@Riot, Could We Hear More About The Foundations Team? We Don't Know Much About Them Right Now.

Impetual·Jun 26, 2015·8 votes·3,414 views

I'm really curious to hear about the resources Riot is dedicating to this team.

Could we get a definitive answer on who is the lead...if there is one...is it Jaredan?

How many Rioters are on the team? Who's on it?

What are their priorities?

It'd just be kinda nice to get to know who they are and what their priorities are.

A day to day example of the kind of stuff they deal with would be pretty awesome, but I'm gonna try to be realistic and not hold out for that.

9 Comments

RiotRiotJaredanJun 27, 20159 votes

Ant in Oz, a busy bloke, is the lead on that team. There are Rioters from multiple disciplines on that team (like all others), including Art and Narrative. The team creates design documents that are used to set the context of different aspects of Runeterra. These documents are used by many teams who are creating products that include the themes, places and identity of the story world. The documents are reviewed and given feedback regularly by people from across Riot. Foundations also has ongoing discussions with various product teams in order to support their work in expanding upon those design documents through their own products in a way that allows teams to forge ahead, while maintaining a cohesiveness across the company. That's how it works. Foundations provides what its name suggests, then other product teams respond to, and then help inform, that team's work through communication and their own work (the things that are made and delivered to the player). Foundations doesn't produce work that goes directly to the player, it helps to support teams that do so, from Champion to Events and more. Though it might not have Foundations stamped on it, that team's work is already present in things that you already see, and will see very soon.

SolideusJun 27, 20153 votes

I'd love it if you at some point released a dev-blog about stuff that you have established for a faction through things like Foundation and events. For example, after Burning Tides, it would be neat to read a dev-blog discussing Bilgewater's real-world influences and what you have established aesthetically for the faction; both in terms of narrative themes, world building and art.

Duke AnaxJun 27, 20157 votes

It would be nice if more of those foundations would get to the players.

It seems, because everyone at Riot knows that stuff, it seems they forget that the plaeyrs don't know.

Even the very first and most basic of those foundations: a Valoran map still hasn't reached the playerbase.

ImpetualJun 28, 20152 votes

Thanks for the info Jaredan, it really explains a lot of stuff that's kinda seemed like a bit of a mystery for awhile.

Based off your description, Foundations sounds more about "products" which I assume to be initial champion lore, locations, etc?..., but you don't seem to be talking about what I'm personally most concerned about when it comes to League of Legends.

That being** the interconnected_ evolving_ story between champions**. Is foundations in charge of that? If not, who is?

And why aren't they creating anything to advance Runeterra's Narrative anymore?

New lore keeps getting added via retcons and new champions, but it's been quite awhile since we've seen a pre-existing character actually do something to stir things up in Runeterra.

I miss the times when Jax and Gragas could wreck up a bar and run away within the cannon of the game and still show of to the Institute of War the next day to do battle.

Also, the story about Blitzcrank's fleshling compatibility service was awesome.

Awesome stuff like that isn't cannon anymore, which is quite a shame.

ImpetualJun 28, 20154 votes

Hey Jaredan, I'm kinda curious... **How **does the foundations team work with other teams? What is their relationship with the other teams they work with? Are they actually in control over the game's narrative, or do they just do what they're told by the other teams and try to make it work within the game's lore?

I get that they work with other teams, but how much control does the Foundations team have? Is it_ Official_ control where they listen to feedback,but at the end of the day, call the shots on LoL's narrative? Or the mutual respect kind of control where they have an opinion that sorta matters when convenient? Or do the other teams do whatever and leave foundations to sort out the lore?

In other words, who has creative control over the "different aspects of Runeterra" that you mention.

The Foundations team interacts with a lot of other teams, and I'm just wondering if the Foundations Team decides what Runeterra is with input from the other teams and leaves the other teams to adjust their content around foundations,_ (Foundations calls the shots when it comes to LoL's narrative, Lore Quality is a high priority)_

Or if Foundations gets told what's happening in Runeterra by the other teams and tries to make it work in the lore._ (In this possibility, Foundations is the narrative damage control/mitigation team, Lore Quality isn't the priority, they're just trying to patch a bunch of random ideas together and make it fit whatever the other departments have put together as best as they can.)_

Or is it some kind of low-structured new age work place where no one is in charge and everyone has to come to a consensus before content is produced?_ (In my experience, this produces high creativity, with very low productivity, which honestly, would explain Riot's slow content production over the last year or two.) _

Or is it something entirely different?

Structurally, there's a huge difference in how the different aspects of the game are balanced against one another in terms of importance based on Riot's corporate structure.

It would be really cool and interesting to compare RIot's development structure against the content Riot produces, and see how the content quality of the different aspects of LoL match up with the design focus of the company's structure.

Any info for us on that topic that you're allowed to share with us Jaredan? Or any other Rioter willing to talk about it with us?

Valaran NaraJun 27, 20152 votes

Imp, I'm scared man. A rioter actually answered to one of your threads. Is this a sign of the apocalypse? I swear, the world's going to end. Game over, man! Game over!