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A post to the Lore team on the Shurima event and other future lore events

Jingerbeardman··19 votes·1,779 views

Why is the Shurima event ending so quickly? I understand the game mode is going back into the vault for a while but that shouldn't stop the story coming to an extremely abrupt halt. A fair amount of the retcond champion lore was not even touched or mentioned... Such a great opportunity for the lore team to redeem itself is being completely wasted. People want a story, something to spark their imagination and allow them to delve deeper into the world of Runeterra. You had such an amazing setup and then... insert raspberry noise here

Right before the event you came out with a devblog explaining your goals and direction. You built yourselves up saying great things are coming to satisfy our pallets. Then we get this single paragraph wrap up that doesn't even touch all of the other champions whos lore was rewritten and now tied to Shurima. Just because the game mode goes away doesn't mean everything else has to stop... Keep the story going while new ones unfold, heck tie them together at some point. Cassiopeia is bound to be returning to noxus after her expedition gone wrong with news of the resurrected Shurima empire. I find it hard to believe that Noxus would simply turn a blind eye to this sudden appearance of power to its south.

That is the kind of story telling people are looking for. With the Shurima event ending almost the same way the freljord event ended, vague and unsatisfying, you are letting down the fans who wanted to renew their faith and trust in Riot and its lore department. Such an amazing opportunity squandered and I imagine many fans lost as a result. I doubt such a chance for redemption will come along again, even someone as forgiving as I am has lost faith that anything of real merit and intrigue is going to ever be done again. Ya dropped the ball on this one Riot and I wont be holding my breath in hope of it getting picked back up.

13 Comments

Xeneth8 votes

I disagree that length or detail are where this offering faltered... The core problem with it is that it tells instead of showing.

It reads as a series events that bookend each other to bring all these characters together in the same regional setting, but fails to use "show, don't tell" to glue the pieces together. We've sorta got "An event occurred, and another event occurred, then a character performed an action, so a thing happened, then..." when what ends up feeling more satisfying is akin to "An event occurred because of a worldstate, and that forced another event to occur which made a character feel something that compelled them make a thing happen..."

Going forward, I hope the writing is tighter and is more about Runeterra than positioning characters in it. It overreaches a bit to drag Cass into the mix, and in the end, fails to connect me to Azir by showing me why Shurima is a thing that I should mourn. This arc should have been a love story about a lost culture that made people identify with Azir in my opinion, and the actual tomb decanting and "rebirth" of something like 4 characters a mere current event that's a side effect of those shifting worldstates. Sivir, Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, and Azir should be mere ruins caught up in the sandstorm of an entire culture's rise, fall, and potential rebirth; Interesting and worth studying to be sure, but not the main focus of the initial piece.

The current Shurima arc was definitely a miss for me, but here's hoping they manage to weave some better notes in when they decide to touch on Amumu and Rammus down the line. Plus, the Sion teaser is starting off with a bang, showing early signs of adhering to some of the mechanics above, do give that a chance!

Jingerbeardman6 votes

If the Sion reveal tells something more than just here is sion again then yeah i might get some faith back but going off how things are done now i wont get my hopes up. They are basically making the game and its lore only about champion lore. if you view the shurima event as a means to show the changes in all the represented champions lore you will quickly realize that is all it is. A piece meal of 5 different champions lore mingled together into a hodgepodge story.

ill do a quick breakdown of the first arc video of the shurima story. insert Cassiopeia, from noxus seeking power, extremely vain insert Sivir, introduce as a mercenary in shurima cement location of shurima ruins for cassiopeias lore explain why cassiopeia looks the way she does now introduce renekton as being from shurima and driven mad by xerath to update his lore introduce xerath as from shurima to update his lore. convenient placing of sivir to further explain her lore in next arc end of arc 1 vid

second arc vid is the same thing except focused in on Sivir and Azir

and this is why the final paragraph conclusion is so underwhelming. seeing as there really wasnt a story to the whole event other than telling champion lore, there is no real conclusion because that is not written in any of their lore either.

Xeneth2 votes

Totally agree, it's about positioning champions and setting them up a certain way and little else... I really hope we're wrong and the somewhat ham-handed champ backstory setups started here GO somewhere, but I can absolutely understand not wanting to get your hopes up. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about the lore direction while still delivering criticism.

Sneak Dog2 votes

Look at it differently. We got a single storythread, Cassipeia and Sivir opening the tomb, but we got the whole story thread with conclusion. Now we move on to a different faction before returning to Shurima for the next Shuriman story thread, slowly uncovering more about each region. This way you can tell a story about Shurima, leave it while having both a proper conclusion and mystery.

It does leave a lot shrouded in mystery for now, but if every piece of lore will come as fast as reborn followed Shurima then it'll be fine, great even, as long as mistakes are corrected (Looking at Trundle, the reason I withhold myself from just diving carelessly into this new lore but rather look at it with squinty eyes).

Jingerbeardman4 votes

Except there is no conclusion, or mystery. they said what the key players of the story are doing and then bubbcus... thats all we are left with. if you actually think they will pick this back up... don't hold your breath. freljord has been sitting for 2 years without conclusion and this is the first event since then. they intend to repeat this pattern with each story. Why do I think that, because this event was an exact repeat of the freljord event. you earn an Icon, get an introduction and reintroduction for a few champs and then they move on to some other story they wont finish or continue.

All we will get out of this next story/reveal they shoved at us so quickly is Sion and nothing more. It wont advance any kind of story about the battle between demacia and noxus. It will reintroduce Sion and done. I reread the lore devblog and realized that this is the path they plan to take. They want to make it so the champions can make their own "stories" unaffected by summoners and the institute. Rough translation is creating a different story for every champion and never elaborating on them because there will be to many to work with by the time they might even try. Proof is in this very event. 9 champions had their lore changed to include Shurima as great influences to them. Only 5 of them were mentioned in the event. 4 have been left without even a single mention. Skarner could have easily been written into the event story as the protector of the gate to xerath but no he was completely rewritten without a single word or reason why.

This event actually made me feel like i was back playing on my NES when a games story was just the blurb you got on the back of the box. it is disappointing they are overlooking 25+ years of progress in the ways of video games and story telling just to focus on the competitive aspect of the game. I might be wrong but thats the way it looks and feels to me right now and it is going to take a major shift very soon to convince me and probably a bunch of other players otherwise.

the saddest part about all of this is that there are hundreds of different threads about the games lore and what players would like to see. All of which seems to have been overlooked or ignored.

Sneak Dog1 votes

There is a conclusion: The tomb was opened, Sivir was rescued by Azir. Shurima actually had things happening. I'm not going to say the script was good or that it doesn't feel like a watered-down version of a text story, but I still think it's better than the Freljord. All the Freljord event told us is that these champions were now in conflict with eachother. It was a notification of something ongoing, like saying that Noxus and Demacia are at war.

Dragon of Toran2 votes

There is a conclusion: The tomb was opened, Sivir was rescued by Azir. Shurima actually had things happening. I'm not going to say the script was good or that it doesn't feel like a watered-down version of a text story, but I still think it's better than the Freljord. All the Freljord event told us is that these champions were now in conflict with eachother. It was a notification of something ongoing, like saying that Noxus and Demacia are at war.

You say this like it is an actually conclusion to a worldwide story of epic proportions. This is the sort of story that used to be the sort of thing that was completed in a champion's bio. The entire Shurima event is basically the champion bio of Azir. The two video just explain why Azir exists. They can sell it as a "world event" because they tied as many champions as they possibly could into Azir's story. They could have gotten much more story development if they had actually rewritten all of the champion bios. Every champion they touched was fed into the story of Azir instead of finding a place in the greater story of Shurima, which happens to relate them to Azir. Cassiopia particulary suffers from this. She is shoved into the storyline and then abandoned when her role is finished with no actual explanation as to how an ancient Egyptian snake trap turns you into a super-powered Greek Medusa. There is no development of the world at large except that suddenly Shurmia now exists in some form or fashion.

Sneak Dog1 votes

I don't see the Shurima event as a world event. I see it as a small event telling a small story with a small set of characters with a world impacting result. It's entirely valid to criticize it for its scope. If you assume it's supposed to be a story about the whole of Shurima then it was not even close to complete. However, assuming that it's the story about Sivir entering the tomb, it's a pretty decent story and concluded.

Criticize it for its scope, don't criticize it as if it had a larger scope.

Jingerbeardman2 votes

that's the thing though, it isn't just about sivir and cass going into the tomb. It is about them releasing xerath and renekton from their prison and unleashing them once again upon the world followed by waking up azir, him ascending, and rebuilding shurima. we know what renekton is off to do as his goals are simple... Not xeraths though, he wants to change the world order and that is no simple task, but all we get is he is off to change the world for himself. It doesnt say where he is going to start, how he is going to do it, just that hes gonna go try. Does he meet resistance? or does the world crumble under his ascended power... Will the current people of shurima simply bow down to azir in allegiance or will they resist... and therein lies the problem, we dont know.

What they should have done, in my opinion, is show xerath beginning his rampage on the current people of shurima only to have Azir stand in his way. With sivir as his herald, Azir rallies the people of shurima to rise up and destroy xerath, helping him reestablish his empire. Xerath retreats to safety in order to re-evaluate his plans to dominate the world while Cassiopeia returns to noxus after witnessing all of this from the shadows and informs the noxian government of the rising threat to its south.

that would be a real conclusion to the event. Instead we get he might try this, that happened to her, and so on which isnt an ending at all... its just a summary of what was seen in the videos.

Jingerbeardman1 votes

you are focusing in on azirs lore a bit to much. the story arcs actually tell each champion involved lore, just mingled together.

Lord Milutin2 votes

Yeah, I posted nearly the same thing in the first thread here, and got so many downvotes. I just don't like endings that are so poorly written and vague. :(

Impetual2 votes

Here's the thing. When we had the Journal of Justice, the stories were about the characters.

Yeah, they had their goals and aspirations spelled out for us in their bio's, but the JoJ is where we got to see them as people.

Anyone remember when Jax and Gragas got drunk and wrecked up a bar! That was awesome!

Remeber Morgana's bakery? Or Blitzcrank's dating service?

It's a shame that the new lore direction doesn't seem to want to give us the personal sides of our champions, but rather it just focuses on making their bio's fit into the boring new world they seem to want Runeterra to be.

Jingerbeardman1 votes

I do agree that the JoJ was a great way to explore the games lore. It is sorely missed... It gave us so much insight into both the champions and the world itself. I think a similar thing could be done again by simply omitting the institute from it. perhaps something called the runeterra writer that reads much like a newspaper on the happenings in all of the different regions.

There really just needs to be more lore exploration done by riot that ventures farther than whats written within the champion bio's. They had made so many rich landscapes and cultures that it feels like a shame to see them all get rewritten.

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