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The curious case of vanishing Lore

IS1d51f7fd0f8e2764617b0·5/10/2015, 5:50:52 PM·79 votes·9,487 views

Thought i'd share the article i wrote for DRUIDZ, warning, WOT follows! http://druidz.se/nyheter/2/2864/

"This article is going to be somewhat of a rant towards mainly League of Legends, since it is the world I am most familiar with. However the article as a whole aims at a much bigger issue that has started to take place in the world of gaming during recent years!

(retconned is a word which will appear in this article simply means that that part of lore has been deleted and confirmed as non-canon by RIOT employees.)

Before you dive in to the wall of text below, I would just like to confess the simple fact that I am a nerd, a bookworm, a dreamer.

Call it what you will, but for me, the immense fictional worlds created by artists in different genres has always seemed immensely appealing. Truth be told, lore was the reason I started playing games on my Playstation (Metal Gear Solid), and still is the reason I continue to divide large portions of my day towards gaming.

The chance of imagining I am someone else, the chance to immerse my self in a different personality, in a new world with immensely different laws of physics and visual appearance from my own. Gives me an escape from a sometimes harsh and unforgiving reality. Lately however, I have found this to be increasingly difficult in many online games.

http://druidz.se/userfiles/Bilder/League-of-Legends-Cinematic-Trailer_3.jpg

With the introduction of Starcraft-Il, the "free to play" model, and the successful military shooters, E-sports soon became a real thing in the west available on a much broader scale than ever before. Since then, more and more games seem to be focusing on developing a product for a very specified group of people. Call of Duty soon realized the main reason people bought their games was due the multiplayer, not the singleplayer mode. Therefore the single player adventures were not as priotitized as the multiplayer mode, a trend causing many reviews of the games to be surprisingly low. Simply because they lacked content in one area.

But as the sales skyrocketed, more and more developers started following the apparently successful path of multiplayer focused games without any real backstory. And soon, multiplayer games lacking a singleplayer mode was made real on a million dollar scale.

http://druidz.se/userfiles/Bilder/dlc.jpg

Blizzard, 2k-games, Valve and most MMoRPG's have always been, and hopefully will always be amazing at creating colorful living worlds for their characters to reside within. These amazing universes, much like the Final Fantasy Saga, or the Mass Effect epos allows for multiple stories to be told. And multiple games to be set in the same environment giving the player a sense of familiarity, eventually creating a fan-base. However, since most companies are motivated by revenue, not art, even Blizzard has caught on the trend of multiplayer games without any backstory. Or to be more precise, using the backstory they had already created with WC3 and World of Warcraft. (Heroes of the storm, Hearthstone).

I believe this is why we see so many new worlds, or revamped storylines and characters. To create successful lore costs resources, and is hardly profitable in any noticeable way. It also takes time, and since "time is money", many companies, especially those focused on microtransactions and multiplayer have started seeing lore as something not fundamental. Something "not profitable". Why would they possibly waste resources and time on something which wont bring them any revenue?

http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2012/09/orcs.jpg

This is a toxic and sad development which has spread like a cancer, and has implanted itself as the modern norm, simply based on revenue. Characters like "Master Chief" does not have a place in the modern world, he has been replaced with solider no.xxxx, an avatar without emotion, without life, without any ties to the player what so ever. And I worry that this trend will only continue to accelerate, until the player-base is almost entirely split in two. The single player mode fans focusing on story, and the multiplayer fans focusing on performance.

But where will the players who got stuck in the middle go? One might argue that with the rise of multiplayer games, they can experience epic singleplayer adventures and enjoy great multiplayer battles just as well. But for many people, it was the delicate balance between the two that created such an enjoyable experience. Who didn't love going rampant as "The Heavy" in TF2 knowing he had a specific "big guy" mindset and a complex background which Valve actually developed alongside the game. For those of you who played HALO, can you really imagine yourselves becoming so immersed in the fantastic universe of Master Chief without the single player campaigns?

A perfect example of a company going down the road which I just desccribed is "League of Legends".

http://i.imgur.com/0XQpN.jpg

I started playing LOL when it was still in the early beta stages (pre-season 1), and was instantly captivated by the unique and intriguing background of runeterra. The concept of summoners (now retconned*) allowed me to feel that what was happening at the screen was not unnatural in the strange universe I had been presented with. It was filled to the brim with areas and characters with complex backgrounds, emotions, political views and love interests.

As the game grew, so did the lore. The "JoJ" or "Journal of Justice" was introduced as a monthly newspaper detailing the conflicts in Runeterra, and detailed the daily life of the League's (also retconned*) champions. Roughly at the same time,"Judgments" were introduced. Fantastic novels released alongside a champion detailing a complex physic evaluation, revealing their personalities and motives.

But lore does not sell, and one day the JoJ was removed, soon followed by the removal of Judgments, leaving the initial fanbase of LoL disappointed and with a sense of betrayal. As time went by, the presentation texts of several champions were severely reduced or changed without further explanation. And about half a year ago, the entire concept of the hall of justice was completely scrapped with the promise of a new backstory. Completely ignoring the existing fanbase whom protested wildly.

Today, there are still no news or any form of communication about the new lore, leaving LoL in a very awkward position. All of the early cinematic trailers no longer make sense, since summoners apparently do not exist. None of the "summoner spells" makes sense, since there are no summoners to begin with. The entire concept of Summoners rift, or LoL in general, makes no sense at all.

http://torontoist.com/attachments/ahappe/20090720PART4.jpg

Many of you may not care at all about this, but I can assure you a great deal of people do. The game to us feels "incomplete", and the previous connection we had to a certain champion may have been shattered or simply removed, rewritten and replaced. This as a whole feels disrespectful to the players, yet several developers show this type of behavior without any form of consent for the community of the game.

In all other forms of art, this behavior is often seen as unacceptable. A movie without any backstory needs to rely on special effects entirely to not get butchered by the media, and even then, it will not go down the hall of legends. Usually it is simply forgotten alongside several others, clones masquerading as something new and exciting. I think many of you start to see a pattern here, how many of you still play "Titanfall" ? The graveyard of forgotten multiplayer games keeps growing, and at an increasing pace.

When did we start accepting mediocrity as the norm, when did we decide to subject ourselves to a product not complete? Games are, arguably, the best platform of expression for artists. Enabling the creator to connect with the player on several emotional levels, yet so much of this potential remains untapped. So why are game developers alone not playing by the same rule-book as all other companies, why is it considered acceptable to ignore a large portion of their customers. Is it because they develop a game, does that free them from treating their players with respect? If so why do we consider this behavior to be adequate?

My point with this insanely long rant is! That unless we as a community start demanding that the developers of the games we play online, starts treating the community with some sense of decency, this behavior will only continue to worsen.

We deserve more as both players, and individuals!

87 Comments

KING OF MASKS5/11/2015, 3:14:33 AM15 votes

Couldn't agree more. Mechanically, Legend League has had its ups and downs, but for the most part it's sound. But as a holistic gaming experience, it's been wasting away for nearly a year now.

As it stands, the game is effectively on par with things like Candy Crush or Tetris; a fun little time sink, but nothing that you could possibly become invested in. Not even close. And we're basically at the point where nothing can be done to change that. Whatever rito's narrative team is planning on is almost certainly too little, too late.

Aelvr5/11/2015, 8:34:22 AM14 votes

I'd like to start by saying that the lore retcon was not the best way to go about things; at least, not without a fully-developed lore to be released, but obviously, Riot didn't have the extra resources to deliver on that. Oops. So the retcon was dumb.

However, I'd like to point out a few things:

  1. The whole thing comes off as whiny, and uber-traditionalist; not the positive kind of traditionalist that likes old things, but the negative kind of traditionalist that hates new things. This article is pretty quick to pile up the blame and pretty slow to deliver on solutions.
  2. A lot of your accusations are false. If Riot didn't care about the lore, then why did they bother retconning it in the first place? Why not just let it gather dust, ignored, like it did all throughout Season II?
  3. Companies are motivated by revenue? Shocker of the year. What's really shocking is that people expect differently from them. They do have to put bacon on the table, after all, as well as generate large amounts of capital to be able to fund the real artists to create the content we all crave. Accusing the indiviudual writers of being mercenary instead would actually make sense, instead of "blaming" the rock for being solid.
  4. The information that lore is one of LoL's primary hooks for many fans and the assertion that lore does not sell are logically inconsistent. Which is it? Are people not engaged by lore? Or are they willing to spend time and money on a game that does not engage them? This doesn't make any sense.
  5. Unless your primary source of income is from a LoL stream, you don't have to lose sleep wondering if LoL won't be there tomorrow. There's always literature for fictional engagement, and unlike video game designers, writers much less restricted by production costs, and therefore are (slightly more) free to speak their mind, without a corporation getting in the way. And all things in this life are temporary, anyway, it's best not to get overly-attached. Yorick "Everything has an expiration date."

I'm not trying to say that the lore is fine. I'm just saying that we should focus on criticizing the lore itself, rather than becoming woeful prophets and demanding that Riot break time and space to undo their mistake. At this point, the latter might not even be the best thing to do, even if Riot could. Cut the poor reds some slack. They are obviously embarrassed enough.

NorthernDruid5/10/2015, 11:45:05 PM8 votes

Nicely written.

Personally, I see a general trend in videogaming.

In the beginning of a game series, the story and setting will place a decent amount of focus on setting up the game, and not only explaining but striving to provide reason for certain gameplay mechanics (the best example here is the dwelling system from Heroes of Might and Magic being an actual thing brought up in the game's lore).

As the game goes on to become popular enough to be something established, players will be familiar with the concepts and more ready to just simply accept them as gameplay aspects segregated from the setting and story as is usually the case. And as such the focus on the story will be more to drive a coherent engaging narrative, drawing established players who follow the storyline to stay invested rather than support the game's own concepts.

And then when the gameplay stands completely on it's own the story concepts driving the game and it's story together will be pushed into the background, if not forgotten entirely (or in this case ripped out violently and left bleeding for 8 months).

In a way, it's perfectly understandable that once your primary concern for the story isn't how to fit the game into it you'll want to tell a story about more than just the gameplay itself.

But more and more I think the mistake lies in trying to tell traditional media stories (books, videos, movies, music, etc.) rather than telling a story through a game.

A game-focused story can feel restricting if you wanna write for a book, a movie or a comic.

Maybe they should try writing for a game instead?

One of my favourite (in retrospect) stories from the old lore is Rengar vs Kha'zix. And how their story is actually in part told via the game.

The story is a really simple one: Ultimate Hunter vs Ultimate Predator both meet their finest and only match, and now seek each other as the ultimate prey.

In the old Lore, they find their way to the League of Legends and keep hunting each other there.

When they meet on the Fields of Justice, The Hunt Is On. And the first to slay the other once they get going wins the otherwise eternal rivalry.

One day, Rengar wins and carries Kha'zix' head as a trophy for the entire rest of the match (and possibly the afterparty? 0.o).

Another time, Kha'zix wins and can fully evolve in a way beyond his normal limits.

And it keeps going for this, a tale of no end, yet of many.

And... seeing as they are both equal viewpoint protagonists, the traditional telling of this story, would be a case of each chapter being them catching each other, one getting the upper hand and seemingly winning... but just before they can deliver the finishing blow, something comes up/gets in the way and they let the target slip... and then that repeats ad infinitum.

Both are stories with no proper end (because you can't kill off a character who's playable in the game, you just can't. Besides if either wins then both of their stories end, permanently, because hunting each other is what their entire story is about) but at least the one from the old lore doesn't require silly cliches (best one would have to be the "nah, i'ma let him go because otherwise the story finishes my life loses purpose" excuse), and better yet, it's one told by the players themselves every time Rengar and Kha'zix are on opposing teams, and the event is triggered.

That's a complete story right there, told with nothing but character bios, setting and gameplay.

In having a story where the game exists and where the matches played are to some degree canon(-ish), you open up for a lot of story that you don't have to tell yourself.

In the removal of the narrative structure from their story, regardless of whether or not they actually ever release some info on the new setting, they set Rengar&Kha'zix' story back from a complete game/play driven narrative to what is basically the starting line.

And for some reason I sincerely doubt they'll be retelling it as a complete story to that degree any time soon.

'Cause they're probably too busy trying to figure out how to tell a story which isn't a game... yet one which is for a game.

I think I lost track of my point somewhere in the middle of Rengar vs Kha'zix <.<

tl;dr: While creators start off trying to fit their story to the game, over time the focus of storytelling shifts from explaining the existance of the game within the story to telling a complete narrative. While this is cool and all, too often is the game part of the story lost because they try to tell a story as if it were a book or a movie instead of telling a story as a game.

Aaand my tl;dr is a paragraph long already.... why can i never write concise posts? whyyyy? (writing after midnight is why probably, idk)

Demonsolder215/11/2015, 6:18:03 AM7 votes

Welcoome! TO MODERN GAMING!!

~No it wont change, it will only get worse so yeah....

~~~~isnt modern gaming fun!
Wickedfates5/11/2015, 3:50:27 AM6 votes

it makes me kinda sad this will just disappear into the wind.... because; only you can hear me summoner....

AntiSkillshot5/11/2015, 7:46:16 PM5 votes

One might argue that with the rise of multiplayer games, they can experience epic singleplayer adventures and enjoy great multiplayer battles just as well. But for many people, it was the delicate balance between the two that created such an enjoyable experience.

This, so much this. This is why I find Warframe and Path of Exile interesting. They're both multiplayer games. They both have interesting stories. They don't trash those that love immersion or being social to other players. It's also why I was interested in Dawngate, despite playing games on a laptop that hardly even play League at the time (15-30 FPS on very low settings). Dawngate's story was affected by the community. There was no separation between the game and the story. This is where I think many games fall short. At least Titanfall tried to bring the two together. It just happened to fall short in actually having a story that could be followed or showing signs of progress. Personally, I find that Warframe is the only game that excels at both. Though, most would consider Warframe an MMO. It's hardly an MMO. It's not as open as World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. That, and the teammates you get are through a matchmaking system. Personally, Immersion/Story is greater than Competition. I started playing League In Season 1. Loved Season 2, because its story was still an important part of the game (And Riot actually cared about the community). Then Season 3 hit. The lore was collecting dust. I started playing less and less. Then Season 4 hit. Lore started to move, but in the wrong ways and directions. Making me wanna play less. Following that, Riot confirming that, not only did Summoners no longer exist, they said they never existed. That's when I nearly stopped playing. Then Season 5 hit. I rarely even play ARAM, which is the only place where story/lore and competition meet anymore.

Edit: The only thing I saw anything of note since Riot said "Yeah, Summoners no longer exist and have never existed" that was even "good" lore was Sion's relaunch. I was actually hoping that it was a sign of good things to come. Then Rek'Sai was released. A mindless beast that's incapable of human speech while the rest of the Voidborn are capable of doing so (Seriously, what's with that? Like, I somewhat understand why Gnar can't be understood, but Rek'Sai?). Made me go "Nice job Riot, you readded the nail to the coffin that was removed when you relaunched Sion. Hell, you might have added five plus the one you readded." Bard was interesting. Mechanically, he's terrible. Lore wise, he's... odd. But he's sure as hell no messiah that'll return us to the glory days. It's hard to believe an undead, near mindless one, that's bloodcrazed might be our messiah. Sadly, one messiah isn't going to cut it here.

Earl Eulrich5/11/2015, 2:08:06 AM4 votes

can´t agree more. Riot had a chance to really establish a brand and become in a way the new Blizzard (as Blizzard nowadays kinda left for the casual-market), unfortunatelly they hadn´t been able to follow through on it and are currently struck with an empty bubble instead of a broad universe.

Subject 55/11/2015, 8:27:47 PM3 votes

Why not start a group that inserts their own lore into the game? I mean as of right now Riot is basically ignoring anybody who speaks about the lore with the exception of pulling a 'Destiny' in there 'Ask questions that might be answered, you know, small things. Not lore.'

https://youtu.be/gzopWRXK_r4?t=5m20s

Filoscuro5/13/2015, 7:13:41 PM2 votes

Hi there. I'm an spanish summoner who read this thread and found it a very valuable opinion about lore and Riot Games, so I translated it into spanish, to allow all the summoners in Spain that visit the forums to read it. I hope you don't mind it (I gave all the credits to you and your insanely difficult to type summoner name) and I also hope Riot would someday hear us and pay more attention to the lore and lore fans. As they say in the Rift, GL and HF (Good Lag and Happy Feeders ;) ).

PS: All the original content is written without italic, if you want to use it in LA forums or whatever you want ^^

PS2: thread translated: http://boards.euw.leagueoflegends.com/es/c/lore-e-historia/Yr4KZRUf-el-curioso-caso-del-lore-desaparecido

PS3: also, if you or another north-american summoners wants to visit, we have a "Lore and History" subforum, so you can get cozy there and argue about LoL backstory or ask about a certain champion

TheGrandAlliance5/12/2015, 2:29:42 AM1 votes

LOL this thread is good an all... but what happened to your name?

IS1d51f7fd0f8e2764617b0 ?????>...........................