After seeing the shift in direction that the Narrative department has taken since the retcon, this has seemed to be the case.
Especially after that new Amumu video.
The exception being the Harrowing Video, which was pretty awesome...but admittedly didn't tell us much about what was going on in Runeterra.
Anyone else agree/disagree?
Alljoy14 votesSo far, it just feels like the literary equivalent of eye candy, bite-sized and half-assed with no substance.
KING OF MASKS7 votesThe OP mentions "shift in direction," but to me it feels like rito's Narrative team (assuming there is one -- at this point I'm making that assumption on faith) is completely directionless. They announced the retcon and since then nothing of any real substance has come in to fill the massive gaps that have been left; the biggest and most pressing of those being the question of why all these so-called champions are killing each other in this arena called Summoner's Rift.
It's really starting to bother me because they're releasing these little snippets like Amumu's music video as well as the Music of League, but to me everything rings hollow because there's no solid foundation for any of it.
Dreamspitter4 votes[{quoted}](name=KING OF MASKS,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=PcYIqEVi,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2015-01-28T19:16:33.347+0000)
The OP mentions "shift in direction," but to me it feels like rito's Narrative team (assuming there is one -- at this point I'm making that assumption on faith) is completely directionless. They announced the retcon and since then nothing of any real substance has come in to fill the massive gaps that have been left; the biggest and most pressing of those being the question of why all these so-called champions are killing each other in this arena called Summoner's Rift.
It's really starting to bother me because they're releasing these little snippets like Amumu's music video as well as the Music of League, but to me everything rings hollow because there's no solid foundation for any of it.
#THEY AREN'T KILLING EACH OTHER.
That's the entire point. The entire. Point. The rift map absolutely DOES NOT EXIST as a place in runeterra.
The best description is a kind of "Reverse/Inverse Smash Bros" (and mind you the FIRST game had no story at all)
In the same way we have Runeterra and its own "Legends" and figures, and the idea will be for Narrative to tell stories about these characters, and I imagine when Rito makes a 2nd game -it will probably be some other type of game (FPS, Adventure, ARPG, etc etc) set in Runeterra probably following just one or a small number of characters we already know.
In the mean time, we already have the "let's just throw all these 'loved' characters together" sort of game.
What Narrative needs to do is
Tell more stories about these characters, so that those who already like the game in itself can learn more about the characters that interest them
Again tell more stories -these can be through webcomics, short stories, etc. If these stories are interesting enough, people who dont already play league may discover them and then become interested in playing.
With smash bros, all these characters already had their own games, and many, many stories for years. Now what needs to happen is for LoL to branch out and build up these characters, so that eventually just about any one of them could stand alone and carry a game or story all by themselves (albeit while you could for example do a story with just say Tristana or Rumble, it would probably work better say running a story centered on Bandle City)
EDIT: a note here -the League game in and of itself, is not good at telling stories through gameplay BUT perhaps a derivative ARPG or other type of game could tell the story of one or a handfull of characters.
KING OF MASKS2 votesThat's a pretty decent idea, and actually seems like a likely path for the Narrative team to take. But as you say, it's Smash Bros. in reverse. The characters in Smash have had their games and stories for years (some decades). I doubt that reverse-engineering that (characters first, then story/universe) can meet with the same success across the board.
That said people get pretty invested in their favorite champions (I'm no exception), so it's probably not hopeless. The real issue then is the fact that it's been months since the retcon and they haven't established anything. If tomorrow they went ahead and said that Summoner's Rift is basically Final Destination, and that the champions are literally just the Legends of Runeterra, then I'd be fine with that. But instead they've pulled the entire conceit of the game out from under us and have replaced it with nothing. The lore, as it stands, is effectively a vacuum.
Sneak Dog4 votesThat said people get pretty invested in their favorite champions (I'm no exception), so it's probably not hopeless.
It's hopeless for me. I got invested in Trundle.
Narasimha1 votesJust to jump in, a lot of series weren't widely known, and actually became far popular after their characters showed up in a Smash Bros Game. Fire Emblem, Kid Icarus, Punch-out, etc.
Nybx4life2 votesWhat's funny, I find that Smash Bros has a better concept of what everybody is doing in that game than League now. Compare: Smash 64: All characters are toy figures being played by a kid in fantasy combat. League of Legends(pre-retcon): An institute devoted to ending the war between warring factions has provided an outlet for nations and individuals to enter combat League of Legends(post-retcon):???
Side note, I think Little Mac and Punch Out is a special case, given that he had his own reboot before becoming a playable character.
Morningbell1 votes#THEY AREN'T KILLING EACH OTHER.
That's the entire point. The entire. Point. The rift map absolutely DOES NOT EXIST as a place in runeterra.
The best description is a kind of "Reverse/Inverse Smash Bros" (and mind you the FIRST game had no story at all)
In the same way we have Runeterra and its own "Legends" and figures, and the idea will be for Narrative to tell stories about these characters, and I imagine when Rito makes a 2nd game -it will probably be some other type of game (FPS, Adventure, ARPG, etc etc) set in Runeterra probably following just one or a small number of characters we already know.
In the mean time, we already have the "let's just throw all these 'loved' characters together" sort of game.
What Narrative needs to do is
Tell more stories about these characters, so that those who already like the game in itself can learn more about the characters that interest them
Again tell more stories -these can be through webcomics, short stories, etc. If these stories are interesting enough, people who dont already play league may discover them and then become interested in playing.
With smash bros, all these characters already had their own games, and many, many stories for years. Now what needs to happen is for LoL to branch out and build up these characters, so that eventually just about any one of them could stand alone and carry a game or story all by themselves (albeit while you could for example do a story with just say Tristana or Rumble, it would probably work better say running a story centered on Bandle City)
EDIT: a note here -the League game in and of itself, is not good at telling stories through gameplay BUT perhaps a derivative ARPG or other type of game could tell the story of one or a handfull of characters.
Make no mistakes people, this is more or less spot on.
LoL is one of (?) the biggest games on the planet. Riot has an ego the size of Jupiter.
Dreamspitter1 votesMake no mistakes people, this is more or less spot on.
LoL is one of (?) the biggest games on the planet. Riot has an ego the size of Jupiter.
And Blizzard doesnt?
Athenes Lulu3 votesThey want us to figure out the story.
In which the clues are usually too vague for anyone to speculate on anything.
GreenLore2 votesUhm the harrowing told us quite a lot about the history of bilgewater and the other harrowings(not really a story for a character,but a lot of background for Bilgewater/Shadow isles),which I wouldn't really call a character theme.
The amumu video wasn't even done directly by the art team(they probably just provided some basic information for the video,like how amumus curse manifests etc.).
Also the Azir and Xerath lore are hardly just excuses to express their character themes(one could argue about kalista and so on though),but yeah individual stories don't really progress currently,which might be because they are still busy retconning.
Melancholy Exile15 votesUhm the harrowing told us quite a lot about the history of bilgewater and the other harrowings(not really a story for a character,but a lot of background for Bilgewater/Shadow isles)
I think told is the key word here.
"First Light after the Harrowing" gave us a lot of little snippets of information and introduced a fair few new concepts (The new interpretation of the Harrowing, Leviathans, serpent callers etc) but that's literally all it did. It made no effort to actually show us these things in action or use them to develop Bilgewater and the characters thereof, it just told us that they happened and left it at that.
*The Battle of Knife Straits. An armada from Bilgewater, led by Miss Fortune and Captain Gangplank – sailing together under an uneasy truce – meets the Black Mist head on. Heavy casualties sustained. Fleet scattered. *
This should be huge for the region. These four sentences represent a desperate alliance between two major rivals, and the two individuals competing over Bilgewater's future direction, and throws them into a massively costly battle that sees their combined fleet scattered ... and that's all conveyed through a single paragraph. We're not told anything of their ultimate fate, given a story piece that actually puts across how nightmarish the battle they faced was or even, and I think this is the biggest sin, presented with a piece that actually shows those two coming to an agreement and working together on something. This event is pretty much the single most important thing we've ever seen happen in the Bilgewater region and it's introduced and 'resolved' in a couple of lines. It's absolutely pathetic from a story perspective.
The Harrowing exists to build themes - desperation, the inevitability of defeat and death and just generally a dark future for Valoran - and other than "The Harrowing is a big scary thing that will probably be addressed in future stories" nothing really came of it. Like so, so many things we've seen of late, the Harrowing was just another piece of the puzzle that Riot are putting together as part of the ground work for their new lore and thus exists to give them something to build off rather than to tell a story in its own right.
That, I'd say, is where I agree with Impetual here. Riot didn't make any effort to tell Kalista's story, Gnar's story or even provide Rek'sai with a story (Although they did at least attach a story to her). They're currently working on building themes and concepts rather than actually telling stories with them and that often ends up feeling so very much like a missed opportunity from our side of things. It leaves these characters as mere bundles of themes and concepts rather than fleshed out individuals in their own right.
Solideus3 votesI think foundation-building has been the approach and will be the approach for a while longer considering the volume of stuff they have to solidify. World-building takes a lot longer than one-off content. I do believe they genuinely want to continue on the stories they have set up for, but at the moment it makes more sense for them to make sure there's enough pre-development to support that and the cast of characters they have to work with.
Melancholy Exile5 votesOh certainly, I just feel that they're creating a lot of ill-will for themselves by doing so because a great deal of that material is being released as "chapter one" of characters' stories, or the start of a new arc, and then it's subsequently left on the backburner for perhaps so much as years before we see things move beyond that initial cursory step. The Freljord event massively shook up the North but it didn't actually move the plotline forward at all (Potential post-Institute retcons notwithstanding) and the Shurima event similarly was virtually an issue zero rather than getting the story proper off the ground.
These steps may be necessary but they tend to feel quite underwhelming because of framing devices (Kalista, Gnar and Rek'sai are all presented to us from an outside perspective rather than being placed into storylines) or because they're concerned with such early days that nothing much actually happens (Everyone just seems to have wandered off after Xerath was freed). The guys at Riot are making sweeping changes to their setting but so often we see them altering things without actually being in a position to demonstrate the real value of those changes.
There will come a day when we see just what they're hoping to achieve with their new direction for Cassiopeia, whether the Harrowing is set to be a genuine story arc that continues with every year, and whether Lissandra is actually in the open as The Ice Witch ... but we have absolutely no idea when that day will come. There's definitely merit to the stuff they're putting out but it's often very difficult to appreciate in isolation because we've been promised so much more.
Solideus1 votesI personally love all the new stuff, no asterisks. Partly that is because my expectations were from the start that stuff would take a long time, given the nature of the beast.
This comment was pretty insightful, though. That's a concise summary of why there's some frustration despite the content being pretty good.
Sneak Dog2 votesHm, I think Riot will come with a story that'll be told for the stories sake, not to just show off some characters. The diary seemed like a first step, a story told to teach us about the world rather than to show off Rek'Sai.
So far, they haven't done so yet though. They just set settings and showed off characters.
Dotintheparadox2 votesAs I have said, the current narrative team was hired under Tom Abernathy, and they share his design philosophy, to them plot does not matter, and that's just stupid.
DWT123452 votesAmumu is sad. He has no freinds.
Kalista is betrayed. She seeks vengence.
Lissandra is plotting to take the freljord. She will never succeed nor fail, and will simply keep on waiting forever.
Strident1 votesCharacter themes and stories should, ideally, be highly correlated. I think what you mean more technically is 'plot', which in literature is identified as the text describing 'what happened'. A story is a more broad idea, which in literature typically identifies as always having a theme.
NorthernDruid1 votesI can sorta agree, mind I haven't actually read any of the short stories they've been putting out.
If they did change to less substansial stories, at least that would mean fewer directly contradicting things.
Meaning we get more fodder for our "You say retcon but nothing so far is actually contradictory with the old stuff" canon.
Skye reave1 votesGlad someone cares about the lore though. I'm wondering what happened to all the characters whose previous lore left them kind of isolated from the others. Yasuo is supposedly chased by all of Ionia but I guess the other champions are to busy (if we can even call them champions any more cuz no IOL). and what about Master Yi who seems to have fallen of the face of Runeterra alongside Wukong as they never appear anymore. And even better, what the hell is Taric or Malphite doing here now?
Skye reave1 votesSmash is a little different though You know their stories somewhat when going in. Part of league is that Riot has to give us some new backstory. (You know, because the retcon)
