Riot's approach to lore: Ambiguity. Our thoughts: "Not a good idea, Riot..."

darkdill·3/5/2015, 7:43:57 PM·100 votes·5,203 views

It seems like your team intentionally wants to keep absolutely everything about Runeterra and its denizens as total secrets. Lores that come out never explain much, creating more questions than answers. And when your guys are saying "We'll reveal more in time, chill!", you are just tricking and pacifying us.

Where have you revealed more details on a Champion who got their lore shortened? When will we ever learn more about new-comers like Bard or Kalista?

Stop just tricking and pacifying, and start actually DOING things, like Bard does. We dunno WHAT he did, but the fact is he actually got off his high-horse and acted.

55 Comments

Reynard the ƒox3/5/2015, 7:53:20 PM46 votes

Yeah it's really sad to me that they care so little about good storytelling. I didn't even consider playing Jax, now one of my favorite characters, until I read his lore and found out what a baller he was. I can't imagine I ever would have discovered him if he had the same vague and short lore that the new champions have.

Fed by Snu Snu3/6/2015, 12:35:03 AM35 votes

Well.

We don't know when the incident happened.

We don't know who the aggressors were.

We don't know which state the raided village belonged to.

We don't know the importance or even slight use potential of the relic.

And we don't get any hints about any of these or why we should even care about what is happening, because we don't even know how or IF it actually affected the grand scheme of things in any way whatsoever.

11/10 lore right there, totally got me hooked and not angry at how i spent minutes of my life watching a cinematic with zero substance in the end.

AutoreactiveCD43/6/2015, 2:01:13 AM19 votes

For something's I think its ok. Jinx being Vi's sister, the Lb possibly manipulating/impersonating J4, etc. were all kind off engaging and fun to speculate about. But if you do it for everything its not fulfilling and you don't get a decent grasp of the world they're in. It kind of feels like all the ambiguity leads to the inability to speculate about anything and its just one tease after another with no pay off.

Eyrgos3/6/2015, 12:50:36 AM9 votes

Riot, it's time you gave us milk AND honey. Not just milk. We need you to stop giving us ambiguous, vague teasers & start ramping up the legitimate story bits.

It's been long enough now since the horrendous retcon job you did, it's time you redeem it.

Arcade Andrew3/5/2015, 11:38:50 PM8 votes

kalista is is a ghosty goo that hunts down people who break promises, thats simple enough

bard is god simple enough for me

Athenes Lulu3/6/2015, 3:39:51 AM7 votes

Too bad Rito end up making people analyze stuff like it's in English class just to find out what's going on. And again, it might not even be true because they never seemed to confirm anything anyways.

Ralfazar3/6/2015, 5:41:18 PM7 votes

Remember when Skarner had a backstory that people CARED about? You don't? Well neither does Riot.

KYU223/6/2015, 7:12:17 AM7 votes

What's the bigger issue to me is the fact that they've been lying about enriching their lore for over two years. I started playing in the start of season 3, and honestly I was pretty interested in the lore, and there was an established backstory to most of the champions. They took away JoJ and said they would enhance the lore in other ways, which turned out to be a massive lie as it's been years and nothing of significance has been added. Even the supposedly gamechanging destruction of the established lore literally did nothing but erase established canon without adding anything. I remember Rioters on the old GD talking about how new champions would breathe new life into the story behind the game, but again, it's been years and literally nothing has been done. There's no reason for any of the champions to fight anymore since they removed the league, and it's like Riot doesn't give two shits about adding anything to the story, but are more than willing to lie to us about it.

Centuros3/5/2015, 9:59:56 PM5 votes

Amumu and Xerath got new lores after theirs got shortened, but I think they are the only ones so far to get longform lores that aren't new releases.

Also, you can only see them on their champion page on the website, where nobody ever goes. Also, it says nothing about this in the client.

Migrañaboy3/5/2015, 9:57:42 PM4 votes

I guess that Riot doesn't care about narrative lore anymore, as they can't anticipate themselves how the newly champions will fit to the story, so they try to use the narrative as little and less inter-twinned as possible.

Squarefighter3/6/2015, 3:44:50 AM3 votes

Dude the best lore ever was the first Maokai lore. He was a tree that was like "fuck it, I'm alive" and killed all nine other champions.

PapaGreg213/6/2015, 2:44:32 PM3 votes

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Sadistic Cheese3/6/2015, 12:41:54 PM2 votes

Can I just ask a question?

I'm fine with having more lore. Good stories are always nice to read. But there's this...thing.....that people seem to have these days and I really don't understand it. It's this disconnect, this misunderstanding or this unwillingness to notice when a piece is, artistically I guess you could say, complete. It's not factually complete, you don't know everything, but in terms of how everything's gone and the tone and style of the piece, the story we get just fits and it's enough. Maybe there could be more, but what we have accomplishes what the writer set out to do and leaves us at least satisfied for the most part.

My question is: Why do we need to know everything? Why do we need to know who Kalista was, or what Bard does? Why is it that no detail can go unexplained? Is your life really incomplete if you don't know these details? Is it impossible for you to play the game because you don't know?

I understand the frustration, and I can see where there are examples of people playing and realizing they enjoy champions because they were first exposed to that champion's lore. Great, more power to you. I can also see where poorly-written short stories can leave you feeling unsatisfied.

But if the stories are good, and they give you the gist of what you're looking to know about a champion, is knowing all the little details REALLY that important?

I'm fine with Riot giving us more lore, I'll read and enjoy things as I can, but I just don't understand why everyone is so unhappy regardless of what's given to us. Yes it's not much, but from what I've seen most of the stories they gave us have been good. They fill in enough of the blanks.

Yes yes, JoJ, League Judgements, all that. I KNOW. We ALL know. It's been brought up seventeen thousand eight hundred and fifty times now. They were interesting, but there's no place for them here now that the League itself is gone. Yes, I know, travesty, complaints, blah blah blah. What's done is done and I don't think, after all this time and outcry, that anything's going to change on that front. They know how you feel. They're unlikely to change it for their own reasons. Deal with it and move on. If you keep comparing everything you get to the past, when Riot was a smaller company and had more time and energy to dedicate to these kinds of things, instead of taking these new works on their own merits you're always going to be disappointed. Stop torturing yourselves.

I know it's not something anyone wants to answer but I'll ask again: Why? What makes it so urgently, direly, incredibly important that you know EVERY. SINGLE. DETAIL. of a champion's lore? Yes, you love some champions. I do too. Yes, you love having strong, rich lore in a game, I do too. But is it REALLY required? If what we're getting is GOOD, just not ENOUGH for you, is more REALLY needed?

PickleBabah3/7/2015, 4:41:23 AM2 votes

Exactly, right now, there are so many, "mysterious person whose identity must remain unveiled" people in League's roster of champions right now. Thing is, that cliche barely works for one person. Evelynn Mordekaiser Shaco Jax Rammus Are all very much lore-less champions. (With the exceptions of some working theories that may apply) They have "theories" and snippets of character, but lack any real reason as to have that character as they have no story to have shifted them that way.

HigeR3/6/2015, 12:29:24 AM2 votes

Kalista has a long story as well, somewhere on the forums that is

F35H3/6/2015, 11:51:43 PM2 votes

Agreed. What did happen to the grand lore I actually loved to read. They hole unraveling about runeterra, and other continuous stories made me want to read more, and more about the place. The new lore is very vague, and seems to have no writers soul in its context really.

I Main Swain3/7/2015, 12:02:16 AM2 votes

I have never been as angry about anything with league as I have with the lore team. I mean, I can understand that good backstories don't just fly out the butthole, but they seem to be incredibly constipated (not to mention that it is truly crap that comes out). I, on my own, could be writing BETTER lore that actually tells you about a champ faster than their whole frikin team.

2pudge1cup3/6/2015, 12:36:31 PM2 votes

I actually like ambiguity when it comes to a few characters. It adds more to the story than having everything spelled out for you. I'm talking about Fiddle, Nocturne, Jax. Seeing their backdrop get changed would be incredibly lame, so I know it will more than likely happen.

When that ambiguity is based on a few sentence background it just looks unfinished. At least in Fiddle, Nocturne, Jax case they have a background spelled out but beyond that is largely up to the reader to decide. Of the three Fiddlesticks is by far my favorite.