Does Anyone Else Think That This "Technical Issue" Which Prevents Lore from Being Updated Is Lie?

Impetual·Nov 30, 2014·69 votes·15,114 views

I mean seriously, how long does it take to figure out how to manipulate text?

Yeah, I get it, lore text on the website isn't going to draw from the same database that lore from the in-game client is anymore.

That doesn't sound like a hard issue to solve at all. You just need the in-game lore to draw from a different database for its lore text than the one on the website.

Riot, how incompetent are you? This issue has been going on for months and there seems to be no end to it.

With the lack of information you are willing to present regarding the Lore department, it leads me to believe that there is some really messed up staffing changes that you guys are trying to cover up for, because you guys don't presently have any idea what you're doing.

Your decisions regarding lore lately have seemed way too unstable and have lacked any kind of follow through to give us any kind of confidence in your new direction.

So lets be honest Riot, are you having staffing problems or something similar to that?

edit:

No disrespect to Ironstylus, because I really love your work.

This thread was intended to point point out that is shouldn't be hard to have different text displayed on the in game client than the website. It's only a matter of having different text outputs draw from different data for the text they are displaying.

The fact that you guys are having a "tech issue" that has lasted several months over something that sounds so trivially simple (coding wise), is kinda unbelievable.

Edit: Riot, as much as I love IS, could we actually have a member of the lore department comment here? Assuming the lore department still exists.

116 Comments

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201466 votes

Riot, how incompetent are you? This issue has been going on for months and there seems to be no end to it.

Oh come on..

Now this is coming from me, who doesn't have any coding experience, nor knows the intricacies of our client or engine, however I and my team have had our share of headaches with both. Our engineers, programmers and other related teams basically construct something akin to the the Notre Dame cathedral with a pile of playing cards. Not to bash on our tech, but we all know it's fairly outdated. This includes issues with updating the client, and issues with the engine itself. It's nothing short of a miracle that the SR update was able to be accomplished with the tech we have. Not to mention things like reflection maps, scrolling textures, and other BASIC character effects that were pioneered back in the days of PS2 which we're only now able to add.

From the client side, the ChampUp team has experienced it's share of problems with narrative stories and bios in the client. I'm not 100% privy to the technical reasons, but it's come up enough that I know it's a hurdle, and believe-you-me, it's something we groan at because we WANT to deliver more comprehensive story. Who the hell wouldn't with this much content?

Are people who can affect change working on it? Damn straight they are. Are they dealing with a myriad of challenges across all aspects technical with the client and engine? Absolutely. I can't stress enough how talented our people are and what limitations they're working with. For god's sake, there was some weird bug or something that wouldn't let us name Quinn as "Quinn and Valor" in the client as we initially wanted to. Isn't that silly? Welp, it is and people continue to improve and work on things such as that. Considering how much content there is, considering how many territories we operate in, and considering how fast we push out stuff, I'm pretty sure our technical dudes/ladies could part the sea if need be on their spare time. Thing is that water is more malleable than some of our tech.

Incompetence isn't the issue, and even I, some dumb-ass artist who can't calculate tip at Denny's, takes issue with how you've phrased this and how accusatory you're being.

If you're so very confident in how crispy-clear you see the problem in its vast entirety and can expediently execute on a solution that doesn't disrupt the player's experience, then let me be the first to direct you henceforth to:

http://www.riotgames.com/careers?location%5B%5D=9&search=

Are there problems? Damn right there are. Are we just as frustrated as you are? Oh my god probably more so. Are we constantly tinkering around to find optimal solutions that won't disrupt service or bug out our software/infrastructure? Absolutely.

So again, come on..

Earl EulrichDec 1, 201421 votes

Well, it´s really nice that you dip in and make a stand for your fellow Rioters...and I think most of them really deserve it (though I really can´t understand why you din´t rebuild the client from zero after S1 finished and it had been clear that the game will go on for a lot longer - would have saved you a bunch till now) - but it should be noticed that the main argument here actually is that we believe in the talent of your programmers enough to disbelieve they need more than a few weeks to fix those website-issues.

That said, it´s pretty sad that again it´s not the Lore-Team communicating here - it´s someone that isn´t really involved in all of this that tries and at least brings some sort of Riot-perspective onto the matter.

And you have to acknowledge that this here is just the very peak of the problems that rift between the Lore-Community and the Lore-Departement since the retcon. Despite your best effort you cant accomplish anything here I´m afraid. It´s a matter that only the Lore-Team can fix, and I for one fear that they are way beyond the point of wanting to do anything about it at all.

So I really thank you for your efforts Iron Stylus, but I think you´ll only get unhappy when you get involved in this matter and you won´t accomplish much besides that in the end. Better back out and have a nice sunday evening!

best regards

a summoner

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201424 votes

Narrative =/= Those who implement engineering fixes to the client.

You can disbelieve all you like, right here you have a dev team member telling you that it's not a lie or some other conspiratorial mumbo jumbo.

I personally believe that this "rift" is simply solved by the delivery of content, not an extensive laundry list of excuses that we could potentially barf out. I think, and see, the internal efforts that go on. Any team is frustrated when a technical issue keeps them from pushing out content. Narrative does a really great job at making really great stories. Just like any of the craftsman at this company do in relation to their particular discipline. I would prefer to work closely with them to bang out awesome stuff than to have them fret too much over technical limitations. If my photoshop isn't working I still have paper and pencil. Sure, I'm pissed at the technical problem, but I'm still making stuff. Just because you walk by my desk and don't see it on my screen doesn't mean it won't eventually be visible by everyone and escorted down the pipeline to release.

CuixDec 1, 20146 votes

I personally believe that this "rift" is simply solved by the delivery of content

Please tell me that this is a joke.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201430 votes

Ok, so let's say that when we were working on Sion we plastered the forums with excuses as to why the team couldn't fix him fast enough. Let's say there was a huge outcry despite that relayed info about the ChampUp's communication with the vast number of people who wanted Sion fixed/remade/reworked every single day. A "SION REWORK WHERe?" situation. Let's say that for the year+ we promised and promised and promised, "We swear guys, this is going to be incredible. We're so sorry it's taking so long." Let's say with every new breakthrough we made a post, then had to backtrack because that breakthrough didn't pan out. Let's say that we handed out assurances like paper plates at a barbecue, raised expectations, then had to disappoint when we weren't able to deliver on a previously promised time due to unforeseen hurdles, technical or otherwise.

How much of a roller coaster would that have been? It was actually enough of a roller coaster as it was, considering Sion's rather small player base. How much would you feel jerked around?

So, what we did was put our heads down, gave a general idea of what we were trying to do, burned on him for a year, and when he was damn good and ready, dropped a well fleshed out, comprehensive piece of quality content.

That's what I'm trying to get at here. We could spend all the time in the world building a bridge of wooden words, or we could really put in a comprehensive effort and focus on delivery, crunching away, building that bridge steal girder by steal girder so that when we have something that's great, we give that to players as something solid and enduring. I personally feel that delivery of content is what proves our efforts, and player's satisfaction, as being serious, quality driven and sincere.

I've been there. Our team has had to step up to tough challenges and difficult messaging. But in the end, what matters to players, I feel, is awesome content, delivered when it's ready.

A picture, a story, a fun piece of gameplay, is worth a thousand words.

Earl EulrichDec 1, 20146 votes

A picture, a story, a fun piece of gameplay, is worth a thousand words.

This is now kinda ironic, as we´re talking about Lore (consisting of thousand words, if we´re lucky). And I believe i can remember that you still asked players about their general opinion what Sion should be (e.g. he maybe shouldnßt end up as a highly mobile melee-carry - though i might mistake that with the xerath/urgot/yorrik brainstoriming that took place a 100% some long time back)) before you went on your mission to redo the champ. And you stated beforehand that you will redo the Champ. The Lore Department on the other hand just redid a Champ that had been seen as being totally fine without giving any notice in advance. That´s a huge difference.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201424 votes

Goddammit.. I just wrote this whole huge response and hit "back" by mistake and deleted it all.

Quick TL;DR because I don't have the patience to retype it with all of my melodrama:

I'd like to disagree, respectfully, that lore has to be words. Yes, I get the irony, it's a bit intentional ;)

You don't need words to tell story nor excessive backstory to distill the essence of a character. Examples:

Jinx Music Video: Lyrics with a bananas song about one psychopath's chaos-trip. No back story, just pure personality oozing out. A rampage of fun.

Braum Teaser Video: No words spoken, but you see 3 things: Big guy, big shield, big heart. That is an encapsulated story as to who this character is and why it matters.

A New Dawn: Champions being themselves as characters. Darius an unstoppable machine. Ahri a clever, agile minx. Leona a stalwart defender. Graves a good-time-having badass. Etc. No words. Grunts and cries. Each champion a vignette in themselves.

Rek'Sai Teaser Video: No words, just tension. Time tested terror trope of a jagged fin slicing through the surface. Incomprehensible, other-worldly terror.

I had a longer and more comprehensive response, but I hope that'll shed some light as to what I'm trying to say.

As for communication, our team is dealing with NEARLY the amount of information, story and world building that Narrative is creating. I do not envy their task.

SammystormDec 1, 20145 votes

Goddammit.. I just wrote this whole huge response and hit "back" by mistake and deleted it all.

Quick TL;DR because I don't have the patience to retype it with all of my melodrama:

I'd like to disagree, respectfully, that lore has to be words. Yes, I get the irony, it's a bit intentional ;)

You don't need words to tell story nor excessive backstory to distill the essence of a character. Examples:

Jinx Music Video: Lyrics with a bananas song about one psychopath's chaos-trip. No back story, just pure personality oozing out. A rampage of fun.

Braum Teaser Video: No words spoken, but you see 3 things: Big guy, big shield, big heart. That is an encapsulated story as to who this character is and why it matters.

A New Dawn: Champions being themselves as characters. Darius an unstoppable machine. Ahri a clever, agile minx. Leona a stalwart defender. Graves a good-time-having badass. Etc. No words. Grunts and cries. Each champion a vignette in themselves.

Rek'Sai Teaser Video: No words, just tension. Time tested terror trope of a jagged fin slicing through the surface. Incomprehensible, other-worldly terror.

I had a longer and more comprehensive response, but I hope that'll shed some light as to what I'm trying to say.

As for communication, our team is dealing with NEARLY the amount of information, story and world building that Narrative is creating. I do not envy their task.

This iron stylus does not seem like the normal iron stylus.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201424 votes

What's the difference?

I did just lose a parrot. That could be the issue.

SammystormDec 1, 20144 votes

The language and tone is different from what i have seen you normally talk like.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201415 votes

Ah, pet loss will do that to you, I guess.

HellioningDec 1, 201415 votes

Sorry for your loss, parrot.

I'm glad you're still up for defending your coworkers and communicating with us in these trying times.

PaperMache7Dec 1, 20144 votes

Hum sorry about that bud.

GenActive13Dec 1, 20149 votes

hugs IronStylus A salute to your feathered friend. What color we lose here may it soar in heaven's skies!

VeraskaDec 1, 20143 votes

oh noooo, my neighbors bird just died too and life hasn't been the same not hearing her say "hello pretty bird" whenever i walk in the door for a cup of sugar. sorry for your loss fella :<

CuixDec 1, 20149 votes

Lazarus is a great Firefox add-on. If you're using Chrome, though, then idk.

Jinx video: There's just not much meat to it. This is on the same tier as the Pentakill album, imo. I, and many other lore fans, don't really count this as lore. It was pretty fucking sweet, though.

Braum: Quick character portrayal, sure, but it doesn't really add anything. It's just Braum, but less and earlier.

New Dawn: Same as the Jinx video. Super fun, great display of the characters, but ultimately shallow and not adding much (except making it crystal clear that Graves and Rengar are pretty sexy, but we knew that.)

Rek'Sai: This actually showed us new things about the dress, tech, layout, and contents of Shurima. It added on to existing lore, and displayed Rek'Sai in a way that significantly clarifies her character. This counts.

The above: My opinions on what is or is not "lore". I do not speak for the community, though I have reason to believe that many agree with me, if not most.

Communication: Critical, when prior content is going to be deleted.

Edit: Since we're talking Sion, I should mention that ALL of the lore stuff surrounding the Sion rework was deliciously juicy. Great depictions of Noxus, intriguing interactions between characters, clarifications of history, super meaty. Loved it. The only thing deleted was prework!Sion, and that's a sacrifice most folks were willing to make (VO aside).

Earl EulrichDec 1, 20148 votes

Though all of these lack depth. Read one of the old Judgements and compare those to any of the things you mention, it´s pretty drastic. So while Lore surely not always has to be about words, it´s still the very essence and soul of it (though as you are an Artist and I´m a literary student/chef i can understand that we come from somewhat different angles on this very matter).

CupcakeTrapDec 1, 201416 votes

As for communication, our team is dealing with NEARLY the amount of information, story and world building that Narrative is creating. I do not envy their task.

This is the most frightening statement in this thread by far, and confirms my fears. Narrative is planning another devastating rewrite, again with zero community involvement. If they continue as they have, it will destroy literally years of community creativity.

Imagine how people would feel if one day they logged in and Leona was redone as a growling Noxian with black armor. But still called Leona. Imagine the shock and dismay of all those people in the community who'd drawn Leona artwork, or written Leona lore, seeing their devotion to the character nullified. Now imagine these people logging in to ask "WHY?!?!" and seeing Narrative post something like, "oh, gosh, we're sorry about that, but we hope you'll enjoy telling new stories with our new Leona, who we think is a much more interesting character. (We felt that Mount Targon was really constraining her, and that she'll have much more interesting story opportunities as a Noxian.) Stay tuned! We've got tons of new Leona lore coming, and I think you'll really enjoy it. I wish I could share more, but it's all under wraps, haha." I think you can imagine that there might be a lot of monitors with keyboards shoved through them that day, and a lot of community artists sobbing over their tablets.

Leona is one Champion. An awesome Champion, but one Champion.

Multiply accordingly and you'll understand why we're not exactly happy with Narrative's "assurances" that they're writing lots of lore, and we'll be so "excited" when it all comes out.

And if you don't think that Narrative is making such drastic changes, well, I hope you're right. (Leona is in some ways a poor example: they'd never order a full VO rework of her. But many of these beloved Champions from League's older days are slated for such a rework, and could easily suffer that sort of fate.) But so far, they show essentially zero concern for the damage they do. They're treating an established, organic universe as a blank slate, ripping up pieces and stabbing new components down into the foundations without any regard for the damage they do to the community in the process. This approach is fundamentally flawed and has us very, very anxious.

HellioningDec 1, 201411 votes

Jinx Music Video: Lyrics with a bananas song about one psychopath's chaos-trip. No back story, just pure personality oozing out. A rampage of fun.

Braum Teaser Video: No words spoken, but you see 3 things: Big guy, big shield, big heart. That is an encapsulated story as to who this character is and why it matters.

Rek'Sai Teaser Video: No words, just tension. Time tested terror trope of a jagged fin slicing through the surface. Incomprehensible, other-worldly terror.

These are good character ESTABLISHMENT. They say 'This is what this champion is!' And that's great. They're really good ways to show their character. That is not character DEVELOPMENT, and it sure as shit isn't plot. (Hell, the Jinx video is all just a dream! It didn't even happen!) That's not the sort of lore that I'm looking for. Riot's always been decent with making lore to promote a new champ/skin/rework, I'm looking for them to expand and develop what they already created instead of making new stuff.

A New Dawn: Champions being themselves as characters. Darius an unstoppable machine. Ahri a clever, agile minx. Leona a stalwart defender. Graves a good-time-having badass. Etc. No words. Grunts and cries. Each champion a vignette in themselves.

Jax never does anything particularly worthy of being the supreme badass he is in lore, and never makes any jokes or acts like the fun-haver he is. Nautilus is nothing but a monster for Graves to deal with. Ahri spends more time running away in panic instead of tricking the enemy. I'm not saying that that sort of thing isn't interesting, but I question how well the people who made that understand some of their characters.

TerraRisingDec 1, 20148 votes

Goddammit.. I just wrote this whole huge response and hit "back" by mistake and deleted it all.

[Edited: Scroll up to read!]

All due respect, but I have to question what you call "lore."

The videos you mentioned really don't tell us much about the champions. They showcase their personalities well, be it a chaos loving teenager with a gatling gun and a rocket launcher, a gentle giant that carries a door as a shield, a giant roach that terrorizes the Shurima desert or a spirit of vengeance that requires a heavy price for her services.

Even the "New Dawn" cinematic was interesting, to see the champs' personalities interact on the Summoner's Rift during a match (albeit in an exaggerated one where Nautilus is 30 feet tall, Graves smokes like a chimney and Zyra has one hit point).

But let's call these what they are: commercials. Advertisements for the upcoming champion, event or the game itself. They are designed to sell the upcoming content or pique interest in the game, but they don't tell us anything substantial about the champion.

For that, you need a narrative team that is focused on telling stories, no matter the format. Text need not be the only format to tell your tales, but it certainly should not be forsaken because some within the company don't want to overwhelm us with "giant walls of text" either.

HowPlayGAEMDec 1, 20146 votes

I'd like to disagree, respectfully, that lore has to be words. Yes, I get the irony, it's a bit intentional ;)

You don't need words to tell story nor excessive backstory to distill the essence of a character.

I disagree. Part of what makes lore fun is getting deep into the fluff and details of it all. WH40k would not be NEARLY as fun if it was just the "essence"

Yes, you CAN distill the "essence" of a character like that, but its ultimately just that, the general essence of a character. Its just an archetype, not a character.

Perhaps its silly to expect RPG level characterization from an esports company, but one can hope.

FinnicalDec 2, 20145 votes

Ironstylus I am a fan of yours overall. That said, you don't seem to understand what lore is based on this post. The animations and imagery you describe all show who a champion is, their personality and theme. Lore is the stories that are informed by those things.

A great picture of a champion in their element striking a pose tells you a lot about who they are, but nothing about what they have done.

A good example from the Sion rework: The statue in the background shows how Noxus feels about Sion. The text box tells us why they might feel that way and what happened after his death. The statue is characterization. The TEXT is the lore.

ImpetualDec 2, 20143 votes

Seriously, I try to (but I guess not really) understand where you guys are coming from.

The narrative department has a lot of work to do in order to make this retcon work....

but seriously, you guys have had at least a year(if not more) of nearly non existent lore being produced. Why isn't the new Runeterra ready to go?

It feels the the old Runeterra is being patched in order to remove everything that made it interesting.

Why isn't there much more Lore content ready to ship after such a long lore hiatus?

Sneak DogDec 1, 20147 votes

What if Stashu just put out his reworked Cassiopeia kit on the pbe and then never went to the forums? Balanced it to have a solid powerlevel and then just put it out on live ignoring all Cassiopeia players complaining that she's no longer the snake poison mage that she was before and that they preferred her old kit? This is what it currently feels like with the retcon.

What if Stashu just removed Cassiopeia from the game and introduced a new poison-mage to replace her, perhaps a maritime one, then called her Cassiopeia. This is what the Trundle retcon feels like to me.

Riot is great at making great things. The difficulty here is that there's old things you're replacing. Your new thing doesn't just have to be good, it has to statisfy fans of the old thing as well or you'll anger those fans. The Sion rework was quite low-risk here I feel, there weren't many pre-rework Sion fans. Retconning Xerath/Trundle/the very premise of the lore...

Edit: As pointed out, speaking about Xeraths/Trundles character here. I like the kit changes, don't mind Trundle being an ice troll chieftain.

CuixDec 1, 201410 votes

Retconning Xerath/Trundle/the very premise of the lore...

Notably, the kit work done on Xer/Trundle was all lovely. It's the character changes which are atrocious.

XulsigaeDec 1, 20147 votes

I think it would be also akin to taking away old Summoner's Rift and having a grey screen for the champions to play on until the new and improved Rift is put in. As it is, Riot put the Rift in fairly slowly and with lots of testing and it worked wonders (I think).

I know the Lore sites and Rift map are different, but I wonder why the Lore wasn't done in a similar fashion.

CuixDec 1, 201411 votes

Ok, so let's say that when we were working on Sion we plastered the forums with excuses as to why the team couldn't fix him fast enough.

That basically did happen, in the form of "actually guys Sion's kit is incredibly bad and we need to just remake him entirely" posts. Which, to be clear, was totally true and justified. I'm happy with the rework.

Let's say with every new breakthrough we made a post, then had to backtrack because that breakthrough didn't pan out. Let's say that we handed out assurances like paper plates at a barbecue, raised expectations, then had to disappoint when we weren't able to deliver on a previously promised time due to unforeseen hurdles, technical or otherwise.

Well, that would be a silly conclusion. Making a post is different than making a promise. Saying "we're trying X but dunno if it'll happen" then following up with "it didn't work, trying other stuff" is fine. That's been done before, and in fact happened a lot with the much-lauded Xerath rework. (More importantly, this isn't what I was talking about, but it's an easy point to address anyway so I figured I would.)

We could spend all the time in the world building a bridge of wooden words, or we could really put in a comprehensive effort and focus on delivery, crunching away, building that bridge steel girder by steel girder so that when we have something that's great, we give that to players as something solid and enduring.

Ooooor you could involve the community. Or you could give the community a chance to at least talk about what they do/don't enjoy about a champ/story/image/idea, then learn from their responses. Wait a minute... didn't that all happen with Sion? Xerath, too, actually. Those were pretty well-received, I thought. Skarner was pretty disappointing, up until that dialogue/feedback stuff started actually happening, at which point there was steady improvement on all fronts. Trundle and Cass are good examples of what happens when feedback is received but discarded, leading to some pretty ugly scenarios. There's quite a bit of actual evidence, here, pointing towards openness and communication as being helpful.

But in the end, what matters to players, I feel, is awesome content, delivered when it's ready.

Sure, except when that content destroys immersion and deletes entire novels of fan work without any significant gain, all as a shock reveal from a team that stayed MIA for a few years. Sudden cool content works for, say, cinematics. Jinx's music vid, Ahri & Leona's Teamfight Adventure, the Pentakill album, all awesome surprises. Hell, U.R.F. mode was a roaring success. Nothing was removed, merely explored or expanded. On the other hand, retconning the IoW along with several champion backstories and all of Runeterra's interconnectedness without warning was a decision that was impressively shortsighted at best.

A picture, a story, a fun piece of gameplay, is worth a thousand words.

Yes, it can be. In this case, we got a blog post worth hundreds of thousands of words... being wiped away, suddenly and strangely.

Let me be clear about this: You and the art team in general are doing things right. Taric threads, Eve threads, Cait threads, threads upon threads upon threads. It's gorgeous. The champ rework teams seem to have gotten things right, too, with one recent exception (a problem due to lack of allowing early impactful dialogue, I might add). Riot still seems to care about players overall (finally a double IP weekend!), but the Lore department seems frustratingly unwilling to fix this massive mistake.

DG AshabelDec 1, 201413 votes

On the one hand, you're not wrong. A lot of issues could be solved with consistent delivery of high-quality content.

However, how would you consider solving a situation where the delivered content is anything but high-quality? The Shurima videos are infamously used as an example of how MOBAs have invariably bad writing, all of Kalista's "lore" is one-dimensional and has barely anything to do with Kalista herself, Xerath's short story was halfway plagiarized from a famous manga, Azir's short story had some serious stylistic issues (referring to Azir by his name every single time, resulting in oversaturation of the word). People are, to put it bluntly, unhappy with all of this new lore.

Now, I know that in the past, the response of the narrative team to criticism was improving on the established template. Kitae famously edited the lore for both Jayce and Udyr to be better stylistically and fix inconsistencies, turning fairly unpopular pieces into something much more compelling. Champion design and art team also mostly work on the same level, with a few exceptions such as the nightmare that is Kayle's new splash art.

But the narrative team's reaction to the dislike of new lore has consistently been "Pshaw, this is awesome and you guys are actually loving it. You just don't understand how much you're loving it yet," something that offended and angered more people than it pleased. Add to it the part where some of the longer lore pieces cannot logically be finished at this point (Evelynn is stated to receive a complete narrative and art overhaul, so there is no way her long-form lore already exists) and there is valid reason why people begin to suspect that the whole "technical issue" is mostly smoke and mirrors.

So I guess the logistical question here is, how would you solve a situation where the new content is poorly received but the developer abrasively insists that people who say that don't count as far as their decision-making goes?

CupcakeTrapDec 1, 20146 votes

Outstanding post. Philomelle for President.

Kitae famously edited the lore for both Jayce and Udyr to be better stylistically and fix inconsistencies, turning fairly unpopular pieces into something much more compelling.

This should be cited more often. Not only does Narrative have good examples aplenty in people like IronStylus and, well, essentially all of the rest of Riot, but it can look within the history of the Lore department generally.

It is perhaps not a coincidence that Kitae gave the only answer to the lore community's increasingly worried questions about whether the League was being retconned: she said that the League and Summoners still existed, but they were simply focusing on other stories for the time being. I have no reason to doubt that what she said was true when she said it. Perhaps Kitae's departure marked the beginning of the present disaster.

Earl EulrichDec 1, 201413 votes

So let´s break it down to the basic failure:

Let´s assume you have an "awesome" new rig for Eve planned out for yourself. Now would go and just like that replace the Current Eve by a Blue Cuboid, promising you´ll deliver the new rig someday once technical issues are fixed. But you don´t only do that, you basically say those Champs will look totally different outside of the client than they do ingame...as the client limits you too much on your freedom as an artist. And even despite people telling you that your artworks donßt come near anything they expected to be "Eve" you wonßt talk to them at all, because your vision is absolutely superior.

Or to some up the major problems with Lore atm:

there´s still no significant reason why the Iow/Summoners had to go (and even if we assume it´s for the better there still would be no reason to not have it disappear via a real Lore-event)
there´s abolutely no reason to compeltely destroy any chance for immersion by seperating Lore and the actual game
Champs identities/characters don´t get preservered when their Lore gets rewritten
you just cannot (and i mean you absolutely cannot) retcon all premisses of a universe and don´t prepare anything to replace them beforehand.
there has been an incredible amount of really constructive Threads about this whole mess by lots of passionate players (heck, just check out Cupcaketrap and Factions...you can´t get more than that), but there had not been a single serious attempt at meaningful communication from the Lore-Department.

Sneak DogDec 1, 201410 votes

Personally, I think the rift is better solved by actually defending the retcon. We've never been told why the retcon is good for the lore safe for the one dev blog. Since then, there's been numerous discussions about this retcon. However, when a narrative member posts on this subboard, it always seems to be with an attitude that the retcon is done and we should stop bothering with resisting it. To me** it feels like retconning out the very premise of the lore is being taken lightly.** Not only the IoW is getting retconned either though. *Characters *are also just being retconned and replaced. It's like the narrative department is doing whatever they want and all criticism they don't like is just getting ignored.

I've no faith in the current lore department since a year ago, when my favorite troll got bluntly replaced with a new different troll. The current retconning isn't exactly helping either. (nothing personal against specific narrative members though, I appreciate that those even post in this subboard...)

While surely getting content delivered will help statisfying other people, it won't help with everyone. Surely you too, parrot, see the many threads about the retcon?

CupcakeTrapDec 1, 201411 votes

I echo my fellow lore community members' statements about how much we like you and how nice of you it is to come by on your post-Thanksgiving Sunday evening to share information with us.

I personally believe that this "rift" is simply solved by the delivery of content, not an extensive laundry list of excuses that we could potentially barf out. I think, and see, the internal efforts that go on.

I don't believe they were referring to discontent over delay in lore when they spoke of the larger rift between Narrative and the lore community. Actually, it's the shock reveals of rewrites themselves that have us on edge. Like Don Eulrich said:

And you have to acknowledge that this here is just the very peak of the problems that rift between the Lore-Community and the Lore-Departement since the retcon. Despite your best effort you cant accomplish anything here I´m afraid. It´s a matter that only the Lore-Team can fix, and I for one fear that they are way beyond the point of wanting to do anything about it at all.

This is Narrative's community relations problem. They've quite expressly said that they have no desire to engage with us in a serious way. The first barrage they fired has become a blessing in disguise: by declaring the IoW and Summoners (as we know them, or should I say, as we know us) non-canon, they basically said they're hands-off on those areas, allowing the lore community to continue developing them. But they've actually gone back on even that (quite contemptuous) "promise", by saying that they are now going to rewrite Summoners into something that has nothing to do with the League of Legends. They'll probably throw in another insulting strawman reference to "Summoners enslaving Champions", like they did the first time.

What I think is most damning: even when it comes to their planned rewrite of Summoners, our characters in this universe, our own in-universe personas, they are showing a complete refusal to discuss or engage with us. In some amount of time, they'll slap it down in pre-packaged, locked-in form, and then start up discussion threads so that we can talk about how much we like or dislike what they've done—a complete waste of energy, seeing as it will have been too late by far for such discussion to have changed anything.

You are an awesome Rioter, IronStylus. You're everything these Narrative types aren't. Please understand this isn't discontentment with Riot, and certainly not with you: it's discontentment with Narrative. They are quite thoroughly un-Riotlike.

CupcakeTrapDec 1, 201410 votes

best regards

a summoner

BAM.

drops mic

DrCyanideDec 1, 20145 votes

You're honestly trying to tell us that a partial solution, getting the new lore onto the website with no mention of it in the client, should take two months?

No matter how convoluted the clients code is, you'd be making drastic changes to the existing web pages to fit the new lore content. It's probable that there are entirely new pages being built to display the lore, so the excuse that the existing web code doesn't support the lore changes doesn't make sense.

To put it in a comparison that makes more sense from an art perspective, it'd be like the art team making an update to several champion's base skins. Only instead of the updated skins being updated in client, we got gray models. We're told there are technical reasons why the client can't handle the color palate chosen. Riot posts pictures of only two of the new skins, while leaving all of them gray in game. Riot works another base skin, but this one isn't gray. Riot releases a new champion, but this one also releases gray. A picture of the new champion's base skin is posted on the forums.

Ultimately, everyone wonders why the one change got through, but the others didn't. What's more, everyone wonders why Riot rolls out the changes, and why most of the champions with the gray base skins haven't even had screenshots posted, even after two months.

Now, try and tell us that anyone at Riot would allow that to happen. You'd figure out the technical issues before rolling out the changes. You have to at least admit that Lore is being treated like side project compared to the other aspects of League of Legends.

ImpetualDec 2, 20143 votes

Once again Iron Stylus, I love your work, but here is part of the problem:

The only Rioter responding to a thread on Lore is a concept artist!

I would rather wait a week and have a Rioter that actually has answers about this kinda stuff respond.

IS, we love your work in the art department. This is about lore.

The thing is, I want to actually hear from Rioters in the lore departmen for once.

I don't think that's too unreasonable, considering the track record Riot's lore department had built over years of (lack of) community interaction in regards to their lore.

Gentleman GastonNov 30, 201433 votes

There is some serious tin-foil hat wearing in this thread.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201419 votes

Couldn't agree more.

GreenLoreNov 30, 201424 votes

It'd be pointless to lie about this stuff,I mean they did put some lores here into the forums and even if they haven't finished some of the new lores for some shurima champs,it'd be a better excuse to say "we are still changing some stuff around because we listened to your feedback regarding these champs" instead of leaving it this way.

However they really take too long and it is unreasonable to include the short lores before they solved this problem,I mean there is literally 0 gain from that other than making the lore fans even more angry than they already are.

DarkerGreyNov 30, 20145 votes

They probably just don't have anyone qualified to fix the tech issues.

Think about it, the lore team is mostly composed of writers and whatnot. They are not the ones in charge of modifying the website, making databases, and programming the client. These lore changes actually require a lot of effort from multiple teams, and some of them were busy with the new ~~Summoner's~~ Rift.

I'm just speculating, however, so we can't really be sure of anything until Riot finally breaks their silence. Here I'm supposed to make a joke about Morello and all the silences nerfed from the game.

PryotraNov 30, 201412 votes

I think the issue here is hyperlinks, sadly enough. Riot's poor programmers combined with the abomination known as Adobe Air leads to some pretty basic tech problems.

That said, I'm a programmer, but I doubt Riot would have me. I could probably get this done in a day, unless they haven't even made the sites to house the lore, in which case give me a week and I could pump out a template for both.

It's pretty sad that they can't manage this, because as far as I can see, the main issue is that they don't know how to store hyperlinks in a database. An interesting problem, but it really shouldn't have caused a hold up this long.

This assumes, of course, that they are done writing the pieces.

RiotIronStylusDec 1, 201417 votes

Wouldn't have you? What's that predicated on?

Nothing wrong with giving it the ol' college try. Be our guest:

http://www.riotgames.com/careers?location%5B%5D=9&search=

ArveanorDec 1, 20142 votes

I guess you have access to all the design documentation on what Riot's asking their engineers to build for the lore hosting, then? Programming: More easily taught then critical thinking.

PryotraDec 1, 20146 votes

Critical thinking is the core of programming. Programming is all about solving problems.

Coding, however, is pretty easily taught. It's like learning to write in a new language. Still need the fundamentals of grammar to do anything with it.

vscAlohaDec 1, 20147 votes

I tend to take Stylus' PoV on the Lore, and especially with tech issues.

I'd like to take a second to point out that a game, made by Refract Studios, titled "Distance" had its Kickstarter opened back in late 2012 with Alpha footage. As a backer, I've been assured and seen evidence that these devs are working long hours to make their dream a reality, but even after two years, the game is still in early Beta.

These things take time, setbacks with engine or old code compact this, especially at a studio like Riot, where the demand for content has outscaled their software's overall capacity (shoutout to those Engineers IronStylus speaks of, good luck trying to root through all of the old work (note the term 'work,' please) to fix your current problems and future). I would hope that Riot has not compromised its integrity to cover for anything, though, via IronStylus' enthusiasm, I will assume that this is not the case.

Is there a problem? Definitely.

Would the knowledge of said problem help to calm everyone? Sure, until the sealant on that Band-Aid wears off.

Should Narrative follow the examples set by Art and ChampUp in terms of forum involvement? "Sure," but would it be practical for them?

Would involving a large population of passionate people who all have a rigid view of League's World be THAT good of an idea? For vague, direction focused work, yes, but the specifics should be left up to them (The eerie silence is very frustrating, at the least)

As an aside, I'll to liken this to Metroid's current state of Lore-Based Flux. Sakamoto (hasn't given a definite statement) has alluded heavily that the Prime Trilogy was not canon via interviews and Other M, and that Samus' portrayal as a Brooding, Vengeful Wraith heavily motivated by Revenge, Humility, and 'Compassion without Mercy ' (i.e. She didn't have a meltdown when Ridley came back from the dead, about four to six times throughout a Trilogy) was actually just Retro's interpretation, whereas Sakamoto's Samus did, in fact, melt down when faced with Ridley in Other M. To clarify, Sakamoto's Samus/Timeline is likened to the Retcon of the IoW, while Retro's Samus/Timeline is considered accepted canon.

The aside aside, IoW and Summoners are "Gone," per se, but are many of the old ideals still present? Not incredibly many, now that it's mentioned. We lost the JoJ, among others, We kept Summoner's Rift (the name, at least), but that, I feel, is foreshadowing.

If they were going to change the name, and remove summoners entirely, it would've been done with the VU of the map. But they didn't. Our figurative Sakamoto has retconned out a large part of the world, but the framework it left behind will be filled in with a different take on the world in which our champions reside.

DG AshabelDec 1, 20146 votes

Metroid's framework isn't being "filled" though. Following the release of Other M, the brand is considered severely damaged; one of the developers of Luigi's Mansion 2 outright said they asked to work on the Metroid franchise, but were rejected because Nintendo is avoiding it like wildfire. Shigeru Miyamoto himself said that Retro Games and their work on Metroid Prime will be given "a very high priority" over the Other M angle, alluding to how the retcon was received and the effect it had on the franchise.

The comparison makes me worry, if anything. Should we also wait until League's brand is considered critically damaged and hope that will get things working in a better direction?

vscAlohaDec 1, 20141 votes

Interesting take, I did not know about the Dev of LM2 being rejected, good to hear that Nintendo is going with Retro, sad to hear it is excluding the "creator and father of" Metroid/Samus.

Game lores are like phoenixes. Even if it falls, it will come back harder than we hope.

Sneak DogNov 30, 20143 votes

I feel like they might just be busy filling the thing with content. The new content but also all the old content.

Earl EulrichNov 30, 201414 votes

Which they should have done before announcing the retcon, but hey...maybe they´ll get done with it before HalfLife 3 is released.