Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Characters in the new lore

Sneak Dog·3/2/2015, 11:14:29 PM·11 votes·2,308 views

With the retcon still going on I'd like to talk about Riots trend of changing characters. If you want to talk about the removal of summoners and the IoW, there's plenty of other threads where that is appropriate and where I will be at.

First of all, lets settle that characters got changed. Trundle and Xerath are the ones I am comfortable with using as arguments here. I won't go in too deep in the OP here, but I'll give some minimal evidence in that new Trundle is power-hungry and Xerath got his main motivation and modus operandi changed. I am happy to delve deeper into this in the comments below. They got their character changed with little warning too. One day, new lore for them came out and the old characters were gone. Trundle entirely so, never again will I hear a story about the leprous troll or be able to buy his skins or merchandise from Riot.

Why is it relevant that characters are getting changed? In order to write a compelling story, you have to make your readers invested in your story. You have to make them emotionally attached to characters, whether they hate or adore them is irrelevant. If you don't manage that, you will not be able to make an engaging story.

However, I know that any character might just be changed tomorrow, for this is what happened to Trundle and Xerath. This prevents me from getting emotionally attached to new characters, for I know that if I do, Riot might just delete them and abruptly sever my emotional attachment again. The trust between me and Riot is gone in this aspect. It hurt to see that Trundle was suddenly gone, hurt enough for me to be still here on these forums in some kind of vain hope after more than a year. Sadly, it'll only be until Riot finally gets their things in order and makes definite these for me incomprehensible changes.

To conclude: Given this reasoning, I do not understand why Riot insists on changing characters. In my eyes, it systematically interrupt the capability to make your readers care about your characters and engage in your stories.

If you disagree with my reasoning, I'd love to see where I went wrong. The main assumption I made was that Riot wants to create engaging stories, but this seems reasonable to me.

Worst thing is, the new Trundle has been around long enough to probably have fans. I can't call the new Trundle better or worse either, he simply is a different character. Asking Riot to revert the character change would be hypocritical. This only complicates the entire thing. Personally I think one of the Trundles should've been a new champion in the first place and now should still be. Xerath could probably be rewritten to be the same character in a different setting: Focus on his skill in magic, not his skill in politics. Use his old wish to become one with his magic and reuse it; make him wish for true ascension which Azir seems to deny him. I'm no writer and I don't intend to lecture professionals on how to write, I simply wonder why playable characters are getting changed.

I'm not exactly picky on who responds, though I'm curious if this is the kind of thing appropriate for the great parrot IronStylus, who has some honestly curious comments about being approachable for lore things too. The narrative department is going through a lot of reorganisating supposedly and their communication is barely better than half a year ago (Jaredan seems to be trying right now?), so I won't get my hopes up for an appropriate Rioter responding anyway.

http://imgur.com/dBjpzuS

Edit: Seems to be a slight bit of confusion here: for Trundle, I'm not complaining about him getting a new body/setting/story, I'm complaining about the one getting the body/setting/story not being Trundle

19 Comments

Keagn3/3/2015, 12:18:40 AM6 votes

Hey Sneak Dog,

I hear what you're saying about Riot changing characters, and I'm sure Riot would agree with me that the reason that they are changing champions' back stories (sometimes drastically, like Trundle) is for the same reason you and other members of the community have problems with the changes. They want to create characters which people can enjoy, and look into, and admire, or hate, or be lost in wonder and mystery with. Most changes are going to be subtle, like Gragas still being the Rabble Rouser he is, Xerath is still the ascendant mage just with a different means of ascending, but for someone like Trundle, the change was drastic to connect him with the rest of the LoL universe, as the Plague Jungles was more or less where concepts who Riot couldn't explain anywhere else went. Riot kept what they could work with, and regrettably, did away with the rest.

Morello had explained the reasoning behind Trundle's identity change as such:

What's this...? Is this... a troll?

What's a troll doing in the Freljord? Are we... trolling you?

On a more serious note, some of you will probably guess that if there's a troll and he's wielding a club... it's Trundle! So we wanted to give you a taste of what's to come, namely Trundle's relaunch and his reimagining in the icy north.

While old Trundle certainly had a unique narrative and visual design, we always felt he was disconnected from the rest of the world. This inhibited the number of stories we could tell with Trundle and, well, we want to tell stories about him. Trundle's upcoming changes include a gameplay update (more of a quality improvement than a rework – similar in scope to our Taric changes in 3.03), a new ice-themed aesthetic (if you couldn't guess), and a new story that ties Trundle to the brewing conflict in the Freljord.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks, because we've got plans for Trundle – not to mention that Trundle has plans of his own!

I hope you don't lose faith in Riot, or lose love in the champions. Ultimately, the goal is for players like you, and the creators at Riot to be happy and excited about the end product and the possibilities that follow. Keep your head up, we're all in this together! :)

NorthernDruid3/3/2015, 11:02:48 PM4 votes

The general gist of the situation as far as I've understood it, is that Riot doesn't actually remake the core concept when they rewrite a narrative.

Not when they do a vast change to a character at least.

That sounds to be what happened to Trundle and Xerath (neither of whom I've played, and though I've read both of Trundle's bios (and know which one I prefer) and his old League Judgement I haven't read the new Xerath story).

Change for the sake of change, not keeping what is the essence of the Champions who we've grown attached to.

And especially the reasons for changing Trundle (hard to tell stories about him) ring as hollow as the threat of the great retcon, when you consider that there really haven't been all that many stories of him after the new Trundle replaced the old.

And that's really why it's in our rights to be upset, about Trundle, about Xerath, about Skarner (you can tell they're gonna remake him as a generic monster guardian thingy) and about anyone else who they decide to replace with something which fits their game better.

The thing they have to be most careful about with gameplay reworks, the champion feeling like themselves. Doesn't seem to hold true for narrative at all.

Then again, they also seem to be gunning for "as generic as possible" with everything they rewrite, whereas the old stuff was kinda unique if not original.

I wish I could play the old Trundle, the new one just doesn't strike me as compelling at all.

Ark Angel HFB3/13/2015, 9:51:43 AM3 votes

Don't forget that Ashe got changed too... it is sutble but re-read the lores and you will see the newer ashe is a more shallow character.

BLU Medic3/3/2015, 1:06:45 PM2 votes

It's occurred to me that we could have kept Trundle as both a plague-carrier and an ice troll. All it needs is a continuation from his old story, that Lissandra offers Trundle a small amount of pain relief in exchange for working for her, perhaps a way to use ice to numb the pain, creating some sort of new ice-illness.

SaltyToplaneGoat3/3/2015, 4:10:28 AM2 votes

Xerath didn't get as changed as people think he got - this problem is casued by the fact that the Ascension/shurima event got never really wrapped up. We know Xerath's ambitions and goals BEFORE ascending/becoming one with magic, but we don't know anything about the character he is now or what his current goals are - he isn't a cartoonish villain to go for world dominance or something so he might have some goals and plans of his own. He still is a magic-pro, just like before, not much of a change here.

The problem is just that this "second half" of his story is completly missing.

About trundle, well Keagn explained that already. Old trundle would have never interacted with anyone apart form the institute. Oh no wait that got deleted. Als his story was basicially completed with no room for anything.

But again there is the problem of Riot never concluding things. Freljord Event never had any results, so we only know that Trundle is allinged to Lissandra now. We have no idea what else he has been doing up there.

ImHerVoice3/13/2015, 3:28:54 PM2 votes

new trundle lore is shit. ice king bullshit. Old trundle was better. Old trundle voice over was better. Old trundle =[

Hopeslayer3/4/2015, 7:12:20 AM1 votes

i preferred old trundles lore, the new one was changed just for ARAM launch.

kinda like so many champs that now have like a 2 sentence lore page because of the stupid ascension gamemode that wasnt even fun or permanent