Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

So they literally just killed the lore?

Communist Homura·1/11/2015, 9:51:06 PM·12 votes·2,112 views

Some context: I got bored of the game around 9 months ago and moved on to other games. Recently, I decided to just come back and see what's new, maybe get a chance to play it again.

So I have always been a fan of the story and characters foremost, and I had a friend tell me all about the cool new champions they made. So I went to check them out. What do I see?

Two or three sentences each.

Now, I have been playing since around 2012 or so, long enough to see them just brutalize the lore again and again.

And now? Now I hear they have literally just erased the story from the game. Gone. Zip.

Sometimes people hate the word literally, but I think it's justified. There is no story now. There just isn't. We went from constant little lore things, building up characters and settings, and giving the game an actual reason to exist, to just breaking off the story and making it almost nonexistent. What happened? Do they just not care? Did they just throw up their hands and quit? To me, that sounds like exactly what happened. I mean, there isn't even backstories anymore.

Now here's my take: I don't to play a game with no story. I don't even like the gameplay; the only thing I really cared about towards the tail end of my time playing was the characters and the story. I can close my eyes and click a random button on my desktop and I can find a game that I enjoy more.

League had a unique setting. It wasn't perfect, but I really did get drawn to the game specifically because it. This is seriously embarrassing. What are they doing now? I've heard they're releasing short stories now and again but it looks to me like they just kind of gave up.

15 Comments

NorthernDruid1/12/2015, 12:05:40 AM8 votes

League had a unique setting. It wasn't perfect, but I really did get drawn to the game specifically because it. This is seriously embarrassing. What are they doing now? I've heard they're releasing short stories now and again but it looks to me like they just kind of gave up.

See that's the really embarassing thing, the only actually kinda unique and interesting part of the setting was the Institute of War and the League of Legends. With those gone it's your run-of-the-mill fantasy/steampunk setting with nothing you've never seen before. Not to mention that there's no actual plot going on anymore, so there's really nothing to be exited about... Unless you really like Shurima. Because if you do, and you can't find any good history books on ancient egypt (or tv series/movies etc.) then you'll be thrilled because they've been putting out a lot of short stories on that one region. Nothing concurrent or relevant to an ongoing world plot or anything mind you, but hey aparrently Ammumu used to be a prince!

LordHippoman1/11/2015, 11:38:00 PM6 votes

The Lore has undergone a massive overhaul, but honestly, playing League for the Lore before or after the retcons isn't the best idea. League's focus is and always will be gameplay, because that's what makes money for them. 95% of players have no idea what the hell a "Noxian Invasion of Ionia" or a "Hextech" is, and that's because it's really not that kind of game. Granted, there are people like a lot of us who do know and love it, but it's not what made this game super popular. If you want Lore based games, I'd suggest picking up maybe something like Warhammer on Steam for cheap, or maybe getting into WoW, I hear the new expansion is fun and focuses a lot on the characters.

If you really can't play LoL without any Lore backing, I'd encourage taking a look at LeagueFactions.net. They've crafted their own pretty neat story over there and integrated it strongly with gameplay. For example, they just wrapped up an arc where four nations from Valoran clashed over exploration of a newly discovered continent. It was cool, there were robots, there were Void Invasions, there was an island with a name made entirely of vowels. Neat stuff. Check it out or talk to CupcakeTrap on the forums, I'm sure he'd love to discuss it.

Oh, and the two or three sentence lores aren't the full lores. Those are intended to be posted on the website once they've been completed. They're already done for Xerath, Azir, and Amumu, but hosted elsewhere. For the new champions Kalista and Rek'Sai, Kalista has 2 videos and a short story, and Rek'Sai has a diary from a Noxian traveler that talks about her effect on the ancient Shurimans she terrorized. Try looking for those if you still think you might have any interest even without the IoW.

SeargentAnus1/11/2015, 9:52:38 PM5 votes

They've gone from forcing the lore to fit around the institute, to now allowing the lore to shape around the characters. It allows them much more freedom to do what they wish with the lore.