One big problem I have with a lot of the lore, is simply that every single character is portrayed as "insanely powerful" or "insanely smart" or "insanely skilled" or w/e, with very little done to explore their motivations and character flaws. As a fanfic writer, I often find that I have to basically make up any so-called flaws myself, and have to struggle to invent motivations in order to give my stories a plot. The supposedly "all powerful" summoners also make it difficult to stay within the lore, since all summoners can basically stop all conflict with their magical powers. Part of the problem is they have to basically develop a compelling character in 3 paragraphs.

I think part of why Riven is so popular is because so many see her characterization as a conflicted individual who is trying to atone for past mistakes, or some horrible event that she could not prevent. Her "imperfect" broken blade just adds to this intrigue. She seems more human, and it makes for juicier situations for fanfic. I also love Draven. Even though he's portrayed as an annoyingly cocky *******, his voice actor just does an amazing job and I just become addicted to his awesome playstyle.



Guess I'll just wait and see what Riot has in store for us.

They've painted themselves into a corner with having to follow the restrictions placed on them by the gameplay. Obviously no champion will ever leave, retire, die etc, so any lore than centers around killing someone (Zed, Warwick, Rengar/Kha etc) doesn't work, especially if it's in the arena area itself. Now if champs are fighting each other outside of the League and failing, that's somewhat different. Along with that, any lore than has a time limit (Nami) doesn't work either UNLESS more lore is introduced to say what she's doing to complete her quest, or to say that her quest is done and what the reason for her staying is. Otherwise it's just silly. And now Thresh has come to collect souls from those who won't die. Due to the unchanging nature of the League, it just doesn't work.
There are plenty of ways to have champs join the League for reasons that don't fall flat in the face of 'No champ leaves the League.' Many of the early ones do that very well. Time limits, killing inside the arena, collecting souls, they don't work.

Ironically, this is supposed to be part of the reason for their new approach to the lore. One of the reasons given for removing explanations for why characters joined the League was to give them the scope to explain and explore these stories in greater detail elsewhere, rather than compressing the character's motivations into a single line. The problem this has created is that we've received nothing new to make up for the things we've lost. Rather than expanding on what we had before, things have actually regressed.

As the owner of a Riven askblog, I'm naturally inclined to agree. Riven is certainly one of the more human and flawed members of the League and has a lot of scope for both character development and interaction with people on a micro and macro level. She's one of the best realised characters they've got by a long shot.

interesting.

I ****ing lol'ed. The lore in LoL is ****ing childish and generic as ****. It consists of a bunch of humans and humanoids mostly hailing from the same few city-states although there are some champs that come from other worlds too. Not saying that Dota 2's lore is necessarily 'better' but if anyone objectively took the time to research into it you'd see that Dota 2 has a much more mysterious world with still a lot more potential to expand than what is currently available. The heroes are a lot more diversified and they're not all about being a brother, sister or colleague of some other character. Some heroes hail from the same kingdom/general vicinity but don't necessarily know each other very well. You have 4 fundamental heroes who existed before the birth of the world, several heroes from other dimensions/worlds such as the Nether Reaches/Nothl Realm/Hell. You have heroes of all shapes and sizes even more so than in LoL.

I understand that I'll probably get downvoted for voicing a different opinion on the LoL forums but from what I've read and researched LoL's lore isn't as deep as most people make it out to be. The champions do not necessarily have any more 'character' than the heroes in Dota 2. In fact, you hardly have any voice quips in LoL for frick's sakes. Nearly every Dota 2 hero (with the exception of the voiceless wisp) has several minutes of voice lines that cover nearly every situation in a match.

In the case of Dota 2... it's a game in beta while LoL is over 3 years old so of course Riot have had more time to write more lore. To say that the heroes have no character is pretty ignorant when nearly every single hero in Dota 2 has several minutes of voice lines each whereas it's hardly a minute long in LoL and most of it being pain sounds and one liners (not to mention that the voices are a lot less distinctive than in Dota 2). Even then the heroes in Dota 2 are a lot more diversified in pretty much all fields: physical appearance, voice, background, etc. I'm pretty sure that in 3 years time the lore in Dota 2 will be more fleshed out and honestly I find it to be more interesting of a world than Valoran.

To be fair it's a fricking MOBA/ARTS/AOS/DOTA-style game. If you care so much about lore then this is frankly the wrong genre for that kind of stuff. Go play an RPG/MMORPG if you're interested in lore. This genre of games is more about the actual gameplay than the lore itself.

TLDR; Do you care about lore? Play an RPG. Dota 2's lore isn't as good as LoL's? LoL's lore is utterly childish and generic for the most-part. I thought Total Biscuit was joking until I did a bit of research. Oh and LoL has been out for a lot longer so of course there's a bunch more **** written.

If you would get downvoted for this, and I really don't see why you would, I think it'd be more because you're not really giving proper detailed examples, while essentially presenting the idea that DotA 2's world is somehow better realised because it isn't grounded in a solidified setting. DotA 2 doesn't have a "more mysterious world", it has a world where we simply have next to no understanding of how society works, which characters really know each other (Besides lines of banter without context) or where anything is located. Rather than talking about the actual depth of their characters, and development of the setting, you're simply stating talking points that don't prove anything by their own merits.

For example:

One of my favourite heroes right now in DotA 2 is Phantom Lancer. His lore, while not actually giving us a proper explanation for why he gained his powers, is really very appreciable and creates a character we can sympathise with ... up to the point that it ends. We don't actually learn anything about what he believes in, where he plans on going with his life or actually what reason he has to continue fighting. For me, at least, this makes it very hard to actually invest in the character just because I have no understanding where he fits into the setting or how he would relate to anyone else. As I seem to love saying as of late: He just exists.

DotA 2's setting is established nowhere in the game itself and there's very little to actually get across the point of their characters being part of a larger world. They may have interactions with each other, yes, but none of them really seem to exist away from the battlefield.

Say I'm a Luna fan: Where can I find out more about Dark Moon, the Nightsilver Woods and Selemene, let alone hope to learn anything of her "bloody past"?

If I'm a Katarina fan, I can learn about Noxus, her interactions and relationships with both Noxians and other peoples of Valoran and, at least while the JoJ was active, could even see the part she was playing in an evolving world. There's just nothing like that in DotA 2 whatsoever.

Riot have clearly made effort in the past to support their lore, they've made promises about commitments to continuing to develop their lore and they've already given us a world many people appreciate and enjoy. Why the hell shouldn't we care?

Ashe and Traxex are two of their respective games most iconic characters, but the gulf between them is absolutely massive in terms of lore: One united a number of scattered tribes and brought them out of constant war, defied tradition to take a persecuted people under her protection and has to deal with the duelling responsibilities of serving outside interests while looking to do what's best for her people ... the other is an archer who lives in a forest and has low self-esteem, despite being truly beautiful.

You're quite right to say that DotA 2 has had far less time to establish its setting, and that it deserves more time to do so, but what it has at this point is a wide range of scattered ideas and concepts, rather than anything cohesive. Even if LoL's lore is currently in an absolute shambles, it's still done far more to create a world we can understand that what we've seen on DotA's end.

No **** it's had more time to come up with the stuff it has. Also I don't see how it's hard to understand that Dota's world is on the brink of war with kingdoms in turmoil etc.

You're doing a lot to convince me here.

I understand that much, but where can I actually learn about those kingdoms?
Where can I learn anything about the nature of the cultures that DotA 2's heroes come from beyond one or two throwaway lines within their background?

It's perfectly fine if these things haven't been established yet, but they have in LoL - even if you personally don't care for them. The scope of DotA 2's world means nothing when it essentially consists of a bunch of place names with one line of information or a single tradition to define them.