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Wait a second. CarnivalKnights is TommyGnox? (Edit: Nevermind, I'm wrong. But hey! Star Wars!)

CupcakeTrap··12 votes·5,498 views

http://i.imgur.com/KgqlaVT.png

I went to get a screenshot of TommyGnox's announcement of the much-derided Great Retcon, when I noticed a striking change: the comment was attributed to "CarnivalKnights".

Talk about a Harrowing scare.

EDIT: TerraRising has set me straight on this count. I misremembered: I thought TommyGnox had posted that much-hated comment, but it actually was CarnivalKnights after all. CarnivalKnights is not TommyGnox, as dramatic as that would have been. It was all just a bad dream, the nightmare before Snowdown.

http://blog.retroplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Obi-Wan_Luke_Lightsaber.jpg

"That is Riot's League of Legends. Not as generic or bland as the new Runeterra. A clever excuse plot, from a more interesting time."

click

WELCOME TO SUMMONER'S RIFT!

"For over a thousand generations (of very short-lived creatures), the League of Legends was the guardian of peace and justice in Valoran. Before the dark times. Before the Retcon."

"How did the lore die?"

"A young Rioter named TommyGnox. A Summoner himself, before he turned to evil. He betrayed and murdered the lore. TommyGnox was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force a bunch of really stupid arguments about how the League had to be all-powerful and Summoners were puppetmasters instead of allies to Champions."

"What was the League of Legends?"

"Well, the League was what gave the game a backstory, and the universe some cohesion. It brought players into the story as Summoners, and created a sense of immersion. In-universe, it was a supranational entity founded to hear international disputes and enforce the laws of war. Sometimes it was used as an alternative to war, and sometimes it simply struggled to contain conflicts and prevent their unchecked escalation. It was a meeting place for people of all nations. It gave Champions from faraway places a reason to interact, and bound the universe together."

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130324024419/starwars/images/d/dd/Yodalukedagobah.png

"Yes! The lore's strength flows from the community! But beware the Retcon."

"Is the Retcon better?"

"No. Quicker, easier, more seductive. But once you start down that path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will, as it did TommyGnox."

"So are you like a yordle, or what?"

"Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions."

http://entregeeks.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/darth-vader-luke.jpg

"With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring greater marketability to our product."

"I'll never join you!"

"If you only knew the power of the Retcon. … Obi-Wan never told you what happened to the lore."

"HE TOLD ME ENOUGH! HE TOLD ME YOU KILLED IT."

"Yes. And now I'm controlling the Narrative department."

"But you're not even at Riot anymore! You haven't posted in ages! It's all CarnivalKnights, and he seems okay!"

"No. I am CarnivalKnights."

"That's not true. THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"

"Search the Dev Blog. There's a screenshot that proves this is true."

"…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XarHF2gaTR0/maxresdefault.jpg

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"When TommyGnox became CarnivalKnights, he started actually talking to the community, even though Narrative is still way behind the rest of Riot on that. So when I said TommyGnox wasn't around anymore, what I told you was true…from a certain point of view."

"A certain point of view?!"

"Specifically, a completely inaccurate and misleading point of view, but yes."

18 Comments

TerraRising6 votes

Scroll down further. Tommy's comments were downvoted to obscurity but his comments are still there.

CupcakeTrap3 votes

Scroll down further. Tommy's comments were downvoted to obscurity but he's still there.

Argh. You're right. I'll edit the OP. I think I'd just forgotten who said what.

But it was such a dramatic reveal!

TerraRising2 votes

Scroll down further. Tommy's comments were downvoted to obscurity but he's still there.

Argh. You're right. I'll edit the OP. I think I'd just forgotten who said what.

But it was such a dramatic reveal!

"But that's like..."

Never mind. Too Soon™!

RiotCarnival Knights9 votes

3fast 5furious

CupcakeTrap2 votes

3fast 5furious

On the plus side, we don't have to leap into the Cloud City chasm now, and I think it also means we avoid the equivalent of finding out we kissed our sister, whatever that would be. And you're not Darth Vader, so there's that.

Still, so much less dramatic this way. You should give more thought to the narrative advantages of a sinister secret identity.

TerraRising4 votes

3fast 5furious

Nice to see you respond, but why this thread? There are so many others here that could use some red attention.

RiotCarnival Knights10 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary from the get go, but that shouldn't be stopping me (as Morello pointed out in another thread). I apologize for the absence, and can perhaps offer some insights in a thread that isn't closing in on my secret double life as the Mothman.

Also, the gum is in your pocket. /hangs up phone

Hellioning4 votes

You could make your own thread, hopefully starting the discussion off to a productive note. I mean, I doubt it, given this forum's general view on the narrative team and the decisions they've made, but the longer you put it off the louder the complaints are gonna get.

TerraRising8 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary from the get go, but that shouldn't be stopping me (as Morello pointed out in another thread). I apologize for the absence, and can perhaps offer some insights in a thread that isn't closing in on my secret double life as the Mothman.

Also, the gum is in your pocket. /hangs up phone

I'll give you some friendly (seriously) advice that other Narrative/Lore team members have ignored for years: The less you talk to us, the more hostile we get.

I don't know if you've read any of my essays about Narrative's history with their fans, but the a good chunk of hostility in both Lore forums stems from all the silence we've received along with the unpleasant surprise alterations to the story (Freljord, end of JoJ, removal of IoW and summoners from the story, etc.) It truly felt like each writer working on lore had nothing but contempt for the peons who was curious about the story and we just grew bitter.

It's not your fault, specifically, but it is the fault of the lore team members who could have said something, chose not to for whatever reason and let the environment around here become as brutal and angry as it is.

(Off the top of my head, I can think of three Rioters who still work for the company that fall under that category.)

Another thing: Narrative is in control of the conversation. If there are projects that you really can't talk about, fine. But if other Rioters at other departments can ask for advice on champions years down the line, certainly you can gleam ideas and directions from us you haven't considered. At the very least, you can figure out what our actual positions are for your "internal debates" instead of creating strawman positions you think we hold.

We want to help and we want to be nice (for the most part. However, if there's no one around to help or be nice to, we get resentful. Keep that in mind.

Also, a personal request: Fix Singed's bio! He's been out of canon for two years and we shouldn't have to wait for the Zaun event to get him in line!

Terra Booma4 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary from the get go, but that shouldn't be stopping me (as Morello pointed out in another thread). I apologize for the absence, and can perhaps offer some insights in a thread that isn't closing in on my secret double life as the Mothman.

Also, the gum is in your pocket. /hangs up phone

We love our rioters that actually show up here, even if we admitedly can get a little....more then reasonably angry. We're a bit of a disgruntled family and change is kinda...hard to take, especially on the scale that it did.

A lot of us realize this and have calmed down a bunch, we're happy to have you :D Here's hoping for some happy discussions.

Diahane5 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary from the get go, but that shouldn't be stopping me (as Morello pointed out in another thread). I apologize for the absence, and can perhaps offer some insights in a thread that isn't closing in on my secret double life as the Mothman.

Also, the gum is in your pocket. /hangs up phone

Guess I'm just going to be the umpteenth to try to get the message across by giving you a board's notification. The worst thing about the Story & Art board and the overall management of the lore is how it seems that you only reply to either people congratulating for your work or people joking / posting silly things, while critiques are never addressed. There has been, for instance, a fair deal of anti-retcon topics on top of the "Best" list on the boards, but nothing on that side has moved to address that beyond "trust us, we'll get better" and such. What I'd suggest, as constructive criticism, apart from people of narrative actually hanging around the boards and do what other Rioters from other departments do (eg: IronStylus, whom is indeed loved, guess why), is for narrative to set up either of both of the following two things:

  1. Set a sort of patch notes for retconned content, because a lot of things are just up in the air and distinguish whether something stays canon is difficult. The rule of "just strip the IoW from the events and you'll be fine" doesn't always lead to sensible results. For instance, the Kalamanda arc isn't clear at all now: if there was no third party pressuring Noxus and Demacia into refraining from open war, why would LeBlanc pose as Jarvan IV to set Demacia up as the aggressor? Wouldn't the two countries be more than happy to start an open war from the start?
  2. Host an AMA session. We've got AMAs for pretty much every other aspect of the game, why not one about lore? Riot's changed what literally gave the name to the game and we get no AMA for it, does that even make sense? As one could guess from the -520 score of your comment confirming the retcon of the IoW and the +624 of the user saying that as a lore lover part of him died, that was a pretty big deal which would've called for way more community engagement.

In general, I'd suggest narrative to get things out before having them set in stone when they are a retcon / rework of something. Surprise events are good for new content, but a surprise retcon, like the one of the IoW, proved to be pretty nefarious (again, refer to the downvotes and upvotes of the quoted comments).

Earl Eulrich3 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary

I think there´s a very big difference between something beeing hostile and something being critic... If you just choose the "best"-sorting here in the boards you´ll find a lot of Posts with constructive criticism on why everyone feels betrayed from the retcon/feels it´s unnecessary and -howcaniputthis- not so well handled, and even less well communicated.

We don´t mean harm to any of you personally, we just want to preservere the unique universe Runeterra had been before the retcon - cause we think there´s enough evidence that this is indeed absolutely possible. So please listen carefully to the arguments without feeling attacked by them, and then reply seriously - and if you cannot answer them with meaningfull argumentation...maybe, just maybe question yourself if the retcon had been the right decission and should be "set in stone".

CupcakeTrap8 votes

True. I'm a little tepid when it comes to threads that are hostile/contrary from the get go, but that shouldn't be stopping me (as Morello pointed out in another thread). I apologize for the absence, and can perhaps offer some insights in a thread that isn't closing in on my secret double life as the Mothman.

Also, the gum is in your pocket. /hangs up phone

(Emphasis added.)

CK, I think you're alright, but if I may—even in this comment here, the problem is apparent. The lore community isn't primarily focused on getting you to "offer some insights" into what you've already done, or what's already locked in. We're asking for you to stop making everything a shock reveal. Right now, we don't even know what's next in line for a major rewrite. It's not just that you haven't created a rework thread outlining your plans and seeking input: we don't know what's being torn apart next, and we won't know until it's too late for community discussion to make a difference, at least not if past experience is any guide.

They say "never make a threat you're not prepared to carry out." It works for promises, too. You don't have to engage with the community. That's what Riot does, and I think it's part of what makes Riot great, but many don't. So, if the new model for lore is to raze established lore and replace it with material you guys like better, then just do that. It's not a crime to say you don't care what we think. That sounds harsh, and by Riot standards it is a shocking departure, but from a broader perspective it's not that weird.

You need to make this decision one way or the other. Maybe you're so committed to your Great New Plan for lore that you think a strictly top-down process is necessary. But the path you're on now is not without dangers. If you clear-cut an old growth forest, you can't just throw seeds around and bring it back. There's a lore ecosystem here. People have Summoner characters. They have years of community lore. They have attachments to their Champions' personalities and backstories. When you rip out huge pieces of the original lore, which admittedly is sometimes a bit gnarled and twisty, you do a great deal of collateral damage. The new stuff you're planting might be very attractive and photogenic, but no matter how nice the parking lot it won't sustain the creatures that lived in those twisted boughs of the old lore.

Myself? I'm not particularly invested in this anymore. Riot has finally exceeded my ability to adapt. I can't follow you into a League of Legends universe that doesn't contain a League of Legends. I'm just going to be digging through the new stuff you put out and trying to find elements that can be imported into the original lore universe, in which most of us will continue to reside.

From that perspective? Eh. Do what you want. I would certainly like it if, rather than doing everything as a shock reveal, you handled it like a gameplay rework: "Here's what we're thinking of doing. We're still in draft stages. What do you all think?"

But hey, it's not personal. (Unless you lay your filthy paws on Veigar. Then we're going to have a problem.) It makes me pretty sad that when I see a "new lore posted!" announcement, my honest-to-the-Mothership reaction is fear. That's not an attempt at melodrama: my instinctive response is "oh, no, what did they do now? How much collateral damage is this going to do? Is there any way for us to bring this into community canon?" I try to just enjoy the material in its own right, but I can't.

Legacy of Xion5 votes

This post is why Lore needs to take a huge U turn. Why they need to stop these stupid shock reveals. Because, it will just cause your department for hatred. Listen to the damn Cupcake Riot; this guy runs one of the biggest lore based fan initiatives I have ever seen.

And as for CupcakeTrap losing it over Veigar, you will find one person for every champion. Me for Kayle, the Not fUrgot - en fandom. Those who love Rengar and Nidalee and adore Gnar.

If only they realized retconning and changing everything will do far more harm then any good...

Cookiehime5 votes

That was a little scary. Is that related to the Harrowing?

But Star Wars!

Malzahar : "Join the dark side of the force Void!"

Kassadin : "Never! Give me back my daughter!"

Malzahar : "Hey, just noticed you look like Darth Vader."

Kassadin : "Don't dodge the issue."

Diahane4 votes

I love this thread. If I could, I'd threw upvotes to it.

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