You know I just have to applaud the character stories/lore League has today

Over the last few days I've just lost interest in playing games of League simply due to how stressful they've become over the years and more so in the last few patches now. To be completely honest I'm not sure if I want to keep playing the game if things continue like this, especially around preseason. But that doesn't mean I'm going to completely quit out on the game fully, at least when it comes to the lore/character department.

This is really the only thing keeping me invested in anything of the game. I love the recent work Riot has been doing in updating the lore of the world and it's various characters, like how they updated Darius from being this stuck up general of Noxus to actually feeling a lot more human by having more character development in his recent comic. Other things can be like the Demacia lore update, or even the short stories from Bilgewater of Burning Tides and the Harrowing attack are things I absolutely adore.

On top of this I also like how a lot of the characters created have great backgrounds about themselves and also have short stories to go along with them, like the recent Ornn and updated Urgot. That almost makes me invested in them like characters in a book or TV series (Game of Thrones anyone?). It's also nice of them to have this as many other Moba's don't really have this much commitment in character development as League.

An example of what I mean is taking a look at some characters from one of the other big Moba competitors out there: Dota. Now in my brief time playing the game (before the constant updates finally drove me insane) I really liked the characters in the game from a gameplay point but when it came to character there was none. Take Winter Wyvern as an example. Her backstory literally is just about her collecting knowledge and occasionally fight battles and that's it. It's literally summed up in one paragraph. How does she even read the books she collects or writes? She's a giant Wyvern! Oh and get this, she actually has a name, Auroth, but that's pretty much pointless seeing how that's never, or at least rarely, referenced in the game. A slight better example is Legion Commander, also known as Tresdin, and she's a bit better I guess. Her backstory is basically she gets ambushed by demons and after the battle decides to try and hunt them down. That's about it for her bio but fortunately she did receive a small comic about her that explained a bit more about her backstory. But even then without a good bio to already explain that about her it just felt a little wasted. Short version: they do have some backstory and some heroes gain a comic to explain a bit more of them, but they feel like League's old backgrounds and don't really build a lot of character.

Another example is from a game I've been playing a lot of recently: Paragon. The game right now is...well I won't discuss that but the characters are interesting. At least in appearance. I'm not joking when I say they have some of the worst background ever. I mean they don't even have a paragraph about who they are or where they come from or anything. It's just bulletpoints that are pretty much random facts about them like random facts about champs of League on the wiki. Here's an example of one of my favorite champs, Grux and here's his backstory from all I can find:

• Has crushed the skull of every challenger in his tribe.
• Still cannot defeat his grandmother in single combat.
• Seeks the forgiveness of his gods.

AND THAT'S IT! Why is he seeking forgiveness of his gods? How old is his grandmother? What species is he? What is the world of Paragon? Why are their fantasy type characters mixed in with futuristic ones in this world? Why is there not more lore or background on this game?!?!

Finally the last few games I can think of are SMITE and Heroes of the Storm but I don't really include these ones for a good reason: they already have established characters and lore/backgrounds! Heroes is basically a bunch of Blizzard characters jammed into a Moba and already have established backstories and development from their original games. Warcraft has more characters and lore for them than any other game out there with years of establishment for many of them, Starcraft is in a similar spot, Diablo, well, really just gave names to the classes you chose and for everyone else it's already established, and Overwatch is brand fucking new with more lore and character development coming for their heroes. Meanwhile, SMITE's characters are already based on old gods of mythology that have been in history for quite some time and have their own stories. There's not really a whole lot you can do with that except learn about some gods you never new existed. League, meanwhile, creates characters that are fairly original to their world and have unique stories to them, from the ground up. Putting together characters from multiple series that are already established fairly well doesn't really make want to learn about them again in another game.

What I'm trying to get at is I'm happy that League has a good department for lore and character stories. Most other Moba's that I see or play don't get me connected to a character as League does. There's thought and effort put into them, even more so than in the past, and that makes me want to see and read more about them and future stories that they might have. This is one thing I still keep around for because I enjoy it and want to see where they will go next with it (so long as it keeps being good).