I feel totally overwhelmed and it makes me sad

DamienSolta·Jun 15, 2015·10 votes·1,736 views

After the artist spotlight on Lazuli and her wonderful zulidoodles I figured this world might have been more interesting than I first though. I came to this game right after the Journals of Justice were ended, and never had any reason to pay attention to the lore (other than, say, for a fun team composition of just yordles (but even figuring out who is and isn't a yordle seems impossible with an official source unless the League wiki is official) or through Easter-eggs and such during major events). It seemed to me like there wasn’t much there and that there hadn’t been much attention to it other than to randomly have things happen that were liked self-contained events that didn’t influence anything else.

After I got interested in Lazuli’s work (it’s so adorable and brings me so many smiles) I started to look to see what she was basing her stuff on and I discovered the convoluted and confusing (self-contradictory at times too) mess that is the league of legends “lore”. QQing about the end of summoners has been done to death (I didn’t even realize that they, and the institute of justice was even gone until very recently) but I’m not really interested in that. I never was invested in them (other than thinking Sona’s champ select lines were cool if kind of creepy). Instead, as of right now my desire to get interested in the lore is non-existent. Other than trying to figure out what Lazuli’s stuff is referring to, I will admit that I just am not super invested (I’m sure the majority of League players are in the same boat as myself) other than to want to play “Lore” related events since I like the game more so than the lore.

However, I am still quite curious about some things, and maybe some clarity in the state of the lore within the world (as quite frankly) the entire world is a mess. I have no idea what official sources I should look at, and the boards are huge (though if there is sort of a “State of the League Union” post somewhere that would be super). The league wiki is also confusing at best, and champ “bios” are confusing and vague.

Am I right in thinking there isn’t some overarching story at all and that most of the characters are just characters in this game world entirely separated from the actual arena battles (Draven and Sona and their respective ability names and voice acting aside) who only have self-contained lore when specific events happen, but are otherwise just static people? Is there a plan for some over-arching metaplot (because I honestly don’t know if it’s needed)? It really seems to me, as someone who never got invested and is probably never going to get invested in the lore now due to its current state, that having some generic characters (sorry but I’m not a fan of the champ intros/movies/comics etc, but that’s a matter of personal taste) and a generically defined world, who only really interact as Easter-eggs or vague “plot” events would suffice and still give us random fans enough to build our own world with?

TL;DR – Where’s the lore, if any, and how do I experience it because official sources are either non-existent (I can't find the journals etc) or are carefully hidden from a novitiate like myself. Hopefully I can get some help.

16 Comments

SharjoJun 15, 201512 votes

I'll explain as best I can, so buckle up son! Or daughter, I dunno if you're a lad or lass.

So right now there's a direction change going on with Riot. They've moved away from the old style of writing lore and bios and have moved to a different avenue. This began with Heimerdinger's VU and Vel'Koz in early 2014 where instead of long summaries for lore they had character pieces instead. This trend continued until around September, when something else big happened. They brought to light some story stuff for the region of Shurima, with some new things and some altered things concerning history and the champions associated with the region. At the same time they came out with a dev blog that basically said "We're doing a big reboot/retcon and removing the IoW from the lore while adjusting stuff accordingly."

Why is this a big deal you ask? Well the Institute of War (IoW for short) was the in lore justification for the game's existence. The game itself occured in the lore as diplomatic battles where champions from various nations would fight for the sake of said nations, or other parties. Everyone who became a champion had to go through the IoW, becoming a part of the roster for League. With this removal it has essentialy made it so that the game we play isn't canon in a lore context; the champions exist in the lore, the items exist in the lore, the maps are various locations in the lore, but the gameplay isn't canon and doesn't occur in universe.

This caused a few problems for some champions because some were intrisically tied to the League, meaning by removing the IoW they literally couldn't exist in the new canon with out adjustments. For some that's not as big an issue, for some it was/will be, but either way Riot has been moving towards this, but a problem occured.

The dreaded "Tech Issues".

Basically Riot, as part of this new approach, wanted to also divorce lore from the client to provide it in a better way via the main website. Problem is when they tried it everything broke apart. The website and client drew from each other, and so seperating them was not only hard but also brought other complications we don't even know about. To give some kind of metaphor, imagine that a doctor brings in a patient for a routine check and some easy fixes, assign some medication, what have you, but they discover their patient is actually dreadfully ill and things aren't nearly as simple. This led to the situation we have today.

Riot hoped to have short bios in the client that had a link to the website and the champion's lore, however because everything's still broken on this front, leaving us with the short bios while the long stories we were supposed to get have yet to be released bar a small number. Not everything in the lore was completely adjusted for the sake of this change either, and so some champions have lore that has yet to be changed, leading them to exist in a weird limbo of non-canon yet canon as we wait on the fix. Suffice to say people are really sad/mad/foaming at the mouth in frustration, I'd assume for both the players and Riot. This has led us to where we are today, where lore is in this weird and broken spot and is only slowly being fixed. The lore has many problems, not just relating to the tech issues, but you can look around this board to find out more about those. For now I'll leave this summary:

Riot took a new direction with the lore, moving from long summaries for bios to character pieces and more varied content such as videos, big promos and other media.
Riot proceeded to remove the Institute of War from the canon, divorcing gameplay and lore.
During the divorcing and retcon/reboot Riot encountered problems with their site and client preventing them from releasing content in the way they intended to, delaying the changes they had hoped to make.
The above has led to only short bios for champions being available a lot of the time, a broken website and some characters having weird lore that has yet to be adjusted for the new canon. The worst cases are as follows:

My biggest thing for you today is the following:

Everything that was released after and including Darius in terms of lore in anyway is almost certainly canon. Everything that came before that is debatable, depending on how much or how little needs to be changed for the sake of the new canon.

As an example; some champions like those worst cases I mentioned need complete rewrites to make them work in the new canon. Some champions like Ziggs, Varus, Fiora and Shyvana need barely any work at all. Hell Varus actually thrives in this new canon better than the old one! The League wiki is the best place to actually find everything lore related, including the now not canon Journal of Justice. Oh also, a final note:

Riot is very bad at following up on stories and developing them further. Most of what you'll find to be canon at the moment is essentially the prologue or chapter one of a larger story. The hope is this changes and Riot follows up more as they've said they will, but for now they have yet to do much of that at all.

And that's the whole lore situation as best I can explain it. Hopefully what I said made some kind of sense to somebody, and I hope it was atleast in someway useful to you kind sir/madam.

Jeddy017Jun 16, 20154 votes

^What he or she said.

Personally,I suggest not getting too invested with the lore at this time.Wait till Riot starts releasing more lore-based content on a regular basis & continue champion's stories.

SharjoJun 16, 20156 votes

Totally. Right now there are too many issues with the lore and its development for me, or anyone really, to recommend getting to invested. Things aren't in a good enough place for that yet.

FuryofThornsRedoJun 16, 20152 votes

You have me at,

I do not know if you are a Lad or Lass.

I am only starting to read your first reply post.

From: FuryofThornsRedo

FuryofThornsRedoJun 16, 20151 votes

item 3751 ,There I was imagining a nice fire while, a kind soul decides to take their time and share a background blog about League of Legends Lore.

Thresh "Did you say soul?" "Souls are tasty." "Souls are spiritually delicious!" {shhh, story time}

Then the conflicts of the League of Legends Lore are then illustrated into my brain more as I continue to read what this kind soul took the time to create.

Thresh "You said soul again!" "I heard you."

I was side tracked in thoughts somewhere and thought about Love: Soraka Warwick , and their Lore story background. Compared to Velkoz and Gnar , as you stated one of the short about them specifically thought lore pieces rather than either of her's Soraka Diana Lore Stories.

Now I am sad item 3070 , and can only hope there will actually be a day when Riot League of Legends decide to actually Upgrade the Lore.

Thank you for you time and telling me a sort of background to the Lore story. Any other stories you could share? Wondering if your presence near the site of King Arthur of Excaliber, or even the Holy Grail item 3028 , not that Chalice, but the historical story telling ability you own, are you owning this ability from education school learning's, or maybe an ability your family owns? You do not have to answer this question, I am illustrating how you have my audience undivided attention. Thank you for Sharing! From: FuryofThornsRedo

DamienSoltaJun 16, 20152 votes

For real though, that response was amazing and quite helpful. My question, by comparison was ill formed and confused, but that response was wonderful and this one was too!

FuryofThornsRedoJun 17, 20151 votes

Welcome! From: FuryofThornsRedo

Puri Puri TaricJun 16, 20158 votes

simple and short the lore turned to sht and its not worth bothering anymore it has been killed.

Tesla EffectJun 16, 20153 votes

{quoted}

simple and short the lore turned to sht and its not worth bothering anymore it has been killed.

It was always bad, now it shows even more cause they are doing awesome stuff in other parts of the franchise, but not as much in the lore as they could.

ImpetualJun 16, 20153 votes

I totally agree. The current lore delivery methods are not very effective.

Perhaps, Riot should look back to some of the previously successful and well loved methods of delivering like the Journal of Justice.

Lore updates have been really disappointing since the JoJ disappeared.

I don't think it's a coincidence.

GreenLoreJun 16, 20154 votes

The JoJ wasn't that beloved though. It was alienating for a large part of the playerbase,leading to a small group of very dedicated lore fans(those who did follow the JoJ),but a large group of people who didn't bother reading walls of texts about stories that sometimes didn't even have much meaning anyway(like the shaco interview that revealed absolutely nothing about shaco).

The reason why it is still fondly remembered is because it simply gave us tons of lore.

ImpetualJun 17, 20151 votes

I think we can at least agree that it was way better than what we get now.

GreenLoreJun 17, 20154 votes

Its not hard for anything to be better than almost nothing.

ImpetualJun 18, 20153 votes

...lol, that's true.

But I still stand behind the idea the Journal of Justice was the best/most effective lore delivery method Riot has ever utilized on a consistent/(long term) basis in its history as a company.

Most of the other lore delivery methods seem to try to be released through a different medium to create the some kind of shock value effect of seeing things presented in a different way.

That approach feels like it prioritizes being "different" over actually creating quality content that substantiates Runeterra as a world.

That direction makes me feel that to RIot, creating quality content takes a backseat to the "unique" delivery method, which is sometimes kinda cool, but usually it just falls flat and fails to give us what we want.

FuryofThornsRedoJun 17, 20151 votes

There is no difficulty in anything trying to be worse than almost everything! How is this sounding, GreeLore? I posted here, because I did not want to ruing your bottom line position with the comment posts. From: FuryofThornsRedo