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Final statement on Shyvana's bio (Still no response by Riot)

6FlagsFunnelCake·3/10/2019, 3:32:36 AM·30 votes·16,686 views

In case you were late to the show: I made two previous posts regarding a few...questionable retcons of Shyvana's lore, considering she already had a well established and modernized biography that many players came to feel very connected with. Now don't worry, this is probably going to be the last in my trilogy of Shyvana posts, but here I simply want to make a few statements and nothing more.

Now because of all this confusion and arguing over Shyvana's bio, I initially felt very frustrated with the lack of communication when expressing my discontent with Shyvana's lore to Rioters, especially since they were referring to the non-player-facing Bio rather than the one we previously saw on Universe. Because of this error, I could say that we deserve to revert Shyvana's lore in compensation for a pretty consequential mistake.

However, I doubt that's going to happen and since Scathlocke had already hinted at some future content regarding Shyvana and this newer biography, I'd rather just push through it and see what exactly Riot's narrative team has in store. In fact, I would be thoroughly thankful and surprised if the writers manage to actually sell me on this new bio, perhaps through future stories, but as it stands currently I am still NOT PLEASED with how Shyvana's lore has turned out.

Now asides from that, there is only one thing I want Riot to do: Please just own up to this mistake. To this day, I have still seen ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE whatsoever from any Rioters on what exactly happened with Shyvana's bio, or at the very least an apology. For one, Riot, the mistake that still upsets me is that you managed to allow an unofficial bio to lay around in the Universe website for TWO YEARS without even bothering to check it or notice. Though asides this, I still just want to know where exactly this previous bio even came from, as it's starting to sound like this bio never even EXISTED in Riot's eyes.

All in all, I just want to know where the previous bio came from. I'm not going to plead for changes in the story anymore, I've already expressed my criticisms and am just going to see where this newer bio takes us, but please don't just act like we won't notice. I get it, mistakes happen, but I think it's extremely irresponsible to both leave us without any explanation or even a confirmation on what happened, let alone even a slight apology?

28 Comments

Camille Ferrøs3/10/2019, 11:31:21 AM16 votes

Typical Riot, does something questionable, gets backlash, ignores the situation in hope that people forget about it.

HalfTangible3/10/2019, 5:34:24 PM16 votes

"I'd rather just push through it and see what exactly Riot's narrative team has in store. "

I wouldn't.

I absolutely refuse to give even a single solitary flying fuck about what they do with anyone's lore from here on out, especially Shyvana's.

"Woops, we were working with a different lore state than the one the players had for years!"

If they can make a mistake this extreme and just ignore it, I see no reason to. This is a level of incompetence that initially made me laugh like a maniac, until I realized: if this could happen to Shyvana, why couldn't it happen to any other character on the roster? How am I supposed to trust that any character's bio is the way it's supposed to be if Shyvana's bio could be so different from what Riot's working with for literal YEARS?

How am I supposed to care about a character's lore if it's just going to change to such an extreme and delete entire characters on a whim? At least with Varus you could argue that his family only existed to die in the first place and Varus pre-ascension COULD still have his old backstory. But the "new" bio and the previous are impossible to reconcile.

Pale Mask3/10/2019, 4:03:41 AM16 votes

I'm not sure we need to get an apology, but I would at least like a statement regarding why they've chosen this direction for Shyvana.

If we're going by the Twitter posts, it seems the lore team don't really understand what people like about Shyvana.

I'm not a Shyvana player, but I believe all champions deserve to be treated fairly; they're written for the playerbase just as much as the lore team themselves, and I wouldn't want to see my favorites be handled in a similar manner.

GlacialScion3/10/2019, 2:14:50 PM12 votes

They don't care. I get the impression that what "creative" team they have working on lore stories is an insular group of writers who want solely to push their own ideas into the stories they're allowed to write now.

Aside from any story quality concerns I or others may have, the major takeaway I've gotten from basically all of the updates (except for Veigar's, which was actually clever, cute, and in keeping with Veigar's characterization) is the team seems to have a kind of "we know best" attitude and a disregard for establishing what the core of a character actually is before they tear it up and start over with whatever their impression of the character happened to be. This was painfully apparent for me with Nautilus for example, who they basically turned into an embodiment of petty vengeance, and Aatrox, who turned into a loud, rage-blind idiot when the unique and interesting thing about him before was how calm, composed, and almost seductive he was in regards to violence, giving the sense that he had done this millions of times before, absolutely loved it still, but also had some kind of unfathomable ulterior motive.

This consistent stripping away of nuance and subtlety comes across not as an intentional choice, but as simply a lack of familiarity, and thus a lack of concern, for the characters and the community's perception of them. And seriously, when you have a million people play a champion hundreds of time and come together to distill their impressions into a solid form they share with each other and then further refine, you shouldn't dismiss the power of that or take it for granted.

Anyway. That's all to say that many of the changes the lore team has made removed all interest I had in following the lore, when previously I had read every addition to the website. Now I just ignore it and mute voice lines of most reworked champs so I can pretend they're still interesting.

gileskd3/10/2019, 7:02:55 AM11 votes

"For one, Riot, the mistake that still upsets me is that you managed to allow an unofficial bio to lay around in the Universe website for TWO YEARS without even bothering to check it or notice."

is this not the riot way of doing things?

"damage is too high" don't worry, they will look into it 2 years from now

Gixia3/12/2019, 8:36:07 AM6 votes

So, somewhat good news. According to Scathlocke, they might change Shyvana's bio, which means there's the chance it can still be fixed to restore her origin. Bad news is it wouldn't happen til May or June at the very earliest.

It's not the concrete confirmation of 'yes, we will definitely fix this' that I want, but it's better than the reverse and gives me hope at least that Shyv's history might still be preserved.

In the meantime, I'm certain some new outrage will come along, and people will move on from Shyv to whatever the new community outrage target of the day is (afterall, we'll probably have gotten Morde's rework by then), but still, to anyone who cares, don't forget about this. Whether you care about Shyvana's lore specifically, or trying to keep League's lore consistent in general, keep this moment in your minds, wait a couple months to see if possible changes arise, and get ready to get some pitchforks out if they don't. Don't settle for sub-par results. Demand better at every opportunity.

Gixia3/11/2019, 7:35:31 AM4 votes

Last update from Scathlocke was just before the weekend saying they were still looking into it. Seeing how I doubt they looked into it much over the weekend (seeing as that's most people's day off work), I'm hoping we'll hear some news this week, and I am absolutely prepared to fight them on it because her new lore is not just a travesty, but does nothing to add to or improve on her in any way, nor does it open up any new storytelling opportunities. Hell, I've got a mini-essay on all the reasons why they shouldn't push through with the new lore just waiting on word from Riot about what the hell caused this mess in the first place before I throw it at them.

EDIT: I also don't think anyone else who actually cares should be willing to give up either. Riot HAS changed their mind in the past. Most recently with tweaking Kayle's armor (not enough, but still at least better than the initial reveal), and in regards to lore in particular there was that whole fiasco with Nautilus and Pyke which they only reneged on due to fan outcry. Never ever give in or let up on a poor decision, because that's how it becomes set in stone. Raising a fuss is not as fruitless as people want you to believe.

ChunLii3/10/2019, 11:03:31 AM1 votes

It’s simple: Riot doesn’t care about Demacia and Shyvana in particular. It’s also a huge disrespect to Jellbug (Jarvan and Shyvana writer) to not give it to her to shorten both bios but instead the editorial which is what happened with Jarvan and Shyvana too I’m sure.

Rodritron3/11/2019, 6:37:58 AM1 votes

Sorry for being late to the party but what happened to her lore? Can someone just give me an explanation? I haven't touched the Universe in about 2 years, not because I don't care, just because I forget to check it 😅