of the list.

HoffmiscJan 13, 20151 votes

Again, I feel like that's just more proof.

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

Sorry, miss understood what point you were making.

We both agree that Riot goes through their own process to make champions, and doesn't really rely on the boards. I thought your last post was implying that at least the macho man look was fan inspired.

junglerboy16Jan 13, 20152 votes

Surprise party Fiddlesticks was taken directly from a community post. They generally don't take whole concepts from the forums, but they sort of sift through and say "Huh, that ability sounds really cool, maybe we can implement it better in this champion design we have going." or "We don't have anyone who fills the Earth mage archetype, I like the general idea here, lets make something cool out of it!". Braum got taken from the idea for a giant mustachioed manly man who defends people (very popular idea before his release), Azir got developed from the original concept of Nasus and Renekton having a third brother, and there are probably several other concepts that got taken at least in part from the forums.

For me, these champion/skin concept boards are just a thing I use for a creative outlet for my ideas. Understanding how to design a champ (through trial and error along with feedback from other players) actually REALLY helps with understanding how champs in the game itself function, and I am better at League because of it.

Gear KittyJan 13, 20152 votes

Yes, and it's the whole reason we have LoL.

http://www.reddit.com/r/DOTA/comments/12zjm6/access_to_the_old_dotaallstarscom_to_be_restored/c70dlon (if you don't want to bother with the link and trip into history, Pendragon helped make LoL by yoinking ideas from the DotA All Stars community boards AND shutting them down at the same time)

((It's actually a little fun going through and reading the replies))

To answer the Braum question, there was a long running Champion concept for a manly man to join the Fields of Justice who only used his fists, named Angus. Moustache required.

IceKingChernobogJan 12, 20151 votes

no i don't think so, which kinda discourages me from even pitching a champion concept even though i want to

KenpachiKenshinJan 12, 20151 votes

If you look for Gnar, there was some guy on the EU forums wayyyyyyyyyyy back that proposed it.
He proposed the name, yordle race and snow theme.

I don't know of others but I'm pretty confident there will be community suggested gameplay (champions or abilities) in the game by now.

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

There were two or three characters concepts that bounced around the name "Gnar" that got linked to around that time. That's not much of an inspiration for a champion, that's more a coincidence.

KenpachiKenshinJan 13, 20152 votes

It would have been a coincidence if only the name coincided. When the race and the lore tie in... It stops being a coincidence :P

DrCyanideJan 13, 20151 votes

Human, yordle, shadow isles resident, other. I'd be prone to agree if Gnar was from the 'other' category, but he's from one of the most wanted races in the game. Still a coincidence.

All I remember about the old Gnar concept you mentioned is it reminded me if a miniature Nunu yeti, white fur and everything. Pretty sure it had a similar ability to ice ball too.

This community spits out enough ideas that eventually something is going to look similar. Looking similar is not the same thing as inspiring Riot to make it.

I think the biggest proof here is (to the best of my knowledge) Riot never said "yup! This concept inspired us! Keep sending them in!". There is a good chance the Gnar team didn't know about the concept until after Gnar was teased/released when the community pointed it out.

As a point of comparison, how many concepts do you think you could find for a human champion that used two guns and hunted evil things? That's Lucian, race, character design, and lore, but there concept isn't unique enough nor is it plausible to think that only that champion concept made by that fan was what turned into Lucian.

KenpachiKenshinJan 13, 20151 votes

I'm not going to disagree any further, this isn't a productive conversation. Just one thing for food for though and I'm stopping this.

If you want to determine the probability of an event happening (case #1), you'd come up with a measurement or estimate. If you want to determine the probability of said event happening, plus another, unrelated event (case #2), you'd get a much lower number than your previous estimate. If you were to factor in a third, unrelated event, you'd get an even lower estimate (case #3). If the possibility of the event occuring is unlikely [look at (1)], you can say that it didn't occur due to a coincidence but out of a certain causality. But you can't be sure since it can truly be a random instance. So you can brush it off as a coincidence. Now, if a second unlikely event were to happen [look at (2)], you are more certain by claiming that the occurence is not random. If three unlikely, unrelated yet controlable events were to occur together, then you are almost certain that the this occurence is not random [look at (3)].

Now, in our case these would be: (1) : Name (1), (2) : Name, Race (1), (2), (3) : Name, Race, Theme Even if we attributed a 50-50 chance to get each of these I would be 7 times more likely to be right than you. And these are NOT 50-50 chances.

About your question. You are implying Gnar's concept isn't unique enough. You are talking about an extremely generic concept that can be easily conceived as a champion design. So it's not unlikely at all.
Here's one for you. Lets make a champion concept. Ermmmm his name is Borgueon. He's a water-bending dwarf-orc hybrid. How likely is it for another person to conceive the name, theme and race?

DrCyanideJan 14, 20151 votes

That name with that race alone would be very unlikely.

League has Human, Yordle, Undead, and Void as it's major races. You have a 1/4 chance there. As already stated, if it was a race other than those, it would dramatically increase the odds of it being the inspiration for Gnar.

Name is slightly a better indicator for most concepts. The reason it falls apart in Gnar's case is because gnar is in the dictionary. It means to snarl or growl, and was likely picked as Gnar's name because of his Mega Gnar growl.

As for theme.... http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4609331 Gnar, the mutant mole/worm. Designed as a top/jungler. Abilities include smashing the ground in front of him, leaping into the air before smashing down on enemies, and his ultimate transforms him. Came out a month or two before Gnar was released.

http://forums.euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=803767 Gnar, the Yordle. Entire kit is based around using ice, with none of his abilities resembling Gnar's. Came out two years before Gnar.

Both of these could be counted as being tied to Gnar's theme, one fitting his abilities, one having been frozen for sometime. Depending on who you talk to, both could count as having aspects of Gnar's theme, even though they are nothing alike other than the name.

It's worth pointing out that both concepts are missing something "core" to Gnar. The first one I posted misses the race, the second one misses anything remotely tied to Gnar's lore or kit other than "snow, at some point" (worth pointing out that the person posting the concept had no idea about the lore, and his tie to snow was entirely in the kit). 2/3 for both in my book. If you have a different link, I'd very much like to see it.

KenpachiKenshinJan 14, 20151 votes

You are not right about the 4 races, that's not all there is to it.

On the one hand, League does indeed have "Human", "Undead", "Monster", "Yordle". But the human champion roster is represented by and divided in Leagues factions - Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, Bilgewater, Piltover, Zaun, Freljord, Shurima, Mount Targon, The Great Barrier, The Voodoo Lands, Urtistan, Unspecificied Regions, and "Human" is replaced by "Factions".

On the other hand, there are creatures that are not human (Twitch, Evelynn, Anivia, Shaco, Nocturne, Rengar, Aatrox, Morgana, Ryze, Kayle, Fiddlesticks, Rammus, Malphite, Skarner, Maokai, Alistar, Brand, Volibear, Blitzcrank, Galio, Fizz, Nami, Orianna, Shyvanna, Trundle, Zac, Ahri, Zyra, Wukong, Soraka, Jax, and you could add Nasus, Azir, Renekton, Sion, Nautilus, Warwick, Elise, Cassiopeia and Amumu there, even Valor, Willump (Nunu's Yeti)) but cannot be put into the Human, Undying, Voidborn or Yordle category. (Some of those even have affiliations to factions!)

That's 31-41 champions, depending on what you count, that are not in one of those categories.

So it's basically Human Factions [Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, ...., ], Undying, Voidborn, Yordle and Unspecified that Riot draws from. Thus the probability is not 1/4 for Human, SI, Void or Yordle champions. It is true that a release from one cluster increases the likelihood that the other clusters will be represented in the next release increases.

Truth is, I was completely unaware of the second concept.

It looks like every ability of the second kit somehow resembles Gnars current abilities (transformation, leap, smash, tankiness) but they actually only represent 3 of his 8 abilities. Riot has stated that a full kit takes around 4-6 months to get developed and Xelnath has displayed the ability to code abilities in less than a day. Though I can be wrong, I think that everything was set by the first thread and some parts of the second kit made their way in the final kit.

DrCyanideJan 14, 20151 votes

While there certainly are other races in Runeterra, the basic four are still Human, Voidborn, Undying, and Yordle. I was trying to point out that picking one of these four (as oppose to "Animated Scarecrow" or "Rock monster") is pretty generic. Unless you're trying to be extra fancy with the character, you're most likely going to pick one of those four. If Gnar had been a Mutant Mole, then I think we could hands down say he was inspired by a champion concept.

Factions are indeed a refining factor, and I think a significant one. I don't stumble onto the champion concepts area very often, so I don't know how often these are mentioned in concepts. I don't think all faction participation is created equal, however. It's one thing for a Human to be a Noxian, it's a completely different thing for a Yordle to be a Noxian. If a concept called for a Voidborn aligned with Noxus, and a champion came out that was that way, I'd be seriously thinking the two are connected.

I guess all in all where we're differing is it seems like you're looking at all of these factors as being weighted equally, while I look at certain factors (a specific race, for example) as being weighed differently than others.

Isn't it nifty how close the second concept is? I could never understand how people thought the snow yordle was the source behind Gnar after reading both.

I think it came out too close to the release of Gnar on the PBE to be an influence in Gnar's creation. I think what happened was someone sat down and thought "what can I have a big, hulking monster do?", and came up with smashing things and jumping on things. It just so happened that the team responsible for Gnar thought a big, hulking monster should do the same things. The transformation mid jump was likely inspired by Transformers in both cases (or, at the least, similar transformations done by Hollywood).

I think the second concept honestly deserved more attention than it got. Even if it wasn't the inspiration for the final version of Gnar, the fact that the characters came out so similar implies that the person who made it went through a very similar process to what Riot does.

TheRatsInTheWallJan 13, 20151 votes

So I have two things to say about this:

It is said in the writing world that the easiest way to ensure something doesn't happen in a novel is to ask the author to do it. Modern authors are terrified of copyright claims. Riot is probably in a similar boat. and 2. I'm fairly certain Battle Bunny Riven was fan-made, which means 1. is probably wrong.