#17—Riot MMO Main Characters, an ever-changing world, Mistakes the Riot team Cannot make, and MORE!

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:29 Main Cast of Characters
29:35 A Story with no End
52:17 World Intros in the MMO
56:14 What got us excited about Runeterra
1:01:34 Outro

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1:00:00

Hello and welcome to the creaking saltsoap tables of theBrazen Hydro Pub in Boudwater.We're your hosts, and Groven, Conquest,and today we'll be sharing apint and talking all thingsRuneterra and beyond. Now, Conquest, wewere talking off podcastabout a couple of topics,and you had one thing that you wanted totalk about, and Ithought was really interesting.And so we literally stopped talking aboutit. We said, "We'll talk about it then."Yeah. Yeah. And that is the idea of amain cast of characters in the mostpopular memos that weknow today, especially World of Warcraft,FOMA, SC-14, where youhave a main cast of staticcharacters that will essentially, youknow, static being,they don't change at all.They're very firm in their beliefs in theworld and who theyare, how they see things.And typically they are never the centerof attention. If theyare, that means they'reno longer a member of the main cast. Soexamples being KingVarian from World of Warcraft,the king of the humans, the Alliance, allthat. He's just a very likeheadstrong dude. He's verystraightforward. It takes you like 10seconds to understand his character,right? And what makesthat really good and actually compellingin something like anMMO is that you'll see himinteract with all these differentsituations that willhappen over the years, you know,over the expansions and new content, newplaces, new enemies, newallies, all that stuff. You'regoing to have these static main cast ofcharacters going through allof it with you. So that's whatkind of keeps them interesting becausethere's always new stuffhappening around them, which isjust very typical for an MMO. And itkeeps them not being centralto the plot, but still easy todigest and easy to fall in love with. Nowwe want to try and apply that to theright MMO as well aswe'll say we're going to try and apply itto the right MMO and seewho's going to be our most likelycast of characters that we're going tosee again and again expansion afterexpansion over a longperiod. Yeah. And I think there's a pointthat definitely needs to bemade on what you're sayingis that this is like applies across theboard to storytelling ingeneral. Like anime is pretty bigand even in every anime you see that mainperson that kind of knows whothey are from the beginning.Like if you watch Dragon Ball Z Goku hasnever changed. He's astagnant character throughoutthe entire series. Vegeta changes a lot.Oh a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Andthen you look at Vegeta changesbecause of Goku. Yes. Because Goku isthis very static strongbelief character that he changescharacters around him. And that will alsohappen in MMOs that you'llsee when new characters comealong and start interacting with the maincast. That's kind of whatthey're there for. Yeah. Andyou'll see like and then there needs tobe those foundationalthings because when they're goneit shows. Like for example if I want tobring it to people who areall about like Runeterra,think of Darius from Noxus. Dariusembodies Noxian strength. Like he isNoxian strength. Imagine ifDarius suddenly starts saying we all needto live in peace. Let's all get along.War isn't right. Andthis brutal like totalitarian regime thatwe're trying to spread.Let's just maintain peace witheveryone. Imagine if he did that. Yeahexactly. It wouldn't feelright at all. And it's weird thatlike other characters can go throughchanges but not Darius right. Yes. Dariusis always going to bethat like comfortable strong willedcharacter. You know him with him justlike I said with Varianyou're going to own the first 10 secondswho Darius is. It doesn'ttake a lot to understandhis motives and what he believes in. Andthat weirdly enough makes for acompelling character.And he'll be perfect as a main Noxuscharacter you're going tosee a lot in the MMO I believe.I think it's a great example. It's a andthere's exactly like whatyou're saying where characterskind of change because of them becausethey're so rooted in whatthey are and who they are.Characters change around them but nowthey're it's almost as aresult of them. There's a charactercalled Samira or I think it's morepronounced Samira buteveryone says Samira but she'sShuriman and I think the Shuriman arevery reminiscent of likethe Arab people. So Samirais what sounds right to me. But so herhome was destroyed as achild. She's from Shurima.But then she found her true calling inNoxus and she's really buddybuddy with like with Darius.But you could see her changing over time.Like maybe she she's thekind of person that you couldsee where possibly in the future whereshe's like this isn'tright and she goes back to likeher Shuriman heritage or something likethat. But in right now she's changed alot because of Dariusand they're very close. And you see thiseverywhere and these arecharacters that should not changebecause it's detrimental to the game. Andwe know examples of thatwhere characters changefrom their like main their main premiseand it's never good. Yeahespecially because the problemwith that if you start taking thesestatic characters that aremade to be I know specificallyMMO speaking if they're meant to be themain cast the MMO when youstart changing them and they startgoing through stuff and they startbecoming the center of attention. If youkeep them in the maincast then that's a problem. That if theystart changing that meansthey have to reach a conclusionwhere they're happy or either they'rehappy or they're dead orwhatever the heck they need toreach some kind of conclusion. They can'tkeep going afterwardsbecause then people are justgoing to get tired of this charactereither you're either they went throughboth changes and nowthey're just sticking around for noreason or they keep changingover long periods of time andyou're just like you just get over itjust conclude just justfigure it out. I don't knowwhat's wrong with you but like you havetoo many problems. Yeah.Like it gets frustrating or it'sjust why are they still here. But you gotlike that. Really. OhDragon Ball Super. Absolutely.I thought I'm on Boo Saga for a second. Iwas like no dude he wasPeek and Boo. No no no.Bludgeoned Vegeta. No that was Peek ofcourse. Yeah exactly. That was PeekVegeta. That was hisconclusion. That was the way hisconclusion. That was his conclusion whichis why he got like fumblya little bit after that. Yeah exactlybecause then it's just like well herehere he is like his hisstory arc is over. He had a story arc andnow it's over. Goku you cankeep going forever because henever really had a story arc to beginwith at least not in Z.And just like characters likelike Darius like the first example I everthought for the rightmoment was like Braum.Right. Braum I think is such an obviouspick. If that dude everstarts going through some likeemotional turmoil it's okay. Yeah likethat. It's okay if he reaches some kindof conclusion and hisstory's done and that's it right. Like ifthey're looking to get ridof Braum if you're looking tobe done with Braum then he has to startgoing through somechanges. But I'm not expecting himto go through changes. I don't want himto go through changes. Iwant him to be Braum. I wantto be the guy I know and love. Big dudewith the shield. Superjust hearty fellow you know.Almost like a happy go lucky brute of aman. He's great. And youjust know that about him.Like and it allows him to go throughmultiple stories, multiple differentscenarios, differentenvironments, different people. And itdoesn't feel overwhelming orclashing with his characterbecause he's just Braum. You know he'sgoing to act the same way inIonia going through whateverthe heck's going on in Ionia if he everends up there. You know what I mean?Because he's freaking Braum.But as Braum. Yeah so the story can focuson Ionia even ifBraum's there. Braum will justenhance it by being Braum. Yes and thisis such an important topic.And we have an example wherethis is not done right. And it's anotherreason why they chose to notmake Riot Forge Games canon.And I think maybe the Riot team is awareof this. Like I'm sureprofessional storytellers.I mean we're not professional stories.I'm sure they're aware ofthis topic that we're talkingabout. And on the opposite side, not inNoxus but in Demacia, youhave kind of a counterpart toDarius and that's Garen. Garen is likethe Demacia for Demacia andlike we with laws are importantand he's like he embodies Demacia. Youknow what Demacia is. Like Demacia isproud but they're alsostrict in their faith and in theirdiscipline. Like it's adisciplined place you know. And it'sbecause of the rune wars and they're allabout that like magic is bad.Now if you take which they didin Mage Seeker you see Garen take likekind of a turn where towardsthe end he's like mages areokay and our laws are not so great. Nowthat I didn't like. It'sanother thing about Riot ForgeGames where there's stuff that happenedwhere I didn't we talkedabout Song of Nunu last timewhere they're in the uh they're in likethe eye of the abyss and allthis and I didn't like thatbecause I felt like that's a very secretplace. Same thing withGaren. I feel like Garen is one ofthose foundational characters where heneeds to always embodyDemacia. And if he changes all ofDemacia changes and if all of Demaciachanges then it has to findlike a new place in the worldalmost. Like it's no longer this starkcontrast to Noxus wherelaws don't matter, strength isonly thing that matters and let's spread.Demacia is like we don'tneed to spread anywhere. We'reinclusive. We maintain ourselves andwe're all about discipline and virtuesand and um the lightkind of thing. Oh I agree very much. Evenjust especially talkingabout the plate especiallytalking about Demacia Noxus. That's avery good point of like.Which you loved doing. Those arealso you know we love talking aboutDemacia Noxus here. But those are the twoplaces like I feel likeevery other location has a lot ofintricate stuff going on right. LikeDemacia Noxus are prettystraightforward. I feel like you youcould explain Demacia Noxus in the leastnumber of words if youhad to explain every zone. Typed out youknow. Those would be theshortest ones. Because they'revery like just comfortable. You know whatI mean? Like you it's soeasy to just digest that storyof what Noxus and Demacia are. Which iswhy Darius and Garin justfeel so right. Being these staticobvious who they are characters in theseobvious what they areplaces. I love that. And it alsoscares me that in the MMO one day they'reprobably good. Like I feel like theyshould do stuff withthose zones right. Like Demacia Noxusshould change over time.But I'm also afraid of themlike homogenizing. You know what I mean?Because that would be bad.Yeah of just like Demaciasettling down on its laws and mages beingable to roam freely. AndNoxus not being so extreme andbloodthirsty and like wanting to expand.Like if they start solvingthose things in like a peacefulway. Yeah exactly. I'm like don't do it.They do need to change eventually. Butthey don't need to belike goody goody. You know. They canchange from one grayarea to another gray area.Don't change from gray area to white.That's what I'm saying. Like don't fixall your problems andbe peaceful. Just find others. Yeah justfind other areas ofconflict for them to deal with.Find other problems for them to haveinside their cities. But don't solveeverything. Because yeahI feel like that's what happens withother MMOs. It becomes aproblem when you start fixing thevanilla zones. Like problem AC 14 andWorld of War I both havethat problem in my opinion.You just kind of over time start fixingthe problems. Becauseit's like oh the problems arethere. You know that's content. Ifthere's a problem we got tofix it. And then you fix allthe problems. It's like well onto someother place now. Because wefixed all the problems. Now it'sboring. The world can change withouteveryone becoming from wherethey are to what we considergood. Like it's always become it's alwayslike okay I don't thinkthe for example in Worldof Warcraft I don't think the Horde wasbad at the start. But itfeels like they made them.Everyone's human now. No not everyoneneeds to be human. InRuneterra right. I don't want to seethe Froyord tamed and become this humanplace. I don't want to seeIonia start matching Ishtall.Or I don't know because they're both injungles or whatever.Homogenization is never good.Like you don't want to homogenizeanything. I don't want to see Darius andGarin ever sit at a tableand have anything in common. Yeahexactly. I don't want that.If they're sitting at a tableit's tense. It should always be tense.Right now it's tense. 50years from now it should still betense. And that doesn't mean the worldisn't changing. The worldcan change without Noxusand Demacia finding peace. Look at theworld we're in right now. No one findspeace. And it's changingall the time. Yeah seriously. Like yeahhow do like it's just theworld like original areas ofRuneterra need to stay interesting in myopinion. Right like it's it's a hardthing that I'm almostdeal with that if you need new contentthat means you need to go tonew places. That means the oldplaces need to just be fine you know andjust where they are andjust sit in their happy littlearea. We move on to other stuff. But Ithink Riot has a seriousopportunity with what Runeterrais right now. Because Runeterra is justit's a place of problemsright. Nothing is going wellin Runeterra in every corner of theplanet. And I think that's great. And Ithink I obviously atsome point we're going to be tacklingthese problems to someextent. Let's just like keepproblems happening though. Let's keepDemacia in a not perfectstate. Let's keep Noxus in a notperfect state. Let's keep Ischcell in anot perfect state. Everywhereneeds to be in some kind of notperfect state. Whether or not we'refocusing on all these places at the sametime probably shouldn't.But maybe like three expansions from now,Demacia can still havesome time in the spotlightdealing with whatever it's dealing with.Should we be dealing withlike the mages and stuff?Sure yeah but let's not fix the mageproblem completely. Let'shave some like mage rebelliongoing on in Demacia that we got to dealwith some kind of mageuprising you know. And it's like ohokay like like like sure this is aproblem like that mages are beingoppressed and all that.But this is not the way to go about it.This group of mages isdoing it wrong you know. They'rethey're resorting to violence to to likeyou know come out of theiroppression and that's wrongright. We can be doing stuff like thatand we have to fight thosemages. So that still keeps theproblem of Demacia of the mages beingoppressed without usdirectly fighting and solving thatproblem and fixing Demacia. You know whatI mean? Little stuff likethat. That's just like a randomexample I completely like threw out of mybum. But there's a greatexample. It's a great notebecause you're right because like yeahyou go you go. The thingneeds to so I think the problemis right like what you're saying we haveto go back to Demacia andsee stuff changing but likethey're dealing with their own problemssometimes. I think the thingthat happens is when you'reproducing content for a game is at leastwhat we've seen in FinalFantasy in World of Warcraftin Guild Wars that it's a single storythat all the players need to beinteracting with right.Otherwise if you're creating everyoneindividual stories that's a lot ofcontent near impossibleto create all of that. And so what theydo is they create one story and everyonegets to be a part ofthat. In order for everyone to be a partof the same story everyoneneeds to be united in not onlytheir goal but united in like that theirone group so they canall move through the storytogether. And so in order to get Demaciaand Noxus to both movethrough the story togetheryou need to temper Demacia's mageism andtemper Noxus'sexpansionism. And that's how you couldget them to work together. And that's theproblem is that you don't need to dothat. You don't needfirst of all you don't need all of ifNoxus and Demacia are united.I know I don't I need to seeit like Noxus is over there. Demacia isover there. You have a questwhere you go and try to get themto like just at least make one unifiedgroup like even like 150 from 50 and tojust march into thisthis direction. And they say no. And theysay no we'll take ahundred Noxians and we'll do itourselves. And Demacia and say we'llnever march beside Noxus andif you need something done justlet us know and we'll do it. But that'sout of the question. Likethat's how it needs to be.Yeah. You know what? They're both. Itneeds to be very like sketchy. It needsto be super like tense.The whole thing needs to feel like at anysecond all hell could breakloose. Like what are we eventhinking joining forces together becausewe know it's not going towork out. And maybe it won'twork out. You know like there will besome conflicts bringing up here andthere. There will be.Some people will go with it. We'refighting a world ending threat. Therewill be some like traps laidin like in the Demacian camp by theNoxians that snuck in atnight. You know that kind of stuff.Just little things like that where it'slike oh my god. Like they'regonna all hell's gonna breakloose any second now we're actuallyworking together. It's notworking. That kind of stuffwould be so cool to me. Yes. That's whatI mean by like we can allexperience the same story.Without homogenizing thewhole freaking world. So everyone.Saya Zahnite is marching beside someonefrom Piltover to accomplisha goal. Like if you need ZahnChemtech and Piltover Hextech and youneed both of them toinvent something together.Like these people need to beoperating in separate labs.Yeah. That's what I mean. That's justsome conflict. Yeah. Yeah.You are the unifying piece.You're that one piece that allows forNoxus and Demacia to worktogether. Right. And I'm notsaying that you are a Demacian who's likeover there talking toNoxus. If you are a Demacian,you don't get that quest. But if you're aPiltover then you get thatquest where you're like try toget these Noxus and Demacian people towork together. You knowwhat I mean? Like you haveto impose a little bit onto the playerbecause they are a part ofthe world. If you want to be aDemacian that's buddy buddy with Noxus,well then you're not goingto live in Demacia. And that'sreally that simple. And maybe there islike a nomad role whereyou can just be a nomad,but you can't be a Demacian and you'rejust like, yeah, I supportNoxus. That's not going to work.Yeah. Yeah. You're going to be doingquests for the Noxians tohelp out Noxus as a Demacian.They have stuff for you. They'll tell yougo climb. You know howthey say like, you know,in our world, like, you know, get theheck out of here. Demaciasends you to climb Mount Targon.That's what they do. They're like, goclimb Mount Targon. Go die.Take a long walk off ashort pier. Go climb Targon.That's literally what happened to Tarekbecause Tarek was all aboutlike helping the mages andstuff. And he was like, he felt like whatDemacia was doing was wrongin terms of how their mageswere being treated and he was trying tohelp them. And then, you know, like,Garen was always trying to help him andkeep him on track. But helike constantly was going offfrom his studies. And like that kind ofperson that's not forDemacia ends up climbing Targon.And that's what he did. And it's mostlyjust like an exile thing.They send the go climb Targon.They just kind of go do something else.Right. Tarek was one ofthe few that said, no, I'mactually going to climb Mount Targon. Butthey kicked him out becausehe wasn't with the program.And Noxus does the same thing, exceptthey kick you out from life.Yeah. No, no, they tell you, oh, I knowthat that's specificallyif you're too arrogant,they tell you to go conquer Ishtall.Yeah. Yeah. So Noxus isunique. Noxus is weird. They're likestrength above all, but strength only ifit's used for Noxus. Ifyou if you have like pride,like you want to excel, youwant to serve your own ends.Yeah. If you start saying stuff like I'mI'm the reason that we wonthis battle instead of Noxianmight is the reason that we won. And I'mglad that I was a part of the Noxianforce in that event.And that I'm for Noxus. If you startshowing this like me individual, they'llsend you to Ishtall.They'll be like, oh, yeah, go conquerIshtall. And usually they're so pridefilled at that point.They'll say, yeah, I'm going to goconquer this newfrontier. And they just go die.That's crazy. Oh, my God, dude, I can'twait to play in Noxus.It's going to be a great zone. I'm solooking forward to that.I hope you get the Mount like Kled. Oh,my God, it'd be amazing specifically aslike a Yordle Noxian.Imagine if you're a Yordle Noxian, youget the Kled Mount like you get one.Obviously not his mount. Yeah, like youget like a like a Kled.Well, whatever the heck that species is,I would love to name it.It looks like just some kind of lizardthing. Yeah, right. Likewhere do you where do you getthat from? I know its name is like greenfields, right? Like what? No, no, no, no.Yeah, I mean, like on the outskirts ofNoxus, like if you gooutside, you know, yeah, yeah,outside of like the themortal bastion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.So it's like, dude, I want man, I can seethat in every single place, too.Now that I'm looking at it, I didn'treally understand what youmeant when you were firsttelling me that, right? But now that I'mlooking at the differentplace, like you have Shurima,you have Azir. Azir needs to always beabout Shurima and likeShuriman bringing back theShuriman empire. That's his goal, youknow, and then verystraightforward. And like even just hispersonality is like you get it, you know?Yeah. And his goal is toaffect Shurima, his goal is toaffect the people of Shurima, everyonearound it. That sort of deal.Like you're going to see himgo through any kind of like crazy changesfrom here on out, I don'tthink. Right. Outside of hisorigin. No, but then let's say that thatwe do reach this cap,right? Because Azir is abig character. I'd want to see Azir inthe game for a long time.Like he's one of those mainstays.Yeah. But let's say that we do reach thepoint where, yeah, where Shurima is like,we've reached the peak of Shurima. Ithink would you just let Azir go andmaybe bring him backlater? I don't want them to hold on tostuff too much. Likethere's mainstay characters,but then there's also the problem. Ithink World of Warcraft hasthis problem where it's likethe cast is the cast and they're freakingeverywhere all thetime. Oh, yeah, I know.That's also a problem, right? Like Ithink I think one of the bestthings they could have done forVarian was to kill him off. Right. Yeah.Yeah. Like I think Variandied at the most perfect timebecause can you imagine Varian, thisawesome, really cool leaderof the Alliance, the King,in freaking Dragonflight. I don't knowwhat he'd be doing inDragonflight, but I imagine it'd be awhole lot of nothing and he'd just besitting there through a lotof it. And it would just belike, okay, Varian, he's just he's just anothing guy now, but theykilled him off in an amazingway that was very much in character forhim. And I think that's you definitelyhave to do that evenwith static characters at some point.You're going to have to let them goeither. Either actuallylike put them through something wherethey finally do go through change andthey reach some conclusionto to their character or kill them off.Yeah. Like it has to happen eventually.Yeah, we can't sit onlike like as cool as Braum is. I hope wedon't sit on Braum for like20 years. You know what I mean?I hope something does happen to himeventually, but I want to enjoy him foras long as possible.Exactly. Like I feel like a lot of thecharacters is what I don'twant to happen to some of thesecharacters. Like for example, Garen,right? We can cross him verywell to Anduin. And Anduin,because he's been around for so long andbecause they let go of hisfoundation of what he reallyis. Yeah. He became like I don't evenknow what he is anymore. Idon't know what he is anymore.I don't know where he stands. I don'tknow how he thinks. I cannot tell you. Ijust know he's goingto cry the next time we see him. Yeah,dude. So like Anduin, theson of Varyid, who ended uptaking the throne after Varyin died in avery awesome like, youknow, just just kick butt way.Anduin was always this peace loving guy,being the son of a king who was verystern, right? And strong.So Anduin the whole time, up until hisfather's death was veryjust, you know, he was still justvery like, peace, like, you know, father,no, don't don't hurt them,you know, that kind of thing.And that worked out well for Varyin'scharacter to bounce off ofhim. And now he's of stand alonecharacter. And they decided to put himthrough emotional turmoilthat makes his personalitychange a lot over these past few years.And it's reached apoint where it's just like,dude, just just conclude like now. Nowhe's he's no wonder he hasa character. He is a he's acharacter with a with a story arc. Yeah,exactly. Yeah. He just needsto finish it. His arc needsto finish because now he has an arc thathas to go somewhere and it has toconclude. And it's notconcluding. He's still going throughstuff. It's been like six years. It'sjust they can't do thatall the time constantly. Like, I don'twant to see Garen ever getto the point where he's like,crying about peace. Like, that's not.Yeah, that's not. That'sa great parallel to draw.Yeah, because he's very similar. Yeah.And anduin was static.Yeah. Anduin was very static,too. Yeah. He was he was the same kidfrom the beginning ofWorld of Warcraft in like 2004.All the way to Legion in what Legion waslike 20, 2018, 2017.So, yeah, for like 17 years, he was thesame character and he'spast six. He's just beennonstop going through stuff. And you haveGaren starts doing that.I think you're right thatthat what's it called?The the riot forge game.Mage seeker. Runecane. Oh, wasit? Oh, it was a mage seeker.Yeah, it took place in the not play. Mageseeker. Yeah, yeah.Where he actually startsgoing through changes. That's I agree.That's something thatwould scare me to see that.And it's just like, no, dude, anyone elsenot. He's like one of thelast characters I'd want tochange because, yeah, you're right. I'dbe so afraid of the Anduinthing. Once they go througha little bit of change, and you startgoing through acharacter arc like that's it. Youkicked it off now. You have set once youstart that ball rolling down the hill.It has to happen. Like if Goku goesthrough some kind of change,the problem is you can't go back tostatic anymore. Yeah,exactly. That's the problem. Likeif Goku starts changing, he can never goback to how Goku was where he had astatic. He has to gothrough it and come out different. That'sthe problem. Yeah, he hasto make that. There are somany mistakes that riot cannot makebecause it's an MMORPG and the game isgoing to continue onward.And if you make these mistakes, they'rescrewed. You cannot haveadd ons in the game. I'm 100%.Not even within question. Add onadvocates. Yeah, not even withinquestion. You cannot do that. Youcannot add add ons into the game. Youcannot take these foundational characterswho have very staticpersonalities, like Darius from Noxus andevolve him where hechanges from he is no longer thestrength of Noxus, but someone who wantspeace with everyone. Don'tdo it. Like those charactersneed to stay foundational. And thenanother thing that I think that theydefinitely shouldn't dois just rip through stuff. Like I don'twant to see this whole mapin the launch. I want to seea lot of places be left. I want to seemajority of the map be left out.Obviously, Camivore.I don't want to see it there. Demacia andNoxus pilt over. I thinkthe superficial level of Zaunby Shurima and possibly I don't eventhink you need bilgewater. You can just do like thethe serpentine delta, which is betweenIshtar and bilge water and have bilgewater be its own thing.And I want to see sagas. I want to seesagas. I like that about World ofWarcraft was the sagasthat they just announced. That's a goodidea. Yeah, we needproper story arcs in the MMO.That's a very good point, because thenguess what? Then theentire game turns into a staticcharacter that's going through changesfor 20 years straight.Yeah. At that point, I want thewhole stinking thing to conclude, youknow, because we're being like spoon feda story with no end.And yeah, the great thing about the sagaidea is that yeah, we're going to haveindividual stories that we know when justlike how these charactersare going through changeswill eventually end. But we're also goingto have our nice little ournice little comfort areas.And that's what we're going to find inthe static zones andcharacters like like Demacia and Noxus,at least in the beginning, right? LikeDemacia and Noxus, I thinkshould be very static in thebeginning. Yeah, they would you have themchange, though? Like, wouldyou have them change too muchas the world evolves? Yeah, see, that'sthe hard part, huh? Is how would youchange them? I thinklike they have to stay interesting. Andyou could only like flyoff of their current problemsfor so long before it starts to get old.You know, let's focus in. Let's focus.I'm going to ask youa question. Let's focus in on on justDemacia. Now, if we go by the standardformula, Demacia right now,they literally will take a mage, put themin a dungeon and feedthem like petrocyte in liquidform to dampen into which petrocyte, bythe way, in terms of theforest around Demacia, it's likethese white trees after the wound warsthat dampen magic. The whole reasonDemacia is located whereit is is because the whole area dampensmagic and petrocyte basically absorbsmagic. You just suckit up. So that's why we like that's whythey like Demacia thelocation. Now, imagine taking thatliquid form and then making a mage drinkit. It's like torture. Nowthat's where Demacia is rightnow. And if we take mage seeker and saythat whole is not all of that is notcanon, which I'm veryhappy that the Riot Forge games are notcanon. The more I think about it. Yeah,I'm trying to see theproblems pop up. Yeah, it's like, oh,yeah. I mean, convergence was on adifferent timeline anddidn't really have anything. Bandletaildidn't really haveanything. It was kind of like you'rejust helping out in Bandletail City'sfluid anyways. But definitelymage seeker and Song of Nunu.I'm very happy or not canon. But wherewould you want to see Demacia end up?Man, end up as in like, like conclude?No, we're like, like we're, let's saythat right now at thestart, that's where they're going to bewhen they when they game whenright. And when the Runeterra,which I hope they just call it Runeterrafirst launches. Demacia isthere now five, six sagasfrom now. Yeah, I can call themexpansions. Five or six sagas. Wherewould Demacia be? How wouldthey be? Man, OK. The only thing Iimagine for sure that I would love isthat the city is likephysically there are changes. I wouldlove that. Right. Eithereither they've expandedor they have some like, you know, newbuildings constructed,new new districts to them.Just, you know, general like like justlike a like like like a reallife city, like a real lifeterritory. Right. It's going to bevolatile in terms of how the people wantto build up the city.So but to that to that extent, I feellike that's obvious.In terms of actual like beliefs. Man,that's hard because I justlove how obvious they are.Yeah, they don't hide anything in termsof who they are and whothey are isn't perfect.And I love that, but they can't live offof that forever. So Istill want them to likebe flawed. But how do we solve the mageconflicts and give them other flaws?Or like, how can we change the magehating conflict without concluding it andkeeping it interesting?So I think I might have said, oh, goahead. I was going to say,the only thing I could think ofis that mages actually do rise up inDemacia. And we see thatbeing reflected in Demacia andin the surrounding territory of like magecamps like cropping uparound the city and like thosetrees being chopped down, stuff likethat. That's the only thing I can thinkof is that the problemgets worse. So so here's my thoughtprocess. So you have kale and you havekale and you have Morgana.And those are the two sisters, right? Andthey really embody thetwo halves of Demacia,where really they venerate kale. And theydon't really think aboutMorgana. And kale is all aboutthe law and enforcement and like you haveto uphold the law andthe law is set in stone andno one can change it. Not even a king,like can just change the lawhowever they want. And Morganais about forgiveness. Like someone makesa mistake, they can beforgiven. So think of them as like,two halves that combined make correct andrighteous judgment.Now, kale is all aboutrights judgment, I understand that, butthe same time kale does go too farsometimes, where someonedoes does deserve the chance to beforgiven. Morgana, right,she is the forgiveness aspectof kale. But Morgana forgives too much.Like not everyone needs tobe forgiven. Some people,you just go too far. Like just becauseyou're asking forforgiveness doesn't mean that you canalways get it. Like, like in their shortin the kale short story,there's a king who's literallykilling old people because there's notenough food. So he decided like, we'rejust going to kill allthe old people. But he's living inluxury. That's not that's unforgivable,right? Even if he says,I'm sorry, it's like you've killed oldpeople just becausethere's no food. It's not right.Yeah, now, here's what I'd want to seeDemacia go. I'd wantto see Demacia go work.Kale and Morgana kind of find thatbalance of justice and andretribution kind of thing,where mages are accepted, but stilllimited, because it didcause the rune war. Magic isstill a bad thing. It's not like it's notsomething that these peoplecan control. Like if you're bornwith magic, you're born with magic, youstill can't just walk aroundand be willy nilly. But magic islike, it's okay now. It's not like sobad. And Demacia kind of becomes thislike, symbol of justicefor Runeterra that it's always strived tobe by finding that balancewith Morgana as well. Likethese sisters kind of finally find thatthat because they're supposedto, they're two halves of theaspect of justice. I'd want to seeDemacia go even further into static,where they are, liketheir whole thing is about justice. Andthey accept that, okay,there are some things that can beforgiven. But the law is the law andneeds to be upheld. Wow. So I'd want tosee them go even morestatic into that, that route, where I'dwant to see them becomejustice. Oh, I like that, becausethat also allows them to get involvedinto outside conflicts that'llinevitably happen because it'san MMORPG. Yeah. Because then they stillwouldn't get along withNoxus or balance in other places.Yeah. And they'll still not get alongwith Noxus, which is very great. I dolike that. And it stillleaves room for more, for other conflictsto occur inside of Demaciain terms of what some peoplemight think is justice and what isn't.Yeah, it's never ending. Yeah. But likeyou want to have likealmost the level of where we can go backto Goku, where Gokualways knows what's right.I want Demacia to almost become thatwhere they're always like, at leastreally, really close to,or if not there on the right side. Likereally in World ofWarcraft, they screwed up the light.The light is supposed to embody always begood. The light shouldalways be good. It should neverbe bad. Not everything needs to be gray.That's I hate wheneverything is gray. Like the reason welike Garin is because he's not gray. Thereason we like Darius becausehe's not gray. Not and thereare some things that I do like to seegray in and Kale and Morganaare both not gray. But combinedtogether, they're still not gray becausethey're both two halves.And when they come together,they embody justice. They're like thetruth of what justiceshould be. And so I like it.You see what I mean? That'swhere I want Demacia to go.Yeah, I agree. I think it was like thelight world of Warcraft. Ithink it'd be a lot betterif they just didn't make it objectivelygood from the start. Andthen it feels like it wasobjectively good at the start and thenthey start changing it.That becomes a problem. Right.Like if if a static, you know, allembracing good force is suddenly graybecause the most recentwriter decided it should be, then it'sgoing to come out reallybad. It's going to come out veryunsatisfying. Yeah, I think that's whathappened with that. And yeah, I mean,dude, yeah, I can seegetting ruined. Yeah, you know, it's whatI was thinking. I wasgoing to go. I was going to getto that. Is that like, you know, I couldsee the boss here just going the otherway and falling apart.Yeah, I could see the Masiya like reallylike I just don't want themto make it where Demacia isjust like. Well, now we understand andeveryone is welcome andwe're all I don't want them to goback like completely backpedal on theirmages thing like I don'twant them to go completely backon what is like they're always trying tofind the truth and theright. Like I don't want them tostart drifting into monkhood, you know,like they're supposed tobe Demacia for justice.Like that's what they're supposed to be.And I could see thatgetting ruined in the right ofthem all if they try to subvert that intowelcoming of everyone.Mm hmm. No, that's a verygood point of just the Masiya shouldalways be headstrong to some extent,right? It should alwaysbe a force, not just like some neutralbland city because they fixedeverything. There should alwaysbe it. The Masiya should always beexerting itself like outward. You knowwhat I mean? It shouldalways be impacting something because ofwhat Demacia is becauseDemacia has firm beliefs.And when you start fixing everything in acity and like in theoverall beliefs of the people,yeah, you start taking away that likethat firmness, that reasonfor Demacia even existingin the first place, what's it doing? Whyis it? Why is Demacia outin like Ionia, you know, whenwe have an Ionia expansion or whatever,they need to have a reasonand for them to have a reason,they need to have their own beliefs thatare strong and firm. Andyeah, if they fix all theirproblems, they're not going to have thatanymore. That's whathappened to the world of Warcraft,at least. So here's so that you have themages, right? And I don'tthink Demacia should justcontinue to punish these mages just forbeing mages. But I thinkwhen the mages are eventuallylike once Morgana and Kayle come togetherand they embody justice andthe mages are more understoodand it's like, okay, we understand likeLux is kind of the leadernow or whatever. But theyshouldn't just go. They shouldn't be likestill against Demacia. ButI want them to unite, justlike Morgana and Kayle unite in justiceand becoming that what they're supposedto be. I'd want to seeall of Demacia kind of come together.Like I don't want to see Idon't want to see Silas be like,yeah, F Demacia forever. I'd want him tobe like eventually like, youknow how we saw in Noxus wherecharacters kind of Samira changed toDarius. I'd want to see Silas be theVegeta to Garen's Goku.I like that. Yeah, I'm a fan of that.Hell yeah, I'm all for it.One thing that kind of scares me is thatthe more we talk about thisand how you brought up how theycould just ruined Demacia's entireimpossible. Right. Like it's it's it'seasy to fall into thathole. And the thing is we haven't. Yeah.The thing is I feel like allof Riot's storytelling up andup until this point has been set up.Right. Like like we tothis day, I don't thinkDemacia or Noxus or really any zone willgo through any majorchanges until the MMO drops,in my opinion. I don't think they'regoing to be dropping anygames that are going to do that.Yeah. Any games that had a chance ofdoing that are now not evencanon. Yeah, they're not makingany more. Yeah, exactly. So we stilldon't know how Riot's writersare going to handle Runeterraonce all the pieces are in place. Youknow what I mean? Wehave not seen them writeany real progression of the world yet.And that to me is kind ofscary. We don't know what directionthey're going to take any of these zonesin because we don't reallyhave anything to go off of.It's all been set up in terms of shortstories and Runeterra as a whole.Any kind of writing up until now, it'smore just small stories likethe past is written, you know,that they have like the history of theway of putting it. Thepast has been written.But the present, for the present time,we've only seen smallstories here and therethat really don't progress the world ofRuneterra. There's no shortstories that change Demacia.Exactly. Like Demacia is Demacia andthere's been stories in Demacia.Yeah, you can read the stories that takeplace in Demacia inlike almost any order.And it'll still make sense. Yeah,exactly. You know, yeah,because Demacia is Demacia.But the MMO is going to have to changethese places. And it'sjust a matter of whatRiot's vision for these places andcharacters are. Becausefor all we know, like,Darius is just going to like immediatelygo through some emotional breakdown.Yeah, like we don't know. We don't knowwhat their plans are forthese characters or forthese zones because we haven't seenanything yet. So the MMO isgoing to be an eye openingexperience. Hopefully, hopefully,hopefully they do not fall into thesetropes. But that's my biggestwish in terms of storytelling is that Iwould literally rather watchDemacia burn to the ground.I would rather watch the entire city beraised than for it to gohappy go lucky peacetimewith the mages and everything's fixed.Like I would rather havetheir problems completelydevour them. That would be a lot moreinteresting. An MMO is so stressfulbecause you can't fix yourmistakes. Yeah. Like RPG, you canwhatever that story is done, just moveon. You can say it'scanon, not canon doesn't matter. But it'sjust the game like retconthings, right? Yeah. But whatthey just did with Riot Forge like, okay,but if they had donethat, like, if Nunu and Willemfought Lissandra at the bottom of thehowling abyss with one ofthe watchers eyes moving aroundthem in the MMORPG, you cannot changethat. Like it's happening.Yeah. The only way you can changeit is like by doing something stupid,like going back in time,like you use, you go to freakingthe Acacia expansion and Zilean reversestime on that moment. Butlike, you don't want to have togo through that, that headache. Yeah, youhave to write around itthen. Yeah, even then. Yeah,it's just gonna make the whole story evenworse. Because I don'tthink there's any good way towrite around any problems you face likethat specifically. Andyeah, you're right that thatmoment just kind of it's a problem withpower scaling. And that'sgonna be a big issue withany MMO. Right? Like, I'm scared thatthey'll not know how to handle that kindof stuff in terms oflike, I mean, they are the ones who madethe scale of Runeterra, right? So Ialways have that muchfaith in them. They know how to makegargantuan threats that are mysteriousand just terrifying.I see. That's what I thought aboutBlizzard. That's true. Wethought we literally foughtthe Titan of death at the seat of thewhatever Titan. Yeah, thePantheon. Basically the gods.We basically fought one of the gods ofWorld of Warcraft at onepoint, which was very just like,it's cool in the moment. Very cool in themoment. Yeah, and then it'sover. Now what? Do we fight?Is there a God of gods? What do we do?Like, we can't just keepfighting bigger and biggerthreats. And that's why, like, thewatchers need to stay that mysteriousbeing for a long time.And Song of Nunu kind of dampens that.Yeah, the watchers need to staythreatening for a very,very long time. At some point, it shouldconclude, but we shouldn't just beat theother living crap out of them either.They're a way to handlethose kind of threats.It dampened them like it made them lookless than they are. Exactly.Like you can't do that withAurelion Sol either. Like Aurelion Sol,the Star Forger. Yeah,literally needs to remainthe Star Forger forever. Like we cannothe cannot come down and wefight him at the peak of Targon.That'd be stupid. Yeah, very dumb. Yeah,I agree. Like I have to bethe planet size and we justfought him to see the. Yeah. Yeah, I wantAurelion Sol to outliveRuneterra. Right. Like you shouldnever defeat him. If anything, we losebecause he's going tooutlive us all. Yeah. That's howAurelion Sol should stay. I mean, I thinkto that extent, I thinkthat's the one thing that I feelgood about with the main riot writingteam because they could not make acharacter as cool as AurelionSol without screwing him up. And you'reright about Blizzardand what happened to them.That's also just like completelydifferent writers over the course of theMMO, which I think we'llsee in this MMO too. If it's successful,right. I don't think we'regoing to have the same teamfor like 20 years. If it's a good. No, ofcourse. And people come,people go. Yeah, that's the scarything too. We can give you need somefoundational. Like I would say if I hadto say which team is themost important at riot for the MMO, I'dsay it's the lore team moreimportant than I'm not sayinganyone individually can make an MMO. Youobviously need everyone, but moreimportant than the artteam, more important than the systemsteam, more important than the the landteam in class, classdesign and all that. The class designteam, the lore team is themost important team that's workingat riot on this. I'm more PG right now. Iagree, especially in terms ofpre-development for an MMO,right? You are setting the you areplanting the seeds of a game that isintended to live on fora very long time where any small mistakein the law is going tojust grow. It gets compounded.Exponentially get worse. Yeah, as timegoes on. That like right now, they'reprobably sitting in a roomlike just pulling the meticulously. Yeah.Thinking about every littlething that's going to go intoRuneterra. And at least I feel likethey've done a very good job with that sofar in terms of justlike, you know, obviously the worldbuilding of Runeterra is all we haveright now and it's fantastic.So I think that part, at least in termsof launch, I thinkwe're safe. I think launchlore is going to hit because they don'treally have to do much in terms of likewhat they already have.It's already there. Yeah, it's what comesafterwards, man. Yeah. It's what comesafterwards. I am just like, we'll see.We'll see if they can do it.So what would you want to describe yourperfect the gamelaunches? What do you want to see?What do you want to see? Oh, man. When itfirst opens up, what isit? Describe it to me.Oh, boy. Okay. Well, my my favoriteplace, they'll alwaysstay static. Better. Better.Always stay static. It's Bandle City,right? I make a yordle. Wego through that that beautifulcamera, you know, flying through BandleCity as they take us in. Imean, I would love if they doa narrator like World of Warcraft did totalk about what like totalk about the race you pickedand who they are. So, you know, you'llhave somebody talking aboutwhat the yordles are and wholike what they embrace their ideals,their beliefs, all that stuffas you're seeing Bandle Citybefore it reaches your character that youcreated. I love that introthat World of Warcraft did.I'm not going to lie. I'm very intro forany of those intros arevery important. Right. Likeextremely important. And peopleunderestimate how important the introwhen you first log into theworld is. Like I do think they ruinedthem a little bit in cataclysm. Theychanged them. And yeah,they updated them and they were better.It became more about the stateof what's going on instead ofthe race. Yeah, themselves. They triedthat they were trying tolike tell you the story. They'relike, oh, we got to catch you up. There'sso much stuff. Yeah.That's not what it's for though.In classic, it was like you are aforsaken. You are you were achampion in life. You're dead.And the dark lady. And it was all like, Iforgot that it's an amazingintro. If you want to lookat the forsaken classic intro, it'samazing. And look it upafter cataclysm. It's not good.Anymore. Yeah. And yeah, these intros arepurely on what the race is.Yeah. And just yeah, like if the race hassome backstory, like theforsaken, you need to likegloss over it. You know what I mean? Likekind of just like,like, like talk about it,but don't get into details at all. Youneed to just give theperson a very basic rundown.Yeah, exactly. Let them know what theypicked. Let them know where they're fromand what kind of character they justmade. I think that's very importantbecause let's be honest,all these League of Legends players,Shout's League of Legends players,they're not going toread anything about Runeterra. Okay. No,no, you don't know anything. Yeah.Really? I don't blame them becausethere's only no reason to know anythingabout Runeterra yet.But it's such a good world. It's so welldone. And nobody's going toknow anything about jumpinginto this MMO. That's why you need alittle introductory thingafter you make your character.That's what's going to be. That's thehook, you know, to the loreof Runeterra is that you startoff with something that you like. Thisperson clearly likesYordles. Why? Because they made aYordle. Let's talk to them about theYordles. Yeah, just aboutthe Yordles. Yeah, just aboutthe Yordles and like surface level stuffabout who they are. And that's all.So what they did, like first, you'rethinking about, okay, I'mbecoming a Yordle. Here's whatthe Yordles are. This is kind of like whothe Yordles are a littlebit about them. And then youget this is your Yordle. Now imagine thatreplaced with the NoxianDevosian battle was fought manyyears ago. You Yordles helped out. YouYordles helped out. And thenthere was the Rune Wars. Andyou have the Yordles all over the place.And this is whateverHeimerdinger and he's in Tiltover.And this is Hextech. Okay. Not everyone'sgoing to knoweverything. And that's okay.Yeah, let the community spread knowledge.Yeah, dude. Because ifsomebody is gets into the lore,they're going to find out more on theirown. Right. You don'thave to tell them everythingbecause they're going to want to knoweverything as long as you present thelore in a just easilydigestible way that's fun andinteresting. That's how it's always goingto start. That's how itshould always start. Because like if youstart showing me like theshort stories of Runeterra,like right off the bat, and I just likeI'm like reading about allthese random characters andstuff, I'm not going to get into it. ButI learned about Viegoand I was like, damn,that's a cool character with a coolstory. And I just think his design issick. All right. And thatalone was for me to like be like, okay,what else is going on in Runeterra?Right. Like that was allI needed. And I think that's how a lot ofpeople are going to be.That's why picking your race,leading to talking about your race isjust such a good introduction. Start offwith something peoplelike and keep it real simple and fun. Andpeople will do the rightthing. What was my first thingthat really hooked me on to Runeterra andthe right of him? Yeah,yeah. Because that was acharacter or place. What was it? I'mtrying to think. I think it was.I saw the the map trailer. Oh, yeah. Maptrailer of Runeterra. And Iwas like, what the heck isthere that much? And then when I went tothe map, like the mapwebsite, and I saw that this was likean actual world. That's what hooked melike the actual world thatthat this isn't just like,this is yeah, there's a place calledRuneterra. This is where the characterthe world the characterscome from. Like that there was a land,there was locations, therewas people, and not just themain characters. Like there are peoplewithin the world. Like yougo to Shurima. Yeah, okay,there's the main characters and you seethe sun disk andeverything. But then when you scrolldown, you see like, okay, there's thestreets of Nashirami and the Zoanthacascade and the Raidersand the Shatau and the sand flingers.Yeah, and you see like thethe endless plane and the theDormoon riders and I'm like, whoa, okay,so this is like, this is a legit world.Like this is a worldworld. That's I think when I when I waslike, okay, this could actually besomething really bigand really cool. And then I started thenI was like, I think maybea couple months after thatI was like, I'm gonna make a video onthis. I want to make ahorrible. Yeah, I did. I did ahorrible on my first video. I think myseries like this maybeout. Yeah, it's the journey tothe map of Runeterra. I did every singlezone. Oh, man. Yeah, watch my stylevideo. It's horrible.Static images. Like my voice sounds bad.My mic was horrible. Butwe've improved. We've improved.Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's crazy when youthink about how rare it is to find aworld like Runeterra.Yeah. Just how much there is in there.It's so dense. Like,there's there's nothing elselike Runeterra except maybe like earlyAzeroth is the closestthing I can think to it. Yeah,it's just like, yeah, it takes a it takesa talented writingteam. It takes a big writingteam, a lot of money and time and passionto make something like Runeterra. Andthat's why you don'tsee a sprawling world like this veryoften. So it's definitelyspecial. I see what you mean.Yeah, I think Azeroth is still special.And I think Runeterra is is just asspecial. And that's whyit's scary. Like you have to be carefulbecause if you if you likethe choices that you make ina memo are different than the choices youmake with short storiesor comics like those arehow you just say that's not canon. Thisis canon. When you do anMMO, everything is canon becausethat's the world that we're playing in.So there's no choice for itbut to be canon and you can'tbackstep. Yeah, it's a living breathingworld as soon as that MMOdrops. You know that that makesit like officially on an active timelinethat will always bemoving. And whenever people seewill be real. Which I think is whythey're so focused onconsolidating the lore right now. Andhopefully once they get all thatstraightened out, we're notgoing to be seeing what they'relike doing now anymore of just constantlysaying what's canon andwhat's not. That better stop bythe time the MMO drops. It has to. Yeah,it would be really scaryif that's still happeningright before the MMO drops. But cool.Yeah, what's good. Theyneed to get it straight.Well, I did cut you off on your what Iwant to ask you next time.Like what's your ideal launchfor the right of a mole like thebeginning. I like where youwere going with your heads at.Right now, always all we heard from youpretty much was I'm seeingI'm seeing my yordle in thatintro story. Yeah. But we'll go over itnext time for sure. I want to I want toabsolutely I'm goingto talk to you about it more. Soundsgood. I hope you enjoyed thisepisode. We'll continue thisconversation in the next one right herein the brazen hydro pub inBilgewater. You can find meand groove on socials and YouTube. Youcan find me at conquest 95 on Twitter.And if you want thispodcast but more of a clip format, youcan find us at the brazenhydro clips on YouTube. But tostay today on the goings on for thispodcast specifically, youcan follow us at the brazenHydra on Twitter, where you can add usquestions, just topics forus to talk about. You can alsofind us the brazen Hydra.com. Thanks forstopping in and we'llsee you in the next one.

The Brazen Hydra

#17—Riot MMO Main Characters, an ever-changing world, Mistakes the Riot team Cannot make, and MORE!

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