Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Question about Riot's plans for lore

Ariaflux·3/30/2015, 2:36:11 AM·11 votes·2,307 views

Are there any plans to address these points below that were covered in the old lore, but isn't touched upon at all in what we've seen of the new lore:

  1. Why champions are fighting on specific maps over and over again, with both friends and foes on their team and in the opposing team?
  2. What are the players role in the game lore-wise? Something like the Summoners of old lore, or just the "background guy" like most RPGs?
  3. Will outdated names/lines be changed? Many champions still refer to "Summoners" in their dialogue, and there's also things like Summoner's Rift and Summoner Spells. Will these names/lines be replaced, or will their meaning be replaced?
  4. Not really important or relevant, but will there be a lore explanation on why the retcon happened? Time travel, end of the world, parallel universe etc.

With the direction of the new lore, it seems that the "limitations" of the old lore is actually the part where it tries to make gameplay make sense and link it to lore, which is unfortunately also the reason why many players actually loved the old lore. Therefore, I would appreciate it if Riot can actually confirm what is their overall direction/plan so that at least players can manage their expectations.

17 Comments

DG Ashabel3/30/2015, 2:52:34 AM7 votes

  1. There will be no explanation for that. The game has been completely removed from the lore and nothing that happens in it will affect the story, essentially being an all-star battle royale in the vein of Super Smash Bros and Heroes of the Storm. Summoner's Rift, Twisted Treeline and other areas in the game no longer exist within the story's world. How that is expected to work when none of the champions have their own stories and legacies the way Blizzard and Nintendo's characters do is something players have been wondering about.

  2. Despite the game's interface being summoner-centric, the players supposedly control champions directly now.

  3. While the dialogue of individual champions may change as visual upgrades are pushed out, the interface will likely remain summoner-centric due to how recognizable all those terms are on the competitive scenes. People's attempts to point out that this decision heavily contradicts point #2 have so far been unanswered.

  4. No. People asked for that repeatedly early on and were basically told that the new narrative team doesn't want people to feel attached to the old lore, so they'd rather pretend that the Institute never existed in the first place.

TerraRising3/31/2015, 1:47:19 PM5 votes

{quoted}

  1. Why champions are fighting on specific maps over and over again, with both friends and foes on their team and in the opposing team?

Riot (not just Narrative) is looking for more of a "Smash Bros" feel to the story behind their game. A series of interesting characters fighting in "what if" scenarios.

  1. What are the players role in the game lore-wise? Something like the Summoners of old lore, or just the "background guy" like most RPGs?

At first, Summoners were supposed to be eliminated entirely from the lore and that players controlled the champions directly. However, Tryndamere, in a Reddit Q&A, said that summoners still existed. Whether this was the result of a disconnect from the company's actual plans or not, the situation has changed somewhat.

  1. Will outdated names/lines be changed? Many champions still refer to "Summoners" in their dialogue, and there's also things like Summoner's Rift and Summoner Spells. Will these names/lines be replaced, or will their meaning be replaced?

The odds would be 99-1 against this happening. Despite their contradictory nature, changing every vocal reference to "summoners" would require a massive worldwide voice over project that would wind up being too expensive for Riot to implement, much less maintain.

As one example, any unionized voice actor would need to be replaced (auditions are expensive) because they would need to be paid again per patch and for each new skin that comes out. There's also the problem of having to do that in every language League is released in.

  1. Not really important or relevant, but will there be a lore explanation on why the retcon happened? Time travel, end of the world, parallel universe etc.

No. Retcons, or "retroactive continuity" just happen without explanation. If they explained it, it wouldn't be a "retcon" but a continuation.

With the direction of the new lore, it seems that the "limitations" of the old lore is actually the part where it tries to make gameplay make sense and link it to lore, which is unfortunately also the reason why many players actually loved the old lore. Therefore, I would appreciate it if Riot can actually confirm what is their overall direction/plan so that at least players can manage their expectations.

Yeah... this one. This is something the hardcore fans around here have been begging for since the announcement. Unfortunately, Riot's not talking and won't be doing so until they have something to deliver. That might take upwards of an entire year before they get started on that.

Sneak Dog3/30/2015, 2:55:27 AM5 votes

No reason. No reason. Maybe. No.

Seems to me Riot is heading towards a lore where stories are told in a setting, there's no reason to get invested in the stories, and the only links with the game are the characters in it.

Shiroi Kitsune3/30/2015, 2:40:18 AM4 votes

I too would be very interested to hear about this as it seems like the amount of lore has actually decreased over time rather than increased.

Tesla Effect3/30/2015, 2:39:45 AM3 votes

Read this please: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/creative-spotlight/dev-blog-exploring-runeterra

  1. Game is not connected with the lore so Thresh & Lucian playing on the same team wont effect anything. But maps like the Howling Abyss is just a small window into the world of Runeterra (that bridge is canon), but what we players are doing on that map is not canon.
  2. Background guy, for now.
  3. They wont. Also summoners are still canon (despite what they initially said), they will have a different role in the new lore (The upcoming VO of the SR Shopkeepers may give us some info into that).
  4. Retcon is a retcon, the lore will change accordingly with that retcon but it wont shape around it with time travel, end of the world or parallel universes (though that last part may as well make it canon since parallel universes make anything possible)
  5. Their plan is to make the lore more accessible on their site in the long run, update all of the old lore (champions, nations, world in general) and create something that wont be bound by the MOBA game we all play (which may open up for the possibility of different kinds of games that revolve around this world that arent so restricting as MOBAs are, like RPGs).
Narasimha3/30/2015, 3:11:38 AM2 votes
  1. From the Bard Q&A

The answer is that Summoner's Rift is just an idea, it's a stage to present the abbreviated stories and personalities of these characters who belong to a larger, longer story.

  1. No idea
  2. Probably not, since summoners apparently still exist.
  3. Most likely not, most retcons just kind of brush aside the old story like it never existed. A few try to make explanations, but those usually end up pretty messy, and then you end up with Superboy punching reality.
Xano5013/31/2015, 2:56:57 AM1 votes

[deleted]

Tesla Effect3/31/2015, 6:29:46 PM1 votes

Wow Xano501 reaction to life is just sad.