Really. All props to you guys, this had been one of the best stories I have ever read, and what you guys did with Gankplank.....just wow! Congrats guys, you held up to your word, delivering a top notch lore event that will be remembered by all
RiotRiotJaredan82 votesThank you very much from everyone on the team. It means a lot.
Pyro16 votesSome context about the clip above:
"Congratulations" is an iconic final scene of the show Neon Genesis Evangelion. The showmakers have ran out of time and money, and could not deliver a proper finale, airing a confusing clip show that delved deep into the psyche of the main character, ending with this scene. This only added to a complete mindfuck that this psychological thriller has delivered beforehand, but luckily the popularity of the show has blown out of proportion and the studio was able to release the ending alternative to the last two episodes, called End of Evangelion.
By itself the scene is... cheesy and confusing. In context, it's just absurd - watching NGE is like staring at a series of Rorscharch inkblots while on LSD.
MrBuffington5 votesI watched both endings and neither one really made a whole lot of sense to me. I know they're redoing/remade the show as a series of movies, but haven't watched them yet
Solaxo21 votesI hope we'll see more lore outside the events
RiotRiotJaredan44 votesYou will.
Pyro12 votesWe're happy. We, the lore whiners, are having a loregasm. Job well done. You're four years late, but what's done is done. If we get one or two events this size a year, we're sort of satisfied. However, we're looking forward to the "outside of events" lore as well. Some people are extremely focused on singular characters and wish to see something about them every once in a while.
For example, I'm a Brand main, with a soft spot for Leona, Shyvana, and the other Demacians. All I know about my favourite champion is that he was imprisoned by the Demacians and he knew more about the Institute of War than the summoners let him tell to the Journal of Justice. That was years ago. Any hint on Brand's development, or even Demacia in general, would be great. That's the sort of periodical insight we've been missing since the JoJ.
Keep up the good work. Hope you're having as much fun as we do! :D
Ikikaea6 votesCareful what you wish for, or Riot will disable Brand for a week...
Nefas14 votesI'm sure that I'll take plenty of flak and downvotes for this, but I'm posting it anyways.
The whole thing with GP being disabled for days still leaves me with an awful taste in my mouth. Even with the essentially free skin. It was so unnecessary with far better options available that achieve the same end goal, such as enabling only his spooky skin. So thoughtless towards players who main him in ranked. So intrusive when Riot had made such a big deal in the retcon about lore not interfering with gameplay. Why did you think that it was the only way for the event to work? I'm not looking forward to future lore events now. I'm only apprehensive towards what 'great, new idea' Riot will have for delivering lore that arbitrarily restricts players. That's what I will remember about this event. Not the stories, music, and so on, which should be the focus.
TheFirstGokun10 votes5 days, one week after his rework. You couldn't go 5 days without playing Gangplank in Ranked? If you were a Riven main I might understand, because they can't play anything else, but really? 5 days of no GP ruined this assload of epicness for you?
They deliberately lowered your expectations, made you take a little dip, let you down for a second, just to RISE OUT OF THE ASHES VICTORIOUS AND LOOKING FLY AS F#CK. In my opinion, that doesn't detract from the experience, that makes it SO MUCH BETTER. Imagine your friends tell you you're too old for a birthday party for a week before your birthday, only to throw you a massive surprise party. Is it really so bad that you felt kinda bad for a week when THIS is what you get as a payoff?
Oysteroth14 votesDude we all knew he was alive. It was extremely obvious. We just didn't know how they were going to bring him back. We also didn't care, we just wanted to play as him.
Nefas6 votesThey didn't lower my expectations. No one actually thought they were permanently disabling GP.
I would think that my friends were assholes. Surprise doesn't enhance anything for me. The crap feeling from my friends telling me they don't want to hang out with me on my birthday isn't made up with any surprise. But let's say I knew they were throwing the party and said something about it to one of them. They go on saying that we aren't going to hang out on my birthday and keep saying it for days and days. That's just being shitty.
And if I'm being honest I'm pretty indifferent about the skin, artistically .
LeeDark9 votesNo, it was just a lie. They wanted idiots like you to believe they might actually Game of Thrones this shit, when the rest of us KNEW that was never going to happen. "OMG HE IZ REAL DED! RIOT NARATIV ROX!" No. He was never going to be dead, and people maining him is why. Yes, that applies EVEN DESPITE THE FACT that the game is no longer actually connected to the lore.
This event only proves that to be true.
KatCraft4 votesHonestly if a championed I mained got the sick amount of lore and attention Gangplank has, I wouldn't give two shits about not being able to play him for a few days.
Sythriel Draken11 votesI am honestly excited and scared for the next event.. Please don't hurt my babies 
:D
RiotRiotJaredan17 votesWe would never do such a thing. Unless it was really cool. Ok, strike my first statement.
I don't want to talk about where we'll go next as there are so many possibilities. Also, it assumes we'll go somewhere because of an Event. That's not necessarily the case.
Hiemdol9 votesI have really loved this lore event. It was an awesome change of pace to League in many ways, but this statement is scary to me. What constitutes cool to the lore team may or may not be cool to the people playing these champions.
Lets say they have a Piltover event where Jinx Caitlyn and Vi all 'die' in an explosion. I would be out my two best ADCs and my most played jungler. True that I would have 123 other champions to play, but even if they were only disabled for a week I would effectively be banned from ranked for that week. That is not immersive, just annoying.
Another perspective to look at it from is a new player. Players from the level ranges of 5-20 have not yet played enough to have a diversified champion pool. Any newer player with a champion the lore team has disabled for the 'cool factor' now might have a significant portion of their champion pool disabled. Hardly an incentive to keep playing if they find Riot will just take away their champions for no better reason than lore they have not yet played enough to be invested in.
This kind of thinking also disregards the financial aspects of lore disabled champions. Skins cost money. At any point in Riots history when a player acquires a skin it is done so with the knowledge they will have access to it from then on with the standing exception of being when a champion is selectively disabled due to a game breaking bug.
Is Riot now saying they will take away our ability to use products we have paid for because they believe it enhances their story telling? That is not something I am comfortable supporting as their are many games (read nearly all) that would not make this kind of statement.
RiotRiotJaredan9 votesJust to be clear: I wasn't referring to disabling champs at all. I was talking about physical/emotional trials in a potential story. From a purely personal perspective (disclaimer), it's unlikely we'll be disabling champs for reasons pertaining to an Event or story on any kind of regular basis, if at all. I'm not ruling it out, as I'm not speaking for Riot as a whole, but it's unlikely.
This wasn't intended to be a setting of precedent, as far as I'm aware.
Nefas5 votesJust to be clear: I wasn't referring to disabling champs at all. I was talking about physical/emotional trials in a potential story.
Could you address the points when you get a chance though? I just really want to hear more from Riot on this. I realize Riot probably isn't very interested in doing more if the skin didn't "make things right" but it would at least be nice to talk about the entire concept for disabling champs without a gameplay bug-related reason. Even just a bit of a discussion would go a long way, for me at least.
EDIT: Thanks for the edit/update
RiotRiotJaredan13 votesI'll have a chat tomorrow with folks who are more clued in on this. I'm pretty much all about the story, and though I was involved in the discussions about what happened with GP in-game, I'm not the best person to talk about the strategy overall, particularly in regard to what it means moving forward.
Do remember that though we obfuscated the true reason for the removal of Gangplank (which was partly to introduce his new base skin, which is directly caused by the story), we didn't remove him because we actually killed him (one of the reasons he wasn't ghosted, he wasn't actually dead). We swung for the fences a bit, and took some risks. I'm very proud of the fact so many Rioters were willing to do that and have fun along with it—though I understand some players disagree and are displeased by what happened.
There will definitely be more of a full answer than I can provide you right now as we (Events team and Riot) respond to questions arising from the event, including the one you mention. Sorry I can't be more definitive right now.
Nefas5 votesI appreciate you sharing and discussing even this much. I also appreciate you being willing to acknowledge that some players aren't comfortable with this and understanding that.
ArcticSirius3 votesI do like how this got me thinking about how the people of Bilgewater might've thought of GP's "death" by using us, the community, as a represenatation for some of it. Me personally, I was pretty shocked to hear that GP was "dead". As soon as I heard, I rushed on my mobile and read the logs on S@20 and was just so surprised. GP being "dead". Then today you guys revealed he is alive, but now more pissed then ever and I cheered. I called my buddy who plays GP and told him "GP ain't dead". My buddy's reaction "Spooky GP? No? Oh wow, that's cool." Him and I were impressed with the writing. Good job. But ya, trying to imagine some of Bilgewater's reaction to his "death" as the way the community reacted is pretty interesting imo.
RiotRiotJaredan6 votesThis is awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
THE VlLLAlN4 votesI am so pleased, impressed, happy and completely and utterly gobsmacked with how well this has been done, well worth the weight (( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)). I'm so goddamn happy I wish I could hug every goddamn member of Riot responsible.
RiotRiotJaredan6 votesI'll do it for you. That does mean I'll have to clear my meetings for the week and pack extra deodorant.
/makes note.
Joking aside, thank you very much. We greatly appreciate it.
Shénzhì2 votesYea I was dumbfounded when "Gangplank is dead".
Now he's back I'm just thinking ... well, he's not going to do much other than tame or temper this self-destructing Bilgewater society, and so I was indifferent. o__o
Garlyle Wilds5 votesI doubt that's the case.
Gangplank ruled Bilgewater because he was invincible. Nobody - nobody - crossed him and got away with it. He might've had some scars, but those who did it were very, very dead now because of it.
...Or that's how it was. But now he's been proven beatable, and one redhead's busy offing his most loyal men. His empire's crumbling, and even when word gets around that he didn't die, he was still beaten. People aren't going to be afraid of him like they were before. Every step of the way former allies are going to turn on him, former enemies are going to be emboldened to act against him, and he has none of the resources at his back to pull him along.
Gangplank's fight to regain Bilgewater is going to be one hell of a war.
RiotRiotJaredan4 votesI think you've summed it all up rather beautifully (though there's something that you're not aware of). I'm feeling moved to make a show of appreciation. Expect something to fly through the interwebs of clientness to you soon.
SpaceSquirrel3 votesThat something is Mr. 
Pius Leviticus4 voteskayle and morgana PLS KAYLE AND MORGANA! obligatory "IT'S AN ANGERU!"
Kommotion10 votesEverything about this event has been awesome. Definitely one of the best, if not the best.
RiotRiotJaredan15 votesCheers! Very kind of you to say so. The story team for Events, and the many teams that form Events as a whole, put a tremendous amount of work into Burning Tides. We're just happy we got it to the players.
WarWork2 votesWhat you did for Gp, i.e. something that happened in lore that changes him and then in turn changing his classic skin and making the previous a new skin, is this reserved for just GP or will you possibly do it for other champs. And if yes for there champs, will this be restricted to just large scale event?
Also is there be an posibility of new champs being released in future event? ( That actually tie in with the even)
Mistress Madoka2 votesI don't think it'd be very Special if it happened very often, so I don't see this sort of thing happening anymore
Rrett8 votesexcept that they've had months and they've barely done anything for awhile.
Lore is nice, but it's not something I can comprehend needing a whole team and then taking more than half a year already and pretty much nothing had really been put out.
RiotRiotJaredan24 votesWe've (Narrative) been busy on various teams, including Champion, ChampUp, Events (as you've seen in the last few weeks), Foundations, Promo and more besides. Also, we've been undergoing a serious restructuring and recruitment strategy while we also collaborate with Riot leadership to create teams that are focused on delivering story.
I understand how it looks from the outside, and it's been personally frustrating to know the pain being felt by players waiting for more story content, but we have been putting out content. We've got a long way to go, but Burning Tides: The Reckoning, and the new character introductions for Gangplank, Miss Fortune, TF, and Graves are examples of what we're aiming to do and then better in regard to quality.
Hyrum Graff2 votesAlso, we've been undergoing a serious restructuring and recruitment strategy while we also collaborate with Riot leadership to create teams that are focused on delivering story.
This, more than anything else, makes me really happy, because of the following sacred formula:
Dedicated team + clear deliverables = content.
Otherwise, stuff just doesn't get done. That's not a dig on Riot, it's just what happens when you want to get people to do things.
So, hearing this, and experiencing the burning tides event, I'm finally optimistic about the future of Lore.
ItemsGuy8 votes[deleted]
ModWulf Helhammer7 votesI assure you, I read quite a lot. That's does not detract from the quality and world-building that was in this event. On par with many fantasy writers
1Ferdinand19 votesI assure you, I read quite a lot. That's does not detract from the quality and world-building that was in this event. On par with many fantasy writers
This here is bullshit.
KING OF MASKS4 votes"On par with many fantasy writers" -- sure, if you're referring to the many mediocre fantasy writers out there.
Don't get me wrong, this event wasn't outright bad. But one of the best stories you've ever read? Really not trying to be mean here, but if you seriously think that then you might want to broaden your horizons in terms of fiction. As others have pointed out, the worldbuilding was insufficient, the overall story was a bit hackneyed, and the prose was choppy (mostly due to poorly delivered exposition).
Eeyore5 votesIsn't a slow clap a bad thing?
RiotRiotJaredan4 votesHah! I thought the same thing until about a month ago when a friend explained it to me. In America, it's a good thing.
Eeyore4 votesBut... but... how do they express sarcasm? A slower clap?!
Aeolian Melodies3 votesMeanwhile every new champ's and reworked champion's background is 2 lines or less.
ModWulf Helhammer4 votesYou. Go look at the champion pages on the League website for Azir, Xerath, Gankplank, Graves, Twisted fate, and Miss Fortune. Additionally, they already said Amumu's lore would get updated to the short story they already wrote when they aren't so Bilgewater-centric
You have no leg to stand on.
LeeDark7 votesYou have no leg to stand on.
--The guy who thinks the Narrative team might deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature.
ModWulf Helhammer5 votesWhere did I say that? Please, tell me, because I usually have a pretty good memory, so if I somehow typed something I don't think I did, it would be helpful to know about it.
All I said was that it was written well, and in terms to literary structure, with the time and space confines that they had, it is on par with current fantasy authors. I won't say it was as good as something like Tolkien or C.S. Lewis, but the story was well written.
Nefas6 votesThe dialogue was inorganic and choppy as hell. The rest was fine. There is still a lot of work to be done.
