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@Rioters whats with your vendetta against bandits and robbers?

La Bello·1/18/2017, 9:59:15 PM·20 votes·11,494 views

Are you guys trying to send some sort of subliminal message or ulterior motive? Seriously the amount of stories where "bad guys" get slaughtered or killed is so ridiculously disproportionate to the ones where innocent people get attacked or hurt are to the point that even confirmed villains like are doing it.

It feels like its being written by a kid who watches too much saturday morning cartoons and whole heartedly bought into the whole "good will always triumph" lesson shoe-horned in at the end.

Every other story Im reading in these new bios is nothing but Champions using their crazy ingame powers to beat down or kill a bunch of sell-swords, thugs or petty thieves.

kills some robbers kills some robbers kills some raiders beats up thugs in his cinematic Caitlyn shot some smugglers hand off beats up now handless smuggler beats up some mechanical bad guys kills some noxian bad guys kills some hired mercs beats up some badguys went from being a absolutely deplorable person to a tragic vigilante and furred crusader blows up some people trying to rob her Shen kills some "evil" clerics/priest

Whats next? Is Jinx's new lore going to be that shes some sort of Robin Hood who makes sure to only inconvenience those that can afford it in Piltover or something? Will her completely sociopathic and self serving tendencies be totally done away with? Will and Only go after pedophiles or drug dealers now? Is making all Villains into tragic villains the new hotness? are now just misunderstood tragic villains who had some sort of past trauma that led to them being the way that they are. Good old fashion lust for power or world domination is dead and gone now it seems.

It feels like absolutely no innocent blood shed by champions on Runeterra ever outside of Shadow Isle/Void shenanigans? I like Riots lore and all and was really excited to hear that you guys would be giving it more attention but the new stories and bios are just getting predictable, uninteresting and eye-rolling because I already know going in that there's a 70% chance the story is going to involve some random group of baddies getting the smackdown.

106 Comments

Sharjo1/18/2017, 10:34:28 PM19 votes

They're easy cannon fodder who no one realistically will give a shit about, and it helps explore the powers and mindset of the champions. Keep in mind that we play as these champions in a combat situation, so seeing how they work in such an environment in the lore itself is helpful in understanding who they are.

Most of these short stories aren't meant to be major story progression (even though they can exactly that), they exist to put the character in the setting and establish who they are and how they work, and a lot of these champions have to fight and kill at times for one reason or another.

As an added bonus it shows how the world views these champions to a degree by showing ordinary folks come in to contact with them and be shown up.

RiotRiotJaredan1/19/2017, 2:21:04 AM7 votes

Personally, I wouldn't call Cass a 'straight up villain.' She's not exactly a hero either, but she thought she was doing her best for her family and Noxus (and, herself, of course), which led her into something awful.

Agonys Embrace1/19/2017, 4:52:12 AM7 votes

What I want to know is why Warwicks lore has taken such a supreme 180. I'm so tired of being told by riot that they intend to keep the core of the character alive when the lore team does the exact opposite. Sometimes I wonder if they even bother to look up what they are writing about before they put pen to paper. Warwick isnt even the only one who has taken a complete 180 but ill just focus on him.

Why is he no longer a blood hunter of his own choosing? Why is he now a gangster who is experimented on by singed? Who might I remind was his friend in the old lore. Why is he a vigilante? Is he not supposed to be a feral beast? Why does he hunt criminals? How would he even know the criminals from the innocents? Does he have some sort of super power to tell who is a killer and who isn't? Don't try to tell me its because they smell of blood because people wash their hands and innocents get blood on their hands too. Why are both his lore and short story so darn contradictory?

We are constantly told he is feral by the writers that he struggles with himself, that he isn't cunning and that is how Rengar and Warwick are different. Rengar is a clever, cunning hunter and Warwick isn't. Did you even read what you wrote before it was published then? What I read was a cunning hunter leading his bait towards his prey to draw them out. He was herding her and he was thinking the ENTIRE time he was doing it. During his 'bloodrage' he was thinking the entire time.

The.Entire.Time.

That's not instinct driven.

I cant buy what im being sold because it feels like im being lied to the entire time. All of these characters ive come to love are losing the soul of who they are. Warwick is no longer a deplorable jerk who chose his own path. Leona is no longer a pacifist. Diana is no longer a spite filled warrior of the moon. I've come to dread reworks for one reason and one reason only.

The lore.

Ranting into the void feels good...I guess.

SuddenAntagonist1/19/2017, 7:08:55 AM6 votes

Inb4 " Lissandra Bury the world in ice" turns into "Save the penguins from poachers!" Or something equally dissatisfying.

On a more serious note. I love the new Warwick, love the login theme, love the way the story was written, but I agree on the content being a little hard to swallow. When he was indiscriminately killing, I bought that. When he recognized something that triggered bad memories, I bought that. When he acted cunning and sneaky, I thought it was a little more iffy, but still worked for the most part. When I realized he went vigilante on Zaun, you lost me. Predators are cunning and will use bait to attract more meat. Predators DO NOT care about the motivations of the meat though. He retains memories, yes, but they're lost in a blood haze and only triggered by certain things. Indiscriminate meat puppets are not the thing that is going to trigger "Good guy Warwick".

Voidzilla1/19/2017, 6:02:32 AM3 votes

I do very much enjoy that Riot is releasing stories about different Champions and giving us insight in Runeterra; it's much better than the lore-drought we had for years prior.

However, when reading some of the stories, I had the same feelings you did. Some were just the same story repeating itself to the letter: X Champion encounters Baron von Badguy & co. and kills them. I think that story's perfectly fine for someone like Caitlyn , Leona , LeeSin , and even Ahri . However, it was out of place, even a little cringey, when someone like Fiddlesticks , of all characters, was playing the role of "sweet, retribution against the villains". It just gets boring after awhile when the same exact story is repeated over and over again.

On the other hand, lore-pieces like Ekko , Orianna , and Jax 's were, I think, quite good. It showed a slice of life of the character that's different from in-game, yet still recognizable, and expands upon the world around them. I think the appeal of the large cast of characters League has is precisely that not all characters are good, or even neutral. Sometimes, you want to play as the villain (like, the truly world-threatening, no redeemable qualities villains) and get inside their mindset. Mordekaiser , RekSai , and Jhin had some really fun lore-pieces that showcased their abilities and characters without just being a cookie-cutter "the evil shall pay" story.

Good, even excellent stories have been produced so far. At the same time, there have also been ones that just feel bland, un-engaging, and even lazy. I'm hoping some of these are just "warm-ups", and that we'll continue to get the more varied stories like Janna or Illaoi 's, and not just Tristana or Pantheon 's again.

Cinis1/19/2017, 9:21:36 PM3 votes

This entire discussion is depressing.

There isn't and there never has been transparency or accountability at Riot when it comes to lore.

For all we know, the people writing the stuff we're upset with are literally visual artists who have no experience or training in fiction writing.

Maybe Riot has a coder moonlighting as an editor.

From a business standpoint, it's probably cheaper than using talented professionals.

(I showed some of the recent shorts to a friend who worked as a professional editor before going to law school - she said she used to be a middle school teacher and that her students could have produced the same quality of content, if not done better)

So this clever policy of not telling us anything about the process except via red colored screen names means there's not even anyone to be upset with - it's just this vague sense that somewhere inside an inscrutable corporation, someone is making a bad decision anonymously.

Being upset about Riot's work is like being upset with politics.

Nothing any of us say or think matters.

It doesn't matter how right or wrong we are, it doesn't matter how waterproof the arguments get - it either goes into a black box (and perhaps inside the black box it gets confirmation bias'd out of existence) or it never even gets into the black box.

Critiques about the lore, no matter how strong, are totally worthless.

In the end though, this is a consumer product.

I'm a consumer. I'm venting now because it's cathartic (because I used to love the characters and everything I loved has been retcon'd out of existence). Generally though, ever since the retcon of the League, I've learned that I find the lore does not meet my standards and it's a waste of my time to read it.

It's overly optimistic to think that my drifting away from this video game on account of finding the characters really boring means anything to Riot.

They're a company.

It's difficult to measure how spending more money on better writers and editors creates a positive effect on the bottom line. There might be some sense of pride in the product, but so long as there's no negative effect, there's no reason to change the current structure without a clear incentive and the fact that there are current staff who no doubt think they're doing a good job means there's significant resistance to change already extant in the system.

It's also difficult to measure if there's any lost revenue from skimping on writers and editors. (The people like me, who end up drifting away from the game on account of the poor writing, are a truly difficult demographic to identify and analyze. Using angry comments on a forum could be a rough proxy to estimate percentage among users who stop logging in, but it really falls short in terms of creating a solid data trail. Furthermore, so long as the userbase continues to grow, there's little incentive to pin down the rather abstract push factors of the migration analysis).

I don't matter.

You don't matter.

No one cares.