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LoreChat: What Do You Love?

LordHippoman·10/31/2014, 3:58:32 PM·9 votes·2,031 views

Because I'm not blind, I've noticed a lot of complaints about Lore lately. Shurima and the Retcon seemed to be the catalysts, but we've talked those subjects to death and rarely does any good come of it. Instead, I'd rather focus on something more positive. Less pointless comment section slapfights, more talking about why we're all here in the first place.

What does everyone think is important and good to have as a part of League's Lore? The game recently had its 5th birthday, and I've been lucky enough to be a part of the Lore community for most of those years. There are a lot of things that make this game stand out, I think, and succeed in a genre that's heavily inflated right now, and coexist with the direct sequel/remake of its inspiration, DOTA.

What about League Lore makes you want to post on these boards, or makes you write fanfiction or talk about the characters? I guess I'll start:

Varied Characters

I love that the world of Runeterra has everything. From robots to pirates to extradimensional terrors, everyone has a champion for them. We have over 110 champions, and no two are the exact same. It's not exactly a shocking statement to say that most of League's characters are taken from popular culture, but I think there's usually enough of a twist to keep them interesting. I personally really like Nautilus. He's got such a strong aesthetic, this colossal titan who has literally walked across the ocean floor in his quest for revenge. His voice is cool, his look is great, and his whole concept opens up a lot of questions and discussions.

Varied Tones

League does not have a committed emotional tone. In an era where stuff like Dark Souls and GoT is at the height of popularity, and dark fantasy is the name of the game, we have a mustached hamster man in a helicopter. But I also don't think it's trying too hard. That's the sort of vibe I get from a lot of games that come out nowadays that are trying to be "funny", a huge dose of "trying way too hard". There are some serious characters in League, and they help balance out the more silly aspects, to present a kind of story you can get into, but not one that's so pointlessly dark that there's no fun to be had or smiles to crack at Veigar's antics or the whirlwind love affair of Rammus and a Cactus.

Mysteries Of Runeterra

I really like the way a lot of champions are foreshadowed. I know this might not be entirely "Lore", but I think it counts. From IronStylus's extended code/riddle prior to the release of Diana, to the "scrapbook" format of Reborn, and now the mysterious edits to champ pages and dark fog pouring into the website, I get hyped for most new champs not because they'll fit a certain role or play a certain way, but because they just look like interesting characters (Of course, being fun to play is also a huge factor.).

I feel like in an era of the game where we're more focused on who's brokenly OP this patch or what team owned by what phone company is going to play well in ESports, it's important to talk about the good things in Lore, in an effort to preserve them and remember that there's a lot more to a game we all enjoy than cash prizes and metagame.

12 Comments

Terra Booma10/31/2014, 6:58:26 PM6 votes

Alrighty, I'll join in too

For me, I really love that there is no good or evil.

Sure there are evil people, but there are no "Evil." Nations. It would have been so easy to make Noxus the bad guys, but instead you have reasonings as to why they act like they do. They're not evil; Ruthless? Yes. But Evil....not really.

Same goes for Demacia, look at how varied the characters are, Lux especially. It's not all sunshine happiness and rainbows, and I think that's rather neat.

Sharjo11/2/2014, 2:52:51 AM2 votes

I think mine's a bit strange, but I'll put my two cents in regardless.

For me, one of the most important things in any story is for the little things to matter.

To explain what I mean with an example from another game, in World of Warcraft there is something called the holy light. The light and the faith around it is centered around pretty similar principles and beliefs as real world Christianity, down to the main place of worship being churches and cathedrals. The Light is really important in the culture and society of several races in the game, including Humans, Dwarves, Draenei, Blood Elves and Gnomes. The light exists in different forms for other races as well, for instance the Tauren have similar beliefs but they lie with the sun, and the Night Elves get light given powers from their goddess Elune, who's associated with the moon. The light's a pretty big deal!

But there's one line in the game that I despise, spoken by a guy named Admiral Taylor, who's a pretty cool guy. He says "Godspeed." That's COMPLETELY OUT OF UNIVERSE and it ANNOYS ME SO MUCH. Taylor would never say something like that because there is no God in the human's faith in the light. That may seem minor, but it really grinds my gears.

In League, the little things actually make me think and I enjoy seeing those things. As some examples:

  • item 3068 this thing has the crest of Shurima on it, and has had it since before that symbol was even stated to be anything more than a decorative pattern. This means the Sunfire Cape is an artefact of ancient Shurima.

  • In the character piece for Twitch, one of the Zaunites involved says "Godsdamned rat!" and "Oh my gods" this says that in Zaun, at some point, there was a polytheistic religion (I hope that's the right word), and it's existed for long enough that words like Godsdamned are used in common speech.

  • Hecarim was featured in that little sideshow in Bilgewater. This, while not directly saying anything on its own, paints the picture of how the world at large sees Hecarim and how they treat his existence.

  • item 3191 this thing used to belong to Lissandra and now it's worn by Sejuani. How she got it I dunno, maybe Sejuani's entire armour set is the garb worn by Lissandra during her younger days!

Those are just a handful of things that seem kind of minor, but to me those are really important. When things are consistent and there's really fine details about stuff, that's really cool. Even if these things are left to interpretation that's absoluetly cool to me because that gets me thinking about what these things mean in the grander scope of things. Azir's soldiers wear cloaks that look like the Sunfire Capes, so does that mean that their living equivalents did as well? In that vein were there a whole bunch of cloaks? Were they restricted to guys who protected the Emperor? These things interest me.

It's one of the reasons why I really want there to be item lore, and more things like item flavour text and similar. Tying those things in to the game world as opposed to them existing as random things is something I really like. I think its all because I like it when things exist within the world. It's why I prefer the new style of bio's; the character pieces exist within the game world more solidly, at least to me, than a summarised biography. But hey that's just me.

Essentially what I want to get across is the following:

  1. I like the little things in story telling; they can make a world of difference, be it the aesthetics of an environment, seeing items in the game being used in the world, or in the simple wording of a sentence.

  2. I want item lore. item 3070 Rito plz!

cshakes11/2/2014, 8:59:50 AM2 votes

I liked the large diversity of the cast that was still unified by one focal point: the Institute of War, where diplomacy and deals happened. I loved the breadth and depth of the lore, where we could have intricate, byzantine plots coexisting with wars and battles large and small.

Of course, then they deleted the IoW and Lore went from a wide, overarcing narrative to a collection of stories, maybe set in the same universe.

dialMARK4acti0n10/31/2014, 10:23:56 PM2 votes

Hmm... One of my favorite things is all the mysteries and things we don't know about, that are just left open to debate.

I love how the lore is written in the way that you have to be imaginative, to figure out what the Darkin are, for example. All the litle things left ambigous, with no clues to what would happen next, besides itsy bitsy hints, are really something the makes League's lore unique. Sure, theorycrafting can be done in a lot of other games, but League, with such a rich ammount of characters, is where theorists can find a nice place to hang out.

Also, I love how every champion is connected to at least another. I really like relationships and character interactions!

Fernaculous11/2/2014, 12:54:04 AM1 votes

I love the lore buildup around Noxus.

The story of Swain's ascent to Grand General, his shady alliance with Leblanc and Vladimir, the resurrection of Sion, the disappearance of Du Couteau, and the invasion of Ionia with all the fallout that has come from it.

Its my most fervent wish that Riot continue this story somehow. Explain what exactly happened with Riven in the war, and what happens with Varus and Yasuo seeking revenge on her. Go into Swain's mysterious past and why Leblanc is working with him. Tell the story of Talon and Katarina's investigation into Du Couteau's disappearance. Explore Sion's murky memories, such as why he was warned about Swain, and what his history with Galio is.

This could all link up into one story if they wanted it to. It could be great.

Diahane11/2/2014, 5:59:03 PM1 votes

The varied characters and tones are something I do enjoy too, but unfortunately I don't think the latter is something that is going to stay. The trend recently with lore seems towards seriousness and the dark fantasy part of the spectrum. This apart, I seriously dig Noxus, even though it started as a pretty shady place for the sole sake of it (I mean, look at this!), its philosophy and customs got refined over time and make a good addition to the world. They are opposite to Demacia, which deems itself fair and rightful, but they are not evil. They're ruthless, it's true, but they're not "orcs", they are people with a different set of values which makes all the more sense in a fantasy world. If this characterization sticks, I'm so into it.

P.S: For me the most interesting part of the lore was the IoW, as the OP may have noticed from the retcon threads we happened to discuss both in, but the topic's about what we like of the lore, not what we liked =P So no point discussing that. Besides we posted about that a whole lot in the past weeks.

Diana x Me11/3/2014, 4:36:22 AM1 votes

I like several things but, I think my favorite is also the most simple. I love how the lore and champs especially are fleshed out enough to give you a base. From then on their anything and everything can be head canon and you can't be told your wrong for it because they do not have these spaces filled in.

brusque11/1/2014, 2:23:58 AM1 votes

I also really enjoy how the old lore is now almost like reading through dusty myths or something. And while theorycrafting is extremely fun, it is even more fun trying to craft stories in Runeterra while respecting the unique rules and elements of League's champions. There are just way too many open questions that need explaining at this point. :)

GenoXx11/1/2014, 4:31:41 AM1 votes

I want to get to the bottom of the Mystery of the Shadow Isles.

Valaran Nara11/1/2014, 8:34:25 AM1 votes

Right now, because of how they changed up a lot of lore, I can't say too much; however, I do enjoy at least what we are able to see. The champ reveal for Sion's rework was phenomenal because it was drawn out. I literally sat at my computer each day waiting for the next part of Reborn to unlock. I will admit, I'm hardly what one would call "Old School" lore fan. I haven't gotten into league until earlier during Season 4 (yeah, that's right, I'm a lore noob, so sue me), so it was fun being able to see a revival of sorts of what has been written a long time when for one of the older champions. And while I have my doubts--I mean, how can my feeble attempts at constructing arguments possibly stack up against the likes of you, Cupcake, and Terra--I really hope that I can actually see things evolve, in a ways, from the beginning.

Of course, I know it won't necessarily work that way. If we want to bring up examples of a retcon or reboot of story outside of League, then we could speak of DC's New 52. Oh Goddess, too many people went into a rage about that. I mean seriously, Harley Quinn got skimpier? How dare you change the costume of a character who exists in a different universe and give her a crush on Deadshot? Fo' shame, DC. Fo' shame, but I digress. Overall, I'm trying to view the lore retcon as something akin to "The New 52," and hope that they can actually bring out more. Until then, whether I move onto Cupcake's Factions or not, I'll just enjoy whatever they do throw out at us. I mean, afterall, that Azir and Xerath stories are badass.

P.S. What do you think of the "How is Azir the baby daddy, herp a derp? Rito nub, nerf Sivir."

P.S.S. Mystery behind how Sivir is Azir's descendent.

P.S.S.S Sorry. My brain ramble, so I can't tell if I was cohesive. Also, I just like having 3s, so yeah.