Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

I think Riot is slowly but surpassing Blizzard as a lore powerhouse

WarWork·8/2/2018, 7:01:58 PM·15 votes·10,173 views

First I just wanna say congrats to the whole lore team![slayer-pantheon-thumbs] It's been a lot of waiting, silence, mystery and honestly frustration, by my Aurelion Sol has their work been paying off. Everything is not only exciting but also makes a lot of sense and they are putting out a lot of high quality work. They are advancing opened ended stories, providing continuous development to champs and regions, developing the world making its different pieces feel like part of a whole that makes sense. The time, effort and researching done is magnificent. They took the time to think out the differences between marriage vs oathsworn how their different nations looks at the concepts and why. They didn't have to but they did. Honestly reading about runeterra (minus the magic) feelsl ike learining about a new nation and it's simply wonderful. Another thing I really wanna give riot props for is attention to the community and reaction to feedback. I don't think many people appreciate how responsive riot is to lore feedback. Three examples here are; 1. The outrage to the removal of Varus' revenge and core story. A lot of people were livid voiced the concerns and were understandably upset, and you know what riot did, they went and brought his story back in developing Varus with the darkin update. 2. The Darkin, when they were first reintroduced with Kayn/Rhaast and the Varus update, honestly they felt like another group of generic evil invaders, and crybaby ones at that too. They realized the community wasn't feeling that and they gave us the awesoe new story and best of all another reason to hate zoe, yuck. 3. Karma, with the Ionia update a lot of her fans weren't feeling it and they heard and updated it.

This listening to the community is the reason why i'm on the boards reading everyday and honestly, what made me stay with league. It really does feel like they care, about us and not our $. This brings me to Blizzard. First I wanna say I don't play WoW but I am very up to date and current with their lore ( I watch a metric tonne of Nobbel's videos and I spent hours on their wiki). And from what I've seen, blizzard seems to be numb to the community's opinion. Their lore is kinda feeling disjointed and characters' decisions don't make sense with the personalities they have spent years developing (why is the Horde following Sylvanas she is such an obvious bad guy, the Tauren were really okay with her burning down that tree really????!!). With blizzard lore is starting to feel disjointed and Riot is just steadily outpacing them IMO.

But i just wanna say again congrats rito, I'm hooked on lore again and cant wait to see what you have in store for us.

49 Comments

Blood Magicks8/2/2018, 7:10:31 PM8 votes

Blizzard releases a good novel every once in a while (among a sea of mediocrity) and their ingame scriptwriting is fun but unoriginal and repetitive, directed at a very young audience.

IMO Riot surpassed them in the story/fiction department this year, and smashed their character and dialogue writing long ago, during the daring, mature and highly original season 6.

The only thing Blizzard has on Riot in my book atm is that their blood mage looks way cooler and their blood magic is more developed. But I'm sure Rito will come to their senses and fix that at some point...

[vlad-salute]

Catastroclysm8/2/2018, 8:40:12 PM6 votes

Currently the lore doesn't even make sense. The game itself is non cannon ever since the retcon. Due to this disjoint, I find it impossible to even care about the lore, and I am a BIG story guy.

Maybe if they ditched the entire league of legends game, and focused on something else set in the same world it could be interesting. As it stands, lore that blatantly doesn't care about making sense cannot compare to competitors.

That's how I see it.

Also how come no one has mentioned Starcraft if we're talking about Blizzard lore?

MarcReady8/3/2018, 1:26:55 AM6 votes

I don't agree at all. Lol's lore literally goes nowhere: it's a solid status quo that prevents any development. Characters that are enemies somehow never kill each other, nobody dies or actually wins a conflict they are involved into. Frelijord? Conflict not resolved. Demacia and noxus? Never ending conflict. Void? A threat that never appears to be an actual threat: no invasions, no wars, no interaction between characters. Lol's lore is blocked: if the writers kill a character they will be hated, because lol's characters have no background and no story that develops from them besides their own life! If you look at Blizzard's most famous characters you'll see that even if they die, they are still appreciated because they contributed to a series of events that developed into a story (even if sometimes incoherently). Tassadar or Zeratul were beloved characters, their deaths during the events didn't delete their characters: they are still 'alive' in the memory of those who appreciate starcraft lore. They will be remembered as either the hero who defeated the Overmind or the saviour prophet. And this is just an example: there is Arthas, Deckard Cain, Mengsk, Cairne, Uther and many more.

Now think about lol: what would happen if they kill Jarvan IV? Nothing, besides a massive backlash from Jarvan's mains. Why? Because there is no Jarvan lore besides his life, there are no events that built his story, only his biography. I said Jarvan, but this logic could be applied for all the other champions. Don't get me wrong: I love lol characters, but their story leads nowhere, we only have a bunch of bios.

(Sorry for wall of text, I was brainstorming)

Fasmodey8/2/2018, 7:16:49 PM6 votes

Hey, let's not overreact.

Warcraft is one of the biggest fantasy fiction of the world. It is 20+ years old. It has a movie for its own, also books of many. Its game are lore focused.

Currently I love LoL lore more and I am more interested. Witnessing born of a big fiction has effect. You don't have this chance every time. From the beginning, to its end, I will hopefully be there because I love the lore. But it still has a lot way to be rival to Warcraft. And I'm pretty sure writers know that too.

It is not a bad thing. It is more of Warcraft being legend, and a big brother to LoL. I am certain LoL can have its place among fictions like Warcraft, Warhammer 40k, LoTR, Dungeons&Dragons, Star Wars etc. with enough time.

Quiet Dude8/2/2018, 7:03:13 PM5 votes

I dunno man. I'd say Riot can't complete with Blizzard until they have so much lore they have to split it into two time lines.

Seilleas8/2/2018, 11:34:32 PM4 votes

You havent seen the whole story so u cant judge the horde. Also Riot is nowhere close to the depth of the story of blizzard, especially in warcraft.

ModWulf Helhammer8/2/2018, 10:25:14 PM3 votes

Riot is doing better in the lore currently (Anyone know what’s going on in Overwatch? Cause I’d like to)

But Blizzard has their butts kicked in terms of overall lore. The history of the Warcraft franchise alone wins that contest.

GenoXx8/2/2018, 8:43:59 PM3 votes

Nope

Spideraxe8/2/2018, 10:15:56 PM3 votes

At least Riot didn't burn Teldrassil on purpose

Blåbæret8/2/2018, 11:58:06 PM3 votes

Lmao, what is this thread? The Warcraft universe is massive beyond measure. League's literally **nothing **in comparison. Come on, be realistic.

dragfin128/2/2018, 7:20:19 PM2 votes

{quoted}

First I just wanna say congrats to the whole lore team![slayer-pantheon-thumbs] It's been a lot of waiting, silence, mystery and honestly frustration, by my Aurelion Sol has their work been paying off. Everything is not only exciting but also makes a lot of sense and they are putting out a lot of high quality work. They are advancing opened ended stories, providing continuous development to champs and regions, developing the world making its different pieces feel like part of a whole that makes sense. The time, effort and researching done is magnificent. They took the time to think out the differences between marriage vs oathsworn how their different nations looks at the concepts and why. They didn't have to but they did. Honestly reading about runeterra (minus the magic) feelsl ike learining about a new nation and it's simply wonderful. Another thing I really wanna give riot props for is attention to the community and reaction to feedback. I don't think many people appreciate how responsive riot is to lore feedback. Three examples here are; 1. The outrage to the removal of Varus' revenge and core story. A lot of people were livid voiced the concerns and were understandably upset, and you know what riot did, they went and brought his story back in developing Varus with the darkin update. 2. The Darkin, when they were first reintroduced with Kayn/Rhaast and the Varus update, honestly they felt like another group of generic evil invaders, and crybaby ones at that too. They realized the community wasn't feeling that and they gave us the awesoe new story and best of all another reason to hate zoe, yuck. 3. Karma, with the Ionia update a lot of her fans weren't feeling it and they heard and updated it.

This listening to the community is the reason why i'm on the boards reading everyday and honestly, what made me stay with league. It really does feel like they care, about us and not our $. This brings me to Blizzard. First I wanna say I don't play WoW but I am very up to date and current with their lore ( I watch a metric tonne of Nobbel's videos and I spent hours on their wiki). And from what I've seen, blizzard seems to be numb to the community's opinion. Their lore is kinda feeling disjointed and characters' decisions don't make sense with the personalities they have spent years developing (why is the Horde following Sylvanas she is such an obvious bad guy, the Tauren were really okay with her burning down that tree really????!!). With blizzard lore is starting to feel disjointed and Riot is just steadily outpacing them IMO.

But i just wanna say again congrats rito, I'm hooked on lore again and cant wait to see what you have in store for us.

You play WoW lore everytime you log in.

You read League lore unless they hold that rare event.

It's not even close who's better and not even close to being surpassed.

PowerSlave9938/3/2018, 2:27:03 PM2 votes

xD Yeah Lore > balance. great thinking

if game is so bad, then reading lore is just bad thing as well. lul

Who Fed Ru8/2/2018, 7:34:45 PM2 votes

I kinda preferred the time when they shat on lore and actually gave a fuck about gameplay.

Now it's exactly the other way around.

Rainfall8/2/2018, 11:06:36 PM2 votes

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS COMPETITIVE CARD GAME COMING UP CONFIRMED

Warlord Rhinark8/2/2018, 7:12:11 PM2 votes

Idk.

I still like Blizzard's lore over League's.

Meep Man8/3/2018, 7:42:24 PM1 votes

I think they still have a ways to go, but we might be at the beginning of something really cool. Blizzard has 4 games, one of which (Warcraft) has had many, many games with several ongoing stories in it.

MadSeer8/4/2018, 5:27:26 PM1 votes

They're actively rewriting outdated Lore and dishing out new stuff on a regular basis, moving toward a coherent universe. I'd say they've already surpassed them.

IBBE L33TZ8/3/2018, 11:18:08 AM1 votes

Blizzard's lore department is a veteran when it comes to writing stories.

Like you say in your title, it is slowly surpassing. However, it is in the incarnation of the slowest turtle in the world in that case.

Metallikaiser8/3/2018, 3:43:45 PM1 votes

Maybe this is just a me thing, but even as someone who can enjoy their games a lot, their lore writing has never been their strong suit... Overwatch's lore is awful, to the point of it being a reason I stopped playing the game, star craft lore is okay but has way way too many contrivances, and the extremely forced attempts to have me have sympathy for kerrigan and the like was very off putting. Warcraft lore is also for the most part just actual trash, and the limited cases of quality (Like basically all of Arthas's story) gets buried by just how much lore they write for it. Diablo is honestly the only universe I would say from Blizzard that I actually think is good.

That said, Riot needs to make books if they really want to cement their lore strength. I also would umm, really like some novels of League to read honestly, its a great way to expand any lore.

Oleandervine8/2/2018, 7:32:36 PM1 votes

I've felt that Blizzard's lore is very trite, and their CONSTANT inability to reconcile the Horde/Alliance feud is just stupid. The game has been going on so long, and there's flat out been parts where the Horde and Alliance work together, such as in Outland and the North, but then they decide to do something utterly stupid and erase any truce they may have had to splinter them apart again. It happens every time, they come together, and it just gets old and tired. Their story doesn't really grow and evolve, it loops back in on itself.