Discussion: The creative direction of League

Hello Summoners, I've come here today to share my concern and to see if my fellow players feel simmilarly to me when it comes to this subject. Recently Riot has released the Universe page and has been revamping the lore of the game. One by one both champions stories and locations alike have been rewritten. This week they released the full remade Demacian lore and with it it the direction the developers and writers are taking has become clear. I'll voice my 3 biggest concerns that the new direction the lore is taking raises to me: —>Unnecessary and uninteresting retcons: Sure, we have a lot of old lore that don't even make sense anymore or, perhaps, never did ( Like Warwick's old lore) and it was necessary to rewrite some from the ground up. But many settings and characters were already pretty iconic and made good sense in the world, perhaps even defining it? So why change it so drastically? Demacia, Piltover, Yordles received fundamental changes since the launch of universe. We can spect some deep changes in Noxous and Ionia as well. And if you don't see how this can be a problem, just watch what happened with WoW. Those who followed Warcraft before WoW could see what too many retcons in a franchise can do: Turns it in a confusing mess and alienates old fans that can't relate to the game they see anymore. —>Too many shades of gray (50+)/ loss of the sense of wonder/ Riot is taking the world too seriosly: Even ignoring the problem of retconning/changing well established lore,characters and ideias, I don't get why they are turning the world into such a gray and boring place. One can easily notice this with the chance on Mount Targon lore, with Leona and Pantheon's lore being revamped (Apparently beggining his redemption,but still). Leona more than anything was known to everyone as someone more... kind, a protector. But that's not only something recent only. One of the first reworks were the Tundle one that made a lot of players disheartened as a character with such a clear interesting personality you could fall in love with was changed into a random guy clubbing everything. People complained to no end to it, but at the very least Riot told us they liked the work of the character but would avoid changing characters so drastically they would barely be recognizable anymore. Apparently though they haven't learned their lesson. What's even worst is not just that they are changing characters, they are making them blander and unappealing. There is a clear tendency of replacing the fun and goofy aspects of characters, for darker and edgier personalities and then just add a few murdery jokes to try and make it seem light-hearted. Not just in the champions concepts but in the lore itself and it getting worse with the launch of the 'Universe' page: I mean, did we really need Piltover to be a corrupt and dark place as well? The city of progress? The one place we had where positivity ruled and a brighter tomorrow was everyone's objective in a world with wars and crazy maniac scientists and mages? Yordles became a fae-like race, great! Well, but what happens to the lore and characters that were already established? They had their own brand of technology, made contributions to the development of the world. Many lot of them lived and were influential in other cities as well. And Lulu... Well what's the point of her character now again?And not even begin to discuss what hell is gnar supposed to be And sure, Demacia was always at arms with Noxius and was always painted more lawful than good. But where the hell the idea of it being anti-magic came from? Poppy (remember, she is a fairy now by the new lore) has a magic hammer. And nothing about Demacia early days says anything about magic prejudice,actually,looks the opposite: saying Early Demacia has an open arms for anyone that can help the city. No one champion of demacia has showed any anti magic feelings or abilities (with the possible exception of garens silence) and even the new lux voices dont mentions it. And is really ahrd to bellieve demacia has any chance of being a major power in a word when we have Noxous using both martial and magic power and demacia depending centuries form an unique source of an anti magic mineral (that again has no game citation before or now in any item or other champion besides galio).And I dont know how they are going to explain Sona. It all doesn't makes sense. And talking about changes that makes the champions less deeper and darker: Garen and Lux are know distant siblings, No mention about Kat and Garen knowing each other (actually,the new lores and universe pages do a really terrible work of explaining the champions relationships that appears in that same page) and lux goes from being the Demacia prodigy and an inspiration for all of Demacia is now a repressed child being forced to hide her true nature form her family and friends with heavy implications that his brothers will need to kill her if discover.And Shyvana goes from revenging his caring father dragon death to killing his own mother that hates her. It all doesn't makes sense and just tries to make EVERYTHING look conflicted and grey and damaged. The universe is no longer a wonderful world where anything can happen. It's now just a morally ambiguous place where no city is really appealing, politics ruin everything and all the champions are at each other's throat. Right now the lore is very disassociated from the players in the case that everything is wrong with the world and we can't do anything to change that. The game is not about you going on an adventure on the world and fixing it. You can only sit idly and accept that every single character you're playing is broken. And that stays like that... FOREVER. There is no character development INSIDE the game so when you paint everything edgy and grim that just sets the tone for everything. We are just playing matches of horrible people killing horrible people and learning nothing from it. What do we get from hearing how Camille will kill and opress innocent people over and over for matches and more matches? It all gets frustrating with time. -> How they are delivering the lore: The idea of the universe website is nice to have everything in one place so you can always reference anything and dwell more deeply into the story of the game. But lets be honest: nobody likes text walls. Text walls are everywhere. It is not a compelling way to pass the lore at least. And i know the lore is not connected with the game anymore directly, but it just making the problem worse: the only way we get to connect with this characters are playing, which means we are limited to some sentences and a repetition of the same 4 maps that bring very little of the story with it. Well,of course now we have a lot of text walls. —— So to end, I am worried how league are expanding their world. I mean, in a world when we have things like DC cinematic universe trainwreck and 90 comics to teach that moral ambiguity is not the same of complexity and depth and you that everything being gray and serious is not fun and , it really makes me think what riot is planning and if and how league will be able to bring back some sense of bonding and wonder back to Runaterra.

TL, DR: League has become a very grim, boring and darker place with so many lore retcons that don't make any sense and make me feel more like the devs are writing the lore to keep themselves entertained than actually make something that enchances our experience with the game. Characters are all damaged and morally ambiguous and that just gets boring with time as the game doesn't change/the characters can't develop in-game. And of course the walls of text are boring and not really compelling, not making the way the story and lore is conveyed to us interesting either.