Morello Speaks About Lore / Ret-Con (PAX East Panel on Champ Design)

TerraRising·Mar 8, 2015·9 votes·2,107 views

Fast forward the above link to around 59:00 and you'll hear a question about Lore and the retcon and an answer from Morello.

TL;DW: Morello says the same thing that Bioluminescence said a week ago, that the main problem, recently, was that Narrative took something away from the story without replacing it in a timely fashion. Morello also says that the company recognizes it as a problem but can't give specific information.

So, take it for what you will.

11 Comments

Darrosh JewfistMar 8, 20156 votes

Without specific information, this makes Riot looks extremely incompetent in this regard.

Another similar example is with FFXV, previously known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII which was originally announced in 2006. The belief in 2006 was that production had begun simultaneously between FF13 and FFVs13 but in actuality FFVs13 began production much later with a smaller team. It wasn't actually until 2012 that Square finally began pulling resources into Versus which had been renamed FFXV.

During the 2006-2009 period, there was pretty rampant speculation of problems and issues going on behind the scenes.

They turned out to be fairly accurate.

Companies are not infallible and sometimes poor planning, execution, and management does occur. This is, in my opinion, Riot's greatest failing as a company aside from the growing corporate and legal-allergy attitude: the sheer neglect of lore. At this point, it'd be best if they just come out and say it and give a solid time table for when they expect things to be finished instead of hiding behind tech issue excuses.

Because unless they announce their attentions and timeline, there's going to be complaining up to and probably well until a sizable amount of lore has been produced.

Adding to that, I still think the idea of tying lore releases to champion releases or events is stupid.

NarasimhaMar 8, 20156 votes

Wait, why is Morello speaking about lore? Is that Narrative Team hiding this well from us?

TerraRisingMar 8, 20159 votes

Long story short: Morello is the kind of guy who would rather give an incomplete answer to someone who cares enough to ask than give an "That's not our department" reply. At least he admitted that stuff was taken away and not replaced and that the "gap" has become a "gulf."

Also, there hasn't been a Narrative-based panel at a convention that's being streamed over the internet. Of course, if THAT happens without a proper Narrative team AMA being done on the boards shows us how much they really value us.

LANWhaleMar 8, 20155 votes

I'm very happy to see this.

I'm glad that we aren't the only ones who are noticing the lost of Lore and how long its taking. As well to see that not even Morello know what Narrative thinks is also kinda ironic, its as if they are just hiding from everybody since they realized they made a mistake.

I would really like to know Rioter's opinion on Narrative, i always wondered what they have to say about the Narrative team. Not on the individual level of course but as a whole.

Jeddy017Mar 8, 20153 votes

Yeah,it's kind of obvious that is the biggest problem here that only multiply all the other problems.

NorthernDruidMar 8, 20151 votes

I think the video is broken.

At least non-narrative people are well aware of all the stupid issues the forthcoming retcon has brought.

TerraRisingMar 8, 20151 votes

You have to click the link above the video.

NorthernDruidMar 8, 20156 votes

Thanks.

I'll just be dumping some stuff that cam to mind (and words, words are also important when writing).

One of the things that continues to strike me as they seek to divorce the story of Runeterra from the game it relies on to even exist. Is that it's not really "Lore" any more, because it doesn't have any bearing on the game, since the game doesn't to any extent express the story, and, in my opinion worse, that the story doesn't any longer express it's connection to the game.

Lore, for a video game, is an extension of the story told within the medium, it's all the small tidbits that you can't properly express in the game itself, but which lends context for the story of the game.

The current "Lore" does not exist in a capacity which supports the game at all, since the champions no longer have their motivations or struggles imposed on the game itself, since the game no longer helps drive the story.

Simplified, I think it's false advertising to call what ever they make now 'League of Legends' Lore' when the story and the game doesn't interact. I no longer gain more context for any of the things in the game by reading/watching/listening/whatever the new fictional material, because explicitly, the game itself is no longer canon.

To that end I don't know why they haven't simplified it to "We don't have a story for our game anymore" and just left the story aspect of everything behind. (Actually I do know, it's because they know the game will sell more if the characters portrayed in it have some sort of narrative attached)

'Game Lore' is something you have when you have external material explaining details about your game world.

But the new stance is that the game world doesn't exist.

As such, if they're gonna retcon out the game, they'd better stop calling it lore, because it's a false claim.