Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

For Riot: thoughs/feedback on the lore of Burning Tides (esp. Act III)

patmax17·8/3/2015, 2:28:58 PM·2 votes·1,209 views
Bilgewater: Burning Tides

Hi all

First, let me say that I think Riot did a good job on this event, it was long, they gave out information across the whole event, it got my interest, I was excited and am overall happy and satisfied of how they did it.

I'm here because I think a few things could have been better, and I hope my feedback can help Riot improve even more with their next events (omg, so excited!! *w*). Of course there are going to be spoilers, so if you want to avoid them, read the event lore and the updated lore of the involved champions on their champion pages. As usual, excuse me for my bad english, hope I can explain what I mean. And sorry if sometimes I come as rude, it's because if I struggle to explain what I mean, I prefer being clear than expressing myself in the most educated way :(

First, a few things on how the story was written:

  • Mixing times. Graves' and TF's parts are written in present, MF's and GP's parts are in past. While I get why you would write first person in present time, this makes the text less fluid to read. Please try to stick to present OR past next time, even if switching between first person and third person

  • too many short sentences, too many full stops and too few commas. I know this is made to make the text feel more like moment-to-moment thoughts and it builds tension, but it is cumbersome to read if used too much. Make longer sentences from time to time, it eases up the text.

And now what I'm most passionate about, content:

  • the card Graves finds in his pocket. There are two things that bother me here: first, how could GP's crewmen not find the card on Graves? They surely searched him when they looked for hidden guns and ammonition, and the card was just in his back pocket, it wasn't conceiled or so. I would expect them to find the card, they're not stupid. And second and most important, that part comes a bit as a surprise. A bit too much, I mean. If you wanted to pull a chekov's gun with the card, you should have shown more clearly when Graves picked it up, even if it was just a sentence, like "I reach to my back pocket and feel the card. I picked it up in the warehouse, and I'm going to shove it down that ***'s throat". We clearly know when Graves picks it up (when TF escapes the warehouse), but we don't actually see it happening. I would have made it more clear, somehow

  • Graves' change of mind. While it is explained why he stops wanting TF dead (the reasons are clear), everything is a bit too rushed, especially because TF has been telling him the exact same thing for two whole acts over and over again. Graves change of mind is too sudden, I would have made it more gradual, you didn't really build up for that climax.

  • GP in MF's lore: I've seen this has already been tackled by Jaredan, but I feel it is an important point, and I want to stress it again. In MF's new lore, GP comes around as way more stupid than he is in the bilgewater event. I really like how you portrayed the new GP: he's cruel but methodic, he's "fair", in terms of D&D alignment he is clearly lawful evil. But in MF's lore, he's just an ass: why doesn't he want to pay for the guns? Why does he throw them away? Why does he have to kill everyone who's there, instead of just stealing the guns? I can't imagine Burning Tides' GP acting like this.

  • and besides, if the guns were commissioned, why did MF's mom make guns "Too fine for the likes of [Gangplank]"? I mean, they are commissioned, you know who you are making them for, why do you make guns that are not fit for your customer? I know GP changed in one year's time but I mean, he surely wasn't some distict Piltover High-class noble, he already was a "up-and-coming reaver of Bilgewater".

  • GP in act 3: in the first two acts (as far as you see him he does not get that much spotlight, being Graves and TF the main characters of the story), he's powerful, fearsome, intelligent and strong. In act three he's still cocky and cruel, but he ends up...losing. Graves and TF escape, his ship is blown up, he loses an arm... Sure, he comes back angrier and more dangerous than ever, but I still feel a bit of pity for the treatment he got. I hope the next time we get to see him, we can see how even more fearsome and powerful his rage has made him >:)

That's it, these are the most important sidesteps I noticed in this event (and the lore related to it). Let me say again that I really really enjoyed the event, I like how you portrayed all characters involved (god, MF gives me the creeps now!), and I'm soooo looking foreward to the next one! I think this is a very good new first step for the lore team and Riot as a whole (as it involves many teams), slow clap!

Thanks again for your work and if you read through this (despite my awful english!) thank you again :)

See you on the fields of justice patmax17

4 Comments

Rito Staff8/3/2015, 4:10:21 PM2 votes

This is why I suggested the Crimson-coil dagger being related to MF. So when Gangplank killed her parents 15 years ago it wasn't out of pure mindless "killin' for sports" and instead he was after the dagger (that had some power).

Then MF in her revenge, yes, she sends those two that would cause a big mess and get his attention, as well as the whole Bilgewater, but besides, the item T.F had to steal wasn't some random one (it is, but this was my hypothesis) it was the dagger GP had taken from her parents.

GP looking at TF loot would remember her face before he died. Which makes more sense. Wouldn't she want him to look at her before he went? As in: "I did this to you."

Ebonmaw Dragon8/3/2015, 3:02:47 PM1 votes

{quoted}

  • GP in MF's lore: I've seen this has already been tackled by Jaredan, but I feel it is an important point, and I want to stress it again. In MF's new lore, GP comes around as way more stupid than he is in the bilgewater event. I really like how you portrayed the new GP: he's cruel but methodic, he's "fair", in terms of D&D alignment he is clearly lawful evil. But in MF's lore, he's just an ass: why doesn't he want to pay for the guns? Why does he throw them away? Why does he have to kill everyone who's there, instead of just stealing the guns? I can't imagine Burning Tides' GP acting like this.

  • and besides, if the guns were commissioned, why did MF's mom make guns "Too fine for the likes of [Gangplank]"? I mean, they are commissioned, you know who you are making them for, why do you make guns that are not fit for your customer? I know GP changed in one year's time but I mean, he surely wasn't some distict Piltover High-class noble, he already was a "up-and-coming reaver of Bilgewater".

To be fair, 10 years passed from the Incident with MF, maybe he learned things in those 10 years and became smarter.

sp4418/3/2015, 3:31:32 PM1 votes

As far as GP's behavior in MF's backstory is concerned, I think that was because Gangplank was younger and angrier, he needed for everybody to know that he was the roughest and meanest of the bunch, and thus, needed to engage in acts of pointless evil so that everybody would know that he's not to be triffled with. You don't get the gangs of Bilgewater in line without making a loooot of bodies.

I actually had in this mind a scenario where Gangplank meets Miss Fortune face-to-face for the first time after his fall, and he actually apologizes for acting that way towards her parents. Not because he's genuinely sorry, mind you, but because since he's a fair man, he feels that she deserves some sort of apology for what he's about to do to her.