Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Update in Client Skin Bios

Riot Stellari·5/17/2019, 1:25:28 AM·30 votes·25,462 views

Hi everyone -- I’m Riot Stellari, a product manager for Skins and product lead for Thematic Development. I just wanted to give you a quick update on where we are with skin bio release cadence, but first I want to talk about our philosophy behind them.

Skin bios (or "skin descriptions”) is a product I pitched two years ago when we first created the Skin Collections Tab. The original idea for the tab was that it’d be a cool way to categorize skins, and it’d also be fun for people who like to collect things to see what they were missing. I pitched that it’d ALSO be an amazing way to show players some of the “head canon” we had for skins like Blood Moon and Program (many people didn’t know it was part of the PROJECT universe) and also a cool way to make brand new alternate universes. Also it would be fun, because I personally have always loved browsing skins in games and reading flavor text on things. I got to work categorizing skins with a team of writers and concept artists. We got through about 25% of the skins before we realized more skins had no "story" or even connective tissue. Some splashes had easter eggs to things that were "internal lore" while others just had something random and funny in the background. We had to dig through ancient Boards posts to see what the original marketing material was.

But it was worth it because a lot of you guys have become really invested in some of these skin sets! That makes us really happy. I love seeing the community theorycraft about a "skinline" that, to be honest, was just a collection of skins. Something I've had to explain a bit on Twitter is that the vast majority of skin sets are still simply that: a set of skins for the Skins Collection Tab that also happen to have flavor text. They aren’t considered “full universes.” Only the skins listed in the Universe page are skins we consider to have full alternate universe lore.

But every once in awhile, one of those skin collections gets to level up! We decide to reboot the line, or invest in world-building. For example, High Noon was reboot from a collection of joke cowboy skins into a demon-filled spooky Western. Carnival Knights, our narrative writer, wrote out an entire narrative world for the Skins team to dive into and be inspired by. And based on reception, players appreciated that the skins had lore and depth.

Okay, so now that I’m done explaining our philosophy around skin descriptions, I wanted to give you guys an update that we are going to slow down the pace in which we update these. Going forward, we will only be releasing descriptions for new skins. Old skins will get descriptions if they’re part of the same skin set AND it seems valuable for us to update that. This was a side project we were really passionate about, but we also want to make sure that Carnival Knights and other writers get the chance to write really awesome stories like Trial of the Masks and The Man with the Grinning Shadow to continue to build on these skin lines so they can graduate from collection of skins, to something we want to invest in.

Here to answer questions!

41 Comments

The Iceborn5/17/2019, 8:39:33 AM4 votes

Good to have you on the boards Stellari! Drop by more often ;)

ForgottenLuck5/17/2019, 2:11:44 AM4 votes

not going to lie don't like this choice, I mean skin lore has never been that big for me but it exists now and it will just make it feel like champs already forgotten forgotten almost twice now in two difrent lore worlds

4 Step Cadence5/17/2019, 1:41:43 AM3 votes

There are some skins that kind of bug me because they look like they belong in a universe with other skins but they aren't. Take, for example, Blood Knight Hecarim. This skin looks like its a part of Blood Moon, but its not. It has no lore suggesting that its connected to that universe in any way and its not included in the Blood Moon universe in general.

Do you guys have any future plans to take a look at skins like this and try to work them into other universes, or will they just be lonely, loreless one-offs forever?

Jeddy0175/17/2019, 1:38:53 AM2 votes

Something I've had to explain a bit on Twitter is that the vast majority of skin sets are still simply that: a set of skins for the Skins Collection Tab that also happen to have flavor text. They aren’t considered “full universes.” Only the skins listed in the Universe page are skins we consider to have full alternate universe lore.

Then what special criteria make a skinline into "Full universe" as opposed to a regular old skinline?

Garentheon5/17/2019, 2:40:23 AM2 votes

Any plans for the academy to join battle academy?

d00mface5/17/2019, 8:57:03 AM2 votes

Do you think you'll ever do more world-building for the mecha universe? I love me some giant robots and have become really invested in that universe as of late. It helps that my main has a skin in that line too tbh hahaha. I know it's very pacific rim inspired, but I'd love if you went a more GaoGaiGar route (ie kept the mecha sentient and not piloted/controlled in any way... maybe gave them a few plucky kid sidekicks too?)

XJ999999999999995/17/2019, 1:44:45 AM2 votes

cool story brother

XIII Vanitas5/17/2019, 6:53:18 AM1 votes

[zombie-nunu-tears]

T2K Baka5/17/2019, 6:58:57 AM1 votes

Can Katarina get a legendary skin please?

0cean Mann5/17/2019, 7:42:19 AM1 votes

Question: do you listen view what's in the Concepts page or you just think and come up with it.

Just asking not plotting something against skin designers

Daedric Etwahl5/18/2019, 5:48:57 AM1 votes

Not gonna lie, pretty disappointed with this decision, honestly feels like yet another thing Riot starts and then jumps ship on because it's "too hard"

Been waiting on lore for certain skins (Guqin Sona, as an example. She's like the only Lunar Revel skin that never got lore. Did you guys just forget her or something??) And it's a shame they won't ever get any.

Deep Terror Nami5/17/2019, 1:37:08 AM1 votes

Are there any skins you're finding it hard to place into a group?

Xenos von Faneli5/19/2019, 2:35:11 AM1 votes

I'm still waiting for a Real World Jobs universe, you know for the likes of Corporate Mundo, Pizza Delivery Sivir, etc... I'd probably put Baker Panth here too it just gets tricky because a part of me would say K/DA would be in the same universe but then Akali has a chef skin and is in K/DA. I think mainly I just want an excuse for Fast Food Manager Azir (THE ORDER IS GIVEN!) and Car Saleswomen Illaoi (wavy arm men)!

Jabalor5/17/2019, 1:51:36 AM1 votes

Can we still expect Old skin to get rearranged into fitting collections and universes? Like for example the galactic skins getting their own collection or also being in the odyssey universe?

Blades in Exile5/17/2019, 2:02:00 AM1 votes

I looked at the Alt Universe tab in the universe part of the website but I noticed there was no Project section, Was it just forgotten and will be added later or what?

Morning Raven5/17/2019, 2:59:44 AM1 votes

These flavor texts are what interns are for. I imagine the infinite variations on "strong warrior" from pantheon is giving you trouble. Lol.

How many outlier skins are there that would fall into the "when it makes sense" left, proportionally?

Also how many are part of skin lines that probably shouldn't be? Like how there are more than one tech skinline, but they aren't all the same universe; is every say snow themed skin belonging to the extended snowday universe? Are there any you feel should be reckoned elsewhere since you started this project?

Grizzley1175/17/2019, 3:39:25 AM1 votes

There's so much potential for vast and deep lore for skin lines! For example, I really like the idea of the "Silver Age" skin line that you added very recently. I would have never thought to add those specific skins together, but you guys made an intriguing backstory for several skins that were completely different from one another.

I did have a question, though. Considering Popstar Ahri is confirmed to be apart of the K/DA universe, there is no description for the skin and it is not apart of the in-client skin collection for K/DA. Is there any reason for this? And the Eve skin and her prestige edition skin have the same description which is different from the other three?

Zeanix5/17/2019, 5:35:09 AM1 votes

I’m so glad for the skin bios! They’re really fucking cool!

So i was wondering how you guys figure out which skin goes where or make it a unique world like Blackthorn Morgana and Viridian Kayle. Rather than putting these two into Elderwood, you guys put them into a unique world which was cool.

What kind of process did you guys do? And how would champion’s like Wukong who have two skins for the same event (Radiant and Jade) or like stand alone skins right now like Elementalist Lux, Spirit Guard Udyr and DJ Sona work with that process?

Xedlord5/17/2019, 6:50:52 AM1 votes

:(