Riot Opeli: "why is it imperative that a 5v5 game is deeply connected to our characters?"

Impetual·10/24/2014, 8:18:18 AM·72 votes·5,351 views

The Quote is in this link: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/miscellaneous/GPEPBymN-riot-it-should-be-pretty-clear-now-that-the-community-is-enraged-by-your-decisions-involving-lore

Because the whole point of having a narrative within a game is to deeply tie the characters to the game play, That is what gives players a sense of investment into the world that the game takes place in.

Here's my question to Riot:

Why wouldn't you try to deeply connect your characters to your game?

88 Comments

Gross10/24/2014, 8:31:33 AM37 votes

Ehhhh, with a game that has a lore including 100+ '' main characters '' you are bound to have most of them interact with each other. Otherwise you just have a story with 100+ loose characters, and that's one chaotic ass mess.

IoW was a great way to link these champions to each other, and make the world feel like whole. But now, most of them don't even know each other, even though in my game, they play against each other, or for each other.

Deleting the one aspect that made the story a whole, makes it scattered and inconsistent, and also makes the gameplay more shallow. You just digest what's on the screen, NOTHING ELSE.

DG Ashabel10/24/2014, 8:36:59 AM20 votes

Serious businessman answer: because deep connection between the characters, players and the game means they would have to deliver as much lore through the game as possible, which would have made for fewer opportunities to sell various "lore-related" merchandise such as books and cartoons. That's kind of important because a huge chunk of League audience is 16-year olds on a quest to become the next Doublelift and DVDs are actually in their expense range. Yes, we old farts would gladly burn hundreds of dollars on figurines and accessories, but kids aren't the type to do so.

The old reference to League as Super Smash Bros. should clue you in that they're approaching the whole thing like a toyline. Advanced game design and narrative integrity aren't as important for Riot right now as making money off champion-themed merchandise is.

UPfreely10/24/2014, 4:41:29 PM11 votes

As a player who was not very interested by lore before the changes. This kinda distances me from it even more. It no longer even feels familiar as its no longer connected to the game.

TerraRising10/24/2014, 8:48:54 AM10 votes

Opeli doesn't work with Narrative anymore.

Shokah10/25/2014, 4:09:02 AM10 votes

Seven degrees is fine - but doesn't explain I dunno "playing the &$#king game?" Not creating the illusion of player connection is okay for some games sure. I don't pretend I'm doing anything but killing time when I play Tetris - but when I played WoW, I was a proud member of the Horde. When I play games as characters I pick them because I'm going to invest the time to learn and enjoy their stories. Even if it's as simple as the frigging Doom marine.

So yeah, they retcon the IoW, that's fine - now everyone just wanders or sits home or something until there's some thing to fight for/over. They aren't gonna start whacking champions so what point is there in a story of vengence that won't ever be resolved? I'll buy you a beer the day they murder a champion IN lore. Two if they delete him in game.

Even if I decide that the disconnect is 'okay', the retcon is fine - my issue is this - I still want my Champions to be presented as who they are in the lore we get. Trundle, Karma, Xerath all got toolboxed to shoe-horn in some new champs faction wise. Sion's story has been the best thing so far - but it's BARELY about Sion. It's more about Noxus (the Black Rose, Swain, etc) in general.

Crappy 'omg how did the bloodline survive' "mysteries" and nonsensical transformations from traps aren't doing the new lore any favors.

Criomhthann10/24/2014, 7:35:12 PM9 votes

Holy shit, THANK YOU OP. This is like General Game Design 101. There is no reason why this has to be explained to somebody who supposedly does this for a living.

Rinky Dinky10/24/2014, 11:28:33 PM7 votes

Did a rioter actually say this? Really? Wow, talk about a failure. Lets just remove the lore altogether. We should also take away champion names and refer to them as Character-1, Character-2, etc.

It honestly shocks me that something so Ignorant could be said. What kind of people are you putting on your lore team riot?

DioBrandoh10/25/2014, 4:00:38 PM6 votes

I think we can conclude by now that Riot has no idea how writing works

SmokingPuffin10/24/2014, 10:19:41 PM2 votes

Why wouldn't you try to deeply connect your characters to your game?

It's limiting the types and kinds of stories you can tell. In the future, Riot is going to want to do more with the Runeterra IP, whether it be other games, books, comics, or movies. If your plan is future expansion into more different media, you don't want your whole storyline and lore feeding into Summoner's Rift and small-scale proxy conflicts.

A broader base of lore, with tales from all corners of Runeterra and conflicts both small and large, will give you more to work with in terms of growing the IP and making it relevant to more people.

Zendrô10/24/2014, 11:05:38 PM2 votes

Funny thing is... Super Smash Bros scrapped the entire story mode in Wii U and 3DS..

brusque10/24/2014, 5:22:17 PM2 votes

As a player who was not very interested by lore before the changes. This kinda distances me from it even more. It no longer even feels familiar as its no longer connected to the game.

Can you be more specific? How is the new Harrowing video not connected to the game, for instance?