Orcs Campaign: How, When , Why, What! [important]

[SageAcrin]

The summary (which is what i'm going off with this gut reaction) makes this sound a vile and unpleasant story i'd be disgusted to experience as a protagonist and feel kind of dirty to have a recurring donation towards, no matter the gameplay. :/

I can't imagine a situation in which this isn't just as grey morally as every other part of ToME.

I mean, that's just how ToME goes.

[Darkmere]

The halflings enslaved and persecuted them!

Besides, there's another enemy they're really facing - the Steam Giants. What else there might be besides them and the West remains to be seen...

I suppose I missed that part, but you'd know much more than I would

I just hope there's more to it than them really, honestly believing their innocence when "they took our land and our freedom" is their justification for out-and-out genocide, twice. Disproportionate retribution and all.

Giants of steam you say?

Anyway, sorry for the derail. Carry on!

[stinkstink]

The summary (which is what i'm going off with this gut reaction) makes this sound a vile and unpleasant story i'd be disgusted to experience as a protagonist and feel kind of dirty to have a recurring donation towards, no matter the gameplay. :/

Antimagic! (Vheren the Cornac Summoner level 16; 2012-12-13 02:58:23)
Anti-Antimagic! (Aniero the Cornac Anorithil level 33; 2012-12-23 00:11:52)
Backstabbing Traitor (HepHeight the Halfling Corruptor level 21; 2013-03-01 15:07:53)
Genocide (Aniero the Cornac Anorithil level 37; 2012-12-23 14:08:05)
Poisonous (Sigh the Halfling Rogue level 11; 2012-12-19 01:30:16)
Flooder (Kettlebells the Dwarf Stone Warden level 34; 2013-01-08 16:03:57)

[Aerach]

Thank you for the strawman list of achievements and alt choices, mr stink. (bar the regularly chosen genocide - the only one that comes close to the point i presume you are after, as i find the game difficult to complete without lessening the patrols and feel little choice. It is an unpleasant experience every time that often leaves me taking a break.). My gut reaction is what it is and he wants honest feedback, an attempt to insult me by painting me a hypocrite using logical fallacies is hardly going to change it.

If the actual story that comes out is more nuanced than taking the role of an abomination out to gleefully destroy civilisations then so be it, but that is far from what has been outlined here.

[wobbly]

Hmm.. I read the outline as different. You are born an orc & your enemies in the west have almost driven your race in to extinction(again) - actually true. You are squashed between aggressors to the west & the east. In a game played in a war setting that for a large part is about killing things, I'm not sure how you're ever going to be able to play the "good guys". Just my opinion.
Anyway I'll be glad to play an orc, was disappointed when I downloaded Tome & found I couldn't. Curious though whether there will be any other racial choices or even a choice between orc tribes?

[darkgod]

But the orcs have never been depicted as mindless monsters! All their actions were out of desperation.
Sure they are a bit on the conquer-side of things but not that much. They were however seen as such by the other races.
The lore you find in the east should hint at that.

So yes you'll go your merry way to kill the sunwall and the atmos tribe; but you have reasons for that beyond "me not like no green skin!":
you want to secure a land for your own kind, to ensure a future for the orcs.

As for playing good guys .. there are no good guys, not with orcs, not in the west.
Halfling ? a slaving bunch who militarily dominated the continent for thousands of years
Humans ? the allied kingdom, while having "noble" ideas is still responsible for the orc genocide and the *enforcement* of peace
Shalore ? they stand secluded in their land, hated by most, feared by all for their magical ties
Thalore ? perhaps the less terrible of them; but dont cross their borders or you'll soon find an arrow on your back
Yeeks ? sure they are nice, if you like their Way .. if you dont ...
Dwarves ? Money is all that counts. They even hid the orc threat because it would reduce benefits!

Nobody is good, nobody is bad. This is not disneyland-world, this is real life !
Just like your current characters in Maj'Eyal; they are slaughtering a bunch of people without even pondering if it's the best way!

[Mewtarthio]

If the actual story that comes out is more nuanced than taking the role of an abomination out to gleefully destroy civilisations then so be it, but that is far from what has been outlined here.

"Abomination out to gleefully destroy civilizations" sounds like a pretty accurate description of the average ToME PC, actually.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I'm sure the orc campaign isn't going to be some horrible human-baby murdering experience. There were already obvious perspectives shown and different moral conflicts in standard tome, even different points of view on the Age of Pyre. Yeah, the orcs fought and inlficted horrible damage... But the halflings started it! Does that mean we should exterminate the orcs, just for the events long in the past? Similary, just becaue the halflings once chained your kind to fences and beat them, doesn't mean we should exterminate the race.

It's the same as the spellblaze really. Yeah, a few mages managed to make a big explosion. Wow. Obviously, that means we should destroy everyone and everything with even the slightest trace of magic. So... The orcs were in a war, should we destroy everyone and everything with the slightest trace of connection to that war? The orcs were not universal bad guys, read the history of Garkul, and the history of the orcs, found in the prides. They kinda got screwed.

As for cost, more folks (Who actually get paid more then minimum wage and can afford to) would donate to kickstarter, given that donations direct to DarkGod can only be done with paypal, and not everyone has a paypal account (and some places can't do guest donations.) Not sure if kickstarter has similar issues or not, but I would assume simple card donations would work, without needing an account... Perhaps someone more familiar then I with there policy in other places could chime in on that.

However.... Is this a campaign we have to donate seperately for?!?

Kickstarter could work well but would take a lot of work setting it up and making it look good, so keep that in mind. Your main advantage is that this isn't a half-built game looking to be finished; the base game is already quite substantial. I imagine pledging into the kickstarter would get you the current donator features and free access to this orc campaign when it's finished, right?

I'm also curious as to what this campaign will entail and if it will effect the base game in any way. Will we be seeing new classes? I'd love to see an orc lasher, whips are almost never used currently and it would be pretty thematic. Adding the Naga as a playable race would be a cool stretch goal too, and that would add even more exotic weapon love.

If we have to donate and pay seperately for the orc campaign, that's going to shaft a lot of people who already have problems donating...

I could see maybe setting donation goals to push a new class/race/etc, but I'm sure may of those are already designed, and you run the risk of forcing in classes/races that don't fit the them of Maj'Eyal (or Var'Eyal) just because someone donated some money.

Tl;dr, Give darkgod money, don't charge us more to play the orc campaign, Praise Darkgod forever, moral choices in orc campaign so we don't just genocide everyone with a winner for no reason. Multiple paths would fit VERY well, and could also tie into an addon for main campaign where you side WITH the orcs to defeat the sorcerors.

(I also once suggested different possible support options for final fight, where we might have ally's other then ***** (censored for spoilers), maybe getting Linnanil, or the Grand Corruptor, Myssil, or maybe others to aid us instead (just one at a time.) (DarkGod even mentioned doing this (!!), not that it's happened yet. Granted, he also offered to buff it's difficulty at the same time, but still...) This would be a perfect opportunity to bring that back, giving us a Kruk Pride leader to help us take down the final bosses instead. And of course, sets the stage for some actual CHOICES, rather then just gameplay. Could do the same with the orcs, I'm sure there are at least some people, even those in positions of power that would be happy to forgive and forge a peaceful alliance with the more peaceful of orcs. (Just as there are those who don't hate and despise everything to do with magic.)

[Darkmere]

Okay, wait. Let's take a look at the orcs' history here.

a) Enslaved by halflings. Alright, this sucks, granted.
b) Time for vengeance, kill em all!
c) Well, that golem thing sucked. Oh, and the best of us is dead. Retreat.
d) Well, we have strongholds, a breeding program (disturbing though it be), and can fight our only competition in the area to a standstill. There might be a future for our people if we can hold out. Our chances look pretty good, unless we do someting stupid.
e) Start an invasion into the lands that killed us before, opening a second warfront out of, uh... "desperation"!
f) Well, that got the attention of a jerk with an inflated ego... who killed almost all of the rest of us, and destroyed our breeding program. And leadership.
g) Let's use what few of us are left to try and kill everyone again! It's worked so well before!


They had a supreme advantage and could have even held out for a resurgence of their culture, and numbers. They blew it by starting an unnecessary invasion out of spite (Reknor), that gave them away to the continent that's killed them twice. They were "desperate" when they started Project Greatmother, but continuing aggression on the brink of extinction is just blind, simple bloodthirst. Like animals. No one's straight good or bad, but the orcs are suicidally stupid, apparently. I do look forward to being proven wrong. I hope.


On-topic: Eh, there's also the "jade-colored glasses" market segment like me who isn't willing to bank on promises. Right now I'm under the assumption that the game will get to Steam eventually (with the logic of "it's on Desura, steam has a good incentive to pick it up just to get some of that money"), so I'm waiting for that. I don't have Paypal or anything like that set up, nor will I. But I love the game, have been pushing friends to play it, and would gladly throw some money at it (And another campaign, once completed, as DLC) were it somewhere available to me. Steam, basically. It sucks, but it's what's within my means right now, and I can't be the only one. I hope it works out that way so I can put some money towards this insidious timesink.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

The orcs aren't suicidally stupid, you're just seeing only a tiny offset of the orc society. The prides are exclusive comprised of there most aggressive military personnel. This means that the military was for all intents and purposes in SOLE control of the entire society. Just because they insisted on waging MORE war because it's all they knew does not indicate stupidity in the Orc race. The orc society DID have civilians (It is mentioned in the lore) and I can only assume that there are still civilians in there society. As a result, you're judging all of orcdom by a small smattering.

Would you judge all of the USA by the actions/personality of our military? Was all of Germany comprised of people EXACTLY like Hitler? No society is a truly uniform structure. The orcs will no doubt have different beliefs among different people. I'm sure there are some who just want to till there fields and grow some crops, with no real interest in the other races other then 'oh please god don't kill me'. Similarly, I'm sure we could have some more... enlightened orcs. In fact, I rather suspect that's the direction that the Kruk Pride might take.

Edit: Also, the 'breeding program' uses blight infusion into the blood. If this is passed on, it may well lead to orcs who are being corrupted from the inside. Exactly what effects this might have on there mental capability is unknown, but If I had some sort of twisted unnatural magic running through me, I'd expect some brain tumors/altered behaviour... It's one of two reasons I don't see the breeding pits as being a totally evil act for an adventurer. You save the orcmothers from there misery, and prevent the unnatural contamination of the orc genome from spreading further, improving the societies hope for the future.

Of course, this only holds true until the Lore says that the blight isn't genetically inherited. (It almost has to be, given that it is accelerating growth, but still.)

[Darkmere]

@ Crim:

I agree with what you're saying, but compare that to the first post in the thread where the hook of the campaign is making "nasty technology" to fight "sunwall scum."

Who's still in charge? Doesn't sound like farmers. Also I'm having trouble reconciling "tiny segment" with "threatened with extinction." Again, I hope I'm proven wrong, but it looks like more bloodthirst and rage are in store.

[TheRani]

I prefer playing female characters, and why would a female orc be out adventuring instead of raising baby orcs? And aesthetically, I don't care to play a character with seventeen boobs.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I prefer playing female characters, and why would a female orc be out adventuring instead of raising baby orcs? And aesthetically, I don't care to play a character with seventeen boobs.

So you'll need surgery, either to add or remove one, and you can have 16 or 18. After all, gotta have that symmetry. Without symmetry, you're just ugly.

As for the non-military orcs, with the dead prides, we should indeed see a stronger voice from the civilian sector. And I refuse to believe that ALL females were altered and held captive in the breeding grounds. So yes, at this point I believe the military voice would be a 'small segment'.

[phantomglider]

Weren't the orc civilians pretty much all killed in the first orcish genocide? If I remember correctly, the Prides were boot camps and military outposts, which was why they had to go to the extremes of the Breeding Pit. Even a good few decades down the line, the remnants of orcish society is still going to be massively dominated by the military. And the proposed orc campaign is about a member of the fifth pride that the ToME PC never visited, with most of its local government (i.e. a military junta) intact.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

You do realize that it has been a LONG time since the first orcish genocide? Plenty of time for new orcish civilians to be born. If nothing else, I'm sure there were some who just didn't measure up to be warriors in the prides. But if not that, the orcs would have HAD to set up some sort of civilian infrastructure.

Where do you think the orcs got there food? Ores to smith weapon with? Leather for armor? All the other necessities of day-to-day life, not even counting the kind of resources it would take to run a grossly oversized military. The fact that they aren't STARVING to death means they hold at least SOME civilian infrastructure. And to support a population the size of there military, it must be relatively extensive. ESPECIALLY given the breeding rates they have. Growth of that size would take a LOT to support, and they can't easily trade for it, given that the sunwall hates them, and they don't have contact with other races, bar maybe dwarves. While it's possible the dwarves would have sold them food (It is profit after all), they were FIGHTING over Reknor. At that point, that would have gone out the window, and even the orc military intelligence (Don't EVEN make a joke over that, I'm sure it's been done to death) would know to not rely on that, so there MUST be some civilians. Same as there MUST be more females elsewhere. If every female born became a new broodmother, the orcs would have LONG since bred themselves into extinction, I'm convinced that wouldn't be a sustainable practice, certainly not for decades.

Alright, Maybe they could have some sort of HUGELY disparate male/female birth rate, causing one in every 10000 orcs to be female or something, but then how did they live BEFORE the huge genocide and genetic experimentation for better birth-rates? Simple logic and the setting of the world dictates not only more females (Unmutated), but also civilian infrastructure SOMEWHERE. I can assume that darkgod has taken this into account for the new orc campaign, as it would be a plot hole I could drive a Vorlon planetkiller through if he didn't...