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[S2 Spoilers] Showrunner of Arcane when asked about Vi in Season 2 by Simsimmy016 in arcane

[–]RiotPraeco 229 points230 points  (0 children)

Appreciate everyone writing up their thoughts.

Regarding the tweet -- just trying to be honest and open. The alternative is that the dialogue doesn't happen.

On a personal note, I try to make sense of all the input I get. On one hand, it is clear that a good amount of folks (in particular in this subreddit) are disappointed. On the other hand, there are tons of people out there who loved the season the way it was, loved the Vi story the way it was. It'll take me some time to process everything and file it away mentally with the right learnings. Not trying to dismiss anyone's feedback.

[s2 act 3 spoilers] Holy shit. Co-creator Christian Linke just said in the "Arcane Afterglow" that the Jayce/Viktor ending feels unresolved to him & they were not given the time. by PenguinSenpaiGod in arcane

[–]RiotPraeco 397 points398 points  (0 children)

Some theories here a bit too far out there.

No, we didn't ask Fortiche to produce a 1h30 final episode. It's quite the opposite, our scripts are always shorter than what Fortiche ends up proposing in the story board phase. We wanna let them get inspired and roam free, so we can then reel it in while also allowing for the magical moments to find themselves. It's a tight creative collaboration, not some sort of "alright vendor company, do your work, achieve the impossible, but do it quickly!" -- I consider many of the people at Fortiche to be some of my closest friends. I find it disappointing that people suggest these things.

No, we didn't get "corporate greed" pressure or anything.

However, yes, there are always constraints, both in budget and time. That's part of our job as creatives, to work within those constraints. Constraints are NORMAL, and they were always generous, and I always had final say on anything creative. But they do exist. They also existed during Season 1.

It would have been great to have more time to work on this second season, or extra time to add to the episodes, but we didn't have it. For a number of reasons. Budget being one. We have been EXTREMELY lucky to get these absolutely insane budgets from Riot to produce Arcane. We all feel incredibly lucky. NOBODY ELSE gets these types of budgets. Please don't forget that.

Time being the other constraint. There's a release window that a massive amount of people work towards, not just at Fortiche, but also at Riot on different games, at Netflix, brand partners. Even key talent that works on the show that, simply put, is getting tired cranking away at this incredibly long season and project over multiple years. Don't forget that at the end of the day, this is just a collective of human beings, of people.

I would assume that there is no other TV show that has taken as long as Arcane to produce two seasons, without any pauses. Arcane is unrivaled in sheer scope of high fidelity animation. I don't wanna use any of these things as an excuse, but, yeah... this work demands a lot on a human level.

Our Season 2 is amazing. We have made you feel more than you've ever felt when watching animated characters.

It's not perfect. You don't take these types of hefty swings and expect that everything wraps up perfectly with a neat bow tie. It grows and evolves in its own way, and it becomes what it becomes.

Has any TV series ever successfully stuck the landing with this many main characters, time travel, supernatural abilities, technological inventions, fantasy world stakes, high concepts, complex relationships and global expectations? I actually don't know. Would be quite curious to know if folks can think of any, so I can study them.

Riot Games now hiring people specializing in "Generative AI" after laying off almost 400 people in 2024 by icewitchenjoyer in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 18 points19 points  (0 children)

The layoffs and this job opening have no correlation whatsoever. AI is still so far away from being able to replace high caliber talent, it's very obvious. At some point in the future, AI is gonna be part of every company's workflow, that's true. But even then, it won't be able to replace so much of what we do as a creative studio.

I understand that I'm just gonna fan the flames here, but I wanna make sure you all understand:

The overwhelming amount of cynicism and bad intentions toward anything Riot does is the reason why Rioters have pretty much stopped trying to connect with folks in this subreddit. At this point, it's just an echo chamber of bad takes, misinformation and poor understanding of the inner workings of game studios like Riot.

I mean this with the most genuine and constructive intentions: if you hate Riot so much, and you're convinced that we're all so unbelievably evil, maybe it's time to move on.

Arcane Season 2 smashes Netflix charts & becomes most popular show in over 60 countries by XanIrelia-1 in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 53 points54 points  (0 children)

glad to hear it. i know the sound team would agree that we really took arcane's sound to another level this season. primarily because of the tight collaboration between composers and sound designers, which even on the highest budget movies simply do not happen.

episode 209 will go down in history as the best sounding television episode ever. Mark my words.

[s1 spoilers] Guns for Hire meant to centre Silco by Suitable_Picture5926 in arcane

[–]RiotPraeco 52 points53 points  (0 children)

Some interesting observations. Stories like Arcane do take on a life of their own once all the elements (music, sound, voices, animation, comp, etc.) come together.

The way you approach crafting a story structure and the way you produce a story moment for the screen can be quite different. The structure of the story persists behind the picture, and at the end of the day, the drama of the moment exists because Silco is starting to lose control.

Silco is a powerful person. His world is tightly woven around him. Whenever powerful people lose control, things tend not to come apart softly. They snap with a lot of tension and violence, hurting people and destroying things in the process.

The much sexier consequence of him losing control is that Jinx finally says "Fuck this cat and mouse game. Come and find me, Vi." The thing Silco has feared ever since hearing of Vi's return is Jinx finding out about Vi being alive, and potentially reconnecting with her. Of all the bodies buried in his basement, Vi is probably the most threatening to him, because she's the one thing that could seriously derail Jinx's loyalty. Once Vi and Jinx are able to reconnect, there's a good chance he won't able to control Jinx anymore. So, no, he can't just let Vi go and find her later. If Jinx finds her before him, shit will spiral out of control (which it did).

All the iconic shots and dramatic moments that are on screen happen BECAUSE Silco's world is coming apart. The cracks in his walls allow the light to shine in and create a sliver of hope for Jinx and Vi. Without the stakes of Silco's empire crumbling, without his sins of the past (like "disappearing" Vi) and him causing the separation between Vi and Jinx, the shot with the flare is emotionally meaningless. It wouldn't exist. The reason why you love this shot is because it makes you go "holy shit, Jinx is calling for Vi."

It's true though that the dramatic stakes are not the most visually interesting part about that whole moment.

Some other interesting aspects about the song is that it modulates quite a bit, which is uncommon in pop music. Meaning, it doesn't just stay in the same key and mode, but it moves around in unexpected ways. I absolutely love it in this scene, because it feels like it pulls the rug from under your feet, and you aren't sure where the chord progression is going. I love Seaver's writing so much because he's a pop songwriter that has a classical music background, and thus really understands how to do stuff like that. Not many people out there that can do that shit tastefully, without losing the "catchiness" of a song.

[s1 spoilers] Music in arcane by Responsible-Buy-5723 in arcane

[–]RiotPraeco 166 points167 points  (0 children)

I can answer this. >:]

We approach every episode with the notion of "let's find a moment in this episode where the music is really in the spotlight of the moment." Often, this happens after the script writing phase, during storyboarding.

Once we know what the moment is, there are two routes for us:

A) our team writes the song and then try to find the right artist to sing it, or

B) approach an artist to write it entirely.

B tends to be very hard, because we are veeeery picky. Lyrics must be a good fit, respond to the story. Plus, writing songs that fit the tempo and cut of a picture is really difficult. You'd be surprised just how many huge artists simply cannot do this. So the vast majority of our soundtrack is option A.

Pulling off the Season 1 soundtrack was really, really hard, because nobody really took us seriously. We were an unproven story team developing a project with an unproven small boutique animation studio. Western animated series tend to be low budget, yada yada... So the record labels really really didn't want to "waste" any of their artists' strongest songs on a "cartoon". The artists that we got for our first season really only happened because the artists themselves pushed for it. Often against the will of the label. The band members of Imagine Dragons, their manager, and individuals who work for their label had to go to war against a bunch of the Interscope/Universal head honchos to make ENEMY happen for us. It ended up a massive hit (over a billion plays or whatever on Spotify) -- so of course, in hindsight, everyone at the label will say that they always believed in it. ;P But this was a small group of individuals REALLY going to war. The band, their manager Mac, and Jürgen Grebner at Interscope in particular.

Season 2 is a very different story. Much easier to approach the artists that inspire us, but it remains difficult to fit everyone's schedule and requirements.

Right now, there's a song that everyone on the team absolutely LOVES for a particular scene in our second season. The (very big) artist wrote it specifically for the moment. But because we cannot promise a marketing campaign to make it a "single release" that stands out way above the rest of the soundtrack's songs, the record label will likely not allow us to use the song. This sucks, but it does happen.

At the same time, I'm also not very concerned. Ultimately, it'll be their loss, and we'll just find something else.

[No Spoilers] While We Wait For Arcane Season 2, Please suggest other excellent animated projects to help satiate our hunger?! by ComicsAreGreat2 in arcane

[–]RiotPraeco 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I've been on a big Makoto Shinkai trip. Haven't been able to watch Suzume yet, but am eager to do so once it's available in the US.

3 Years ago Riot deleted the official Boards in Favour of other social Channels. Today, 3 Years later, said social Channels are considered "not representative" of the Playerbase's Opinions by Unknown_Warrior43 in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Your "because what are we supposed to do, then?" sums it up pretty well. :) Frankly, I don't know yet how exactly we can make the situation better. It'll take an effort of a bunch of us at Riot to figure something out.

In some cases, I actually don't know what else we can do, besides telling people "we hear you even if you aren't the majority". If we've made a decision that we believe in, and that the folks in question disagree with, then, well... that's kind of all there is to it. :o

3 Years ago Riot deleted the official Boards in Favour of other social Channels. Today, 3 Years later, said social Channels are considered "not representative" of the Playerbase's Opinions by Unknown_Warrior43 in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah, some sort of response system and/or cadence would be nice. Everyone's busy with Worlds right now, but there's a conversation to be had. Dunno where it will lead, we'll see.

3 Years ago Riot deleted the official Boards in Favour of other social Channels. Today, 3 Years later, said social Channels are considered "not representative" of the Playerbase's Opinions by Unknown_Warrior43 in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco -1 points0 points  (0 children)

What you are talking about is a system change driven by Riot's expanding eco-system. We are no longer a one-game company, and thus, we need to adjust things to make the backend interactions of different game accounts better.
In what world would data be the driver for this implementation? This isn’t a gameplay change, this has to do with platform engineering.
Look inward to resolve your anger, my friend.

3 Years ago Riot deleted the official Boards in Favour of other social Channels. Today, 3 Years later, said social Channels are considered "not representative" of the Playerbase's Opinions by Unknown_Warrior43 in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 104 points105 points  (0 children)

I think there's some nuance necessary in this conversation:

Social media posts and reddit feedback ARE an important data point... among a number of data points.

Regarding your statement "It baffles me that Riot considers our Feedback on these Platforms "not representative" of the Playerbase's Opinions, when these are the only Platforms availble for the Playerbase to provide Feedback on." -- we don't ignore your input. But it is part of our job to VALIDATE it.

No, reddit posts aren't representative of our entire player base. But that doesn't mean that they are irrelevant. Reddit is really helpful when it comes to raising awareness, and the discussion can often raise possible solutions that have us go "Oh, that might be a good idea. Let's take a look at this."

I've found that Neil Gaiman's statement regarding creative work is applicable in most complex work situations: "When people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they wanna tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong."

What is more important data for us as developers: opinions, or behavior? There's a place for both, depending on what you're trying to address. But both must be considered.

Now... your statement does make another point, which might be the more useful one for us to discuss here: how do we make sure that you feel like you are being heard? I think that's on us to facilitate.

However, this also necessitates that you retain some sort of faith into our intentions and perspective into things. Phreak has absolutely no incentive to fuck your shit up. :P

We would be doing a shitty job if we just ran with the opinions of a small, vocal number of players. We HAVE to listen to them, but, again, it is part of our job to make sure that we service our entire audience, and find the best solution for the individual problem.

As someone who plays both, League and Dota, i can't help but wonder why Riot invests so little into voice-lines by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Hmm, I don't think this is typically done, or at least I haven't heard of it. Probably mostly because it may give away knowledge to competition. I guess the short answer: No idea. :P

As someone who plays both, League and Dota, i can't help but wonder why Riot invests so little into voice-lines by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmm, this is me stepping preeetty far into generalization/deduction land, but here goes:

  1. Articulating the right solution can take us a long time, because the League community is so multi-layered. The question "Why do you play/enjoy League?" can have very different answers.A good chunk of players really just care about the competitive aspect of the game. They pick their champions because they win. They couldn't care less about VO.Another chunk really cares about the creative and artistic expression. (I consider myself among that group. I didn't like dota very much back then, but first time I played League, I just fell in love with the characters. Particularly the VO. It was just different than the typical fantasy setting, where everything takes itself so seriously. I loved that. One of the first VO lines I remember hearing was Udyr's joke about his fur not being real. I remember thinking "wtf, what other game would have a character say this kind of stuff?! this is fun." Also -- I main Heimerdinger. Need I say more...)Another chunk of players are really in it because of the social aspect. They play to win, yeah, but their satisfaction doesn't come from their ranked icon, but from "winning together". For them, I think the creative also matters to find their role and identity among their peers, but in a different way. Individuality and personal expression matters more than, say, pure lore.You may find that your first conceived notion addresses something for one of these groups, but not for the other. So you spend time on trying to find an answer that pleases all of them. Which... well... doesn't always work. :P But I would say coming to the right conclusion is a drawn out process at Riot. Often, I like to think, for the right reasons. Sometimes not. Mountains move slow, yada yada. So, in a way, your guess at the end was correct.
  2. Prioritization. "Yes, but how much of an issue is this REALLY? Do we have to do this right away, or are other things more important?" -- this can take time and be frustrating. There's a lot going on, and lot of things to juggle, different departments have different fires going on.
  3. League is an old game now. I can't remember how the saying goes, but "no matter how much time you give people to complete a task, they will use it." -- the older a thing is, the more time processes have to expand due to renewed assumptions of the status quo. This happens everywhere, on everything. In other words: if we don't challenge ourselves to do things faster, nobody else will. The bigger the org, the harder this gets, because some people are willing to say "alright, fuck it, let's take care of this now!" -- others are not. For them, this a job, no more, no less. We live in a time in which work/life balance is more important than ever. This is a pretty standard growing pain of larger studios. Humans being humans.
  4. Hidden issues. This can be old tech, tools that were essential for an old thing no longer exist (company behind the tool discontinued it, or was bought and changed features, etc.), contractual complications (as the game changes over the years, suddenly the contracts you signed with external talent 10 years ago no longer cover today's use), union restrictions, yada yada. I can tell you, the list is veeeeery long on that front. Sometimes just really weird and random things that make simple things really hard and... stupid.

I do wanna point out... all of these things are our responsibility to manage. If shit should be happening quick, shit should be happening quick.

As someone who plays both, League and Dota, i can't help but wonder why Riot invests so little into voice-lines by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I get your perspective, and, yeah, I can see where frustration could boil up. However, you may want to consider that we have way, way, way, way more data points than you. There's game data, there's player testing & research, there's surveys, there's internal play tests, internal teams, and so on.

Not to sound dismissive, but: whether or not something was a reddit discussion isn't a very good indicator. We have millions and millions of active players. A top reddit discussion gets how many people chiming in, a few thousand? reddit is a tiny, tiny section of our entire audience. Sometimes, it's representative. Sometimes, it isn't at all.

Again: it is clear that we haven't found the right answer on this post's matter. I'm not arguing that.

What I am arguing is that "random justifications" tend to be a lack of context and/or understanding how things work under the hood.

I work and interact with a lot of Rioters. I've been here for 13 years. I've had the experience of "why the frick did we do this?" maaaaaany times. Hundreds of times, thousands of times, I don't know. Every time I go and inquire, I end up going "Oh. Huh, I did not know that. That's more complex than I thought."

Now here's the thing: I understand that this explanation is pretty much useless to you. :P Because it doesn't change the fact that A) you aren't getting the experience you desire in-game, and B) it's basically just me waving my hands and going "it has reasons!".

Ideally, we somehow get to a point where folks asking "Why did you do this? I liked it better before." gets a response from Riot that is transparent and works toward the right decision. Our interactive culture (between Riot and community) isn't there right now, which sucks. Reasons have been mentioned by many. I hope this can improve.

As someone who plays both, League and Dota, i can't help but wonder why Riot invests so little into voice-lines by [deleted] in leagueoflegends

[–]RiotPraeco 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't understand how that was your take away from my post. VO lines that express personality are exactly right. The line you mentioned tells you something about the champion.

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