Based on what has been revealed... the new lore simply isn't ready to be shown.
It lacks the qualities that made the old lore special, and unique to the League of Legends.
It lacks in originality, scope, and humor.
Nothing that the lore team has produced within the last year has come close to the quality the old lore had (except the Sion Re-write).
As a fan of the old Lore, I am disappointed by the approach to the new Lore, but I'm also disappointed by the community reaction. We lost a lot of good posters because they tried to show support for the retcon, which I'm not a fan of, but the reaction was just visceral as all hell.
Not to mention at least two Lore team members quit immediately afterwards. It's just a mess all around. A large amount of the really terrible shit that got said was from GD or random trolls who saw the chance to attack the Reds in a bad spot.
I really miss the Forums. I don't see the point in boards, just seem like a needlessly complex Reddit clone.
I'm hoping we can achieve a kind of equilibrium between Narrative's vision for the new Lore and what was so great about the old Lore. I think the peak status of the Lore, both in storytelling and community, was around 2011-2012, when the JoJ was still going strong, Kalamanda was really interesting, and we had a lot of fun discussions on the Lore Discussion boards.
I've been playing since the start of season 1 when Xin Zhao dropped (yes, that was a horrible week to start). I have read all the JoJ's, I read every champion bio & judgement - I don't feel alienated more than I feel confused I have yet to see any GAIN from the retcon. I'm not against alternate storylines, reboots, parallel universes or any other fictional handwaving that lets people start fresh.
My issue the MAIN issue for me with retcon is - why did they handle it so poorly? Why are they writing all this stuff now to 'catch' up? Internally they have known about removal of the league for a while, the new champs stopped getting Judgements, the IoW was no longer mentioned, the JoJ's been dead forever now... The website not working as a link - really? That feels like full on BS (I worked in IT for 10+ years, I don't care what databases or issues there are, there is always a work around.)
This is the biggest change for the story of the game since launch and they handled it so poorly it's horrifying.
If they wanted to avoid 90% of the complaints there should have been stuff ready to go for everyone on 'launch' - or if not on launch at least ready to go on a schedule like every 2 weeks - new chunk of bios. If there's no 'event' we should still be seeing roll-outs. This limbo of 'the lore is the same, but it's not' is garbage.
Sure I hate the changes that happened to Xerath, Trundle, Karma, Soraka, Sivir (who else?) because it made them into less interesting, more boring characters, IMO (I want DEEPER, RICHER, more complex histories) - but if it wasn't piecemeal'd out it would be easier to find solace in the good parts.
Their desire to move to some format that isn't JoJ like - so a new media (video, art, whatever) but they don't handle all of that, since the departments are broken up into teams. Non-text lore doesn't deliver in the same manner as a written story, sorry that's how it works. Movies are always more superficial than the books they are based on.
Yes, the Sion relaunch was good, but notice that was basically old-school. 4 pages, TEXT.
If the story has to wait 6+ months due to internal dept wrangling (Art, IT, Story + Champion launch) then it needs to be a massive dump of info when it does happen. Instead we get our 'events' which are basically a champion release + a pile of retcons AND still there is no delivery on previous content.
They launch a devblog, where's the updates? If it was only Tommy's thing, take it down.
Folks complaining about Narrative being scared of getting blazed on the boards - well, you get paid Riot bros. That's part of any work - the good and the bad. Yes, you signed on for it - You work on the public face side of Riot - the story, the art and how it translates into what people play.
Now I'm aware that many folks are like 'whoa Shokah, hold up they just started all this stuff like 3 months ago' and my response is 'Then they shouldn't have launched their new lore project til it was like at least 50 to 75% ready to roll.' All champions, all 'new' locations - everything. There's plenty of time til season 5 launches, why did they not take that time to get more done?
To do less feels like an insult to players (all players!) that spend hours of their lives making things (crafts, videos, statues, artwork) and playing LoL.
On a separate note: As a lore fan in ANY game, Riot/Leagues removal of it from the client (old JoJ button, lore buttons) is a kick in the balls period, because it says 'you aren't important enough for a BUTTON'. I can get all the e-sports I want, but god help me if I want to read a full page bio.
If anything is ALIENATING me it's that. I don't have to like the new direction, I don't have to like where the story is or is going, but it's annoying to not have a delivery system IN place that works for whatever format they are going to use.
to me it just lacks that special connection it used to have. Now its just a generic story that i have no interest in reading.
I REALLY miss the old Soraka. She went from self-made god to gullible child. In the original story I read back when I first started playing, she had the intelligence and strength to become a god, and the passion and emotion to lose patience with the role, when it forced her to stay her hand. She was someone I wished I could be. Then she got turned into some gullible naive child, that I'm glad to not be. After that, I completely lost interest in League Lore.
I know I come across a bit rude in threads sometimes, so I try to curb that as of late. The problem I have is that Riot's tended to use more or less the exact same phrase.
"Good lore is coming, trust us."
or something else like.
"We're exploring new and advantageous ways of story telling."
Honestly my biggest problem with the retcon was essentially them telling us the same thing, and then taking away everything we still had.
The real problem is I've only been playing for just over a year (Well more like 1 and 3/4) and I've gotten frustrated with it, I can't imagine how the old timer lore fans must feel
I am optimistic that they have something pretty big planned. Why would they retcon SO MUCH LORE if they don't have something planned up to replace it.
What's sad though is that the lore as of now, is broken. It's shattered, and a lot of champions and events suffer because of the retcon, and we are in a '' placeholder '' type of situation, which is not good at all.
Agreed the sharima champs lores aren't even finished
I was a fan of the lore. When I first looked at lol, I wasn't interested, until I looked at the lore. And especially the Joj series. That was like a blitzcrank pull. But fro some reason it never got updated. Then It disappeared. Then I turned my attention to the forums. Theories sounded interesting. After spending some time in the Lore discussion, felt like I was content. Until, I researched more their lore. Apparently the Joj was removed early this yr, when I started playing.
That's when I realized how lol lore was falling. Then that day with that dev blog came. At such a disappointment leagues lore has come to. Nowadays Lore is no longer a priority of League like it was when it first started. They got indulge in gameplay more than the lore. And it's only because their player base grew. That's when they decided to come up with e-sports(only League of Legends) And that killed any thought of Updated lore. That's why the lore team was silent for two yrs. I strongly believe that they ddnt really have a lore team at that time. I heard kitae moved elsewhere in the company. Maybe the same thing happened.
And then only lore you got was from new champions(Who wrote those) And this is new to me that some people quit after the dev blog. Narrative should have made better choices. Like ACTUALLY listening to the community and communicating Before making any critical changes to the lore. This is why I think that they did not consider lore an importance around the time. But now they have over a thousand complaints. You apparently don't know who to hire if they quit after their first constructive criticism.
All this is most likely why Riot may have alienated any vets on lore. They did not consider them an importance. And you can't devalue fans, or stuff like this happens
What have they written besides the Sion re-write since the retcon? The amazing, longer than usual, Xerath and Azir lore entries? I thought those were awesome, but beyond that, nothing else comes to mind in post-retcon lore.
Up until now, I have not been disappointed, I'm open to the new ideas. This coming from a huge lore fan!! Old and new!
I wonder if Narrative had treated the lore changes as more akin to PBE or Preseason changes, subject to being tweaked based on player feedback, then things would have been much smoother and less rage inducing.
I'm a fan of the old lore, but I'm also a fan of the promise for the future. Multiple lore installments for every champ? Progression? I'm in!
They're not quite there yet, but I am hopeful for the future.
Well I manage to read all the comment's. If we are willing to do that I'm sure we are willing to read the actual lore. About the same size.
