Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Heart vs Shell: The Disagreement on Lore

Cyrex Wingblade·3/11/2019, 1:52:11 AM·14 votes·11,710 views

TLDR: just jump to the last paragraph

After a few of the most recent Lore updates (Kayle/Morgana, Shyvana, etc.), I think I can finally articulate the ... issue between the original IoW-based lore and the current lore.

The new lore is higher quality. Each individual bio, short, description, and setting piece are obviously and unilaterally crafted with more time and detail spent than the original stories and bios.

However, the new lore lacks the unifying heart (specifically when compared to the IoW-lore). Riven's story? Good story, well written. Doesn't feel like it actually fits Ionia. Or how Riven feels ingame. Or feel interwoven with the other Ionia characters. It's just Riven's story. There's nothing 'wrong' with that.

Riven's old bio? Super short, super simplistic. Barely anything there! But it was just a nub for your brain to chew on. Spin on the 'old soldier seeks redemption' arc, or a ronin story. It's a snapshot, a blast of info to your face, but small enough not to get lost in confusion. And it would make sense that a character seeking redemption would work with an organization trying to help maintain world peace, while using the skillset she's good at (so she fit into the IoW logically and easily).

Kayle's updated lore isn't 'bad.' But it takes a character that was a sincere 'holy paladin/angelic' archetype, and turns her into a hyper-fascist zealot. There's literally no room for error with new-Kayle, her voice lines make that veeeeery clear (but props to the lore team for having her new background on the site, and her ingame voicelines be cohesive! That's progress!). An angelic/paladin character would have obvious reasons for wanting to help the IoW.

Now why do I gave a @#$% about the IoW? It was the unifying theme and the unique flavor. Was the specific setup a bit messy or silly often? Oh yes. But actually incorporating ME into the story in a way that still allowed for the characters to be off in their own world outside of the 'game' was downright inspiring. No other game actually offered that. When a champion would actually addressed me? I really dug that.

With the IoW removed, the actual plot, narrative, and setting are... more free, and the individual elements have been produced with higher quality, but nothing is hooking me. Nothing sticks in my head beyond any OTHER reasonably entertaining fantasy setting. Instead of a disparate and various cast of equally myriad origin, we have simplified and homogenized origins, with a few snapshots of higher detail focus.

In short? The IoW-lore was an ugly shell around a glowing heart of inspiring fun and flavor. The current lore is a beautiful, finely crafted shell... around... nothing, really. It's just another fantasy setting. I'm not in it. It's another story I can enjoy with a few minutes of my time... but the character I play doesn't know I exist anymore.

And that's sad.

21 Comments

RyzeTheSmurfMage3/11/2019, 7:55:49 AM8 votes

Well imo new lore does have a hearth if you are into fantasty settings. I'm sorry that you aren't into it tho. Also the examples you provided are not the best among the new lore. Ex Shurima arc has a hearth, even tho I hate to say it Bilgewater has too, Demacia has too, Noxus has too, Freljord has too. Yeah there are a few bad things but that doesn't mean all lore is like that. Not even the narrative team are perfect to not make mistakes sometimes. Plus as you said, things can actually happen in new lore because there arent some incredibly op guys who can stop everything. Unifying theme? Meh... not all people are into that. You gotta understand about the new lore that not every champ in the same faction has the same background or motivations, and that there are multiple aspects to a region (no pun intended for Targon) that are each shown with a different champ from their PoV. About Riven, Ionia is divided asf. Even more than Freljord and Shurima who are unifying rn. It has a ton of different cultures and it's not gonna be the same everywhere there

Darrosh Jewfist3/11/2019, 4:00:48 PM7 votes

I feel the influence/influx of Warhammer 40k writers is steering League into this new lore direction of 'omg we have to make people good/bad/shades of gray but really they're good/bad I swear!'. There's a huge emphasis on 'Factions' just like how WH40k divides up its lore among major Imperium factions and xeno races. The problem is that this can make a lot of storylines feel super isolated from one another, which is currently a huge problem in League.

Warhammer 40k, to it's credit, has a long series of supplementary material to support its gigantic cast and various plot threads. Novels and new codex books are released regularly. League... League's only regular release is a SINGLE 4-issue comic highlighting ONE champion (maybe 2 with Sejuani) which is ending in a month. We've also got 2 more comics (unknown issue-count/release schedule) + a novella (not a novel). This is great and all... but League has 140+ champions at this point. It's simply not keeping pace.

This means League cannot build that interwoven net of plot threads relating to each other. The old lore didn't have this problem at all because you could always handwave a INSTITUTE OF WAR MEETING GROUND. Instead there's several factions that still need to be built up, worldbuilt, and just... so much groundwork left to establish because the tone has shifted from goofy-tabloid-celebrity to dark-fantasy.

Modern League lore hasn't found it's niche or groove and the way it's going I just see it as a darker, less interesting fantasy spinoff of Warhammer. League doesn't have a unifying art style like Overwatch/TF/WH40k/Warcraft. League doesn't have a central conflict other than "FACTIONS EXISTS AND THEY FIGHT EACH OTHER OH AND MEBBE THE VOID BUT TEHEHEHEHE NOT YET!" The old League lore had a central conflict, Summoner's Rift, and the politics of the Institute of War.

Oh and also let's not forget anything and everything can be retconned at a drop of a hat to completely rework entire bios just because which means there's no point being invested in lore that could be utterly undone with a patch note.

GreenLore3/11/2019, 2:21:24 PM5 votes

Honestly this pretty much highlights one of the biggest problems with the old lore(and some of the new one), the lackluster characterization of their characters.

You say Kayle is now a zealot, but the impression that I get is that Kayle was always supposed to be kind of a zealot, but the old lore simply never made this clear, because it left so many open gaps in Kayles characterization.

The Archive3/11/2019, 9:24:04 AM4 votes

Well, to call the recent Shyvana update high quality is something of a strong statement. It's straight up terrible compared to every other bit of lore I've read recently.

Metallikaiser3/12/2019, 12:09:43 AM1 votes

Meh, its all about finding the champ whose story really speaks to you, with so many champs out there the vast majority of people can certainly find that person, but not everyone, sorry that you havent found someone you enjoy. Personally I love to read lengthy novels, and knowing about the extended world of the characters I play is what makes them interesting, and as a big Warhammer fan, the darker path that riot has been going down is right up my ally in world design.

Also side note, 'Hyper-Fascist Zealot', lol, I can't believe someone can write that and actually take it seriously.

Moody P3/12/2019, 12:24:24 AM1 votes

Old voli good new voli bad

shadowhunter44443/13/2019, 9:00:07 PM1 votes

Overall I like the new lore. While I miss being part of the game, the setting feels much more interesting, and the characters more realistically connected. I only have a couple big problems. I don't like what they did with Zaun or Bandle City. Putting Zaun under Piltover makes it feel a lot less independent, pretty much removing it from lore except the lore specifically between it and Piltover. And I don't like Bandle City being separate from the rest of Runeterra. It makes Yordles seem too alien. It makes Lulu's lore make little sense. I guess the writers didn't like the happy-go-lucky Yordles in their new setting bordering on grimdark. Pity. Additionally power creep has kinda happened in lore. All of Demacia and Noxus seem insignificant next to Targon. The power scaling is unclear at least. Also there is no reference to romance between Garen and Katarina and that is a crime. But mostly I think they've done a good job. The world feels lived in and the characters feel like they face real challenges.