Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

So why are the champions even fighting one another?

Slushi Simcambi·1/24/2015, 6:21:15 PM·7 votes·6,423 views

No, seriously.

If the Institute of War doesn't exist, why are all these random entities full out brawling with one another?

If Riot straight up doesn't want a lore that's fine, but they had better tell us if this is the case.

If Team Fortress 2, the most nonsensical madness shooter of all time can have some awesome lore and character development then I see no reason League can't. It isn't really a question of if the game is capable, it's a question of if Riot wants to pursue it.

So why are the champions fighting? Maybe they are trying to build a vacation house on the enemy team's nexus but property laws prevent them from doing so, therefore they take the next logical step... TEAM BASED COMBAT TO THE DEATH.

Edit: Also kinda want to add, moving forward lorewise, this is something Riot needs to establish ASAP. Without defining the basis for the entire League experience it will be difficult for lore to move forward in the future.

17 Comments

metriccybernetic1/27/2015, 3:54:38 AM5 votes

It can be boiled down to 'because reasons'. The Narrative team decided that - because the League was too constraining with all-powerful summoners and the ability to bring every single minor squabble to a halt (something that would have been totally impossible to change to something a tad more believable) - they were going to entirely disconnect the game from its lore (which is the mark of excellent game design, by the way) and instead of having a cast of relatable characters who could have been developed within the IoW and without with equal parts comedy and seriousness they replaced them with peeps that wander around Runeterra because of reasons. GG Riot.

The Whamboozler1/24/2015, 8:21:31 PM5 votes

The old lore left room to imagine stories though. You could imagine a political dispute and which countries might be involved in it. Maybe oddball champs were bribed, forced or blackmailed into joining your side. Maybe in your story, Ezreal is EVIL and he's helping Cho, Kha and Malz bring the void to the planet! It didn't always make sense, but it gave you something to work with.

The new lore gives a lot less to work with, but it's still got some half decent storeis. What it doesn't have is a reason for the fighting. At all. It also doesn't have... a conclusion. Lissandra is plotting evil stuff guys! Sej and Ashe are at war! SHIT BE WHACK, YO! What will happen? Never gonna be explained. Moving on to Shurima. If they were gonna remove the old lore that gave excuses for the gameplay to make room for better stories... THOSE STORIES SHOULD GO SOMEWHERE!

Just my two cents.

JamDubs1/24/2015, 7:11:32 PM4 votes

TF2's gameplay has about as much connection to the "lore" as LoL's gameplay has a connection to the new lore.

Ever notice how in the Meet The... Videos, only RED wins? Ever notice that there are only 9 modern mercenaries in the comic? It's because the lore =/= game, it's a separate story that has some vague connections to various game modes (like trying to push the enemy Mann Brother's corpse into Hell) but otherwise it makes no sense that there are 5 soldiers, 2 snipers and 2 scouts on one team at a time if you're going to argue that the game plays well with its "lore."

As much as the Institute of War was a nice way to make weird match ups make sense (why is Kat fighting her sister? Because the enemy summoner wanted to use her, silly!), it didn't make for thrilling story telling. Personally, I would have preferred the League be "destroyed" rather than retconned, since that would open up a lot of opportunities for political upheaval and factions taking side, making for very interesting story telling, but what can ya do.

Basically, the game is no longer directly tied to the lore. It just uses its characters for fun and profit.

NOW... If you're arguing that since the grand retcon, there hasn't been a lot of actual lore taking place, that I can agree with. I'm very concerned about where the story is going, if anywhere. Apparently everything outside of the League did in fact happen (like the Noxus occupation of Ionia, wherein Udyr wrecked face all over the place, and I presume the Freljord event), but other things are no longer connected. Many champions need a lore rewrite, such as Jax, because they literally have no reason to exist at the moment otherwise.

In other words; Riot's got some splainin' to do.

Mecha MaIphite1/25/2015, 4:07:24 AM3 votes

DrMundo MUNDO FIGHT WHAT HE PLEASES

Motajo1/24/2015, 7:08:23 PM2 votes

They aren't fighting. Riot completely separated lore and gameplay. Nothing that happens in-game happens at all, or has anything to do with lore whatsoever, aside from the characters sharing names and themes.

I agree that something to tie gameplay and lore should be established (or in this case, restored), but Riot (or at least Narrative...) specifically wanted to divorce game and story.

Ironclad Dragon1/27/2015, 3:36:16 AM2 votes

Because you downloaded the game.

Brotha1/27/2015, 8:57:41 AM1 votes

I just want to know what the fuck is up with Lee Sin.

His entire history is tied in with the League. From trying to become a summoner to blinding himself in the fire to protest the Noxian invasion, everything about Lee has been tied heavily to the League. I imagine they'll have to give him a completely new lore or take the easy way out and say "He was a monk who protested the Noxian invasion by lighting himself on fire. This act united Ionian elders in the decision to rally their forces to repel the invaders. Lee Sin is now held in the highest regard, a national hero."

I hope they don't do that though cause he loses a lot of his depth.

Sneak Dog1/25/2015, 4:15:20 AM1 votes

The game knows there's a lore and it uses it as a source of inspiration. The lore however, doesn't know there's a game. And so there is no reason in the lore for these champions to fight eachother in an elaborate arena, the connection from lore to gameplay got severed.