@RIoters, I'm Curious. Do You Think LoL's Original Story Will Outlive It's Retcon?

Impetual·Oct 5, 2015·7 votes·825 views

In the far future, what will last longer? The original League of Legends Cannon? Or The Retconned Lore?

8 Comments

Sneak DogOct 6, 20153 votes

When League loses popularity, Riots other games that they'll undoubtedly create will be working with this new lore. So the new lore will probably be around longer.

The old lore was better regardless, merely based on the fact that it was actually trying to tell a story for a videogame. The new lore just tosses the very notion of using the game as a medium out of the window from the very start, while the old lore embraced it and used it.

freeformlineOct 8, 20153 votes

Strictly speaking, the new lore will probably last longer simply because it is currently canon and has the support of a talented multi-media production team. As far as popularity with serious lore fans, I think the old lore will remain firmly in place as long as there is not a justification for gameplay in the new lore, since that singularly unites the world and characters in a way the new lore has not yet even attempted to address. Community elements like Factions and summoner role-play blogs are pretty clear indications that people really want to feel an involvement with their characters while playing them rather than just when reading about them, and I believe the new lore will never completely supplant the old lore until it addresses that desire.

CupcakeTrapOct 13, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Strictly speaking, the new lore will probably last longer simply because it is currently canon and has the support of a talented multi-media production team. As far as popularity with serious lore fans, I think the old lore will remain firmly in place as long as there is not a justification for gameplay in the new lore, since that singularly unites the world and characters in a way the new lore has not yet even attempted to address. Community elements like Factions and summoner role-play blogs are pretty clear indications that people really want to feel an involvement with their characters while playing them rather than just when reading about them, and I believe the new lore will never completely supplant the old lore until it addresses that desire.

I literally fist-pumped the air when I looked at this fan-made new map and saw a little dot labeled Summoner's Rift. Granted, I suspect Narrative will make up a place called "Summoner's Rift" that involves some newly defined notion of "Summoners" and is possibly even a "Rift", so it's not totally clear that this was intended as an act of cartographical rebellion. A solid fist-pump, nonetheless.

I kind of want to make my Halloween costume a Summoner outfit, with a sign around my neck saying

RETCON THIS summoner 14

I think that might actually be my lead costume idea, even if absolutely nobody who'll see me will understand it.

More seriously: I suspect that, in the near term, both continuities will proceed. I like to post some belligerent language from time to time, but honestly, I wish Narrative well with their new League-less League of Legends story. It'd be petty to hope that they fail. If both sides produce good lore, that's two wins for League fans. But yes, I do think that the traditional "old lore" has some serious advantages from a storytelling perspective, such as a much stronger connection to the game itself.

I mean, imagine if Capcom went back and rewrote the Mega Man lore. No matter how cool it might be, or how much "higher quality" it might be, it strikes me as a serious flaw if at the end of the day it does not include a reason for a little blue robot to fight eight Robot Masters and defeat the evil Dr. Wily. Or, to use my traditional example, a new set of Street Fighter lore that doesn't include a fighting tournament is…somewhat lacking, IMO. If the story is supposed to empower the game, writing a bunch of stories about individual characters and then saying "so this game is sort of like what might happen if they fought for some reason, I guess? But they don't, and some of them probably don't really exist" seems a bit too abstract for my liking.

Still, again: as much as I like to snark at Riot, I do want to see both continuities thrive. And I don't disagree that there are some advantages to Narrative's current approach, nor do I dispute that they are producing some really good stories. Maybe they'll even come up with a game tie-in device. Maybe they'll create a Summoner's Rift location, and say that once there was a great battle there, with five Champions on each side, drawn from all corners of Valoran, making the game a sort of "what if" exercise that still does have some place in the storyverse. Being the cupcake I am, I find it a lot more interesting to really delve into the bizarre but strangely intriguing idea of an international arena used to settle disputes through a kind of trial by combat. But it's certainly not the only way to connect gameplay and story.

Dextix LTOct 5, 20152 votes

I would think the original. Why? Because it will take about 20 years for narrative to replace the old lore with new one. The original lore was complete, it existed, and it still allows for stories to thrive.

The new one? Heh. Good luck.

Even most of the fanfic writers about LOL ignore the new lore and create fanfics based on the old one, because its just simply more full and better in evvery aspect.

PyrodiniumOct 6, 20151 votes

The old lore was far from being complete.

Dextix LTOct 6, 20152 votes

Ask yourself this. If the old lore would have been left alone, nothing added or taken from it, what would have happened? Nothing. It was a self contained story with chapters. It was a complete story, without a conclussive ending, but still a story.

Just because you can add something to a story doesnt mean its not complete.

Now look at the current "lore", we have only about 3 continents covered from all of them. If this story was stopped writing, we wouldnt know anything, why? Because the main parts of the story ait there.

While the old lore could have been built upon and upgraded, it was complete self sufficient lore.

GreenLoreOct 6, 20152 votes

In the end the retconned lore will probably be kept. It is written with much more thought behind it(in the original lore,being a mystery was an acceptable backstory Shaco Mordekaiser Evelynn ).