Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

Mount Targon, and why thus far it does nothing.

BIAKaboose·2/27/2016, 1:00:13 AM·15 votes·1,801 views

Negative title, I know, and one that has probably had countless similar posts created however I will say that I have held no real attachment to any of the characters involved beyond a mild dislike of Diana.

"So why would you have any issues with the new lore if you don't really care for the characters" You may be asking, well it's rather simple actually. These events have had a lot of changes with the lore, some good, some bad. I don't consider myself a good writer by any means, but I do dabble in it as a hobby, and one of the very important aspects of writing is character development (or lack there of, look at Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride). Notice the key word there, development, as in a change over time, this was something that was showcased extremely well with the Bilgewater event, with TF and Graves coming to terms with their past and not murdering each other, GP and MF having a real solid reason to be fighting beyond maybe GP killing her mother, but that never truly being confirmed.

Go back to the Freljord event and we have some serious concerns with a full blown retcon of lores, from minor things like Udyr being solidly placed, or Gragas being on his quest for the perfect drink instead of just being around and sometimes getting drunk and fighting people. Then we have Trundle. For anyone who doesn't remember his original lore, he was basically an outcast who received the disease of his entire tribe in the hopes that he would be accepted, only to be tossed in the muck and despised even more. His connection to the League was one of pure spite, with him opting to keep the disease knowing full well that his entire tribe would die without it. It was a little shaky, sure, but it was still good, it made him unique. Now he's just a big guy with a large weapon who takes himself way too seriously, sound familiar? Darius Garen Mordekaiser Nasus Nautilus Sion Tryndamere

My issue here is that yeah, Pantheon and Leona for sure had some outdated lore. It was only sort of half there in a way, but it gave them a purpose, and a good one at that. They retconned the League itself, and now they're taking all the champions with ties to it and making the character be as far from it as possible. They're slowly tearing apart everything the game is based on and creating something else. Sure, the writing is good now, it's a lot more solid, they have somebody who did I think Warhammer 40K, so yeah, the quality of the writing itself has definitely gone up, but what bothers me isn't that the writing is bad. What bothers me is that the writing doesn't have character development, it doesn't have them changing over time, or finding a new purpose, it's just destroying them and putting someone else in their skin (literally for Pantheon). The Mount Targon change doesn't advance the story in any way, it doesn't really change anything about the game, or necessarily about the world as a whole, it's a waste of writing and potential for the sake of having something to do. Recreating old characters with nothing but lore changes and complete rewrites doesn't do anything but make the loyal players dislike you.

Who is going to be next on the rewrite chopping block? They've hit the entirety of the Freljord already, a decent chunk of Ionia, Demacia is in a constant state of nobody knowing really what they're doing, so they just shout the name of their homeland instead. The sad thing is that the interesting characters are all the ones being retconned to oblivion. Trundle was pretty interesting, now he's just menacing big guy #8. Leona is now Pantheon's old personality, Pantheon is basically exactly the same except now he hates Leona along with everyone else, Diana is now buddy buddy with the Solari? Like OK, probably going to be some huge event involving another faction, but why rewrite the characters entirely instead of just having them overcome their differences to deal with a more dangerous threat?

I guess at the end of the day I just don't get it, what is the actual point here Riot? I know you have a new writer, but he isn't new to writing, have him build on what is already here, don't have him just scrap it all for something else.

I guess I'll quit nagging now, and sorry if this was all a waste of time for you. Sincerely, someone who actually liked Runeterra the way it was years ago as flawed as it may have been.

16 Comments

TzQGRUST392/27/2016, 2:42:43 AM4 votes

I think you are being a little unfair, it isn't like these new lore pieces is an event like the Bilgewater one. The Bios and Color text is just character set up for when they do get into an event.

They most likely have a planned direction for where they want there characters to go and in my opinion these "new" characters are much better than the one note cookie cutter characters from the past.

Edit: Trundle is an exception though, but his story was completed and sapped of potential, so I can see why they changed him.

The Soulforged2/27/2016, 1:49:58 AM3 votes

Off topic, but Diana's lore actually holds mostly true to her original.

I agree though, we're not getting much through just retconning everything.

Kraljdred2/27/2016, 12:08:39 PM3 votes

It seems this is more about you disliking the retcon then anything Mt. Targon related. The retcon will always remain controversial, most people were fine how the old lore was handled with Summoners and JoJ and League Judgements. However, If you look at the work this new lore team did with the new lore, The Bilgewater and Harrowing event, i think it is fair to say that the quality of lore has increased from the old days.

Now for the Mt. Targon itself, this is just the prologue to a more complete story, it only contains backstory and introductions for the main players for the event. When the real event starts, all sort of things could happen that will advance the story, maybe Atreus manages to take back control from Pantheon, maybe Leona and Diana become friends, put in there the chance of an Void invasion, plus Taric and new champs roles to play, all sort of things are possible.

Now, could have this all been done within the old lore? Probably. But if they felt the retcon was so much needed for them to write all of this great material, I think its a good trade.

Hellioning2/29/2016, 1:00:33 AM2 votes

This is the big issue with League lore, at the moment. They still haven't recovered from the Great Retcon, so now they need to retcon more stuff to fit in, but that takes time and money that could be spent on new stories and puts it to work writing new origin stories.

It's like if they rebooted the Marvel Cinematic Universe and had to re-make every single origin movie. Sure, the individual movies might be good, but it's all either stuff we've heard before or changing something that we liked for (as far as we can tell) no reason.

Valaran Nara2/27/2016, 3:52:29 PM1 votes

It's only been up for a day and there are two slots left.

One will be Aurelion Sol

and the other might be Taric.

We are not giving it time to give us the next segment in the Mt. Targon Update.