Whats are story?

SinLo·Nov 9, 2017·7 votes·2,931 views

I believe as a summoner for league of legends, We are used as a way of keeping the champions weak. by pulling the life force and channeling it into the rift for are own entertainment. but we are no different then the champions ( even more so if you have read the TOA ) We are also trapped by the creators of this school/prison. We know them as the Riot team But in the story they are much more. In the story ( that's not really clear on how and who catches the champions. ) If you think abought it and also because its there game they are the most powerful in the story. We have heard nothing or even seen a really cool video of how they capture the new champion. all we get is a cheep lie abought how they did this thing is some area and now the (?) have captured them and they now belong to the rift.

Are we blinded by the lack of information we see the rift as a school and not a prison, we are the torcher device.

Your Friend - Felax

27 Comments

RiotBioluminescenceNov 9, 20179 votes

Hey Felax!

Sorry if this is a surprise to you, but the game isn't a direct, in-universe, thing any more - there aren't Summoners summoning champions to the field of justice to determine the outcome of in-world disputes.

This was changed a few years ago (also known as the Retcon) and ever since, Riot has been (slowly) removing all references to or dependancies on that older story hook. You'll find that all the new or updated stories do not mention the "League" or have champions being summoned.

Instead, you'll find stories about people living their lives, facing their troubles, and not having a seemingly all powerful collection of mages adjudicating all disputes.

It was a really rough transition though, and there were hard feelings that some players still harbor. Hopefully though, all the new stories will make more sense now that you know about the change, though!

Universe is a good place to find them - but you probably know that already :) https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/

NefasNov 9, 20177 votes

Definitely do still have hard feelings! Stopped reading the lore entirely.

RiotBioluminescenceNov 9, 20176 votes

{quoted}

Definitely do still have hard feelings! Stopped reading the lore entirely.

Do you imagine that there's anything we can do that would interest you in the lore again, or do you feel it's a lost cause for you entirely?

NefasNov 9, 20178 votes

Honestly? Massively increasing the amount of content and sustaining that over time would probably pull me back. But I just don't believe that is ever going to happen. We can ignore the merits of the old lore versus the new lore altogether - I just flat out don't think that Riot does a good job producing or is very interested in general in lore. Feel free to challenge me on this, but I don't believe it.

There are champs still, to this very day, only have the old lore that was retconned away, when the retcon was 3 full years ago. I can go into Jax's lore right now and read about him joining the League. Even champs that get lore rarely get updates - story lines are left hanging for years on end.

When there is that rare update it can be in some format I have zero desire to read - I'm a Ziggs player but I don't want to read a comic. There goes my chance at Ziggs lore for a few years.

Events like the Harrowing are dropped in order to "expand narrative possibilities" or something but are just left dropped.

It is up to players to collect what lore there is since the client still apparently can't handle incorporating anything meaningful. The short one line blurbs remain a bad joke. The single paragraphs that replaced them aren't much better.

All of this is compounded by years of coy statements and excuses from leaders in Narrative/Lore/WorldBuilding/whatever that frustrate and frankly piss me off to no end.

I'm not some deep believer that the format of the old lore tying the game into the story is strictly superior to untying it. I liked having a lore-based point to the game but I was open to be convinced if Riot would take the retcon and do something with it. Except they haven't. I don't care about lore any more because I don't believe Riot cares about lore. Why should I invest in lore that isn't regularly updated, isn't well supported technically, and the Rioters in charge of either treat issues like a joke or dodge taking any responsibility? I'd truly and honestly like to hear your thoughts.

tendo625Nov 9, 20174 votes

I agree. It's quite sad that people have to go hunting through the red posts on the story board for breadcrumbs of champion and skin lore which usually amounts to just trivia. Whole massive storylines like the supposed cataclysm Kog and now Zoe mention are left open for years without resolution.

HonestJohnTheConNov 9, 20173 votes

Zoe got revealed a few weeks ago, let's not quite call it a hanging plot thread yet. She has no lore at the moment.

Your other points I agree with wholeheartedly though.

HonestJohnTheConNov 9, 20172 votes

I agree. Riot should step it up. I'm hoping that they are holding out on us for a big New Year's surprise; the creation of the Universe site may be a sign that they are taking lore more seriously.

I still read the lore, but I'm practically starved for it. There hasn't been anything to sustain my inner lore nerd for a while since the Demacia update (which was admittedly fantastic).

RiotBioluminescenceNov 9, 20174 votes

Hey - I want to thank you for your reply, and apologize for not responding yet. I've got a big meeting thing coming up, so I'll have to wait until I get home before I can reply here properly. Didn't want you getting angry that it's been hours with nothing, after you replied so quickly.

NefasNov 9, 20174 votes

No worries - I realize it’s a big post with a lot to unpack even in the best of circumstances and timing.

RiotBioluminescenceNov 10, 20175 votes

{quoted}

No worries - I realize it’s a big post with a lot to unpack even in the best of circumstances and timing.

Hey, Nefas - thanks for being understanding at the delay in my response,

I completely agree we need to massively increase the amount of content; it drives me up the wall that we release dribs and drabs over the course of literally years. I’ve heard people say in the past that Riot isn’t interested in general in lore, and to be honest I think that those people have been right for the most part. There are Rioters for whom lore wasn’t important - their hearts were full of gameplay balance and esports and other such things. Very important things, but not the sort of thing that you and I personally have a passion for. (Not all Rioters, but many.)

The good news, is that after years of being beaten around the head with feedback from players and Rioters who do give a damn about the story side of things, even the people whose interests don’t trend that way are realizing that we are leaving vast numbers of players unsatisfied.

Now at this point, I wouldn’t blame you for going “Blah blah Bioluminescence - we’ve heard it all before.” No really - I won’t blame you. You have heard this before - possibly even for me - and I could go blue in the face trying to convince you that things are really changing (slowly) but all I can do is tell you something that I read today. Literally at 3:38pm today, when I posted your response as a wakeup call to some of my teammates. The response was that YOUR post is essentially exactly what we have been told by some of our partners, some of the people who represent huge amounts of players, and who speak for their wants and needs. Your post echoed what we’re hearing all over the world - players want (and deserve!) more. More content, more core-IP stories and lore and other stuff.

So thank you, and thank all the other players who have spoken up over the years. What I hear is that people are realizing that lore and stories don’t just magically happen without the whole studio understanding how important they are. That the desire for ‘perfection’ (sorry Jhin) can become unhealthy and paralyzing, but that with the right support, we can all help spin up to a decent release rate.

Ready for the downer? Yeah - so while teams are literally restructuring to make this happen, there’s always going to be a hang time. Like, even if we decided tomorrow that we wanted to write a juicy novel and happened to have a writer with a pitch ready to go, it’d still be a few months before it was written.

Lastly, someone on my team responded asking if you’ve been checking the Universe site for Jax’s lore? I know the League website is so out of date it’s shameful (there’s a small team who are putting their own time into trying to update it - I’ve volunteered to try to help however I can) the Universe site at least has the most up to date story content. Ugh it feels so bad to have to apologize for our own official site being so out of date.

Oh, and I get how you feel about comics - I don’t read them in my spare time either (I forget to look at the pictures and get pissed that I read a whole ‘book’ with only a couple dozen words in it) but we were/are experimenting with new ways of getting story content to players via the channels that they prefer. Some folks prefer comics - some short stories - some novels - some CG shorts - and lots of other things.

In the same way that you’re giving us feedback on what you want - give us feedback on how you want it. For you - that’s ‘not comics’ - but if lots of people make clear the media they want their stories via, then it helps take some of the guesswork out of it.

NefasNov 10, 20173 votes

Thanks for getting back to me with such a detailed response, I very much appreciate it.

I absolutely believe there are plenty of individual Rioters, yourself I think arguably foremost among them, that have a great passion and enthusiasm for lore. Lore just hasn’t received formal investment from Riot as an organization, as you said. Lore can’t just be an afterthought or this separate thing put to the side if it’s going to be done right - it needs to be tied into everything - from the creation of new champions and the reworks of old to planning out the technical capabilities of the client. Lore doesn’t have to be for everyone, but if it is going to be done well it requires full commitment. I do hope that Riot as an organization will make that commitment, because I do think there is so much great potential in Runeterra as a world and all of the champions that inhabit it. I’m personally just not willing to get invested in the lore again right now. If things do change and improve, then I’ll give it another go, but until that point I’ll stay on the sidelines.

Regarding Jax’s stories and the Universe site, I can’t help but jump back to Riot as an organization not being committed to investing in lore. Riot could have fantastic writers, artists, etc building out the lore but I truly don’t think it matters unless it’s all in the client. Jumping off into a website has always felt really odd, like a big gulf between the lore as a weird little side project and the game. I fully believe more people would be interested in the lore if it were on the client in a large-scale way. The website is wildly out of date in so many areas, not just lore, but what really is the point of maintaining anything more than a bare bones website when the client exists? Its mostly duplicating work. The client will always be the priority because that’s where the game is played. So the client is where the lore needs to be. And if the client can’t handle the lore, that should be treated like a major problem, not an afterthought like was shown with getting even the current client updated to handle more than a sentence.

I like to read a lot in general. For a world like League’s, I would say that a serial novel type format is what I would want the most, along with standalone short stories. Not looking for huge long form work, but stories big enough to be broken apart over time. More than one serialization going at a time would be good as well. I would rather get a chapter a month for 8 months than everything all at once after an 8 month wait, which to be topical mirrors the current problems with the change from IP gains after every match to a lump of BE all at once after a long grind. Regular, frequent, smaller installments of lore are a lot better than unpredictable, infrequent, large chunks of lore. That would also go a long way in my mind towards building Riot’s credibility on lore.

Hopefully some of this was helpful. Happy to share my thoughts and I do wish you the best in convincing others in Riot to fully invest in lore.

Blue Moon WolfNov 10, 20171 votes

If I could make a suggestion as to content that may help. There are plenty of questions that the old lore didn't answer and have yet to be answered in the current lore.

I believe if stuff like that were to get explained in new lore content, it would drastically improve peoples opinions of the lore, even if you are currently unable to release as much content as you wish too. I believe in a lot of these cases, the new lore has provided enough new questions that you could start answering the older stuff without people feeling like there is nothing left to talk about.

For example, I liked Wukong's new lore, but it razed more questions about how much power he really has, can he/ will he end up being able to make actual clones at some point and how much has he actually learned from Yi so far, without answering any of the older questions like does he still have contact with his tribe after meeting Yi, how involved is he in Ionia and some questions about his relation to certain champs listed on his friends that has gone unexplained for years. That combination of unanswered questions on top of new questions left me feeling a bit unsatisfied, rather then just plain wanting more cause of the good story.

Even if these kinds of older questions were answered in a paragraph, I think people would be very content by just getting those questions answered. Pretty much just the fact that people can trade off old questions that have been gnawing at them for answers and new questions to think about can satisfy people on its own.

Star GuardíanNov 12, 20173 votes

I honestly think that the task that the narrative has at hand has grown beyond their capabilities, not in terms of skill but in terms of quantity. This is both a good and bad thing. Bad: because the few people working on lore at Riot right now can't supply us with the amount of lore we want Good: because there's SO much potential for future storytelling.

Having said that, I honestly think League of Legends as an intellectual property has the potential to be as big as Marvel is right now. In fact, I think the IP of League of Legends is more valuable than the game itself. You guys are sitting on top of a goldmine, but you don't have the resources to extract the gold yet.

It's somewhat of a shame but I don't really blame Riot since League of Legends grew WAY faster than anyone could've anticipated.

There's so much potential in for storytelling in LoL that I think the lore should be thought of as its own product rather than an accessory to the game. I think Riot needs to license their IP or create a subsidiary (or division) of Riot to only focus on stories. I can't see Riot fulfilling their potential otherwise, it's just to much for their current capacity.

I do empathize with Riot though. They're in an unprecedented position. Very few intellectual properties in recent memory have grown so large in such a short amount of time. Moreover, no (or at most) very few video game IPs have expanded into film, TV or comics successfully. Furthermore, League is still updating and new characters are always being introduced.

In essence, it's frustrating for the fans, I'm sure it frustrating for Riot, but on the bright side there's SO much potential.

ZyraniumNov 10, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Hey - I want to thank you for your reply, and apologize for not responding yet. I've got a big meeting thing coming up, so I'll have to wait until I get home before I can reply here properly. Didn't want you getting angry that it's been hours with nothing, after you replied so quickly.

Heyy, can we have more infos about the next champions with Lore update ? It's been a while now

I'm hoping for Zyra ! Btw do you consider a lore update for Kumungu Jungles ?

RobertsmashNov 10, 20174 votes

You're spot on, guy. I sometimes check Jax lore myself, just to see if the League is still there. Isn't that embarrassing? I wasn't necessarily against the retcon and was looking forward to the new lore- but it drips out at such an irregular cadence (or limited to the cadence of champ releases) that it's painful. It's sad that it's going to take a Swain VGU years after the retcon to (hopefully) give us a Noxus lore dump. Same with Ionia- nothing, except that vastaya don't like them. We're lucky Camille came out to give us the Piltover/Zaun stuff. I remember Jaredan's comments trying to calm people down during the retcon years ago saying "give it time, it's coming". And it largely hasn't.

Does the lore not exist yet? Is Riot just keeping it to release it with champs/VGUs? Why can't we access the lore and stories on Universe through the client, which had a perfect opportunity to acquire this feature during the LCU? And why on Earth hasn't someone just gone and done a general pass over all of the short champ lores to remove references of the League? That especially seems like a step 1 kind of thing to me; it blows my mind that even that hasn't been done. I could have done it myself in no time at all.

Regional lore updates shouldn't be restricted to champ releases/VGUs; in fact, every region should have had a general update long ago. One thing that really gets me is that Sharjo once said that Riot has categories of lore ranging from "players have known about this for years" to "players won't know about this for years". Why does that category even exist? What sort of ridiculous timing are they going for? What an odd, strange, and bad feeling release schedule. Not player friendly at all. It doesn't matter if Riot has crafted an amazing updated world if they just keep it hidden away.

I defended the retcon and I was patient like Jaredan said. I'm not specifically blaming him, but here we are 3 years later and the champion release-tied lore and even the recent comics are nowhere near enough. Some weird shit is happening at Riot's Narrative department.

DreamspitterNov 10, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Honestly? Massively increasing the amount of content and sustaining that over time would probably pull me back. But I just don't believe that is ever going to happen. We can ignore the merits of the old lore versus the new lore altogether - I just flat out don't think that Riot does a good job producing or is very interested in general in lore. Feel free to challenge me on this, but I don't believe it.

There are champs still, to this very day, only have the old lore that was retconned away, when the retcon was 3 full years ago. I can go into Jax's lore right now and read about him joining the League. Even champs that get lore rarely get updates - story lines are left hanging for years on end.

When there is that rare update it can be in some format I have zero desire to read - I'm a Ziggs player but I don't want to read a comic. There goes my chance at Ziggs lore for a few years.

What's the most ideal format lore could come in?

NefasNov 10, 20171 votes

I posted this in another reply but I think serialized story arcs would be ideal to me - a novella released over time in pieces. You can even have a few of these arcs going on at the same time, covering different regions/groups of champions. These arcs can be one-offs or they could be tied together as part of a larger storyline. There are regular installments so there isn’t a huge wait for one big lore dump.

DreamspitterNov 10, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I posted this in another reply but I think serialized story arcs would be ideal to me - a novella released over time in pieces. You can even have a few of these arcs going on at the same time, covering different regions/groups of champions. These arcs can be one-offs or they could be tied together as part of a larger storyline. There are regular installments so there isn’t a huge wait for one big lore dump.

Well...they do have a number of short "color" stories, and other written work.

Though some people prefer the comic format.

What if it was a weekly comic?

SinLoNov 9, 20172 votes

Thank you for the insight, I think this should at least balance my thoughts on the topic

Thanks Bioluminescence This was really helpful

Felax

ModKnightsKemplarNov 9, 20171 votes

Wait a minute... I thought we got confirmation from an official source that Summoners were still canon and they would come back into the Universe at some point.

I know they aren't really in the lore currently, but I was under the distinct impression that the overall narrative of the game world was going to eventually move in that direction.

RiotBioluminescenceNov 9, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Wait a minute... I thought we got confirmation from an official source that Summoners were still canon and they would come back into the Universe at some point.

I know they aren't really in the lore currently, but I was under the distinct impression that the overall narrative of the game world was going to eventually move in that direction.

You'll note I do not state that there aren't Summoners any more - just that there aren't Summoners summoning champions to the field of justice.

ModKnightsKemplarNov 9, 20174 votes

noting intensifies

DreamspitterNov 10, 20172 votes

{quoted}

You'll note I do not state that there aren't Summoners any more - just that there aren't Summoners summoning champions to the field of justice.

What sort of things do summoners call up? And how many things are loose in the world?

Shaco Evelynn Nocturne Chogath Morgana Kayle

Chromatic EagleNov 10, 20171 votes

Will we ever know “soon” what summoners are in the new lore?

AlienPrimateNov 10, 20172 votes

I'm not trying to be the mean grammar Nazi, but can you please try to learn some?

are - we are going our - what is our story there - look over there their - their story is... they're - they are its - its legs are huge it's - it is

DreamspitterNov 10, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I believe as a summoner for league of legends, We are used as a way of keeping the champions weak. by pulling the life force and channeling it into the rift for are own entertainment. but we are no different then the champions ( even more so if you have read the TOA ) We are also trapped by the creators of this school/prison. We know them as the Riot team But in the story they are much more. In the story ( that's not really clear on how and who catches the champions. ) If you think abought it and also because its there game they are the most powerful in the story. We have heard nothing or even seen a really cool video of how they capture the new champion. all we get is a cheep lie abought how they did this thing is some area and now the (?) have captured them and they now belong to the rift.

Are we blinded by the lack of information we see the rift as a school and not a prison, we are the torcher device.

Your Friend - Felax

The League of Legends doesn't exist.

https://i.imgur.com/EDZexDq.png

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/creative-spotlight/dev-blog-exploring-runeterra

Your head canon is......sorta interesting but......

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

thecowleyNov 11, 20171 votes

Man I want more updates too. Even the smallest steam will wear the great stone thin. I love most of the updated lore, but it's annoying that it only comes with champ updates. And lots of champs need new vo to get rid of summoner mentions in game. I just started playing nocturne, and he speaks to the summoner all the time