Thoughts about the current state of lore.

So, for the best and worst, a retcon happened. Did the IoW suck ? Maybe. Is the slow-paced of new lore revelation intolerable ? Maybe. But I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to pinpoint the exact thing that was thrown away with the retcon, and is very important to me.

What I used to love with LoL is how immersive the game once was. To make it simple, when you're playing LoL, you have three separates entities : you, the player, LoL, the game, and Runeterra, the setting from where all the matter for the game come. The two extremes (the player and Runeterra) were connected via the IoW, represented by the game itself, thanks to both summoners and the "champion" title.

What are you in the context of the game ? A summoner, and this is why you're involved in it. And why are these guys figthing each others in an area ? Because they are champions, and have a good reason for that. You and them are pairing up because that the rules settled by the IoW. It all make sense !

Well, it was making sense. The loss of the IoW is a big loss. Not only because the whole "champions" thing sounds cool and dandy, or because it was printing funny and interesting news papers (who read these nowadays ?). But because, by erasing it, you're basically broking every bonds that were tying the whole thing together. Why would players would continue to care about what is happening (lore-wise) in the game or the backstory of said champions if that just... doesn't connect with everything they can experiment ?

Let me explain it a bit more. For this demonstration, all that is needed is to play (or watch) the introduction of Heroes of the Storm. Basically, the whole thing is Raynor, crashed on a random zerg-infected planet, being teleported on Nexus, some kind of a big satellite, and tasked by Uther to fend off Diablo because... reasons. The plot is minimalistic to say the least, and even the characters themselves are joking about how futile and meaningless it is. Still, THIS IS WORKING. Do you know why ? Because those characters already have depth thanks to their original games. We already know them, and so, we don't need any further explanations on who they are since everyone is aware that HotS is just fanservice in a nutshell.

LoL tryied that with the retcon. It got rid of the "narrative by game design" approach in favour of a clear distinction between the characters sidestory / the setting of Runeterra in general and what crazy things might be going on in the game. Basically, it's turning a Dark Soul game into Playstation All-Star Battle Royal : sure, Kratos can and will probably kill Kami (or he would has, if the game wasn't crappy enough to not even integrate a Patapon playable character into it) as a character of PASBR, but that'll not affect what Kratos is really doing in his own setting.

This new vision of what LoL is is fine. Or it would have been, if Riot Games wasn't actually Riot GAME. You can get rid of any involvement between the player and the universe he's toying with, and so can I jump off from atop the roof of a 50 meter tall building, but that doesn't make it a smart thing to do. Without the IoW and the relationship player-summoner / champion, the characters needs a solid prop to le them remain interesting. They don't have it. No novels, movies, TV series or whatnot. Nocturne ? Before, he was a horror beyond comprehension that tryied to telepathically scare the guts out of you. Now ? He's just a crazy specter talking alone that you're picking jungle because he has a good cleaning and nice gank abilties.

What is left of the involvement we previously had ? Nothing. Dust. We used to be "summoners, mysterious and powerful beings", and now we're are nothing but sweating nerds in front of a computer screen. Bring the magic back !