The thing that both baffles and saddens me is a few connected things.
Kinda cool and unique premise (maybe no the most realistic, but in general I'm a fan of more top down built settings than bottoms up built settings*, bottoms up settings feel too much like real life to me), definatively the only thing which makes the setting itself stand out in any way shape or form.
Best gameplay/story integration i've encountered. And a premise which lends itself to even more depth to it, why they haven't arranged a factions que themselves is beyond me.
And then I started reading some of the champion judgements, and was awed at the depth of the characters.
Those are the things they casually throw away.
Those are the things they decide is "holding them back" from telling great stories.
Things we desperately need in video games, unique and fresh settings, gameplay and story being so tightly intertwined that you can comment basically every aspect of gameplay in-setting, and well constructed depth to otherwise general archetypes.
When I can get details about how Rek'Sai is swayed into the league (ideas for such a story starts popping up in my head already), when I can feel like Kalista considers me just another part of the many selves she's absorbed(or merged with or whatever), when I can read Azir's League Judgement and get his story told so deeply and intimately as the judgements i've already read.
Then I'm not just toying around with a game, then I'm truly a summoner in the League of Legends. Does this mean I'd only play the faction que? heck no, I don't feel the need to only play the campaign in Warcraft 3 either.
But I don't bring WC3 out to play random maps, I bring it out to replay the campaign.
Because it's story still has a unique place in my heart, because it does it's best to create a connection between the game and the story, because there's depth and good writing behind it.
And because I know it'll be the same story 10 years from now, the same characters, the same sinister plots an betrayals and drama. The main traits of the story won't suddenly change. And if Blizzard finally decides to release Warcraft 4 after WoW finally goes down, and they change the story as to invalidate my experience and investment with the older games in the series like Diablo 3 did, then I can ignore it and keep replaying Warcraft 3, or if i against probability like the changes I can keep to them.
I can trust in blizzard, because I know that no matter how badly they screw up their newest product, and however they destroy the future of the story I'm attached to they can't deny me it's past.
Riot, with league of legends as a dynamic media rather than a static one, can deny me the past as well. And as I found out too late, after I was already sucked in to all the other fun stuff, they're already done so. Multiple times.
So what I wonder about the narrative, and all the retcons, is how they want me to trust their storytelling ability enough to invest myself in their stories, when I know the stories only last as long as it takes them to want to do something else.
They've lost the benefit of the doubt, they've already killed my dreams about the game's fiction (though I'm becoming adept at keeping undead dreams), so why should I care to read a short story about a champion when they could get the trundle treatment someday?
I'd rather get the short version from other people and read it myself once i've caught up on the stuff they've already abandoned.
So yeah, the thing that baffles me is, when they had so much cool stuff to work with, such a solid and innovative core, why did they throw it away and then not even put anything of their own back in?
They threw out the only interesting piece of their setting as a greater entity, 'cause all the details are still mostly cool but there's no big picture any more and they haven't even hinted at anything for the last few months.
So my only conclusion is that whatever they put out isn't gonna be worth following until they can confirm that they've got their stuff together.
In the meantime i'm more interested in catching up on the old stuff so I can catch up on Factions.
