April 1 Dev Blog: Exploring the World of Factions

As we gear up for the next arc, we’ve been thinking a lot about the fundamentals of Factions. After much deliberation, we have decided to revamp the Factions narrative universe to increase its dynamic flexibility and disrupt the concept-space within which we iterate our ongoing creative development model. It became increasingly clear during this deliberative process that some traditional elements of Factions lore were in fact inhibiting future story development, and so we’re taking steps to remedy that.

Perhaps the most significant change to arise from this collaborative development session is the removal of “factions”, such as Bilgewater and Demacia. The existence of “factions”, all-powerful nation-states that tell Champions what to do, was greatly constraining our ability to tell exciting stories. From now on, Valoran has no internal boundaries, nor do Champions have any affiliations to “states” or “countries”.

Rosters will now be limited alphabetically

Don’t worry: we definitely want to keep that exciting limited roster gameplay that defines Factions. So we’re replacing those clunky old “factions” with auto-generated high-impact mega-fun eSports MegaPlay Paks, using a sophisticated algorithm paid for by Monster™ Energy. We’ve dynamically assessed the Pro Plays Potential™ (PPP™) of each Champion through a nomenological hierarchy remodulation algorithm courtesy of Monster™. Though it’s actually much more complicated than this, as a first-order approximation, one could say that the new rosters will be set using the first letter of each Champion’s name.

Introducing the new rosters:

• AB
• CD
• EF
• GH
• IJ
• KL
• MN
• OP
• QR
• ST
• UV
• WX
• YZ

For example, AB includes such favorites as Annie and Brand, as well as Aatrox and Amumu—but don’t forget about Braum!

Again, the algorithm is more complicated than this. For example, Sejuani is in fact on the CD roster. Although her name begins with an “S”, thematically she has a lot more in common with CD than she does with ST, and gameplay-wise she helps to really accentuate that classic CD playstyle.

Factions continuity is essentially unchanged

Some people whom I imagined asked me how this will impact previous Factions lore. You can be assured that, other than the removal of all factions, Factions lore is exactly the same as it’s always been. Everything is still valid, so long as when you read a word like “Bandle City” or “Noxus” you mentally replace those words with “some people” or “this one place”.

Revised storyline summaries

We’ve rewritten all of Factions lore to take advantage of this exciting new change. However, Crazy MLC and Mike got into an exciting fight when Crazy MLC tried to get into the old lore storage vault (yuck, old lore!) and enhance it with fire as I instructed. Mike tried to stop Crazy MLC, saying something about guardians always being prepared, and they still seem to be fighting in there. I’m not smelling any smoke, either.

In short, we have some technical problems, which we’re sure will be taken care of very soon. In the meantime, we can release some short-form lore for the previous arcs.

Part I: Mirrorwater

What is the Mirrorwater? Where did it come from? Does it even really exist? Some say that it does, and that it came from space. Others believe it’s all just a fairy tale. But if it did exist, perhaps it had something to do with this one time when lots of people got into a fight with other people.

Part II: Ceruleana

Ceruleana is an ocean spirit with magical powers that allow her to control the ocean, who also likes the color blue. She has a dark and mysterious past. Some say that she was once an island. Now, she wanders Valoran on a quest for vengeance.

Part III: Discord

Skeletons and voidlings once became friends and attacked other people who were not their friends. It was very unfriendly. Many swore vengeance.

Part IV: Shon-Xan

Shon-Xan is a really nice place, with lots of trees. I hear that sometimes Champions like to go there to look at trees, and also waterfalls. After Discord, some people from another place came to Shon-Xan. Nobody had a problem with this.

Part V: Hextech Revolution

The so-called Hextech Revolution revolutionized the way that Valoranians use hextech. Through the use of revolutionary new hextech, the power of hextech was increased, both with regard to hexes and technology. Hextech revolutionaries realized that they could, using hextech, amplify hextech energy to cast hexes or design technology.

Part VI: Nyroth

Some people from Valoran found a place called Nyroth. Nobody lives there anymore.

Who knows what the future holds?

We’re excited to bring you exciting new stories in our exciting storyverse. We know you might be uneasy about such a large change to Factions, but we’re excited to say that we’re excited by the knowledge that you’ll be excited to see all the exciting new stories we can tell now that we’ve removed these constraints. We’re excited to see how excited you’ll be when these exciting new adventures excitingly excite your excitement for exciting new exciting exciting exciting exciting amphetamines amphetamines Montesque Naggarok where did you guys put the amphetamines hey Porkchop did you take them all yourself lol where’s montesque i heard he took all the excitement at once and got really excited and then fell down.

—CupcakeTrap

You can discuss this exciting new development on this exciting thread of vengeance.
You may also enjoy our exciting dev blog from last year, about items.

About CupcakeTrap

Caitlyn, you monster.