Riot has destroyed all love I had for the lore

ChunLii·Feb 4, 2018·10 votes·4,287 views

The subpar new Swain was one thing but I could deal with that, however, now not all champions living at the same time and it’s just a bunch of background stories and folklore? Yeah I am done with League lore wise. I don’t think people understand how big the implications of this is.

Riot always making thing complicated for no real reason. Why do they think complexity equates to good writing when with every recent entry they are making their universe more nonsense?

41 Comments

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 4, 20187 votes

{quoted}

I'm going to reply here, but I think this covers several parts of the discussion elsewhere in the thread too... :-)

To be clear: I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT saying that "champions do not exist all at the same time". I'm saying that certain stories do not make it clear whether or not specific champions are active in the same place, at the same time.

This works both ways. If we assume there is a "now" (which there is!) and that all ~140 champs are active right now, then they can all potentially interact with one another in whatever ways make for the best and most exciting stories. You can expect to see more and more of that kind of storytelling in the near future.

However... if there is a "now", then there was a "past", and therefore an implied canonical timeline. Riot has told stories set in the past of the timeline - even the Darius comic showed some events from 5 (?) years ago, and as Xenohaz pointed out, Braum has apparently been around for multiple generations. This means either that humans in our setting don't age or die (seems unlikely!) or that we have to assume that some champions are very unlikely to ever interact outside of the game, because the days, weeks, months and years of their lives are gradually being filled up with storylines.

If we tell a story set 5 years in the past, or an origins story for a champion even further back, then we have to consider the fact that younger champions would be children... or not even born yet. Then you have to literally start working out "when is now?" and how old LITERALLY every single champion is, and whether or not they age like regular people.

That's all I meant :-)

There is positive movement at Riot towards making internally consistent lore - we're not there yet, but we're making progress. I'd urge everyone not to see this as a limiting factor, but a chance to see more stories which have meaningful connections and an internal logic across all of them.

And as always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to hear what you all had to say.

Just saying

ChunLiiFeb 4, 20181 votes

“ we have to assume that some champions are very unlikely to ever interact outside of the game,”

This is worrisome. They are literally trying to bring some of the old lore back which I hated. Riot already destroyed one of the best posters on these boards and now they are not in love with a certain champion. I am going to leave that up to you to guess who it was.

I can’t wait until they destroy Jarvan and many other fan favourite champions. It’s not a question of if it’s a question of how much. Viktor, Swain, Varus all a mockery. Good job Riot

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 4, 20184 votes

{quoted}

“ we have to assume that some champions are very unlikely to ever interact outside of the game,”

This is worrisome. They are literally trying to bring some of the old lore back which I hated. Riot already destroyed one of the best posters on these boards and now they are not in love with a certain champion. I am going to leave that up to you to guess who it was.

I can’t wait until they destroy Jarvan and many other fan favourite champions. It’s not a question of if it’s a question of how much. Viktor, Swain, Varus all a mockery. Good job Riot

Well, that is not something new... it is something that has been know since the IoW was removed, you cant expect that Aurelion Sol is likely to meet Caitlynn at some point. In this topic you are complaining about the part of "not all champions living at the same time", a thing that is not true as i pointed out already.

Dont mix that with other complains that you may have about the lore.

ChunLiiFeb 4, 20181 votes

It makes the universe much smaller. Riot is so focused on greatly changing and mutilating individual characters that they rid of any hopes of a cohesive universe. Just you wait until the narrative team decides to remove one of your favourite champions. Two of my favourite champions were Draven and Vayne. I don’t need to explain how they did it with Vayne but they already starting to do that with Draven but I will explain more with this once the lore hits so I can bash on it hard unless they get a change of heart...

The Noxus lore update will be the last nail in the coffin for me in terms of lore, not whatever mess they do to J4 in the future. New J4 lore was mediocre which I was so glad it was OKAY, I want to think about feeling so happy that it was boring. This mess of a lore is not worth anyone’s time but if you enjoy then you should really be careful of future developments that mutilate your favourite champion

gabetheguyFeb 4, 20185 votes

{quoted}

It makes the universe much smaller. Riot is so focused on greatly changing and mutilating individual characters that they rid of any hopes of a cohesive universe. Just you wait until the narrative team decides to remove one of your favourite champions. Two of my favourite champions were Draven and Vayne. I don’t need to explain how they did it with Vayne but they already starting to do that with Draven but I will explain more with this once the lore hits so I can bash on it hard unless they get a change of heart...

The Noxus lore update will be the last nail in the coffin for me in terms of lore, not whatever mess they do to J4 in the future. New J4 lore was mediocre which I was so glad it was OKAY, I want to think about feeling so happy that it was boring. This mess of a lore is not worth anyone’s time but if you enjoy then you should really be careful of future developments that mutilate your favourite champion

it's almost as if some champs live very far apart and are most likely unaware of each other's existence. don't tell me you unironically think taric gives a shit about yasuo?

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 4, 20186 votes

{quoted}

It makes the universe much smaller. Riot is so focused on greatly changing and mutilating individual characters that they rid of any hopes of a cohesive universe. Just you wait until the narrative team decides to remove one of your favourite champions. Two of my favourite champions were Draven and Vayne. I don’t need to explain how they did it with Vayne but they already starting to do that with Draven but I will explain more with this once the lore hits so I can bash on it hard unless they get a change of heart...

The Noxus lore update will be the last nail in the coffin for me in terms of lore, not whatever mess they do to J4 in the future. New J4 lore was mediocre which I was so glad it was OKAY, I want to think about feeling so happy that it was boring. This mess of a lore is not worth anyone’s time but if you enjoy then you should really be careful of future developments that mutilate your favourite champion

I dont see how the univese would feel bigger if all the champions were likely to meet at some point, in fact i see it as the opposite...

Anyways, Draven is my favorite Noxian champion (well, he and Kled) and i dont really understand what are you saying about him... So please explain. How the hell you are complaining about something that has not been released (or even announced as far as i know) like you already knew what is?

Chromatic EagleFeb 4, 20181 votes

Besides his visuals, what do you hate about Swain? Viktor seems to be the same as before, so why is that a problem?

RiotRiot ScathlockeFeb 4, 201814 votes

Saved me some typing, there! There was quite a bit of additional context, and I think some people took my first post the wrong way. I guess "It's not clear" was not the clearest way to say it. :-P

To the original poster - I can't speak to whether or not you personally enjoy the new Swain, but have you even actually seen his updated lore? AFAIK it's not released yet...

I'd argue that there's a difference between "complexity" and "consistency". Right now, there are many parts of the League lore that are inconsistent, or at least slightly contradictory. We Narrative folks have been listening quietly to player thoughts and feedback on the boards since I arrived at Riot a year ago, and some of the biggest pain seems to be "We don't know what the world looks like, or when stuff happens, or who knows whom" - that's a huge issue, the biggest in fact, and so it's important to address that if we want to develop the lore further and give more depth to the players who want it. Some of the lore doesn't make it clear where/when certain champions are active, and we want to maximise the potential for great storytelling with the characters that you all know and love.

If you don't want more depth and just want to play some sweet games of League, in fact we already got you covered there too - we removed the huge portions of lore from the client that were (inconsistently) included for some champions but not others, and just gave a short, simple summary of each one. If players want the deep dive, they can head to Universe for more, and we will continue to deepen and expand the lore as we move forward.

So, again, I'd say the fact that this discussion is going on at all is a good thing, and I'd urge you to be specific about what it is you don't like. But we are NOT saying, arbitrarily, that this is all just myths and folklore.

(That's just Amumu. And maybe Fiddlesticks. And possibly Braum. It's not clear... buuuuuut, we could make it clearer, if we have those discussions...) ;-)

ModPeriscopeFeb 4, 20181 votes

We Narrative folks have been listening quietly to player thoughts and feedback on the boards since I arrived at Riot a year ago

Thanks for that.

I really don't do lore that much, maybe save a few champs that I truly adore. Where should I start out with lore? Or maybe just point me to a favorite of yours. (Anyone can chime in on this).

ChunLiiFeb 4, 20182 votes

I don't enjoy the implications of the Swain interactions nor do I enjoy his new visuals but again if it was just Swain that was subpar I wouldn't turn my back on the lore but it's just one of the factors contributing to it. Swain was never a favorite champion of mine, just someone I saw a lot of potential to build the universe and tell cool stories with and also being Demacia's arch-rival in the old lore.
I do want depth but depth that makes sense and not depth for the sake of depth. Sometimes the simplest plotlines are the most beautiful ones.
I don't like how separate everything is. There needs to be more interactions between champions to make the universe feel more alive but most of all I don't like how certain champions are nothing like their old version and all because the narrative team thought they could create this uber cool new character using an existing character's name and looks. I am sure this new one will get new fans but where is the respect to the old fans?

GreenLoreFeb 4, 20182 votes

1.How is new Swain a different character in your opinion?Sure his design changed and it is ok to not like it,but in terms of lore and personality he barely changed.If anything they simply expanded on his old lore,finally revealing his motives and parts of his background.So it is really more of an expansion than a complete rewrite.

3.If everyone would meet everyone eventually,then the world would feel small and fake.Its just unreal to think that every champ could meet every other champ,when some of them live on entirely different continents.

Nagoh ShanFeb 4, 20187 votes

To be honest the inconsistency was made by you guys. You guys are trying to fix a problem that you made for yourselves now a little over 3 years ago.

3 years. That's insane. All because it was apparently too hard to write within the world you guys were hired to. And now we've got no overarching world, no connecting fabric between the characters. Just an empty world with people and nothing really happening between them. No story connecting the characters, just descriptions of the places and people.

We used to know a lot of the answers to these "Deep" questions (Who, what, why), and that was back when there were barely any lore updates. And people were interested in knowing the answers to the questions we didn't know.

Don't you think it's insane that the Star Guardian, Battlecast, and Project skin lines have better more consistent, overarching, and universe building lore than the base game's story?

And it's sad to see, the stuff you guys could have done with the league. There are some great bits that are coming out from a writing perspective, a bit of it may read like a 2-star story on fanfiction.net, but honestly a lot of the writing is solid. I just wish you guys wouldn't have been too lazy to do that writing within the league of legends world.

Sorry if it sounds mean, but it's just so frustrating.

BerserknurpleFeb 4, 20184 votes

The old league lore was super limiting. Also it was just poorly written. But if they hadn’t abandoned it, we never could have had champions like Aurelion Sol, or Kindred, or Rek’Sai or so many others.

The League itself limited who could be in the game to beings that a.) could be controlled by Summoner’s and b.) have a reason to be there/get out of being there. Now a champion can be anything in Runeterra.

QuephaFeb 5, 20183 votes

Super limiting to what? The ability to tell new stories with the same characters? Riot still doesn't do that.

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 5, 20185 votes

{quoted}

Super limiting to what? The ability to tell new stories with the same characters? Riot still doesn't do that.

The ability to add a character who is literally the Death to the game, in the old lore it would be impossible. And that is just one example...

Or in a lesser scale, look at the story of GP and Fortune, in the old lore, it would be pointless because MF would know that he survived and she would not even able to do what she did in first place because fights between champions outside of the Fields of Justice were prohibited.

QuephaFeb 5, 20183 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ebonmaw Dragon,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=FW1MKIJW,comment-id=000000010002000000000000,timestamp=2018-02-05T06:58:55.572+0000)

The ability to add a character who is literally the Death to the game, in the old lore it would be impossible. And that is just one example...

In no way did it prevent that. You aren't even trying.

Or in a lesser scale, look at the story of GP and Fortune, in the old lore, it would be pointless because MF would know that he survived and she would not even able to do what she did in first place because fights between champions outside of the Fields of Justice were prohibited.

Exactly one story told over the last 4 years, and Riot already said that event was so hard to pull off with so little reward at the end (and a ton of negative feedback about the Gangplank debacle) that they never plan to do an event of that scope ever again.

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 5, 20187 votes

{quoted}

In no way did it prevent that. You aren't even trying.

Exactly one story told over the last 4 years, and Riot already said that event was so hard to pull off with so little reward at the end (and a ton of negative feedback about the Gangplank debacle) that they never plan to do an event of that scope ever again.

If the Institute of War captured the literal embodiment of Death to use it in their games, then everyone in Runeterra would be inmortal. See the problem there?

Maybe the event as such had negative feedback, but the stories remain as one of the best in the lore and they already said that they are going to do something similar with Akali .

As well, would be unable to do what she is doing in the lore with Ashe if the IoW existed, since the summoners would tell Ashe that the Lissandra that she knows is the Ice Witch.

The whole story about Renekton ? you cant have that in the old lore because he was imprisoned, same go for Fiddlesticks and Nocturne in the lore of Lux

QuephaFeb 5, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ebonmaw Dragon,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=FW1MKIJW,comment-id=00000001000200000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-02-05T17:03:11.775+0000)

If the Institute of War captured the literal embodiment of Death to use it in their games, then everyone in Runeterra would be inmortal. See the problem there?

And if they made a contract with it because Death thought it would be hilarious to participate it would be completely fine. Wow that took me less than 3 seconds to think up.

That's what I meant when I said you aren't even trying.

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 5, 20185 votes

{quoted}

And if they made a contract with it because Death thought it would be hilarious to participate it would be completely fine. Wow that took me less than 3 seconds to think up.

That's what I meant when I said you aren't even trying.

"hilarious" is just another way of saying that it would be stupid and make no sense.

And you are ignoring the rest of the post.

Sardonic SlothFeb 6, 20183 votes

{quoted}

In no way did it prevent that. You aren't even trying.

How did it not prevent that? Tell me ONE motivation that would bring death itself or a godlike spacedragon to join the institute of war and limit their power by doing so (particularly since death would literally be incapable of ending the life's of champions, thus rendering each and every champ in the lore immortal for the sake of entering an eternal tournament with no serious ramifications ever) without the reason behing incomprehensibly campy, cheesy or eading as if it was written by a 12 year old with seöf-insertion-fantasies.

QuephaFeb 6, 20181 votes

I already did. People just move the goalposts when I prove them wrong so I'm not going to bother to come up with another one.

Sardonic SlothFeb 7, 20182 votes

{quoted}

I already did. People just move the goalposts when I prove them wrong so I'm not going to bother to come up with another one.

Just in case you meant this "And if they made a contract with it because Death thought it would be hilarious to participate it would be completely fine. " then I want to say I meant a reason that would not be incorporated in cheap and badly written fanfic.

QuephaFeb 7, 20181 votes

Moving. The. Goalposts.

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 7, 20182 votes

{quoted}

I already did. People just move the goalposts when I prove them wrong so I'm not going to bother to come up with another one.

Excuse me? You proved me wrong what? No idea what do you mean by "move the goalpost" , the main complain that the OP had in the post was something that is simply not true and what you said about "The ability to tell new stories with the same characters" is not true as well since i mentioned tons of examples (that you ignored) already.

QuephaFeb 7, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ebonmaw Dragon,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=FW1MKIJW,comment-id=0000000100020000000000000000000100000001,timestamp=2018-02-07T17:12:34.211+0000)

No idea what do you mean by "move the goalpost"

Then you should educate yourself before posting.

Ebonmaw DragonFeb 7, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Then you should educate yourself before posting.

Sorry that english is not my primary language, ¿Puedes tu hablar dos idiomas? i dont think so.

As i said before, i gave a lot of examples of how Riot is doing what you said that they aren't doing. You haven't proven anything by denying facts.

Nagoh ShanFeb 5, 20183 votes

See that's the same lack of creativity that's annoying.

The league didn't limit who could be a champion, the writing team's lack of creativity in explaining the why's and hows did.

Iceborn PippinFeb 5, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nagoh Shan,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=FW1MKIJW,comment-id=00000001000200000001,timestamp=2018-02-05T07:54:16.820+0000)

See that's the same lack of creativity that's annoying.

The league didn't limit who could be a champion, the writing team's lack of creativity in explaining the why's and hows did.

Whats a shame is they didn't even just blowup the IoW like "too much arcane energies from Summoner's Rift caused a massive explosion at the Institue of War; effectively crippling its power over the denizens of Runeterra and scattering them." and just continued the story from there. The difference is that no lore was retconned that was from the IoW and we still have the events that transpired afterwards like the event with The War of Three Sisters, Shurima or Bilgewater.

Chromatic EagleFeb 4, 20181 votes

Does Amumu exist, or do people not know if he exists?

Chromatic EagleFeb 4, 20184 votes

We don’t know what’s behind the scenes, but what’s taking so long to update these regions? I know you value quality, but it’s a really crappy feeling having to wait for so long for a potential retcon that hurts people’s love for a champion. It’s also becoming apparent that the writers have opposing views on a character than the fans, furthering the rift that’s been made since the major reboot of the lore.

HellioningFeb 4, 20181 votes

{quoted} So, again, I'd say the fact that this discussion is going on at all is a good thing, and I'd urge you to be specific about what it is you don't like. But we are NOT saying, arbitrarily, that this is all just myths and folklore.

The mere fact that it could be is already disappointing enough, honestly.

The IcebornFeb 4, 20181 votes

We need the WATCHERS TO RETUTRN ASAP

swordofsunFeb 5, 20181 votes

Have you thought about putting the lore back into the client? Integrating Universe somehow?

Frankly my computer isn't good enough to have both the client open and the Universe site at the same time without effecting my FPS. And the time I'm most interested in reading lore is when I'm queued for a game. Mainly because that's when I'm actually sitting at my computer.

Regardless I love what you're doing. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to Swain's new stuff.

(Also it seemed obvious to me that not everything was happening at the same time? I'm confused by the people being confused by this.)

HäxelFeb 5, 20181 votes

Not gonna say you have to have one, but do you have a smartphone? Even if your Computer can't keep up you could read the lore on that (or on a Tablet). If you don't have such a thing or you don't like to read on a small screen, than i just recommend to buy a new Computer or Graphic Card or a big Tablet cause i don't realy see Riot putting this back in the Client if they have it removed for own reasons. Also if they would put it in there it could also seemingly unnecesarily increase fps for you AND for others too. And while you could just clsoe the Browser it would be far harder to return to normal fps by closing that in the client.

swordofsunFeb 6, 20181 votes

You are correct.

Once again the world fails to conform to my exact needs and expectations. XD

Tesla EffectFeb 6, 20182 votes

{quoted}

If you don't want more depth and just want to play some sweet games of League, in fact we already got you covered there too - we removed the huge portions of lore from the client that were (inconsistently) included for some champions but not others, and just gave a short, simple summary of each one. If players want the deep dive, they can head to Universe for more, and we will continue to deepen and expand the lore as we move forward.

This is the biggest mistake you made with the new client. Rather than separate lore from the client, why not just link the Universe lore within the client itself. Make it accessible in the same manner just like with any internet search engine.

GenoXxFeb 4, 20183 votes

Legends and folklore is what make League of legends. Every champ is considered legendary in some way. This would mean that even though they have they own stories and settings, people still have at least heard about them in some way. See LoL's lore as folklore is what it's suppose to be. How can you imagine what happened in Shurima to be something recent? It didn't, it happened millennia ago. And that's why the Fall of Shurima is regarded as a legend.

Only recently did Azir got resurrected, Xerath didn't betray him a few years ago. I'm not understanding why you wouldn't find that appropriate. That's what legends are: folklore, old stories, bedtime stories, tales,etc.

RobertsmashFeb 4, 20182 votes

I think it would be better for champions to be alive at different times. Why should anyone worthy of being a champion all be alive at the same time in the entire timeline of this fictional universe? There's no one, past or future, as powerful or relevant as these champions existing within these few decades?

I think it would add depth to the timeline and make the universe more believable if there were champions from all sorts of times in Runeterra.

DigielfFeb 5, 20182 votes

This just opens more creativity for storywriting by making them not all being the same timeline since it expands the limits, but that doesn't mean that they can't meet each other there are many ways to make them interact either time travelling, open different dimension portals etc. Although i don't think they will really go that direction since more things are being cleared up on how everything is connected