Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Old Lore Vs New Lore

Enby Trsdppy·6/12/2016, 4:32:56 PM·3 votes·6,822 views

So it has been a little over 2 years since riot decided to scrap the old lore and replace it with the "new lore" They did this because they claimed that the institute of war was limiting their design space. Before we look at the champions that have since been released, lets look at the lore itself.

First of all, the old lore said basically there are these powerful mages called summoners who basically mind control creatures in the place known as summoners rift where death isn't permanent. They would host battles here in place of actual regular war. This is done to save lives and stuff. Under this system, champions would sign up and basically give their life to the institute and then the summoners would select the champion they most liked to fight for their cause. This is how you could have noxians fighting along side with a demacian, because they werent in control of their body. They might have even been fighting against their cause, but they were fighting in the system and that is what made it ok to them. The institute of war was also tasked with containing creatures that would be absolutely out of control. For instance, Cho gath. Cho gath was basically a world eater when he came from the void, the summoners contained him. When you choose cho gath, he says "you wish the world you know to end? YES" because he believes he can break the summoner and get free. Some Champions are there by accident, like ezreal, he is like 12 years old but they summoned him because his bracelet interacted with the summoner magic by accident. Nasus and renekton are both in the league because someone wanted to summon one of them but accidentally summoned the other. There are a lot of different reason for a champion to be in the league and it is very interesting if you are into that kind of stuff.

The New lore basically says ok, this is the rift where death isnt permanent and people fight each other there cuz why the hell not. This explains literally nothing. Why might darius and garen help each other? How is cho gath not destroying the planet? The New lore doesnt really explain anything.

Lets now look at some of the champions they have since released.

Taliyah. Her current lore basically says shes been travelling the world looking for the meaning of life and how to hone her powers but then her home town is now under attack and she needs to return to defend it. Her home town isnt the rift, so why is she there? It would make more sense in the old lore if she basically just joined the League to hone her powers.

Aurelion Sol. He is a powerful star dragon but his power has been limited by the mount targon. He wants his power back. I guess he might be at the rift maybe to get power back cuz its where taric... but wouldnt he want to go to Mount targon? Instead in the old lore, he could be a star dragon that just saw runeterra and said i wanna screw shit up over there then the summoners need to contain him.

Jhin. An artist. His craft: death. Currently he is a hired assassin for the country of ionia, but why would they send an assassin somewhere where death isnt permanent? Instead he could have joined the league to just make a bunch of art.

Illaoi. just a kraken priestess on a rampage, honestly makes as much sense in the new lore where she does it for fun as it would in the old lore where she would join the League to go on a rampage.

Kindred. The spirits of death. They travel runeterra basically just ending lives. in either lore, they could see that death isnt permanent on the rift and decide they need to investigate because obviously something isnt right. Then in the old lore they get trapped there basically.

Tahm Kench. He is hungry, he wants to eat, in the old lore, rather than him having to hunt for his food like he needs in the current lore, he wouldve joined the league intentionally just so they could basically bring the food to him, and the summoners would accept him with open arms because he is eating people and that is frowned upon in the establishment.

Ekko. He was on the streets of zaun, he would join the league in the old lore just so he can have a place to sleep and a meal every day.

Rek sai, kalista, Azir, gnar. All would just be contained by the summoners because they are a danger to the world.

Basically, i dont think the old lore was limiting the champions at all. But not only that, the new lore makes no sense either!

An other thing that can be explained in the old lore that cant be explained as well in the new. Gold. in the new lore I guess you kind of loot the corpses of what you kill... but why do jungle camps have so much gold? also, why dont champions lose the gold their killer earns by killing them? In the old lore, the league of legends can also be a sort of spectator sport and people are cheering on their favorite champions on by funding them (the passive gold flow) and then rewarding them when they do well (killing things)

Basically changing the lore up 2 years ago was a total mistake. It wasnt really limiting like you said it was. The old lore provided a lot more purpose to the game. Please go back to the way it was.

18 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer6/12/2016, 4:39:34 PM4 votes

You are confused.

Old lore: the game is canon

New lore: the game is not canon, and the IoW does not exist. Champions do not need a reason to fight on the Rift because the Rift does not exist in the world of Runterra

Warlord Dienekes6/12/2016, 5:32:16 PM4 votes

The Old Lore had some things going for it, the IOW as a vaguely United Nations (actually probably closer to the Concert of Europe/Congress of Vienna) thing, also mixed with a vague celebrity pageantry about it. Now, there is a story that could be told about that. Quite a few, if they decided to double down on it and really look at the political and social implications that such a structure would cause. Show the effects of this stardom has on the champions, and how they interact to the growing turmoil the IoW could cause as well as prevent.

However, the Old Lore never really did that. We had a bunch of pretty odd and stupid stories of the Summoners kidnapping aliens to make them fight for the IoW and these aliens would just go with it, because otherwise they wouldn't be in the game. Or we had champions that didn't have a reason for existing. Or we had the tabloid journal that had all the dignity of those trashy magazines you'd see talking about what the Kardashians are up to as though it was important.

By the time that the Old Lore was scrapped, there was really 1 thing that had any potential and that was the Kalamandra Crisis or whatever it was called, and even that was only being handled not horribly.

So, breaking up the lore does not really suit me as a problem. However, I will not give much in the way of praise to the new lore either. Some of it has been ok. Some of it has been pretty much pure crap. More than really should just trod all over the old characters the players liked. And the way Riot has handled the new lore was just terrible from a business perspective. But it did free them from some of the earlier mistakes, and now allows them to make all new mistakes. And a few decent stories scattered within as well.

Of the two? I'd say the New Lore has more potential to be good. It hasn't reached that potential, not by a long shot, but it does have it.

Vistha Kai6/12/2016, 6:43:05 PM4 votes

Under this system, champions would sign up and basically give their life to the institute and then the summoners would select the champion they most liked to fight for their cause. This is how you could have noxians fighting along side with a demacian, because they werent in control of their body. They might have even been fighting against their cause, but they were fighting in the system and that is what made it ok to them.

TL;DR "I have no fucking clue what I am talking about."

You see, the matches played by us, the players, weren't "canon". Yes, we were called "summoners" and yes, it was true, we were them, however, just as there weren't millions of summoners in "lore" there weren't millions of matches played daily. The actual, lore matches were happening between summoners providing assistance to champions from the same faction.

You heard me right. If Darius ended up being in a match he was actually "controlled" by a summoner who had Noxus' best interests in mind. Same for Garen. And they'd never end up on the same team "just cause".

Don't even get me started on that whole "You are my puppet" farce. I don't remember there being a single instance of mentioning, champions are being mind-controlled after summoning.

Fasmodey6/12/2016, 4:50:45 PM3 votes

Old lore sucks and I wasn't interested on lore until they decided to remove IoW.

New lore is much better, deal with it.

Just Burning Tides and Bloodline are enough to overshadow old lore, please.

(Aurelion Sol is not power limited, he is subdued.)

Beyond Legends6/12/2016, 6:11:58 PM1 votes

God fucking damn it. This again. Ahh fuck it buddy, go cry a river the old lore is not comming back. Deal with it.

Sëtíer12/3/2017, 2:56:48 PM1 votes

I think Riot should really spend some more time on Lore, I completely agree with everything the original post owner has said. Make a SET BASE Lore. That makes sense. THEN change any champion lore that doesnt fit with it. Some People like myself sincerely care about stores. The new Lore of Varus BLEW my mind. It was so beautiful and it makes good sense. I love the comic, the movie/music video. Fantastic. But We hardly know any lore on The Darkin, or much about Runeterra itself. We need an actual STORY. a real Backround. Riot Please spend more time on this. Ill gladly make some basic ideas if anyone/Riot will listen to them.

Xano5016/22/2016, 12:46:25 AM1 votes

Old Lore : Old champion's character, bio and personal. New Lore : Current event what champion still doing.

Such like this. Cassiopeia already became snake before meet Sivir. She need Sivir to help her turn back to human by finding way in Shurima. While they finding in Shurima, they open something and get attack by Renekton. When Sivir fall off and Azir help her, she try to find Cassiopeia. But Cassiopeia joined Xerath because she want Xerath help her turn back to human.

PaceTry11/26/2017, 4:24:54 PM1 votes

Honestly i dont care that much about the actual game making sense, like if it wants to be it can just be smth not in runeterra that you just play with strong ppl from there, ok im not that triggered by that, but what pisses me off is WHY THE HECK IS THE GAME NAMED LEAGUE OF LEGENDS ANYMORE RITO FIX YOUR SHIT! I just cant bare with the fact that i say i play League of Legends and knowing that the name means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, its just stupid, riot either change the name of the game or put something named LoL in the lore please ffs