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So they literally just killed the lore?

Communist Homura··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

NorthernDruid8 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!

Legacy of Xion6 votes

If I wanted fantasy/steampunk I'd be waching Legend of Korra. Those people even listened to the fans.

Sigh...I'll stick with CupcakeTrap - sensei.

Screw the retcon.

LordHippoman6 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.

SeargentAnus5 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.

Sneak Dog7 votes

They've gone from allowing the lore to focus around a central point where everything interacts to creating lots of small unrelated stories. It allows them to write whatever they want in their part of the world without affecting the rest.

They refocused. This is not inherently more or less limiting, not good or bad. The new focus is just as limiting as the old one, it doesn't give them more freedom, it gives them more freedom in areas where they wanted this freedom but less in others.

What they did do is kill off all immersion, put up all the old lore and even characters up for change and go their own way. This without bothering to argue with us, giving us only a couple of arguments, at least one of which plain false (summoners were never puppetmasters), in a dev blog. No Q&A's, no good well-argumented standpoint, just a dev blog and the lore is now all gone.

Gentleman Gaston4 votes

Summoners are puppetmasters.

Any argument I've read about how it's "mind sharing" or "guidance" falls apart when you acknowledge that you, a Summoner, can forcibly control your champion to walk into an enemy tower and die. Over and over again.

There's no guidance in LoL's gameplay. There is simply "Do".

Sneak Dog6 votes

The game play was immersive. The gameplay was not a 1:1 representation of the lore. There were not millions of summoners and only a hundred champions.

Gentleman Gaston4 votes

That is literally the opposite of immersive game play though. If the whole premise is the player is a summoner you can't arbitrarily decide that "Oh, sometimes they just aren't" without breaking immersion. My willful suspension of disbelief for the game is shattered when I can make the champion do something they never would, say to die needlessly.

Sneak Dog7 votes

It wasn't perfect. It was just immersive to an extent. You were a summoner summoning a champion. The champion talked to you. You had summoner spells, runes and masteries, you gained influence points and whenever the champion died on the fields of justice, you had to regain the melding.

It was all explained, it was as immersive as it could be without sacrificing gameplay.

Now it's just super smash bros. You pick a character, that character starts monologueing, you have some bonus static abilities, bonus power, gain currency and die and respawn.

The gameplay never made way for the lore and I don't blame it. Given this, the game was pretty much as immersive as it could be.

Gentleman Gaston7 votes

I can see that, and I acknowledge that for many players that's all they wanted. But, for me, it was a willful denial that the gameplay and story didn't match up, which seems incredibly ludicrous when you take into account that the basis for the game's central lore was to support that faulty union.

The IoW, Summoners, and the like were designed to support a gameplay=story universe, which as even you admit wasn't perfect. Now, as a fan of storytelling and lore and worldbuilding I feel like that's unfair. It's stating that because gameplay comes first (which, for LoL, it should) that story must come second. You see evidence of this all over the old story when story attempted to co-exist with gameplay. Without attempting to delve into other aspects of the IoW retcon, this is the entire point of severing gameplay and story. It is the willful acknowledgement that, yes, LoL's gameplay and story don't really co-exist in the same space.

That doesn't mean that the two never intersect. Gameplay often references story and there are many analogous elements (Kalista and Thresh's passives, the Rengar and Kha'zix fight, various item names, Twisted Treeline and Howling Abyss, and most champions as a whole) but that means that the prior mentioned "willing suspension of disbelief" which was dubious at best need not exist at all. I can simply focus entirely on the game or the story, whichever is more relevant to me at the moment, without them muddying each other.

I'm not saying that the charm of attempting to explain such an imperfect union is lost on me, nor that it's loss must be greeted with open arms. I do think that for the overall health of the game and it's universe that this particular severance was a good idea. I don't believe I'm going to convince anyone of that, as most people have already convinced themselves of what was "good" vs "bad", but those are my personal thoughts.

Motajo3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gentleman Gaston,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=2yALXl9n,comment-id=0000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-12T01:01:15.964+0000)But, for me, it was a willful denial that the gameplay and story didn't match up

Is it truly that much better when they don't match up at all, instead of some ratio between 0 and 1? I can make Mario walk to the nearest fortress and take a dip in the lava, but that doesn't mean his nonchalant suicide is part of the story. Whether I do that as a player, or as a summoner, I'd say the same applies.

Gentleman Gaston1 votes

But the idea that Mario is being controlled by some "Outsider" isn't rolled into the story at all. Your actions are Mario's actions and it is never implied otherwise (except in the case of cute 4-th wall breaking bits that have appeared throughout the series, but are not meant to be taken seriously). If Mario takes a dip in the lava that's due to his own/your actions, but those are never considered the "true events". Remember, if you die in Mario it merely restarts the level over and continues to do so until you run out of "Lives" or complete the level. The story does not progress having acknowledged Mario's, also the Player's, failure. There is no alternate and canonical ending where Mario just dies forever, or even that he dies at all. In the canonical retelling of events Mario is always successful and that's because the story exists to loosely tie the elements of gameplay together, but it is not there to explain gameplay. In essence, the story never alters based on the results of you playing the game, but rather is a static thing that the player/Mario progresses through.

However, in the IoW version of LoL the story does very much so try to explain gameplay and those failures due to player negligence and contradictory character actions stand out much more because of that. The problem isn't entirely that the gameplay and story didn't work well together, but rather that the entire function of the IoW and Summoners was to explain gameplay and that explanation was outright faulty.

Motajo1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gentleman Gaston,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=2yALXl9n,comment-id=000000000000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-14T23:46:47.473+0000)If Mario takes a dip in the lava that's due to his own/your actions, but those are never considered the "true events".

Neither are the events in the vast majority of League matches. My losses are about as canon as a game over. Does my existence being more "real" in the story suddenly prevent me from reasonably assuming how many events are actually canon?

[In Mario] the story exists to loosely tie the elements of gameplay together, but it is not there to explain gameplay

I'm not entirely sure where your distinction between the two lies, but I'll try to give fitting input anyway.

There are ways that the story attempts to explain (at least some of) the gameplay. Take FLUDD in Super Mario Sunshine, for instance. He can do even more acrobatics because of he has the compact lovechild of a fire-hydrant and a jetpack strapped to his back.

The problem isn't entirely that the gameplay and story didn't work well together, but rather that the entire function of the IoW and Summoners was to explain gameplay and that explanation was outright faulty.

Hmm. How would you have made it better, then?

Grand Viper3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gentleman Gaston,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=2yALXl9n,comment-id=000000000000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-14T23:46:47.473+0000) . There is no alternate and canonical ending where Mario just dies forever, or even that he dies at all. In the canonical retelling of events Mario is always successful and that's because the story exists to loosely tie the elements of gameplay together, but it is not there to explain gameplay. In essence, the story never alters based on the results of you playing the game, but rather is a static thing that the player/Mario progresses through.

Actually...

In Super Paper Mario RPG for the Wii, you go to both heaven and hell of the Marioverse: Underwhere and Ovethere. When you're in the Underwhere, you are shown multiple iterations of deaths Mario has suffered over the years. I know it's meant to be lampshading the fact that Mario has died millions of times over the decades, but there is an underworld complete with a ferryman and a heaven for all the "good" people.

The Underwhere is where all people go when it's "Game Over".

In fact, Mario getting kiled is how he ends up in the Underwhere. This is also is how you meet up with Luigi in the game, he gets killed by the main antagonist and you find him, and essentially give him a one up to come back to the surface with you.

Underwhere part 1 of 3 video

Honestly it's not meant to be taken seriously, but it is an entire chapter of the game and it does actually talk a bit about death in Mario. They at least address it, humorously, but they do.

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