Hey guys, Wandering Stranger here with another thought of mine to share with you all....this one concerning Riot's recent videos that have been put out...
Shurima and The World Tournament[]
As possibly everyone has seen, Riot released "Warriors" by Imagine Dragons as the anthem (for lack of a better term) for Worlds 2014. If you haven't, here you go...
On top of that, they made a pretty cool Shurima event. While they retconned many lores (particularly brutal retconning at that), the way they told Sivir's, Cassiopeia's, Nasus's, Renekton's, Xerath's and Azir's lores through the two part videos was pretty cool. The ACTUAL lore itself may be up for debate (Old guard like me who liked god-like beings from another dimension vs new kids on the block who like them as a direct expy of egyptian gods, rather than indirect ones...plus Renek is now a tragic villian than an omnicidal maniac). However, the general response I've seen from the comments below such videos has been mostly positive.
Previous Videos/Other things and Even More Positive Response[]
Like the subtitle says, looking at all the previous vids Riot has shown, such as their LOL cinematics (A Twist in Fate, A New Dawn), their season 3 video for Worlds, Intro video for Braum or Vel'Koz, Jinx's music video and almost all of their other non-gameplay related videos, there have been three common things I've seen in comments:
1) Riot has made awesome videos, and should continue in such media...maybe make a league movie if they ever could....
2) The story-telling and level of detail Riot is showing through this secondary non-written media (Mostly videos, but am also including some of the other ways such as comics, interactive pages (Gnar and Braum for example), Pentakill music, etc, etc) is good. Why don't they start telling more of the story in such a format?
3) OMG RIOT SUXX! THEY WASTE TIME ON VIDS, WHILE SERVERS SUXX! PLAYERS SUXX, AM CHALLENGER STUCK IN BRONZE BECAUSE OF TROLLS AND AFK!! (Translation: Please ignore me. I am having a bad day and have no constructive way of channeling my frustration and anger.)
What Are You Getting At, Bro?[]
From what I'm seeing, we're slowly moving away from the written lore of champs, and slowly going towards using videos and interactive pages as a way to tell the story. Considering the recent lore updates, we get about a paragraph, at best, as a summary on what is up with the character.
While the Shurima event helped bridge this gap to a certain extent, it still left a plot hole in the secondary plot-changed chars (Ez, Skarner, Rammus, etc). I was wondering/am hoping for another video or something for THEIR lores.
From this point, I am coming to my major point, on which SHOULD RIOT START TELLING THEIR STORIES IN VIDEO/INTERACTIVE PAGE FORMAT?
While I know it'll be difficult doing it whenever you remake/release a new champ, I believe it'll be a better method than current ones. While it might not tell as much as a few paragraphs could, given how recent lores have been pretty meh in the writing department, wouldn't it be better to see such a paragraph as a video instead? It might not tell all circumstances a champ has been through, but then again, the current lore doesn't really do that much anyway.
On the flip side, I agree that it would mean a TON of work for Riot. Even if they only updated with vid at specific points involving multiple champs, it would still take a lot of work, not only in making the video itself, but also in joining the various characters together without really losing what makes them...well, them...
In spite of that, seeing what Riot has done, and seeing all the crazy machinamas, fan vids, La La La Demacia, and so many other LOL fan vids, I believe that telling the story of the characters through videos and Interactive pages is completely possible...only problems would be time required for it, and man-power; but it would be worth it.
Conclusion[]
So what do you guys think? Should the champs lore be remade into videos/Interactive Vids/Music/etc.? Would that be a better way of telling about them, rather than "Azir was an emperor who wanted to be more, but got screwed over by Xerath. Now he's risen again." and the other paragraph lores that have been given? Would it be way too much work for Riot, and is it unfeasable as a plan?
Finally, and tangentially to the main point, what do you guys think of the "Warriors" video, anyway?