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I think I know why the Lore Updates are taking so long

Quintastic·4/27/2015, 9:44:27 PM·32 votes·2,686 views

For the longest time this didn't make sense to me. I mean, you have a Lore Team. This teams specific job is the creation and advancement of Lore related projects. These people theoretically are coming together to discuss the Lore of League every day, Monday thru Friday, for 8 hour shifts, again...DAILY...and yet it takes days, into weeks, and approaching now into months of time for them to even update a single Lore Page with 1 paragraphs worth of description for a single champion.

Why? What could possibly be the explanation as to why an entire team of people whose sole job is to work on the Lore of League, 8 hour days, 5 days a week, to come up with ANYTHING in the way of updates?

Then it dawned on me. (inb4 "In other news, the sky is blue comments" below.)

There is no money to be made from updating or expanding the Lore of Runeterra. It is the creation of content that literally generates zero revenue upon it's completion. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that there is no Lore Team. The very existence of a Lore team would be a complete money sink for Riot as they would have to be paying a half dozen people or more every day to come up with NOTHING for weeks on end, and even when they do write a single paragraph for a single champion, none of that generates any sort of income for Riot.

So we have a hypothetically existing team, that takes hundreds of hours to write a single paragraph for less than 1% of the Champion Pool, if ever releasing anything at all, that makes zero money for the company?

It's a myth. There is no Lore Team. Or if they exist, they aren't so much a "Lore" team and more like a "GFX Team" that works on promotional videos and cinematics that look pretty but have nothing to do with updating Champion lore or giving us a clearer picture on what Runeterra is like without the Institute of War.

TL;DR, we aren't getting any champion lore updates because there is no Lore Team. Everything has been consolidated into the LC$ and other avenues that can actually make Riot money. Lore doesn't make money. Therefore, we get no Lore.

41 Comments

DarkerGrey4/27/2015, 10:56:54 PM11 votes

At this point it's better to just assume we're not going to get anything outside of champion releases. Let's be real, if they were actually working on the lore, we would have something other than those four stories. A part of me feels like they stopped caring about the lore long ago, but the most likely scenario is that they work on stuff only to cancel it before it's finished. Why? Who knows.

If Riot posted at least a single story every month on the forums, we could claim they are making progress, but there's nothing. The Curse of the Sad Mummy, you say? That was a music video, it's not even part of the lore. Amumu, Azir, Kalista, and Xerath's stories? Promotional material that got cut out. Rek'Sai, and The Harrowing? More promotional material.

I personally have given up on the lore. We're beating a dead horse, and it doesn't seem like Riot will admit it any time soon.

Letsgetcooking4/28/2015, 6:11:34 AM10 votes

I'll give it to you: a while ago, i used to have as little faith as you. I used to have no faith, you know? Then it happened.

I didn't care about the Shurima event: all i could see were the dumb little paragraphs they had given a few of our beloved character(herpa derp im a spooky mysterious guardian of a tomb or some shit idfk(you know who this is)) and i STILL had Trundle's rework in the heart. I mean, man, a guy who, after two years, still wasn't okay with Trundle? His lore was completed, right? Yet here we are. But then, a light. A crimson light in the darkness. As i walk towards it, my eyes adjust: what i saw was truly beautiful. An army of demacians, shattered, torn appart, rotting and feeding the crows.

Sion was Reborn.

Sion 's Reborn was amazing in terms of gameplay, theme, and lore. Of course, let me pass quickly on the gameplay and theme: giant unstoppable undead with a big axe who charges at the enemy with no restraint and just crushes them while they attempt to tickle him with their pathetic little toys. His gameplay is similar to a boss fight: you avoid his attack, stay focused, and slowly bring him down. He was a little too strong, but now he's fine. In two words: Offensive tank. You tank for your team, and you still get the fun of bashing some brains out. I love the new Sion to no end. Clunky, balanced kit. Fun. Good at every part of the game. He looks and feels good. Sometimes i even ignore the fact that i have skins because his classic is so good looking. I dont even care that we could have been a 5 man skin team CLASSIC LOOKS BETTER THAN LUMBERJACK.

Now on to the lore. It gives Sion a real backbone(not a funny one, because he crushed it) and tells us: this guy was a badass. A real, big, mean badass. It tells of how true Noxian heros are venerated(look at this statue) and how Blackwill couldn't hold himself alone. Sion was so great Darkwill couldn't survive the Juggernaut's heroic death. Just read this:

With his dying breath, he locked his fingers around the king's throat and broke the will of a nation.

This is awesome. I love this sentence. I love it. I love it because it's badass. I love it because it's short, and you get it. You get that Sion was amazing. You get that get fought until the goddamn end.

It tells us the Shadow Isles are involved: this means we can give some love to the theory that Elise is Petal or Thorn and that Vladimir is the other. It tells us: "Vladimir isn't just a hemomancer, which is awesome, but he's also part of the Black Rose." That's cool. This is what we wanted: we not only wanted champions to have a story, but to interact with their environnement. As mentionned before, Elise might be involved too. Is she? It's fascinating to talk about it. I talked about it to other lore fans. It was a fun talk. FUN. See where this is going? New lore-FUN. Would you believe it?

Then, Darkwill does a dumb thing(well, dumb for him, but great for us): he goes all pro-undead and tries to bring the big boy back. It works and Sion kills every goddamn living thing that exist. Great. Sion is now scaring everyone. Holy shit. This is fun to see: a good idea -bringing Sion back) - going horribly wrong - Sion killing a lot of things he shouldn't kill, resulting in Noxians questionning the High General's choice(QUESTIONNING AUTORITY IS BAD FOR SAID AUTORITY). Sion gets locked away. Darkwill does dumb things and dies or disappears idfk and idfc SION IS MORE IMPORTANT.

Swain is here. Swain is bird. Swain is love. Swain is life. Swain wants to bring Sion back back. I don't think Darius approves, but who on earth cares about that guy anyway lol Certainlyt champion never listen to those guys amirig-OH GOD THIS WAS A MISTAKE.

Sion is brought back back back. Leblanc uses Jarvan's blood and Vladimir to bring Sion back. It works because we're playing Sion right now and he's awesome. How did Leblanc get that blood? BECAUSE LITTERALY EVERYTHING HAS HAPPENED LORE WISE EXCEPT IT DIDNT HAPPEN WITH THE LEAGUE. REPLACE THE LEAGUE WITH SOME OTHER THING I DONT WANT TO BOTHER WRITING THIS DOWN.

Now i could go over the theory that Sion, before his death, was helped by Aatrox because their lores fits the bill perfectly and how Vladmir also has Darkin powers(because Darkins are the OG of blood magic) and thus it allowed him to bring Sion back because Darkins and shit. I could also bring the Void in here. I do not know how, but i know it probably fits somewhere. The Void always fills something. Hehe. Get it? Void means empty. Void always filling something up. It's an ironic pun. IM FUNNY.

So, what did we get with Sion's new lore:

  • Theories
  • Character building
  • World building
  • Awesome Champion
  • Demacians getting rekt
  • Leblanc doing Leblanc things

Im sorry im tired and your post hurted me because i love Sion and whenever someone doesn't acknowledge it in terms of new lore i get a bit frustrated because i think Sion was the best thing Riot has offered us since Viktor in terms of everything. Sion is what kept me playing this game and kept me invested in the lore. Because of Sion, i was... Reborn.

HEH? THAT WAS AN AWESOME ENDING! GOD SOMETIMES I IMPRESS MYSELF.

EDIT: Whoops i should probably say why this relate to the thread. The point is, if they didn't have a designated lore team yet managed to make such an amazing thing for Sion, why on earth would they need a lore team? If they can give us good lore quality over each champion release, while using said champions to develop the world(Rek'Sai and the relations between Noxians and Shurimans), then why bother with a lore team? We won't get a lot of lore, sure, but we'll get good lore.

Now now now, that doesn't mean dumb simple paragraphs are excused. Im just saying that some champion designers give us amazing work while others...not so much. So yeah, no lore team. So what? No lore once a week? It's good to be updated, it's good to be passionate, but i doubt they could keep up, even with a lot of people to hire and work with.

Just saying, you think they could keep up with champions each two weeks? Damn, we'd be overrun by Yasuo clones.

Sharjo4/27/2015, 10:20:38 PM8 votes

I'm confused. Then why did they make "Curse of the Sad Mummy"? It was apparently a big money sink and it brought back just about nothing in terms of revenue; they made it because the main composer, Christian, wanted to make a song for Amumu.

Why do they make videos and promo sites then? Just another money sink. Champions need literally no marketing; people will pick them up regardless once they see they're available or see the champion spotlight. There's literally no need for them to market them in such an ostentatious way that costs way more money, time and resources to make. Why make something like "Scourge of the Sands"? It literally mentions Rek'Sai a handful of times. Why even bother with marketing that's so invasive?

Why bother making promos? Or videos? Or music? Or animations? Or anything at all? They used to make a small comic to tease champs, why deviate from that? It'd be cheaper; just make them a bit shinier and crap.

Why have there actually been long versions of the champ stories released for Azir, Xerath, Sion and Kalista? According to you there's no need because it doesn't make them money. So why do they even exist in the first place?

blujadajhdja4/27/2015, 11:18:50 PM6 votes

Oh... so the solution is to sell lore DLC? :DDDDD

Transgressor4/28/2015, 7:29:08 AM5 votes

Sigh... let us go over this again: the reason the lore is as is at the moment is because according to them(pax east panel if I recall correctly) they just stumbled into a problem. Then they left the problem on its own thinking it would get better or solve itself over a short amout of time. Instead it started to exponentialy escalate. And get worse and worse over time instead of better. And they started to get too afraid to deal with it so they kept leaving it at that. Now it's no longer a problem but an actual hinderance because of its state. I don't know nor I really care about what's going on on the inside of Riot's development, but they've re-evaluated and reinstated their aproach to the Lore and it's extremely fucked up state. All we can do is wait for updates.

Pretty simple really...

Hyrum Graff4/28/2015, 10:35:18 AM5 votes

Lore creates engagement, which makes players stay with the game and want to spend money on it.

It's not an immediate cash cow, but saying that lore doesn't make Riot money is a bit disingenuous. Something something Hanlon's Razor.

Eraest974/27/2015, 10:02:28 PM3 votes

I wouldn't say that it is because of money (which it might be, I don't work at Riot). Mostly if they are going to rework the lore, they are going to do it for all the champs. Yea you can do it in sections and not do it at the same time, but one you are going to have customers that are going to complain about "Why did these champs get lore rework but I'm still waiting on my Precious Yorick lore!". It just looks better as a company to do the whole Runeterra lore at the same time

Motajo4/27/2015, 10:22:21 PM3 votes

It's part of why I don't buy RP anymore. I just wish I could do more than take a drop from the sea-sized bucket.

GenoXx4/27/2015, 11:15:01 PM3 votes

I've been saying this forever. There isnt a lore team, they admitted that a little while ago.

TerraRising4/29/2015, 8:44:48 AM3 votes

In no way am I going to defend the Narrative team or Riot for anything right now by saying this, but if making money was a priority for Riot, they'd have continued updating Lore and the Journals of Justice on a regular basis.

The answer is simple: Good, consistently updated lore generates skin ideas and skins (specifically through RP purchases) are what makes Riot their money. Nothing else Riot does makes money for them, not LCS or any professional-level play, or anything else you can think of.

Skins like King & Queen Tryndamere, Gragas Esp, Sinful Succulence Morgana, Prom Queen Annie, Almost Prom King Amumu and many others generated through the stories from the Journals of Justice more than paid for the stories behind the skins. Unfortunately, Riot later learned that they didn't need updated stories to sell or generate skins that would pay the bills, hence various Narrative leads were allowed to destroy the lore at least two times since the JoJ was canceled.

No, the reason why we're not getting lore is because this team of hardcore fan-hating prima donna writers are not willing release their stories in any manner other than the way they want to do it. That's it, in a nutshell.

MrDrBudd4/28/2015, 6:00:02 PM2 votes

deep in my heart im hoping they are just saving it all and doing the whole lore thing all at once as some big lore event where everyone gets their lore updated and everything isn't 2 sentences. just releasing all this lore as an explosion of stories and shit with a new version of the Journal of Justice that is probably called something else. But I just like to dream big

Only Play Darius4/29/2015, 8:53:28 AM2 votes

This is exactly what I believe. Lore has no impact on gameplay, no impact in LCS competitive play, and cannot readily be monetized. Riot is a business after all, they have priorities.

Desmond Law4/28/2015, 3:19:47 PM2 votes

From a business perspective, Lore is a cost driver, while Esports is a profit driver. Tencent got a 95% share in League a few years ago, so they went super business mode and cut all cost drivers and steroid-ed profit drivers.

Impetual5/2/2015, 7:52:35 AM1 votes

Based on their production rate, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

Chromatic Eagle4/29/2015, 5:28:44 PM1 votes

Doesn't Riot lose more money than make it with the LCS?

Big Bang Bob4/30/2015, 12:07:21 PM1 votes

No lore team...

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