A question to any & all Lore fans.

Jeddy017·Mar 21, 2015·6 votes·1,366 views

Ever since the infamous Dev Blog last Fall,I've seen many comments of lore fans feeling like they were kick out of Runeterra.Many saw Summoners as their avatars in the world of League of Legends.It is clear that the Summoners are of high value in the hearts of the Lore fans. But it seems to Riot,the champions & their stories are more valued than the tales of the Summoners.Riot apparently view Summoners as all powerful beings who treat champs like puppets.

As someone who became interested in the lore mid-late 2014,I'm curious to know: Who do you feel should be the main focus of the LOL lore?The Summoners,the champions or a good healthy mix both?

Let's ignore reality for a minute & think about how you would want it to be.

22 Comments

Ebonmaw DragonMar 21, 201516 votes

Back in the season 1, i loved the idea of the summoners, i felt like one in the very first moment that i saw the loading screen where it says "Summoning" instead of "loading" or something like that... the summoner spells, the JoJ, the judgements and the fact that the champions where talking to ME. I WAS part of Runeterra... but everything changed after riot started to change the narrative... and im not talking about the dev blog and the deletion of the summoners... im talking about the changes on the Twisted Treeline.

Aside from the fact that i loved the old treeline (just look at my name), the deletion of that map was the first sign of the end of the league. The map had no sense with the "Summoner cannon (or whatever is called)" and erased important events that happened in the old cannon (Maokai, im looking at you)

However... after the deletion of the league, i got annoyed about the summoners... but the truth is, that they weren't actually important to me as a representation of the player on runeterra, they were important because the summoners were a LINK between the game, the player, the characters (champions) and mainly: Runeterra

Without them, the game is something like chess. The King has a story, but no one cares. The champions are just strangers with super powers. Runeterra is a bunch of islands without conection (not literal)...

Yes, champion stories are cool... the summoners where a nice touch... but... how about the rest of the world? only the champions are important? i dont like this "championcentric" lore.

I believe that Riot should focus on VALORAN, not the champions or the summoners....

PS: Sorry if i had some grammatical errors... English is not my best language.

Jeddy017Mar 21, 20153 votes

So in other words,you want world building?

Ebonmaw DragonMar 21, 20154 votes

{quoted}

So in other words,you want world building?

In simple words... yeah... that...

Gear KittyMar 21, 201511 votes

None of the Above:

The focus of the narrative should be to sketch and sculpt the form and feel of the entire world.

I give no shits about Kalista. She doesn't have a narrative to speak of, no grand goal for her to accomplish. Just snippets of myth surrounding her and allusions to her involvement with the Pre-Ruined King.

Yasuo has no grounding without fleshing out Ionia and Noxus and their last war, same for Varus and Karma, and even moreso for Riven.

Without the IoW, champions that are not directly tied to each other have ZERO connections to the over-arching narrative of the game. By removing Summoners and the IoW, the Champions feel detached to the world at large outside of their little zones of influence.

Rammus is just rolling around the desert. Alistar has no stage to CHAMPION his fight against Noxian slavery. Jax has no equals to fight or reason to wield a lamppost. Nami has no general knowledge base to search through to find the Moon Stone she needs. Diana has no outlet to show the world the Solari atrocities. There's nothing to keep Nocturne, Fiddlesticks, Cho'Gath, Kog'Maw, or Brand locked away.

The list goes ON AND ON.

Jeddy017Mar 21, 20152 votes

It seems that of the few who commented, world building seem to the focus.

Rather than focusing on characters,it seems you feel the lore should focus on the world.Is that correct?

Gear KittyMar 21, 20157 votes

Correct. The reason "Super Smash" games work (SSB, Capcom Vs Anyone, Mortal Kombat Vs DC) is because the characters ALREADY have a grounding within their respective mythos. All that's needed in the game itself is a reason WHY they're all together and brutally harming one another.

League had explanations as to the character origins and their reasons for fighting in some random battlefield. That however was all removed with the Not-So-Great Retcon.

It used to be that Cho'Gath and Teemo being on the same team fighting J4 and Ganplank was explained with the blanket statement of "Summoners training their skills and Champions earning prestige for themselves and their nation".

Now there is no reasoning, there is no story, and there is the flimsiest excuse for a narrative since Phoenix Wright fought Iron Man.

Those of us who CARE about the League of Legends as a story and product remember a time when the Lore of the world was ever expanding vertically and horizontally. We also remember a time when the Lore felt like it couldn't get any worse or dropped any harder by Riot.

And now we have -this- huge mess of a retcon. I want to go back to a time when we thought it couldn't get worse, cause man were we wrong.

Ebonmaw DragonMar 22, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gear Kitty,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=V9pzA9P4,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-03-21T12:58:46.746+0000)There's nothing to keep Brand locked away.

HA! fool, without the institute, Brand is dead... Literally, Demacia killed him. Read the lore:

"...No one is quite sure how Brand found his way to Valoran, but he began his predations at once. Overcome by Demacian forces, he was given a choice: ~~fight within the confines of the League or ~~die. ~~Naturally, he chose to use his destructive powers in the League, for now...~~"

Gear KittyMar 22, 20151 votes

Alack! You are correct.

You heard it here folks, Brand is supposed to be dead now, everyone is just playing a shambling corpse (ha).

Sneak DogMar 22, 20154 votes

Zombie Brand is canon now?

Gear KittyMar 22, 20153 votes

Sure, why not, couldn't be much worse than what we're getting now (or the lack thereof).

NarasimhaMar 21, 20155 votes

I'd say the champions. Honestly, when I pick a champion, I NEVER felt like a guy controlling that character. I always envisioned myself as the champion. I never once felt like a Summoner in charge of Draven. And honestly, I suspect thats how the majority of the people feel. Theres very little in-game evidence to make the player feel like a 'Summoner'. Its just easier to fit yourself in the skin (or armor, or scales, or whatever) of the character you're playing. Well, maybe it was just me, and I did get a bit sidetracked. But personally speaking, I'd rather hear tales about the Champions doing what they normally do, without having to involve a third party like the IoW.

Jeddy017Mar 21, 201511 votes

Theres very little in-game evidence to make the player feel like a 'Summoner'.

Riot certainly done a good job of removing any reference to or evidence of the Summoners in game if that's the case.

SharjoMar 21, 20156 votes

Same. When I first picked up Nautilus years ago now I felt like I was being Naut, not summoning Naut. I cared, and still care, about Nautilus's place in the world and what he's doing, not anything about myself and being a summoner.

A Superb VillainMar 22, 20155 votes

Sometimes, when I play Veigar and use Primordial Burst, I break out into manic laughter upon a successful kill.

I have never been a Summoner; I am death with an oversized hat and an enthusiasm for melodramatics that borders on affectation.

KING OF MASKSMar 21, 20155 votes

What the lore needs right now is straight worldbuilding. Fuck the summoners, fuck the champions, we need to know what Runeterra is and who's living there. Maps, city-state lore pieces, stuff like that.

GapyboMar 21, 20151 votes

World building can be done together with champions and through them.

KING OF MASKSMar 21, 20154 votes

While that's certainly true, do you really think the narrative team is capable of such multitasking when they can't even release proper champion backgrounds?

Nybx4lifeMar 21, 20154 votes

Start with the world. Let me care about the world, the areas, and all that stuff.

Then get to the champs. The lore events go in the right direction, but it's lacking.

If summoners were a thing, make them a thing worth caring about. I'd like to see how they're limited in what they can do. Lee Sin was a summoner, but there were no other champions that were once summoners (says a bit about their power), and since the political issues were also removed, there's no way to let them run their role there.

Big Bang BobMar 21, 20153 votes

Neither

First they need to re-establish the world of Runeterra. If I didn't know much about the old lore, I wouldn't even know what Demacia and Noxus were. I have no idea what living in the towns are like, the kinds of beasts that roam the world, or even why anyone is fighting anyone.

CriomhthannMar 24, 20153 votes

Originally both were focused on to some extent (with a far greater focus on the champions). It was used to further the story of the world on a macro level when both were involved, but a Micro level with only the champions and figures which interacted with them.

The idea that summoners were all powerful and controlled every aspect read to me like bad fanwank of someone who wasn't paying attention; only it came from a Rioter instead of a fan.

ForPortalMar 22, 20152 votes

The Champions should be the focus. Summoners should exist and should play a role, but only in aggregate.

Solidair3Mar 23, 20151 votes

The champions, which was the point of the whole retcon.

On one hand, I like the political intrigue of the old lore. Important life altering decisions are made by the battles on Summoner's Rift, as champions are utilized as tools to make sure the right side wins. But in the end, the focus really is only on the summoners. Champions don't ever die, and there's no real substance to what happens on Summoner's Rift. We don't talk about the politics, or and of the intrigue.

Which is why I much prefer talking about champions. They are infinitely more diverse than the summoners and so muchoose more interesting in their interactions.

The challenge goes to Riot now, though, to create a world where these champions can interact in interesting ways and toward interesting goals.

Now if only we could defeat that damn tech issue...