Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

I love Story, Art & Sound Board

Fasmodey··14 votes·2,929 views

It became my new home in internet. I open browser as the first of day and come there to read comments when I woke up. It is mostly open for the all the day. I even continue to read comments in times that I'm not active enough. I love most of people right there, and rioters of this place too. My favourite rioters from this board's rioters. This part of boards is actually the only part I care in entire boards lol. I nearly don't exist except Story, Art & Sound. Because I love characters themselves more than game, gameplay changes are not going to stop me from playing my favourite champions. So it is totally irrelevant to argue until they're super harsh nerfs or buffs.

I hope this place never dies. I hope both Riot and members of Story, Art & Sound Board don't lose their hope for each other.

(This thread is only created because of memory that time I spent in there after all this days. Because still being active at 6 am reminded me how much I love this place compare to other Boards. While this part of boards is not revelant for most people, this place is where game shapes, where gains value.)

18 Comments

TerraRising3 votes

Be glad you missed out on the "dark ages" of this forum and the old one, my friend.

Fasmodey1 votes

{quoted}

Be glad you missed out on the "dark ages" of this forum and the old one, my friend.

Did it have a dark and mysterious past?

TerraRising7 votes

{quoted}

Did it have a dark and mysterious past?

I'll see if I can explain it, but there will be no tl;dr on my part. (If you're a lore fan, you should appreciate a lengthy tale or two. ;) ) I should also add that this is mostly based on my memory and details may be sketchy.

In the beginning, early League Lore came in the form of the "Journals of Justice," a twice-monthly update on what was going on in Runeterra. There were also "League judgements" that explained why certain champions were part of the League of Legends as well as lengthy bios that told stories instead of teasers and, biggest of all, a central place called the "Institute of War" that managed the "League of Legends."

(Long story, short, the League of Legends was created to settle political disputes on Runeterra, the League World, in order to prevent catastrophic Rune Wars. This meant that every game supposedly had consequence in the game world when, in reality, only one game ever did).

It wasn't a perfect situation by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something. (This is important for later in the tale.)

Then, things slowly changed. League Judgements ended with Varus (they actually ended with Shyvana, but Varus's had already been created). The Journals of Justice ended with a cliff-hanger and Riot participation in the old Lore Discussion forum went to a crawl.

Then, champion stories began getting changed. The Institute of War was slowly getting removed from champions after reworks. Things that were once confirmed in the story (like Katarina being Cassiopeia's sister) were being phased out. The lore was changing and Riot wasn't offering any reasoning other than "we're working on something big."

All this was under the direction of the head of a new department at Riot called "Narrative" named Christina "kitae" Norman, former lead writer for Mass Effect 2.

Then, in March 2013, things came to a head with the announced "Freljord Patch" on the PBE. With the patch (which included ARAM and Lissandra) came major lore changes to several champs. Gragas, for instance, went from being a mountain dwelling drunkard with a propensity for causing trouble at Noxian towns to a drunkard who negotiated a peace treaty for Ashe after fighting a bunch of people and getting them drunk afterwards.

Freljord Champions like Ashe, Tryndamere, Olaf, Sejuani, Volibear, Anivia, Nunu and the like were changed as well. References to the Institute of War and the League of Legends itself were removed. Udyr was now a Freljord inhabitant instead of a wild Ionian with monk's training (and it took getting [the real] Tryndamere's attention to bring back Lee Sin into the story, much to the chagrin of kitae and the lore team.

The biggest change, however, was Trundle. He was no longer a poop troll with a tragic past, but an ice troll that felt generic but open ended, a change brought on by a new team at Riot called Champion Update, or "ChampUp." (The story behind Trundle's update is another complete tale.)

After some huge backlash against the Narrative team for all these changes once the patch was released, many of them made without explanation or discussion from Riot other than pleas of "can't you just let us do what we want" and "we have a plan that we can't share with you," the entire team stopped participating in the forums.

So, imagine a company that claims to be "player-centric and player focused" with a reputation of communicating with players and having one team just say "screw that noise" and not say anything to desperate players as the lore gets changed. It felt like Narrative had placed themselves in an ivory tower and flung contempt at the player base. In return, many League lore fans became a very cynical group, what I call a "cesspool of anger and frustration," at the lack of communication from the department.

Then, without warning, a new Narrative lead at Riot Games named Tom "TommyGnox" Abernathy said at a PAX East panel in March 2014 that "plot is highly overrated" and that "players only remember characters." This, of course, brought plenty of backlash from the lore fans who liked what plot there was, not to mention the shock that kitae was no longer in charge of the story that no one in the forums knew who this new guy was.

This was accompanied by further silence from Narrative about the lore, even when other Rioters approached them to say "shouldn't someone post something in there, even to let them know you're alive?"

(Personal note, when I met some Rioters at Anime Expo in July 2014 and asked about the lore, every one of them turned sour and refused to talk to me any further. Almost as if they had nothing to say, knew how bad things were, and were ashamed of it.)

This continued until August 2014 when several lores/bios for Shurima-based champions were shortened to one paragraph on the PBE with the only explanation being "to lower the tech requirements for the in-game client." (This, of course, was ridiculous, since text doesn't require a huge tech commitment).

Then, September 2014, Abernathy (now with the nickname of "TommyGnox"), released the "Exploring Runeterra" Dev Blog that, in essence, erased all previous lore from the game, removed the Institute of War and decoupled the lore from the game itself. (This is what many of us call "The Great Retcon.")

Needless to say, this did not go well with lore fans who still loved the story. Abernathy and Narrative had taken everything they loved about League and had nothing to replace it with except empty promises, requests to "please trust us" even when they knew they didn't deserve it and vague explanations of "we had lots of internal debate over this decision" that they wouldn't clarify (further cementing the idea that they didn't deserve any trust).

The backlash against this included death threats against one Rioter who made a very stupid joke in a thread before saying that "talking to lore fans was pointless," and angry comments to any Rioter who bothered to say anything. Simply put, no one in the old forums believed a single word these Rioters were saying (except the cheerleaders) and had no reason to trust them since they didn't trust us whatsoever.

It didn't help that, less than a month later, TommyGnox quit Riot and left the department in a lurch after the release of the god-awful and woefully incomplete Shurima lore event (the Azir patch). He cited family issues, but he had a huge amount of work to do ahead of him and might have just said "it's not worth the effort."

Also, many Rioters in Narrative also left the department for other positions in the company before too long, leaving what was left of Narrative with a huge amount of work, a bitter and resentful fan base and no one to help them get things done.

It's been more than two years since then and Narrative has done better, but not nearly enough to fill that chasm between themselves and fans. Jaredan, the new Narrative lead, only occasionally pops up in these boards to say anything, usually when it's tied to an event, since he's constantly looking for new writers, and there isn't a lot of communication from the rest of the team beyond the occasional post. Hell, Bioluminescence, the Rioter who posts the most frequently here, doesn't even work on League but some dank, dark and mysterious other project she can't talk about!

So, yeah... that's about it. Sorry / Not sorry for the novel. :)

Fasmodey1 votes

{quoted}

I'll see if I can explain it, but there will be no tl;dr on my part. (If you're a lore fan, you should appreciate a lengthy tale or two. ;) ) I should also add that this is mostly based on my memory and details may be sketchy.

In the beginning, early League Lore came in the form of the "Journals of Justice," a twice-monthly update on what was going on in Runeterra. There were also "League judgements" that explained why certain champions were part of the League of Legends as well as lengthy bios that told stories instead of teasers and, biggest of all, a central place called the "Institute of War" that managed the "League of Legends."

(Long story, short, the League of Legends was created to settle political disputes on Runeterra, the League World, in order to prevent catastrophic Rune Wars. This meant that every game supposedly had consequence in the game world when, in reality, only one game ever did).

It wasn't a perfect situation by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something. (This is important for later in the tale.)

Then, things slowly changed. League Judgements ended with Varus (they actually ended with Shyvana, but Varus's had already been created). The Journals of Justice ended with a cliff-hanger and Riot participation in the old Lore Discussion forum went to a crawl.

Then, champion stories began getting changed. The Institute of War was slowly getting removed from champions after reworks. Things that were once confirmed in the story (like Katarina being Cassiopeia's sister) were being phased out. The lore was changing and Riot wasn't offering any reasoning other than "we're working on something big."

All this was under the direction of the head of a new department at Riot called "Narrative" named Christina "kitae" Norman, former lead writer for Mass Effect 2.

Then, in March 2013, things came to a head with the announced "Freljord Patch" on the PBE. With the patch (which included ARAM and Lissandra) came major lore changes to several champs. Gragas, for instance, went from being a mountain dwelling drunkard with a propensity for causing trouble at Noxian towns to a drunkard who negotiated a peace treaty for Ashe after fighting a bunch of people and getting them drunk afterwards.

Freljord Champions like Ashe, Tryndamere, Olaf, Sejuani, Volibear, Anivia, Nunu and the like were changed as well. References to the Institute of War and the League of Legends itself were removed. Udyr was now a Freljord inhabitant instead of a wild Ionian with monk's training (and it took getting [the real] Tryndamere's attention to bring back Lee Sin into the story, much to the chagrin of kitae and the lore team.

The biggest change, however, was Trundle. He was no longer a poop troll with a tragic past, but an ice troll that felt generic but open ended, a change brought on by a new team at Riot called Champion Update, or "ChampUp." (The story behind Trundle's update is another complete tale.)

After some huge backlash against the Narrative team for all these changes once the patch was released, many of them made without explanation or discussion from Riot other than pleas of "can't you just let us do what we want" and "we have a plan that we can't share with you," the entire team stopped participating in the forums.

So, imagine a company that claims to be "player-centric and player focused" with a reputation of communicating with players and having one team just say "screw that noise" and not say anything to desperate players as the lore gets changed. It felt like Narrative had placed themselves in an ivory tower and flung contempt at the player base. In return, many League lore fans became a very cynical group, what I call a "cesspool of anger and frustration," at the lack of communication from the department.

Then, without warning, a new Narrative lead at Riot Games named Tom "TommyGnox" Abernathy said at a PAX East panel in March 2014 that "plot is highly overrated" and that "players only remember characters." This, of course, brought plenty of backlash from the lore fans who liked what plot there was, not to mention the shock that kitae was no longer in charge of the story that no one in the forums knew who this new guy was.

This was accompanied by further silence from Narrative about the lore, even when other Rioters approached them to say "shouldn't someone post something in there, even to let them know you're alive?"

(Personal note, when I met some Rioters at Anime Expo in July 2014 and asked about the lore, every one of them turned sour and refused to talk to me any further. Almost as if they had nothing to say, knew how bad things were, and were ashamed of it.)

This continued until August 2014 when several lores/bios for Shurima-based champions were shortened to one paragraph on the PBE with the only explanation being "to lower the tech requirements for the in-game client." (This, of course, was ridiculous, since text doesn't require a huge tech commitment).

Then, September 2014, Abernathy (now with the nickname of "TommyGnox"), released the "Exploring Runeterra" Dev Blog that, in essence, erased all previous lore from the game, removed the Institute of War and decoupled the lore from the game itself. (This is what many of us call "The Great Retcon.")

Needless to say, this did not go well with lore fans who still loved the story. Abernathy and Narrative had taken everything they loved about League and had nothing to replace it with except empty promises, requests to "please trust us" even when they knew they didn't deserve it and vague explanations of "we had lots of internal debate over this decision" that they wouldn't clarify (further cementing the idea that they didn't deserve any trust).

The backlash against this included death threats against one Rioter who made a very stupid joke in a thread before saying that "talking to lore fans was pointless," and angry comments to any Rioter who bothered to say anything. Simply put, no one in the old forums believed a single word these Rioters were saying (except the cheerleaders) and had no reason to trust them since they didn't trust us whatsoever.

It didn't help that, less than a month later, TommyGnox quit Riot and left the department in a lurch after the release of the god-awful and woefully incomplete Shurima lore event (the Azir patch). He cited family issues, but he had a huge amount of work to do ahead of him and might have just said "it's not worth the effort."

Also, many Rioters in Narrative also left the department for other positions in the company before too long, leaving what was left of Narrative with a huge amount of work, a bitter and resentful fan base and no one to help them get things done.

It's been more than two years since then and Narrative has done better, but not nearly enough to fill that chasm between themselves and fans. Jaredan, the new Narrative lead, only occasionally pops up in these boards to say anything, usually when it's tied to an event, since he's constantly looking for new writers, and there isn't a lot of communication from the rest of the team beyond the occasional post. Hell, Bioluminescence, the Rioter who posts the most frequently here, doesn't even work on League but some dank, dark and mysterious other project she can't talk about!

So, yeah... that's about it. Sorry / Not sorry for the novel. :)

Wow, thank you for this long post. I got what you meant now. Even though I don't know this events chronically, I read some of them in their main threads. I was more likely to learn game in those days.

Jaredan was more active than his curret statue. I was following his ask fm account regularly but I stopped because he seems doesn't care since his last answer was 2 months ago. I believe he has some projects and feel stressful, in the end, being leader is not easy.

But it is not only Jaredan. Other narrative team members are in silence too for a bit time. They only answer questions in Q&A and pass this board's threads. I wish they were more active and answered easy questions that actually have so spoiler potential.

(I know kitae from confirming Spider God of Elise is actually Vilemaw.)

TerraRising2 votes

{quoted}

But it is not only Jaredan. Other narrative team members are in silence too for a bit time. They only answer questions in Q&A and pass this board's threads. I wish they were more active and answered easy questions that actually have so spoiler potential.

It's a problem, to be sure. One of the main ones is that they have a policy where they can't read some forum threads for fear of plagiarizing someone's idea.

Still, getting the department to start talking more about the lore would be a nice thing. I'd hate to see this place turn into that cesspool of resentment and misery again.

Fasmodey1 votes

{quoted}

It's a problem, to be sure. One of the main ones is that they have a policy where they can't read some forum threads for fear of plagiarizing someone's idea.

Still, getting the department to start talking more about the lore would be a nice thing. I'd hate to see this place turn into that cesspool of resentment and misery again.

Lore is going really well even they're not active that much. But I will be sad when champions are started to die. :'(

RiotBioluminescence2 votes

I like it too, Fasmodey.

I love the people here, the interesting questions, discussions, and theories - like the Sion knife theory going round right now, and the discussion around the Gray Lady.

Treeofwar1 votes

{quoted}

I like it too, Fasmodey.

I love the people here, the interesting questions, discussions, and theories - like the Sion knife theory going round right now, and the discussion around the Gray Lady.

gray lady?

RiotBioluminescence3 votes

{quoted}

gray lady?

Mentioned in the recently released Evelynn story (The Shadows Beckon) on the Shadow Isles site. A few people round here have been discussing who/what she might be, and her possible level of import.

Treeofwar1 votes

{quoted}

Mentioned in the recently released Evelynn story (The Shadows Beckon) on the Shadow Isles site. A few people round here have been discussing who/what she might be, and her possible level of import.

interesting...what are you thoughts on the champ teaser is the old lady connected to this old man

exiledFromBadmen2 votes

I've been reading lore discussions even when Boards was never a thing.

Good to see you here [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Fasmodey1 votes

{quoted}

I've been reading lore discussions even when Boards was never a thing.

Good to see you here [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

[zombie-nunu-tears]

YouCantClickThis2 votes

I thought this was appropriate to post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlL5RcJWNPE

MavenSong1 votes

I find my Home to be more Memes and Games. But this is definitely my Summer Cottage :p

GenoXx1 votes

I am always typing "n" for "na.leagueoflegends.com" anxiuous to discover new threories or lores, or lore discussions. I'm right there wit ya

RiotLeaoC1 votes

I really like it too. Some of the theories created here are mind-blowing and super inspiring.

RiotReav31 votes

I love these boards as well! Can't seem to keep myself away from them!

Snaketits1 votes

I'd appreciate your guys a lot more if you finally gave Cassiopeia a new skin after 3.5 years.summoner 3

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