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The Lore fading? (Long post)

Axerum·11/19/2014, 4:52:16 PM·44 votes·4,067 views

Lore was something that really got me into League of Legends. It all started like any gaming start, some friends, some time, and some interest in the MOBA genre that everyone was so hyped about. I remember seeing Gangplank the first time. I joined about late season 2, and began playing daily when season 3 started. At that moment, I didn't know much about lore. Just that we are summoners, these are Champions, not Heroes, and the Rift is a battlefield where Champions are summoned to fight over and over again, gaining reputation and influence. I did not understand why we got "influence points" instead of say, Gold or Credits, but when I did get it, it was awesome. I was like a politician in Valoran. Gaining power as matches went on, gaining confidence with my Champion of choice, the avatar that carried my thoughts into the field. It was all awesome. "Gangplank." I thought. What a name, right? Sounds more pirate than anything. And I thought that he was just another pirate. But I read his judgment. Miss Fortune's judgment, too. And also found out that he was the Captain of the "Dead Pool". This champion became my favorite ever since. Because he had a life besides being a character in a game. He had a rank between pirates in Bilgewater. He was feared by people across Demacia, Noxus and Ionia alike. And there were places where the champions lived, too. But what's the point of this? That we coexisted with the champions. We were summoners, and together with the champions that lived around us, we could do these games and have a reason behind our last hitting and sniping with skill shots. It all made sense perfectly, and it was a harmony.

Who will Mordekaiser insult if someone clicks too many times? Whose hold will Miss Fortune escape from, if not from the Summoner's? And more precisely, who are we? We are controlling them telepathically from above, like Gods, who Nasus and Renekton already are?

Summoner and Champion was a great idea. When I found out that Riot wanted to scrap the 'summoner', and stopped writing those short stories in Sales, altogether with Judgments, I was sad. Really sad. But rather than sad, I felt disconnected. I just dc'ed from the world I loved so much. Paraphrasing, "Lore and gameplay will be separated things. These will not be connected when we change it." I miss the judgments. I miss the Valoran newspapers. I miss Lore that is directly connected to the game.

Thank you for your time, and I do hope it all turns out fine in the end. Though currently, I can't clearly see what will happen to one of my favorite game-universes. I wonder if Garen will still land a right placed Demacian Justice onto Jarvan IV after all of this. I am, again, not complaining. I just need a word that will assure me Riot has this in mind. The one thing that separates League of Legends from other MOBAs.

Long post, so here, have a potato. item 3069

38 Comments

CupcakeTrap11/19/2014, 6:28:38 PM32 votes

Removing the League and Summoners (the "Great Retcon") was wrong

For months now, the lore community has made many passionate arguments against the Great Retcon. I find these arguments not only passionate but persuasive:

  • Riot's assertion that the choice is between some creepy all-powerful League ruled by puppetmaster Summoners and no League of Legends in League of Legends is false. This is not how the lore community has interpreted the League or Summoners, and certainly not how they should be interpreted. Actually, my first reaction to the Summoner lore idea was negative, because it made me sound like I was abusing or enslaving Champions; once I realized that it was more like I was "radio support", I really enjoyed it.
  • The Summoner concept gives us an "in" on the world, and drastically increases immersion. Heck, we can even imagine the World Finals as an in-universe event.
  • The League allows for cool themed tournaments like Noxus versus Ionia, and makes it easy to bring the community into the story in a very real way. Have tournaments, or a game mode, or just let Summoners pick a faction and vote for how they react to an in-universe event.
  • The lore for League of Legends should probably include a League of Legends.
  • It's a backstory for a game, and no gamer should be ashamed to work on investing a game with story and significance. (I love interactive fiction. My favorite part of Factions lore is that the events were driven principally by match outcomes and Summoner decisions, not fiat from above: it gives the story life.) The game is not a spin-off merchandising opportunity arising from some (yet to be created) fantasy novel series.
  • The League allows for war and conflict, but also provides an interesting way to prevent the whole setting from being consumed by war, while providing an arena in which friendly-rival factions like Piltover and Bandle City can fight without actually slaughtering each other.
  • The League is probably the most distinctive and interesting element of LoL's lore, a sort of fantasy Babylon 5 or United Nations. (I can't think of any other fantasy setting that's really tried something like this.)
  • The League may play a large role in some Champions' stories, and a token role in other Champions' stories, but it ensures that every Champion has some point of connection to other Champions.
  • The League not only allows for interaction between Champions from far-flung lands, but also provides a neutral space (the Institute) where they can interact otherwise than trying to kill each other.
  • And so on, and so on.

Our arguments aren't going to change their mind

As persuasive as these arguments are, I doubt they'll change what Narrative's doing. They're set on their path. I believe in the Riot model of community interaction, but hey, maybe Narrative's right to break from it.

It could be worse: let's make the most of this

We have some silver lining to work with.

  • So far, none of their new lore is hard to fit into a League-containing universe. At all. Actually, thinking about how the new events would play out in the halls of the Institute adds a rich new dimension. So there's certainly nothing stopping us from handling that as a community.
  • There is no way that they'll rewrite the League and screw it up, because they're not writing about the League at all. The League is safe. They have discarded the League, but now, to risk an awkward allusion, the stone the builders rejected has become our cornerstone.
  • Narrative doesn't hate us. Narrative just doesn't care. That might sound more melodramatic than it is: I mean it quite soberly. They don't care about us because they care about some other, much larger audience. I don't sense malice from them, and I don't think they care if the community's lore continues to use the League and Summoners.

Let's do this!

Honestly, the community (not Riot) has been putting out most of League's lore for years now. Now that Narrative has abdicated the lore of League of Legends itself, in favor of pursuing its Leagueless Runeterran Adventures, let's pick up the slack.

And, yes, this will end with a pitch for Factions, a community game mode and lore initiative built around the concept of the League and Summoners. I've made some theoretical arguments against Narrative's assertion that the League prevented the story from moving forward, but really I think my strongest argument would be a simple link to the Factions lore page, reflecting more than a year of community storytelling and lore-shaping gameplay. Not only can the story progress, but it is progressing, right now. Come join!

Hoi Im Temmo11/19/2014, 5:13:56 PM13 votes

OH GOD THE FEELS IT HURTS

Also, I completely agree, that the Lore (something I immersed myself in during the past year before lead up to the Riot post you mentioned....) for me is what made this game GREAT. Riot has led us for a few years now, and They always try to do the right thing, what will most help the game, and the community. But I really hope here that they do well, cause the lore means more to me than the gameplay at this point.

Ouroboro11/20/2014, 4:36:09 AM8 votes

My thoughts:

Riot doesn't realize how important the lore was to the playerbase. What they're doing with the lore is frustrating to every single person who was involved in the old lore which included the Journal of Justice.

I believe the Institute of War being "restrictive" is simply bullshit. You want the game to be like "Smash Brothers", but the difference between league and Smash is that EVERY Smash character has their entire universe behind them, League does not. The Institute of War was that universe, as is Runeterra. The glue that holds everything together. Seriously, considering the balance of the game, I stopped having fun playing League of Legends but still love the game. The only way to immerse yourself into the game without playing is, well, the lore.

The connections between the Champion and Summoner? I prefer them over the new quotes we get from the champions. This is a major reason of why I don't like any of the new champions.

I've been planning something really big using the Institute of War, the Summoners, Runeterra, and the champions. It'll probably take forever to be done, but I love the old lore so much that I can't just see it go to waste like this...

IMTOOJUICY11/19/2014, 8:36:52 PM8 votes

No more JoJ. No more judgments. Biggest problem in my eyes. The current lore just doesn't achieve the same level of story telling as before, in terms of both depth and volume. There are still cool character concepts, but the newer characters feel like one-shot stories at this point.

Killer X 1211/19/2014, 7:27:05 PM7 votes

Im just sad that they'll make the changes and we, as a community, will try to support them because we WANT to have lore, not because we actually like the changes. Then they come out and say "we told you it'd be better," when really all we are doing is making the most of what they did to our beloved lore.

Athenes Lulu11/21/2014, 5:19:13 AM6 votes

It's more like Rito giving up on writing legit lore and trying to connect summoners and champions on Runeterra, so they ragequit and be like "nah! This is too much work! Let's just scrap the IoW so we can be lazier on writing actual stories! Hopefully our beloved players won't mind, since they're all in for e$ports anyways. We want to 'expand on storytelling' so that people can write up crappy fanfics too!"

Pretty rough idea here, but sounds accurate enough. Wonder why Rito "reworked" Trundle? Wonder why Rito never made anymore reasons for Jinx, Thresh, Gnar, etc. to join the League? Wonder why champs are more preachy rather than communicating to their summoners (yeah, Jinx and Sivir)?

Just gonna be like another stereotypical MOBA out there. Mainly because the lore team sucked to the point where they can't even write stories so they ragequit.

BlazeRiver11/20/2014, 4:43:47 AM4 votes

I agree with what you're saying. Before I played League, I watched a friend play League. I remember asking "who's the person with the glowy lights?" and he would tell me that it was Sona, and that the lights represented her aura. I learned that she was a mute musician. I also remember a time when Ahri was a very new champion, and when somebody was playing Ahri, I'd look at the tails and wonder why there were so many. Although my education about League was spotty at best (I thought that the buttons to level up skills had something to do with healing), I still was able to have some sense of which champions were which.

I feel like the retcon was poorly done. I'd be happier if there was a big news event in which Noxus was revealed to have been manipulating the summoners all this time, and Demacia and Ionia refused to participate in the IOW anymore until Noxus was kicked out. I feel the retcon would have been better if there had been a big event in which the IOW lost all political credibility, but still remained open as a place for the dedicated to learn how to fight (to explain why we still can play champions). However, the retcon feels like there's no sense of closure. What has the void been doing without anything/anyone to restrain them? Is Brand burning up Runeterra? Does Runeterra even exist? Are Demacia and Noxus at war? These questions haven't been answered in a satisfactory way.

Eve The Ripper11/20/2014, 6:44:37 AM3 votes

As much as I complain, I keep playing because I really like a handful of the characters. Runeterra on the whole isn't bad either.

Also, this is the first I've heard of this because I did stop playing for a while. I'm guessing they have something that they consider better waiting to replace it, but it seems like a huge, unnecessary gamble. Why scrap the most iconic part of one's game? Why throw away years of work and familiarity? Makes me nervous, but here's hoping they're right.

Axerum11/21/2014, 3:11:24 AM3 votes

I can't be more thankful to everyone who commented here. If you want to post what you feel, do it, I always read through long comments gladly. And as above stated, indeed, the League still has much more room to develop. It was scrapped instead of changed. That's what makes most of us sad. Instead of developing what Runeterra and the Institute had to offer, he were left with a world called Runeterra, a magical piece glass from which we look down, and a keyboard. No more summoning, no more connection.

Although it's unlikely Riot will be able to change path at this point, it's not too far to start turning back, making some long lores that ma not be connected to each other like right now, but be interesting and unique in their own way. We weren't unhappy about the Cursed Troll's lonely lore. He was alone and isolated from other plotlines, but it was okay because it was awesome!

The Soulforged11/20/2014, 6:10:58 AM2 votes

This entire thread is entire cesspool of love and feelz for lore. I agree with almost every point given in this thread, and I hope at least we can make the most of what riot has done to the lore. I'd like to express my feelz to every lore lover reading this thread.

Auryiel11/20/2014, 12:07:29 AM2 votes

''Lore is fading''

Is this 2011?

EliteGunm4n11/20/2014, 6:56:18 AM1 votes

I have to agree with you. I find the current 3 sentence lore for a number of champions very unsatisfying. We want to know the history and the background of our favorite champions, it is half of what makes them interesting to play. When we don't get a full background they feel empty, like just another necromancer/mercenary/whatever that exist in hundreds of games. Give us more, give us the champions we love.

If this is just a temporary change to the lore, and you have larger more fleshed out lore in the works for these champions, let us now. Please Reds!!

Axerum11/21/2014, 3:20:21 AM1 votes

@TheFreak321 @BlazeRiver @OuroboroDFGaren These put it best. I'm very glad you think this way

ZenithEevee11/21/2014, 4:48:29 AM1 votes

Well, the thing is, Its not that its "Fading" But more that its becoming less and less Canon. i mean, with the whole League being Retconned, leading to all disputes being fought that were settled with the institute leading to the only answer to what happened was that everyone left the oven on.. (God damnit pantheon, you're not a baker, you dont even have your food handling license)

And with all the Champions lore being bent, and even destroyed, to make new and reworked champions fit, why dont you just make this game like Super Smash Bros where we play as Canon characters in a Non Canon area, fighting just for the hell of it? also, lets not remember that there is no Visual history on any of the champs (Except braum and gnar, but those were scroll through pics and stuff, not a video, which would be AWESOME, Especially after how they did on the newest vid) and the only thing we got to go on is like 1-3 small paragraphs of like one or two stories..