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As someone who's been critical of League Lore, this year has been amazing

TwitchInMyPants·10/28/2015, 9:51:17 PM·9 votes·3,422 views

So I've been around since S1 and since that point I've been very interested in League's lore. I took time to read every bio entry, every time there was new lore information I'd go out of my way to read it, every new Journal of Justice was a pleasant surprise. Frankly though S3 & 4 were just painful in terms of lore. We had good bits here and there like the Yasuo & Riven's conflict, Braum's story, Zed's betrayal, but there were so many plotholes and retcons and the abandonment of the living game world. It was an incredibly disappointing period of time and I was convinced that Riot wouldn't be working to fix any of it since the game was successful despite the cuts to the lore.

Though my expectations have been shattered with the past two events. You've managed to keep the new stories you've built interconnected, something important when the few bits of good story we used to get would just go unused for years and be forgotten. There's so much good character development and worldbuilding and I'm genuinely excited for more. Frankly I was really into S2 and the Kalamanda event but I'd go as far to say that Bilgewater was just straight up better, we got a lot of interesting character development and updates on an active conflict that actually had gameplay reprecussions, it was a very interesting interaction overall.

One thing I'd like to emphasize going forward, keep giving us more tension between the characters. One thing that's interesting about world building is that everyone in the world has their own thoughts and feelings, and they clearly have been leaking out in the latest lore bits. Sarah Fortune before the past couple events was essentially someone who had their parents killed and devoted her life to pirate hunting, a kind of tragic hero really. Though as we've been given more details on her thoughts of the worshippers of the bearded lady, how ruthless she's been eliminating what's left of gangplank's crew and how cruel she's been to her own cohorts it really opens up a new side of her that's very interesting. Though I'd like to see more interactions between the very different nations. Bilgewater denizens seem to have a deep respect of the tough hides and wills of Freljord dwellers, but I'm curious about potential interactions like Garen meeting Riven - Would he find an ally in the former Noxian, or would her idealization of strength make her just as folly to him as any other person from Noxus? How does Ionia produce so many different kinds of fighting styles and ideals while still maintaining its political structure? There's a lot of untapped potential in the story, and I'm excited for what we'll get to see in the future.

14 Comments

RiotRiotJaredan10/29/2015, 2:09:24 AM7 votes

Ireliateyou, thank you. It's very kind of you to say so and I'm personally humbled. We're beginning to produce stories that are making you happy to be aboard for the ride and I understand past frustrations. As I've often said, we have a long journey to go, but the various teams involved are working very hard to drive there. It's great to see the work getting to you and I'm very lucky to work with some marvelous people.

Cheers from everyone.

LordHippoman10/28/2015, 11:37:56 PM5 votes

I was considering making a big post to this effect, how I was steadily getting more and more disappointed with Lore (bar a few exceptions like my buddy Braum) over the courses of Seasons 3 and 4, also having started in Season 1. After JoJ stopped things just kinda felt like they halted, which was a shame, because I'd talked to some Lore people on the old Forums, and they all seemed to really love their stuff.

But after Burning Tides was...fantastic, and Shadow and Fortune is feeling like a worthy sequel, I'm just going to condense my usual ramble into a concise and readable bit, since you covered most of it better than I could.

"Same."

(kalamanda is still my favorite though, i'm biased, I love Garen)

RecurringExtra10/29/2015, 2:54:34 AM3 votes

I'm really happy about this year too. I remember a while back I was upset with the change to Karthus' lore, but now that they've finalized it, I feel it's honestly really good. He went from generic Lich who lived in a swamp to weird death kid, to finally now Death Pope. The introduction of Kindred I feel really helped his character, as it gave an outlet for his obsession of death to become a reality rather than him just faking his funeral randomly. But that's just one example. The whole Bilgewater event was a complete success. It gave characters depth, explored the world and fleshed it out. And, it was extremely well written, obviously. Shadow and Fortune is amazing too, so far at least, and I hope that it stays that way.

KING OF MASKS10/29/2015, 4:46:23 AM2 votes

The quality of the stuff they're putting out now is great and all, but the fact is that there's so much more ground to cover. Just thinking about it is staggering. Narrative is off to a decent start but I would hesitate before saying that this year has been "amazing," because really, Runeterra is just a fledgling of a world.

Chromatic Eagle10/29/2015, 3:13:47 AM2 votes

I'm still skeptical of how they've handled lore in the past, now, and in the future. However, if they keep producing events like these and bios, then they're on their way to rebuilding the trust they had back in the beginning.

Desiderium11/3/2015, 3:19:26 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Zed's betrayal

I can't believe there are still people that think Zed betrayed the order.

Muted Summoner10/29/2015, 4:40:46 AM1 votes

Not to be a negative nancy but....its still not appealing to me. I'd rather just read my monthly comic and play some games of league on the side. I've never been fascinated by the lore and even with the changes im just still not. If the lore followed the characters more so maybe I'd care for it but right now characters aren't very intriguing other than their designs, at least for me anyways.

TerraRising10/29/2015, 9:49:46 AM1 votes

I'm going to be the jerk and pop everyone's bubble

  1. We're really talking about three months, not the entire year: It's been three months since Burning Tides was released. Before that, there wasn't much coming out of Narrative since the Great IoW Retcon other than "we're really busy, but we promise to communicate more."
  • Let's remember that Narrative and Foundations have been working behind the scenes for most of a year, assembling a new team after the previous one was shattered by last year's Retcon and the unexpected backlash (but that's like my opinion man).
  • In the meanwhile, there were a lot of promises to communicate more made by Jaredan and crew only to have them create huge gulfs of silence by being really busy with things we weren't seeing until late July. I mean, Jaredan didn't even announce he was head of Narrative until just before Burning Tides, either...

  1. We're talking about ten bios and two stories: Don't get me wrong, I really do like most of these stories (Mordekaiser still feels like a 13-year old's description of their D&D campaign's main villain, the "evilest evil that ever eviled an evilly evil thing... resurrected," but whatevs). That's ten bios out of 127 champions, though, with no set time line for that project's completion and no communication from anyone at Riot.

  2. The big what if: So far, the stories have been pretty good. However, we don't know how Riot will react if all their planning, group meetings, votes by committee and approvals from on high leads to a bio that gets pooped on by the fans. We don't know if they'll redact the story or just say "we worked hard on this, so deal with it." Will they come out and talk to us if or when something fails or go back into hiding? We don't know.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to see some product coming out from all this work behind the scenes. However, the pacing really sucks as we're talking another three or so years before every champ has a new bio (not to mention all the champs affected by the Retcon and Singed still out of canon after three plus years.

Riot is finally on that trek to redemption with their lore, but that road is long and the gulfs between them and their fans are still there.