@Lore Team/Narrative; A simple, civil question for you.
Why don't you attempt to speak with us?
Yes, I'm sure everyone can say because they don't want to jump into this fiery pit of a forum where people will hunt them down, but most discussions aren't like that. Plus, a lot of people only talk like that because it shows how passionate they are about the lore, and how much your work matters to them. I can admit myself that that's where a lot of my negative comments come from.
We, as a community, have made DOZENS of threads trying to get into contact with a SINGLE person from the narrative/lore team, and not one of you has responded. Hell, other Rioters respond FOR you. We're all upset about the lore. I'm sure you guys are upset about it as well, if not more than we are. But that shouldn't stop you from speaking to us.
It's been, what, nine months (correct me if I'm wrong) since the retcon. We've received very minor bits of lore about the newest champions, although I will admit, Sion's was fantastic, and the Ekko comic is beautiful. But, that comic shouldn't be everything about him. It should be written, in his client lore. If not, at least linked to it. The very same goes for Sion, and every champion that's been released since the retcon.
I think I'll start (and end) with my two major points. For the first, I'll say that we don't like how lore has been put out. Sure, videos are neat, but they don't tell us about a champion. League judgements and short stories like Braum are things we want in the client to read about. Even something as simple as Garen's is fantastic; At least it tells us who he is, what he fights for, and what his decisions would be in any given situation.
Videos like Bard don't tell us anything about the character. Sure, he may not have a voice, but we know nothing but "he takes artifacts away because they're strong". Why does he do that? Why is he staying on Runeterra? What does he do with the artifacts? How was he created? Things like this are left unanswered. Sometimes it's best that they are, but in this case, there are just too many questions and it leaves him feeling like just another empty character that you can't relate to or understand.
For the second and final point, I'd like to say (in the nicest way possible), please, stop throwing out lore. Just, stop. Skarner is the worst offender of this by far. You could say Amumu, but I'm going to use Skarner as my example. In his old lore (for those who don't know), his race was getting sick because of the rune wars effecting where they all lived. They burrowed deep into the ground, but Skarner stayed closer to the surface; He would know when the time was right to call upon his kind once again, so they may return to the surface to a world no longer poisonous/dangerous. Now, he's just a big scorpion that guards a mysterious cave for reasons. Not only that, but he's made out to be an evil creature, rather than a guardian of his kind. And now to my point; Why could you not have just moved Skarner's story to Shurima instead of destroying it all? Maybe when Azir/Renekton/Xerath were released from the tomb, Skarner was awoken as well. He may not want his kind to wake up until the conflict in Shurima is dealt with. See how easily that fits together? And I just made it up off the top of my head. And yes, despite you saying you don't want to use community ideas, you can use that. I'm sure most people, if not everyone, would prefer it. So again, please, stop throwing out lore just because you think it doesn't fit. Because you can make it work. It's not difficult.
I expected good things from you, Riot. Your music and art teams are phenomenal, and I know that eventually, your lore team can get there as well. So lore team, I'll say this once.
Don't think that you're the bad guys. We don't hate you. In fact, you're in the spotlight. Everyone's waiting and watching, patiently, for your next move. We all want to be surprised and awestruck at what we all know you're more than capable of.
