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Lores and their potential.

frost shinigami··3 votes·906 views

It is apparent that the community has noticed how well the newer event was made (and seems to appreciate it), the rewrites on miss fortune's and gangplank's reworks, the interactions netween them, graves and twisted fate and the new game mode (which was a part of the overall event).

To be frank I acknowledge riot's actual effort spent on writting this new story and that it is actually pretty well written compared to some others. I will go as far as to say it actually MOTIVATED me to play gangplank and twisted fate, it even motivated me spending some RP to buy a skin on each!

See what a well written backstory can achieve riot? What if you tried doing some sort of massive lore rewrite on everyone? what if everyone could have cool backstories? what if LOL could be more than just a very popular MOBA? I am pretty sure more and more people would be motivated to spend RP on champions whoms backstories relate to them.

You know riot, you might already know this, gameplay is not the only reason to spend money on a champ. People sometimes spend money on champions because of their designs or other unique attributes. Adding well written backstories on champions might even attract more players who might relate to said champions. Riot takes their advertising seriously, i am pretty sure some kid out there could potentially take up league of legends solely because they came up a champion with a really good backstory to which they can relate, it has happened in the past, and your lores were not nearly as good as they seem to be getting with the new story revolving around tf, graves, gp and mf and even that story could have been A LOT better.

All in all, spend more effort in your lores please, they have marketing potential (not like i am a marketing expert but i can tell a thing or two).

6 Comments

Zenzak1012 votes

Thank you. And not just with these events, but for the actual lores. Every champion released since Gnar has had a paragraph of backstory, including the rewrites (Looking at the Bilgewater rewrites.) I mean, I understand Riot's story changes as more characters are introduced into the game, but they keep adding in these characters with a snippet of their past, almost like a "Hi, my name is Twisted Fate!" card you'd see in Walmart.

I think it's cool what they're doing with all of these special things, like Burning Tides and the Chronobreak Comic, but it isn't enough. One of the main reasons I really stuck to buying Sona, which became my first main and favorite character, was because of her lore. I loved her music playing gimmick and her mysterious silence. That's what lore can do for a person. Same thing for my Zilean, Nunu, and Master Yi. Their lores motivate me to play them, and I ended up loving.

You're absolutely correct in saying that a good lore will market a character, because it sets the mood of how a champion feels. Because, I'm sure, you'll be with me, a Zilean time bomb wouldn't be as satisfying unless you knew he controlled time or he got that power while his entire people was slaughtered. It adds a depth to the gameplay that can't be gained through strong characters with complicated mechanics which only give us a tablespoon of salt of what the character's motives, driving factors, and experiences.

A perfect example would be Gangplank. Now, it just says he's a scary pirate....rawr...

But it used to tell us the story of a boy who grew up learning the trade of piracy, who backstabbed his father to take his ship and become the most powerful pirate in all of Runeterra. THAT, and I don't know if I'm just speaking for myself, gets me going for a swashbuckling adventure to eat an orange and be k.

However, there are a couple of characters that I'm okay with a small lore. Amumu, because I consider him a joke character, and Rammus, because that's just his thing.

frost shinigami1 votes

I am glad someone seems to agree with me and thank you for taking time to post a comment on my thread, we can bring this to riot's attention. Also out opinions coincide on the 1 paragraph of lore part, lores since the release of gnar are basically 3 sentences max, what saddens me is that riot's newer designs are really colourful and interesting and much potential is missed on just 1 paragraph of lore. We need more lore's like sion's current lore.

Zenzak1012 votes

I can understand adding a bit of mystique to a character, like Evelynn (They even stated that that's the reason she's a 'paragrapher'), and Bard, since he's a cosmic being that no one can comprehend. However, for Bard, they could have given us a time when he intervened in Runeterra's events.

A case point example of this was Ekko. I was so excited to see the Zaun punk inventor's back story, like maybe explaining the Chronobreak comic? (Never mentioned it.) How he invented the Z-Drive? (Nope.) How he's related to Vi and Jinx? (Riot confirmed that they were in the same gang as kids, and Ekko even had a crush on Jinx.) This is all crap they could have used to make his lore page pop more! Yet they find it more necessary to post a comic about him then rather write 2+ paragraphs. It's heart breaking to someone such as myself who enjoys a story such as myself.

If you have to ask yourself, what's more work to make a backstory: A couple of paragraphs that'll always be attached to a champion, or a comic that'll be lost in the archives of Riot's articles? As much as it disappointed me, the same thing will happen with Burning Tides.

frost shinigami1 votes

I totally agree, it is saddening how riot neglects to include key parts of champions' stories to their lores but instead give them those ''hi i am this champion'' greeting card kind of lore (as zenzak101 mentioned). Even if riot does add some backstory to a character via a comic or an event they, for whatever reason, decide to not include it on their lores, which is what newer actually read. many new players Instead of getting a good introduction to gangplank for example through burning tides they miss a ton of backstory by reading a 1x - 2x paragraphs lore.

TraakSC1 votes

Noone is going to read that.

frost shinigami1 votes

i know, screw my efforts spent :c item 3070

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