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Question for the Narrative and ChampUp teams

Valor Bot·3/25/2017, 10:30:47 AM·6 votes·7,540 views

Hi! This is a question for the folks on the Narrative and ChampUp teams. (Feel free to pitch in even if you aren't though.)

When revamping and rewriting the bios and stories for each champion in League, how do you guys on the Narrative team account for any potential changes the Champion Update team may have for a character in a future large-scale rework?

Let's say Galio's VGU had actually been scheduled for another year, but the Demacian update had still occurred today. Do you guys think you would have still given Galio the anti-magic colossus theme/bio/story regardless of him not getting the full attention of a VGU, or did those ideas only come forth as a result of the lengthy and detailed care given to the champion during the development of his full-scale rework?

In that case, could a VGU ever prompt a retcon of lore that's already been updated? For instance, Vayne has a new bio and color text thanks to the Demacian update, but if she were to get a VGU in the future that changed her current theme/narrative, would you guys go back and retcon this bio and color text to fit the new changes, or would you stick to the lore that's already been established for her and only create stories that make sense within that pre-established context?

Thanks and apologies for the wall of text.

23 Comments

RiotRiotJaredan3/25/2017, 7:01:51 PM4 votes

The answer is: We account for them very carefully. Galio is directly who he is because of the specific attention paid to him on ChampUp. At times, if there is a VGU in the pipe, only rudimentary changes might be made to a bio (such as editing out the IOW). The Worldbuilding team (formerly known as Foundations), is handling the non-ChampUp rewrites of bios, and so they don't want to double up on work, and therefore re-prioritize to Champs that are not in the pipeline for ChampUp.

Just for clarity's sake: Narrative is a craft discipline that works on various teams.

Two of the teams we work on are Worldbuilding and ChampUp. So, it's not as much Narrative being careful of what ChampUp is doing, it's both teams (that include Narrative Writers) collaborating and communicating with each other.

I hope that helps, though I do need coffee.

Epicurus3/25/2017, 1:35:28 PM1 votes

I was wondering about this when Mundo's new short story was released. The good doctor is definitely a VGU candidate, yet he got a full bio and story during the Zaun event. If Mundo's appearance and story change as much as Galio's have, those stories will be invalidated, (which would be a shame as they are hilarious). Maybe this is an indication that Mundo (and other champs in this position) will not be given big story and appearance changes in their eventual updates. Ryze is a good precedent for this.

A lot of work must go into these lore updates, so the writers have had plenty of time to decide what characters fit and don't fit in the updated Runeterra. I really doubt they would release lores that would eventually be retconned again in future VGUs.