Retcons and League History

Håppy·12/1/2017, 10:17:57 PM·1 votes·1,610 views

So, I'm curious.. What was the reason behind the retcon of the Institute of War? It's left many, many champions floundering (Nocturne, Fiddlesticks, Cho'Gath, Jax and more that I can't think of). With the newfound love for story coming from the writers (Varus' update is absolutely incredible, I can't believe that dude's gay now! But I always knew he was a Darkin..) shouldn't the Institute be re-instituted? Hah.

Was it to allow for the power creep of characters (Storywise), like Bard.. then Aurelion Sol.. then Zoe, it wouldn't make sense for cosmic deities and extradimensional creatures to be contained by a very very mortal institute, but it leaves the game feeling very disconnected from the story. Instead of everything being tied together, it's just "Here's a bunch of things that don't matter, now go murder each other".

9 Comments

SKRRRRRRAT12/1/2017, 10:20:27 PM4 votes

Riot makes varus gay and all the sjws cream their pants and praise it as the greatest thing ever. I can see why so many companies are pandering to those people more and more

GreenLore12/1/2017, 10:48:19 PM2 votes

In general the league had a lot of holes,inconsisties and potentially story breaking restrictions.

Like if they can't force a champion to participate then how come that Nocturne is in the league? Also summoning magic is extremely broken if you think about it(as the summoners were able to summon the real bodies if they wanted to) And it kinda makes champs like Syndra illogical(how can she talk about not being controlled while she participates in the league). Last but not least a lot of the reasons for joining didn't make much sense(oh you are weird?Then join a bloodsport where you experience a cruel death over and over again!)

CatSith12/1/2017, 11:25:47 PM2 votes

They didnt make Varus gay, they just introduced a gay couple in the comic where they released Varus from his tomb. They just made him officially a darkin and is gonna build his story upon the darkin.

resumed12/2/2017, 12:38:35 AM1 votes

it was to allow powercreep and to highlight the unique characters that inhabit the world they made for even characters who would have no purpose being summoned in some game

ValyrianBlade12/1/2017, 11:07:25 PM1 votes

I think Riot said that the institute of war restricted their ability to write lore and really create a world where league's champions could come from.

I'm not overly familiar with what the lore was, but I would imagine that if summoners had such extreme power to bring champions in to the league, then there would be no room for the champions themselves to ever accomplish anything real (because a summoner could do it or stop it so much more easily?). I think the point of the league was for the summoners to settle disputes without killing each other? So as a result anything that happened in the world would just be a predetermined outcome due to the result of a league match that the summoners concerned participated in? Makes for a pretty boring universe when any world-shaping actions are determined by the winner of a game of league...

Blitz10012/1/2017, 10:48:50 PM1 votes

The Institute of War made pretty much zero sense. It was a relic of an older League of Legends, back when Nasus was a space librarian and Blitzcrank ran a dating service. Basically, back when Riot was still a small indy company and didn't take themselves very seriously. Now that they're trying to improve their lore and actually create a cohesive and deep story (and doing a very good job of it IMO), the Institute of War just doesn't fit.

DariusDemiurge12/1/2017, 11:22:39 PM1 votes

Iow - "too restrictive." Was their main claim.

The thing is summoners never seemed unreasonably strong to me. They would randomly summon interesting beings. They couldn't just enslave them. Maybe the high end summoners could suppress some creatures. They typically made deals. Like my love Morgana was summoned and offered secrets of the summoners. You might think why would someone so strong take that offer when she was already an immeasurably powerful magic user, because one could learn so much from a different person's outlook.

They can't really remake the iow now because of said power creep and noxus would likely take no part in it since it would halt their way.

One thing I wish though was to get to know the deal of the top three summoners who ruled the iow. Where did they get their power? What was their end game? They always intrigued me, were they even human or something more? I'll never know. :(