@Riot, Can We Have A Riot Narrative Team Member Explain The Reasoning For The Retcon?

Impetual·Mar 17, 2015·5 votes·763 views

I wanna hear about things from the horse's mouth.

Riot, Why the Retcon? And How do you intend to support it?

6 Comments

KeagnMar 17, 20152 votes

Hey Impetual!

While I am not part of the Riot Narrative Team (YET. Crosses fingers and wishes upon stars.), I do know there are some other discussions and comments they've explained this in! I know there was some explanations within the Dev Blog, as well as at Pax with Morello's explanation. Jaredan also answered a series of questions here and here. I hope this helps, and I'll add more when I find it :)

GenoXxMar 17, 20151 votes

so....can't tell if ur lying or not but...... you guys really did have like 3 people writing stories/.....

KeagnMar 17, 20151 votes

{quoted}

so....can't tell if ur lying or not but...... you guys really did have like 3 people writing stories/.....

I can't officially comment on this area, I'm just a member of the community aspiring to be part of the Narrative Team, and I do not speak for Riot by any means. If I sound like they do, its only because I've picked up a habit or two while keeping up with them. I know that there is Tommy Gnox, Jaredan, Ant in Oz, and Morello is a Lead Content Designer, so he's a little bit of everywhere. It may be true, but I have a feeling they have a few more than this.

MotajoMar 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}If I sound like they do, its only because I've picked up a habit or two while keeping up with them.

You have that in spades

ImpetualMar 18, 20151 votes

I think we can agree that the Devblog didn't explain much of anything. While his posts are appreciated, Jaredan has pretty much decided not to respond to most (if not all) of the constructively critical threads about the reasons for the lore retcon.

Sure, we got a no-substance airy fairy reasoning for the retcon in the dev blog, but Riot never actual told us any of the actual details about why they decided Runeterra needed to be erased.

Heck, in the Link you provided about Morrelo's so called "explanation" he doesn't even say anything of substance! He merely states that things are taking longer than we thought they would....oops!

Man, the references you posted actually hurt your point, they don't help it.

The links you've listed actually help point out how Riot doesn't know what the heck it is doing about lore!

KeagnMar 18, 20154 votes

{quoted}

I think we can agree that the Devblog didn't explain much of anything. While his posts are appreciated, Jaredan has pretty much decided not to respond to most (if not all) of the constructively critical threads about the reasons for the lore retcon.

Sure, we got a no-substance airy fairy reasoning for the retcon in the dev blog, but Riot never actual told us any of the actual details about why they decided Runeterra needed to be erased.

Heck, in the Link you provided about Morrelo's so called "explanation" he doesn't even say anything of substance! He merely states that things are taking longer than we thought they would....oops!

Man, the references you posted actually hurt your point, they don't help it.

The links you've listed actually help point out how Riot doesn't know what the heck it is doing about lore!

{quoted}

First of all, the decision to remove the IoW and begin a new story world of Runeterra was not Narrative's alone. Rioters from many different teams have been involved in the discussion. It essentially came down to the difficulties beyond just removing the IoW. If we just wanted to remove the IoW, destroying it through some disaster, political maneuvering, or war, it would have been its own story to explore. However, there were a number of problems this caused with other plans we have for stories going forward.

In addition, there are a number of things unrelated to the IoW that we want to work on that individually could have enough of a profound effect that they would themselves necessitate the action we took. At the very least, many of those changes would necessitate creating stories just to explain changes, which is never a good starting point for a story. There were many threads that could cause many other things to unravel. With all that in mind, it was decided that an approach that would take care of all of those issues at once, and free Riot to build anew, was the best way to go. Hence the decision that was made. I'm sorry I can't go into each of the individual cases as they're pertinent to stories we plan on telling.

I would say that you have misread this, old sport. The whole "Riot doesn't know what they're doing" may be a fun little bandwagon to get behind, but it isn't the complete truth. Morello recognizes the mistake, as do the Rioters of the Narrative Team; they got a little ambitious in their goal and are now in hot water. But these bits and pieces Jaredan provided actually explain why they chose to do the retcon (if you read around you'll find their reasoning, but this Jaredan quote explains why they removed the IoW), as for how they support it, that's when they gotta step up to the plate. I can only do so much from the outside :P

P.S: If you didn't, check the Rioter comments on The Dev Blog, you might find something of interest.