Regarding: @Tamat's Proposal For Easier Communication With Narrative

TerraRising·9/28/2014, 3:11:21 AM·24 votes·1,971 views

In his Lore redirect thread, Tamat proposed the following:

My biggest piece of feedback for everyone here is that you need to make them feel more welcome, and less like they have to walk into a lions den to talk with you.

Now, ignoring the fact that lore fans have, off and on over the past three years, attempted to reach out and seek any attention from Narrative, only to be met with: • Long periods of silence. • Forced changes with no warning or discussion. • Promises of more communication and more content which are then broken. • Exasperated pleas of “Why can't you just like this?” • Contempt when we give reasons why it shouldn't be changed the way it's being done. • More silence that feels like haughtiness as the cycle continues.

This has created an environment of mistrust, frustration, and anger among the fan base. Without a doubt, Narrative's "relationship" with their fans is the one example where Riot's statements of “we do what we do for our community” is an outright bald-faced lie.

Certain recent dismissive comments and inappropriate movie quotes from Narrative team members have not helped matters at all, either.

Tamat, you seem to think these feelings of mistrust, frustration and anger are something that can be suppressed “for the sake of communication with Narrative.”

I would say that Narrative created this environment among their most passionate fanbase and they should be willing to endure our mistrust, frustration and anger. After all, they're in charge of the conversation and they should be more than capable of starting discussions and making responses in a healthy way.

However, for the sake of discussion, what would you propose we, the passionate fans of Riot's lore, do to “make them feel more welcome?”

23 Comments

LordHippoman9/28/2014, 4:00:31 AM18 votes

To be honest, there's no excusing some of the things the Lore Discussion boards said to Tom Abernathy and Opeli. Death threats are never okay, especially over a videogame. I can entirely understand why Riot would be upset with the response. The issue is that most of the people saying that shit weren't the usual populace of the Lore forums. I've stuck around these boards for 3-4 years, and not once had I seen the guy who called Opeli a "dumb broad", or the guy who threatened to rape her, etc. These trolls became the face of the Lore Forum, and that's the problem. The new Lore team probably doesn't see us as the people who got excited and talked about Kalamanda, Freljord, and that sort of thing for pages upon pages. It would be easier to see us by our most extreme, a bunch of people making threats and screaming at them. But those people are rarely even among us.

You can hate the retcon. I hate the retcon. But we can be respectful about it and tell them why we don't like it and how to avoid those situations instead of criticizing every word out of their mouths. It's way easier to get communication by saying "We take issue with this, but see your reasoning, here's how you can avoid it in the furture" than saying "Hey, I'm gonna break in your house and snap your neck for messing with Xerath's backstory!!!!!"

Chromatic Eagle9/28/2014, 6:46:19 AM6 votes

They can't reveal most details, but it would help if we knew how they plan on rebuilding the world without the league. Like with the Poppy thread, actually ask us how we view a character before they make a change to their lore. We don't want another Trundle, or potentially Xerath.

Also while they need to moderate the forums for threats and trolling, they need to accept that for some fans, the trust is broken. No matter what they do, they won't win back all of their fans, and many will explain why. Salvage the ones you can by being honest and competent. I can't stress competence enough. We don't want to deal with massive retcons anymore.

Irongrinder9/28/2014, 6:25:55 PM4 votes

However, for the sake of discussion, what would you propose we, the passionate fans of Riot's lore, do to “make them feel more welcome?”

We can't.

I've been here since pre-Season One, and it's *always *been this way with the narrative team. You know what the best indicator for future behavior is? Past behavior. Riot's narrative team will **never **interact with its audience the way we want them to, because it ultimately doesn't matter. They'll nod, pretend to ponder (if they feel like it), and then go ahead with their original plans anyway, no matter how unpopular they may be.

Welcome to the Age of RetGones, boys and girls. Get used to it.

Diahane9/28/2014, 3:12:17 PM3 votes

Those who were rude, threatening and/or went overboard should be shunned by the community and rightly banned, as it has always been the case with properly moderated communities, so the argument that they shouldn't hang around here because some of us are toxic is ridiculous, because that would mean that no one should play the game either for the same reason! A lot of trolls and flamers are present every game, nonetheless we still step in the Fields of Justice (hyronically, I shouldn't call them that way anymore, since they are canon no more) because we, item the first, know that not everyone is a toxic player and, item the second, because we are passionate about the game. So, either the lore department thinks of us, those who care enough about lore to come here on the boards (which don't even have a link in lol's EUW frontpage), that we are all criminal-like-minded people, or they just aren't passionate enough about their work to be challenged by the communities ideas about it. So, well, if things are this way should we all become yes-men (and -women) and say "please, dear lore department, retcon whatever you like, whenever you like, however you like and how many times you like, for you truly are the enlightened and superior ones we crave to listen and be educated by"? Dissent and its show of it is the most democratical thing, so why not come here and discuss? They can still then say "we decided to go this way, because of the reason we disserted about, so we're not retracing our steps back", but at least we'll have some form of dialogue and show of respect. Why should they respect us? Well, it's them who aim to be the most player focused company in the world, so it's actually their phylosophy to do so =/ It doesn't make sense of them to not listen to their players so blatantly. If there's a rework of a character's gameplay, they discuss it, they hear, they remind you the feedback is being read; they still follow their development line, but that's fine, Riot has professionals to take the best decisions for their company, which usually are the best for the majority of players, so no one can rightly ask to start polls everywhere whenever something needs to be made or redone. We don't ask this for the lore neither, we don't actually can ever dream of getting them to let us choose their course of actions, that would be silly, but how can discussing changes with us hurt in any way? To put it simply, the gameplay guys do a better work at communicating and though we may not agree with their decisions we can share with them our impressions and be heard and keep up a constructive discussion. On the other hand, the lore department just goes "meh" at us and dismisses our opinions without even bothering to say somewhere that they're actually listening to them. Really, to be heard and have it recognized that we are heard and might keep our feedback and concerns present for the future, that is what this is all about. Those who complain about old lore are obviously people who at least knew it and cared about it. We are some of the people who followed the JoJ, some of those who speculated about the plot unfolding, we are some of those who are passionate enough about this game and its story that we lose our time complaining to this virtual wall of a board where we know we will be unheard. Some may be rude and that I won't excuse, no one should be, here or elsewhere. To keep proper etiquette and netiquette is most vital a value and we should, as a community, remind this to those who cross the line and proceed to shun them, so as to show their behaviour is not appreciated nor tolerated. But in any group of people you will find bad and good ones, you can't stop talking to a community because of toxic individuals. So, to wrap this all up, I feel offended and hurt at Riot's lore department current management of communication and community feedback. We are outright ignored and relinquished when we file any complaint that is not in line with their route. We shouldn't be treated as outcasts, we are players, we are readers, we are their fanbase.

ModCaptainMårvelous9/28/2014, 7:24:01 PM3 votes

I just wish the lore team would take more fan ideas or hire people/offer internships to those who have shown legitimate skill in the lore. Like that Cupcake guy who ran the factions, he should definitely be getting some form of recognition for his work.

brusque9/29/2014, 12:11:30 AM3 votes

I left a kind of long reply on the redirect thread, but I guess I should've left it here. Here's the link.

TL;DR

*Here's my question for all the people who are criticizing the lore changes and whatnot: why on earth do you feel so entitled, as fans of the lore, to be a direct influence in its direction? *

  • Offer constructive feedback to the lore team.
  • Constructive feedback is actionable, is objective, and puts aside your grudges with the team. It objectively looks at what's happening now and what we have today. Hand-wavey story devices to "re-include summoners" in the lore is not an actionable idea, either.
Neon Robot9/29/2014, 7:53:03 AM2 votes

[deleted]

GenoXx9/28/2014, 4:44:31 AM2 votes

Lore fans nowadays makes it impossible for any of them to talk to us. No one likes going to people who are just gonna shit talk them when they do come. I don't blame them now for not really talking nowadays. I was upset about the long wait too, but you don't see me trying to gain their attention so that I can try to prove that I can write a better story or how the old lore was better. Quite frankly you guys aren't giving them a chance to show what they have in store now. Yea, I would probably turn the other way too before think about trying to say hi to my fans if that's all im goin to get.

Sneak Dog9/28/2014, 11:24:50 AM1 votes

It's hard to just make them feel welcome if all my posts about Trundle have been seemingly ignored by Riot, despite me having good discussion with the community, changing my view but never being outright proven wrong. This has been going on since the Freljord and it feels terrible to only have a couple (I think two, one of which is recent) posts of non-lore department Rioters stating that Trundle might not be the same while the lore department currently states they want to keep champions' identities the same.

If they keep making controversial decisions this is going to rub some of us the wrong way. They'll get some negative responses. But just keeping quiet makes all of us frustrated about the lore. Engage in discussion, tell us why you did what you did and not what we propose as alternative, and we'll start being more understanding. I realise posting on the boards is entirely voluntarily, but not doing so only makes us more frustrated.