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Lets all cooperate to give Riot our opinions and Ideas for the direction of League's new lore.

Kadavik·6/30/2015, 2:05:49 AM·7 votes·2,629 views

I started playing league around a year ago and I explicitly remember the first piece of news I read on the client. It was a huge article written by the then narrative lead of riot stating the elimination of summoners and the institute of war. Now as a new player this didn't have that huge of an impact on me since I was mostly worried about getting enough IP to buy my first champion Viktor . Now, the reason I wanted to buy him other than the fact that we shared the same name was that his lore appealed to me more than that of any other champion. I really loved his story and enjoyed my rise to lvl 30 getting absolutely obliterated by Yasuo and Katarina mains. Good times. Anyway, Viktor's Lore got me hooked on the universe of Runeterra (Is it just Valoran now? I don't know) and I spent most of my time reading through the journal of justice, the league judgements and even the factions story arks (hey cupcake trap awesome work). Nowadays I spend a lot of my time reading the Story and Art section of the boards and wondering what awaits us in the future. I am not part of those that enjoyed the lore before the retcon, but maybe you guys and us newbies could cooperate by giving Jaredan and the narrative guys our Ideas for the direction of Leagues new lore to make it the best it can be at such a critical time as now. Cheers guys, lets make this world feel alive.

32 Comments

Nameless Hero7/1/2015, 8:09:05 PM3 votes

Hey dude, just taking 5 minutes to tell you that I like your attitude. League of Legends is a game and the reason we have lore is to extend the story beyond the game and have FUN!

That being said, you will have a better chance of getting respected by Riot AND by the community if you respect the rules, don't post fanfiction, hold a reasoned open minded discussion and respect the copyrights. But whatever happens : DONT FEED THE TROLLS!! No, not even the whiny ones.

Some posters have multiple accounts just for downvoting stuff and some dummy accouts are created just to troll and post racist, toxic stuff without fear of getting banned. Don't fall into that trap and keep smiling.

I love Lore and I love League but it's just not worth it to ruin your day and to get in a heated discussion with people who rant about why Riot didn't them specifically for their permission before changing the lore.

Stay classy and it will be fine. But keep your eyes peeled 'cause a shitstorm is coming

333lom6/30/2015, 11:15:34 PM3 votes

You know, I came here to tell you that I completely agree, and that I was about to create a thread with the same proposal. Then I saw that you've written Champion 112, and I thought, no way, that couldn't be Viktor, nobody besides me bought Viktor as technically their first champion; I remember playing like insane to gather enough ip for him! Still, out of all games I've played, I played him in 95% of them. Anyway, our situation is exactly the same, except that I don't share that name, and I couldn't. I stayed because of Viktor's lore, and that's how I learned to care about the lore back at the end of 2012. Now, before I start blabbing about how he and his lore are incredible, I think it is really important for us fans to get through to Riot, to ask them not to change the characters. I'm afraid they might try one day to retcon him into an evil cyborg overlord/Saturday cartoon villain. We are the consumers, and Riot should, in theory, take our requests into consideration. They did that at least once, with Jayce's old lore. What bothers me the most is that, all of the pieces of the new lore, were very cliché and hollow, feeling more like a big budget Hollywood film without a soul, than parts of a live world. The Institute of War not only provided the necessary plot device to explain the interactions between all these different characters (because in the end, that connection between characters from different genres is what makes lol unique), it provided the backbone for their universe. It was identifiable as a world. Now, it's as good as any other generic fantasy land with warriors, demons and steampunk elements.

I wish Riot would understand that players have gotten attached to characters. Old Trundle's removal was very stressful for people whose favourite character he was. You being new, you can find all the old lore stored on the LoL Wiki. I wish Riot would admit they made a mistake with the Great Retcon, and just Retcon the Retcon. I liked the IoW and the role Summoners had very much. And if only Riot could develop their world not just by adding random overpowered characters, but by letting characters interact as well. That could in fact, allow Runeterra to move away from cliché stories for masses, and onto the area where it begins to feel original, alive, and flow naturally. Just like in Factions! CCT showed that it's possible. I'd like to hear what the Narrative guys think about that kind of storytelling.

So, here are my points:

  1. I hope they stop retconning champions, and return the ones they already did
  2. I hope they could return IoW and Summoners, but if they absolutely refuse to do that,
  3. I hope they could look up to Factions, and develop the world with interactions.

And thanks for making this thread!

Nameless Hero7/6/2015, 6:11:47 PM2 votes

First of all, I'm sorry if I take a lot of time to answer, I'm very busy, so I don't really have the time to monitor the dicussion. I will post three debates on the future of the lore when I have the time, so if you have an answer to a debate, reply to it only. No flaming please, just because you're an old lore fiend doesn't mean that your opinion is better than the newbies and just because you're a newb doesn't mean that you can disrespect the veterans.

So let's get started: the **FIRST **thing that we know about the Future Lore is that:

**1) THE ACTUAL LEAGUE COMPETITION IS GONE. ** I.e Champions are no longer tied to the League arena and what we play every evening is a giant What-if deathbattle between summoners who invoke the spirits of legendary champions to see what if such or such thing happened. Such as... What if Tryndamere had joined the ranks of Sejuani instead of Ashe in the war of the Freljord? Who would have won in a death battle?

THE IMPLICATIONS:

First of all, it means that for good or for bad, the league judgements will be completely irrelevant.

Secondly, it means that the events in the Journal of Justice may or may not be relevent.

Thirdly and most importantly, it completely changes the identity of many champions such as: OriannaTaricSivirSonaJaxAlistarMonkeyKingLeeSinFiddlesticks : who no longer have any justification to fight. They need a complete identity revamp

Finally, the absence of the league will create a big problem for other champions who otherwise had no other connection to the world of Runeterra: Kayle Morgana Ryze

This change alone is massive and fans are right to be afraid that their favourite champion will change for the worse. Ex Victor used to be JUST a genius generic inventor, with the change he became an amoral genius inventor villain! While his lore is certainly more fleshed out and he has now developped a rivalry with Jayce, he is now a FUCKING VILLAIN! If I was a Victor main, I would have flipped my shit.

But it's also an opportunity for your favourite champion to get some much needed characterisation. Ex Sion was just an undead generic monster, with the change he became a tough as shit die hard zombie general!

So guys, what do you think?

  1. Which champion did I miss? Who else will be affected when Riot Retcons the League?

  2. Is there a trend in the above champions that I missed? A pattern, a shared characteristic among the above champions?

  3. Do you think that the champions that I mentioned above will suck or is it finally time for them to get some love in the lore department?

  4. And perhaps the most useful question for RIOT: what would you like the above champion to be? Or rather.. what is absolutely Vital for each champ? And what can be sacrificed in order to advance the story line?

Sneak Dog6/30/2015, 6:45:38 AM2 votes

My opinion is out there, but regardless.

Retconning the world is acceptable by me. I wasn't invested in the world, I was invested in the characters. Retconning the characters shouldn't be done in my opinion. Right now, Riot basically told me they'll happily retcon characters for no good reason. This means I'm not willing to get invested in the characters. I don't think Riots stories will be very engaging when this is the case. I don't see why this wouldn't be the case for others on these forums too, but not many seem too bothered..

I liked the games immersion, how the entire game was explained and named appropriately. Runepages, influence points, mastery pages. A games story can only be 'good' without integrating the game, it won't become 'amazing'. I can settle for good if that's the best Riot can do.

If Riot doesn't change its ways, then the story won't work for me anymore. Already I play pretty much because of mechanics and friends. When a better moba comes along, I'll happily abandon League. I owe no loyalty to Riot, not after they betrayed my trust two years ago with Trundle (rework? That was a blatant replacement of a champion). I'm sad Dawngate didn't work out, so now I remain on these boards and hope Jaredan listens.

The narrative team has acted so much out of character for Riot that I'm uncertain of what to expect. They've given false reasons for retconning the IoW. They removed a champion for reasons they now no longer agree with. They're behind closed curtains and do not seem to take feedback well (hard to tell though -,-). Compare this to other parts of Riot: Gameplay, where they are very open to explain their reasonings. Art and skins, where they make use of the pbe to gather feedback. Player behavior. Also a closed box, but with Lyte popping up irregularly to explain what he is doing, taking criticism. There's the forums showing the results.

There's hope, but if Riot continues with their disregard for characters, I won't be wasting my time and emotions on their stories. If Trundle remains as an example of the new lore direction, I'll just be gone once they started up their lore-machine properly.

DamienSolta7/1/2015, 8:39:43 PM2 votes

It seems unlikely that there will be an retcon on the retcon. I'd like for them to just reboot (not as in reset, but instead as in bring everything in line and consistent all at once, and in a major way. In The Game preferably and clearly) the whole world at this point, or at least implement all the new lore/character stuff all at once in a consistent way. I want to know who is a yordle again! And what the world looks like (even if they add in a ton of here be dragons type blank space).

If they have been spending this much time on it, like, the longer the wait, the better it has to be. So something big. Fxing all the technology limitations isn't as easy as it is to say, sure, but y'all aren't the scrappy little indie company operation on dreams/passion but no budget so you kinda loose a little of that forgiveness that I'd offer to a smaller outfit. I honestly have no idea about anything in the world since the retcon was so poorly handled and implemented. I'm not invested in the old lore, and I don't even know what the new lore is. Full stop. I don't even know, since its so confusingly distributed.

I believe that some rioter previously said there was a lot of in house stuff that we as players never see, and I'd like to see that stuff because the development and concept side of stuff interests me, but as for the "real" stuff I guess we should expect something pretty impressive at this point. I'd be impressed if it was just "we've fixed the technical issues, made it all pretty and easy to access, and fixed the inconsistencies within the old lore". Something that, in the abstract seeems reasonable but seems to be more difficult for Riot to implement. More trouble than it's worth perhaps? I'd like to know if anyone else has a similar mindset?

Tl:dr Make lore more consistent, clear, and accessible plz.

Edit: gosh my formatting is terrible on a mobile phone. Tried to fix it a little.

Gorgannan7/2/2015, 3:23:05 AM2 votes

If you haven't, go read the Journal of Justice. It was all of the written canon lore, and It was great.

Then make an opinion.

Dextix LT6/30/2015, 5:02:54 AM2 votes

Whats the point? Narrative did not listen before, they wont listen now.

NorthernDruid7/1/2015, 10:36:24 PM1 votes

I wish they'd either just stop claiming they're doing lore, or unannounce the retcon.

Not that they've really done any of the serious retconning yet. They've mostly just cut out stuff from character bios.

I'm adamant in my stance that claiming stuff is gonna be different isn't enough. Until they present their new setting and somehow tie it to the events happening in the game they haven't retconned the lore.

Heck, as long as there's so many referencs to the old (well, current really) lore in the game they can't claim they've retconned it all away.

Really, I'm fine with their decision to make stories in an Alternate Universe unrelated to the game, but don't try to pass it off as lore.

As long as it's unrelated to the game, it's not lore for the game.

If they're not willing to admit that they're not doing lore, then maybe they should build on the lore they have instead of rip it out and leave nothing in there for almost a year.

Again, I'm still waiting for this retcon they announced so long ago. But nothing's really come of it yet, and if they wanna leave it at that and release unrelated shorts then that's fine.

They also ought to give Factions a community spotlight for fans of the actual lore.

Y'know, Lore as in the story elements about the game that didn't have a natural place for exposition in the game itself.

Not "lore" as in this collection of short stories and videos unrelated to the actual game these characters are derived from.

PhantomGG7/3/2015, 7:32:16 AM1 votes

To no longer be Mortal Kombat

Actual Idea

Honestly I feel a gladiator pit for public entertainment representing the power of each country would be a good idea.

GreenLore6/30/2015, 10:45:43 PM1 votes

The problem for this that I see is that some people lost already hope in the new lore and won't be ready to give the new lore a chance anyway. If I start reading a story already with "this is gonna suck" in mind,then there is little chance that I'm going to enjoy the story,simply because you can badmout anything.

IcyPepper7/1/2015, 8:11:06 PM1 votes

Sometimes I wish they could do what Magic the Gathering did and write novels about the world and our champions.

Sure, it would be merch and cost $$$, but it would be something substantial. I'd rather pay for a book than only get a skeleton paragraph for free.

Mughi of Ruckus7/2/2015, 4:37:01 AM1 votes

Please don't throw in gratuitous death/rape/sudden horrible atrocity from previously noble characters in an attempt to pull at our heartstrings or make the story dark or mature. It does none of those things and is usually just bad writing. Please avoid dramatic twists. Virtually the same applies. Please don't neglect aspects of character lore players love because you're convinced you have a better idea.

Please do have champions interact regularly. Please do your best to have the places in league be real places and not simply representations of themes or ideologies. Please give both "villains" and heroes strong stories. Please have the champions who are currently dependent on the league for a reason to be a strong motivations and identities of their own, and don't just tie them to another organization. Please give us at least one LGBTQIA character. Before people start going on about that sort of thing's place in a story and not making a character about their preference, remember that there are plenty of offhand mentions of heterosexual characters and romances:

Ahri specifically seduced men to steal energy for her transformation. Garen had in game quotes indicating his attraction to Katarina. Amoline and Gergor Hastur, Annie's heterosexual parents, are the focus of her lore. Ezreal, in canon League content, has shown indications of being in a relationship with or having a strong attraction to Lux. Ashe and Tryndamere were engaged.

So please, it can be background references. I'm not asking for it to be core the character(s)' identity. I'm just saying it's 2015 already. There should already be one by now explicitly in the lore.

Please do put in romance in with the adventure and intrigue that you're planning.