Boards›Story, Art, & Sound

A Better Lore Rework

TucuReborn·4/4/2017, 5:41:41 AM·1 votes·1,267 views

I'll be upfront; I don't like the new way the lore is.

Expanded stories are great, don't mistake me there. I love how much detail is going into characters and how big the world is getting. What I don't like is the lingering taste of "summoners". The game still has so many references, even player name, yet technically they don't exist. The titular element simply is no longer a part of the game, and I think this was a mistake. The reason is fair, having to have every champion tied to the League made storytelling difficult. However, I feel the decision to remove the League from canon was poorly made and rushed. Further paragraphs will explain this, though please understand this is not saying that new lore stories are bad.

Old Lore The old lore involved the Summoners, who were powerful mages with the ability to summon recreations of heroes and villains to fight and settle conflicts diplomatically, leaving outside lives safe. With the exception of a few things, they were unmatched in power and respect. The problem? Everyone in the League had to either join willingly or be forced to join. This meant stories were restricted by the necessities in place, and Riot rightfully felt limited. The old lore was, however, deeply rooted in the game and still is. Lore pages haven't been updated, and so many references are left in place that it is awkward to realize and think that none of it actually exists. Veigar, Cho'gath, and many other champions have multiple lines directly referring to summoners who are controlling them. It also conveniently explains why Garen just killed his sister, his king, his friend Poppy, and is fighting next to Swain or Victor.

Pros: -Very built into game design. -Lots of references -Gives players "involvement" -Explains the "why" and "how"

Woes: -Restricted story in the way it was implemented -Never fully explained and a bit messy

New Lore The new lore removes the League of Legends and Summoners entirely, opting to open the field to more ideas and possibility. It removes the requirement for League involvement, which lets characters have more motives and lore potential. However, it was done hastily and is still incomplete, with a very awkward amount of references to the old lore still in the game. This new system doesn't really explain why they are fighting except that they are, sadly. All in all, the one problem it fixed made more problems to solve and was done without being finished. The game name, Summoner Name, and more are also remnant from the old lore, but are now meaningless. The game doesn't have it's own title in it any more. It's the equivalent of taking Fallout and no longer having the setting be after said fallout. Sure it works, but the title is out of place. And the excuse for why Garen would literally laser sword his sister and king? Nothing really. Technically they just say(from what I have read) that the battles are anyplace and any reason.

Pros: -Opens up more lore options

Woes: -Obsolete references -Lots of things leftover from old lore that now have no meaning. -Players are no longer directly involved. -Absolutely terrible "why" and "how". -Still not well explained aside from being "open".

My Suggested Lore First step, bring back the Summoners. However, fully embrace the "Legend" part of the League. The Summoners are not diplomats, they are the living visual history of Runeterra. They read and find stories of figures of importance, and reenact great battles and even perform entertaining battles for the masses, all while passing down the history of their world. This means that some champions may have metaphor, or not even be real. Did Swain actually turn into a Raven, or was it a metaphor for his ruthless tactics? Did Kindred actually exist? Maybe Caitlyn's traps are symbol for how she caught criminals "As easy and leading a Yordle to a treat". Cosmic entities battling alongside classic heroes and villains, all the while telling stories of how amazing the world is. The Summoners Rift? The stage. By all agreeing on one "stage", they can make it easier to show the masses their stories. They are able to make heroes more heroic, villains more dastardly, and world ending deities be sassy. The player is a storyteller, and the reasons are more clearly explained than current lore while still leaving storytelling open. Heck, it encourages storytelling even more! Legends are infinite, expounded upon by generations of storytellers. It explains abilities not seen in lore, why a moving mountain clashes with a goo, and is expression infinitive. It fixes pretty much every pretty much every issue with both sets of lore as well. Even character changes can fit into it, as the Summoners would occasionally find new information and have to change how they portray a Champion to be correct.

Pros: -References make sense. -Player "involvement". -Explains "why" and "how" -Not restrictive to story -Fully explained quite easily. -Extremely open, as stories can be literal or exaggerated.

Woes: -Never going to happen. -Lore would still need to be updated.

Either way, I'm sure we can all agree that Riot needs to at least be comprehensive about whatever approach they do. Leaving things half done leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

To Riot, I ask you remember this if you do read this. "Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." -Winston Churchill

Fair battles to all who read this, may the glory of Noxus lead you to victory.

2 Comments

Fondling Gems4/4/2017, 6:02:57 AM3 votes

So I think that you are being a bit harsh in a couple of your judgements. You have to understand that the game is still being updated and as such we are still technically in the middle of removing old references from the game. They will go away. It just takes time. For this reason I don't think including the references is a valid con. Yes it is a con, but that con relates to a difficulty in the process of making lore changes, judging should be based on the final outcome goal.

As such I think your cons (Woes) list should look more like this:

Woes: -Obsolete references -Lots of things leftover from old lore that now have no meaning. -Players are no longer directly involved. -Absolutely terrible "why" and "how". -Still not well explained aside from being "open".

On to your idea. I like it in some ways, but in some ways it just doesn't make sense. I love the whole metaphor idea, but on the other hand I feel like historians effectively retelling grand tales would care more about the facts. It also feels inconsistent with how beings act. Why is this legendary headsman running down mid to his death over and over? With the old league that could be explained away with "The guy controlling him is making him do it out of frustration."

The point was the goal of the "Summoners" was the same goal as the Players. Winning. The issue arises with trying to pull players too far into the game/universe. I play D&D Online when I want to fulfill a character. Mobas aren't the best platform for that, especially strategy mobas like League. By giving the players a "role" like your proposed lore does you are trying to make players fulfill a character that has been set in stone for them but which has a different goal than the player's goal. There is a disconnect there which I think pushes the player away from fulfilling this idea of a "summoner" rather than fulfilling it.

As a player I shouldn't need to get into character for something like League, if I am in the lore than I should be myself whether I am the troll Draven running it down mid, the farm to 18 jgler, or the guy who needs to go to the bathroom every couple minutes.

For those and another reason that I forgot as I was writing this because it is too late to be browsing the boards I don't think your idea would work out. There are parts of it I like, the metaphor thing really appealed to me, but ultimately that causes conflict with the lore behind it. Does Swain only turn into a raven in metaphor? Why should I care about his lore then etc. I don't think your idea is garbage, but I do think you have to rebuild it from the ground up keeping in mind that you shouldn't be building a role for players to fill, but rather a role that any League player could naturally be filling without them knowing a thing about the lore.

Leben Weiss4/4/2017, 7:26:20 AM1 votes

I like the new lore, because it gives us a fantastic and HUGE world filled with magic, interesting characters and stories that can be expanded every time without being restrictive and make us care about those characters and gives them more believable motivations, the only problem is that updating the lore is a slow process, but i think that's understandable if we want a good lore that makes sense and is somewhat reflected in-game (dialogues and some references for example)

That we as players don't have a real involvement isn't necessarily a bad thing, because we know that we are just playing a game and this is not like an RPG where we get more information as we progress, in a game like a MOBA even if we win a thousand of matches we won't really advance any plot, anything lore related have to be provided by the developers anyway. In fact, many MOBAS doesn't even have a lore as polished as the one Riot is trying to build, they tend to just say "hey! this is Sir Awesome, he is a hero of fantasyland and don't really have any relation to the other characters and that's it, play with him!" but in LoL we get that summary, then individual stories with nods to other characters and their respectives stories, and a whole fantasy world that is, albeit slowly, moving forward.

In the end if we like to know about the lore we still get it outside of the game in other formats and not through the game itself, and that's how it's been since the release of League of Legends but now we get a more complex and well constructed one, the people that don't care about it still has their game without having to read/watch/hear anything and if you want both in a way we can still think that we are summoners from another world (our real world) using magic (the internet) and technology (our pc) to summon beings in the image of those from another world (the one from the new Lore) to battle for supremacy (the ladder) or amusement (normals) and all of this regulated by the League of Legends (Riot and their software)...Still cool, right? :D