Undead Orcs

[GOD]

Playing today, I noticed a battle between undead and Orcs that the Orcs lost. This got me thinking, are there any plans for Orcs to be raisable as Wïedergangers by Necromancers or when they’re killed by Wïedergangers? With skins and stats separate from regular Wïedergangers? It could be that this already happens, because I’ve been unable to verify it (the aforementioned group got killed by militia), but I haven’t seen any undead yet that look like Orcs or wield Orc weaponry.

This would be an easy way to expand the arsenal of the undead and make for more diverse encounters, like facing a group consisting of a combination of Orcs and Humans, finally able to put aside their differences in death. Orc undead would lose their aggression, perks and stun abilities, but they wouldn’t tire or flee, so you’d have to fight them to the end when encountered.

[Sarissofoi]

But good sir orcs are soulless creatures and can’t be reanimated.

[Jago]

Yeah, this has crossed my mind before, too.
It seems logical that necromancers would try to raise orcs as undead servants.
But I’m not sure, I can only imagine that it’d somewhat weird, inconsistent to fight a mixed undead party. Also it’d mean a lot of additional work, that could spent on completely new units instead.

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[GOD]

They wouldn’t necessarily all be mixed. You could have it depend on how close to Orcish territory the undead are placed on the world map, or when they beat them in battle. So you’d get pure and mixed groups. Humans would still be the majority though, since these are human lands and so more dead humans would be available to work with. Just imagine the occasional undead Orc Chief though…

It seems to me like a unit like this would be easier to add than totally new units, since many of the mechanics are similar to already existing units that are tried and tested. The skins would probably take the most effort to make, since you need to add a lot of those to make it work – unless you do the ol’ ‘all Orcs look alike anyway’. :P I can see that being the biggest problem, since I can imagine that Psen already has a lot on his plate.

[Sky]

Necromancy is no racist thats for sure.

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[Jago]

GOD wrote:

It seems to me like a unit like this would be easier to add than totally new units, since many of the mechanics are similar to already existing units that are tried and tested. The skins would probably take the most effort to make, since you need to add a lot of those to make it work – unless you do the ol’ ‘all Orcs look alike anyway’. 😛 I can see that being the biggest problem, since I can imagine that Psen already has a lot on his plate.

True that. The mechanics are working fine.
But that what about other factions? The goblins? Or other non-human factions? Wouldn’t these require zombie-skins, too?

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[GOD]

Why not? The more the merrier. A re-skin of existing units with mechanics based on an established template, but tweaked to suit the unit, should be easier than making completely new units. It would add a lot of variety to the kind of encounters you could have and make different groups of undead feel more unique and appropriate to the region they originate from. You’d prevent it from becoming too diverse by only having them pop up when appropriate to the region and their encounters.
Granted, I don’t know what kind of development process they have, so I might be overlooking something that makes this a lot more difficult than it seems.

Sarissofoi wrote:

But good sir orcs are soulless creatures and can’t be reanimated.

That’s just propaganda the clergy feeds you. Everyone knows that the Orc is a proud, misunderstood creature worthy of our respect. Sky has the right idea, we are all equal in death. #Necromancerpride

[Jago]

I just mean, given the amount of work Psen has as the only artist, it would be easier (and more interesting) to introduce a couple of new units instead of reskinning the units of every existing faction and all faction to come.
Also adding completely new units with different behavior isn’t bad, not at all. That’s what BB really needs at some point of development. And even if zombies of other species would add more variety to the undead faction, they’d work they same way human zombies do, and won’t add much to the tactical combat, gameplay-wise (unlike new units).

No idea, how much the devs can do, but if I had to choose to invest my limited time and budget in new units or undead re-skins… I’d go with new units. Even if there’s time for both, new units and faction should have priority, don’t you think so?

In my opinion, this feature would be the cherry on the cake for a deep and immersive RPG. But I thinks it adds relative little compared to the work it takes, and it’s not a feature that is essential to the gameplay.

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[GOD]

I agree that it´s not a high priority feature, but more of a finishing touch. However, I do feel like details like that, when they come up, add a lot of flavour to a game. It´s one of those small, but logical things that makes a game world feel like it works according to certain rules that are consistent. A game like Dominions 4 has tons of these and it is part of what makes it special – though I´m aware that adding units is much easier in that game because of their much more limited capacity to act in battle, and the relative simplicty of their designs.
The main issue is how much effort it would take relative to what you get out of it, which is tricky to estimate since I don´t know how Psen made the current Wìedergangers or how difficult it was to program them. If Psen essentially takes the base human model and retouches it, then making more is a fairly efficient process. However, making it from scratch means an amount of effort similar to making a totally new unit model. You can skip part of the design phase due to similarities, but that´s still a lot of work.
If it´s relatively easy to introduce, then you get more diverse encounters and added flavour for little effort. If it takes a lot of effort, then it should be something kept for last or not be implemented, rather than spend time on it better spent on other features.

[Jago]

GOD wrote:

If it takes a lot of effort, then it should be something kept for last or not be implemented, rather than spend time on it better spent on other features.

I’m not opposed to the idea of undead orcs and goblins; it would definitely be a nice touch. Guess we’ll have to see what the devs say about this.

And what about undead orc-skeletons? ;)

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[GOD]

I´ll answer your wink with a serious analysis. ;)

It depends on the lore really. My impression is that skeletons are supposed to represent the long dead, rather than the more recently deceased. Since these are human land, it seems unlikely for there to be ways to get access to old Orc corpses from crypts and such, so you could leave skeleton Orcs out if you wanted to.

It depends on how you want to rationalise it though. You could say that the bodies from previous Orcish invasions might be around, though you could also reason that the humans would have burned them or otherwise gotten rid of them. So they could add them if they wanted to, but of the two more wïedergangers would be the more important pick.

[Jago]

GOD wrote:

I´ll answer your wink with a serious analysis. 😉
[…]

XD

Yeah, that would work. It’s not difficult to make the fluff sound logical. For example orc bones could be to heavy for the spells to work properly. Or orcs possess a natural resistance against magic, even in death.

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[Alesch]

Orcish Wieder… Fleshy Undead (German is a hard language to spell!) seems like it must ultimately be a necessity. It was written elsewhere that the various factions all fight each other, meaning that at some point a Necromancer might square off with an Orc Warlord. Since the player could potentially get involved in these fights (I never have, but it seems like it should be possible), then presumably in very rare instances the Necromancer might raise an orc corpse within sight of the player.

Of course, that would probably be really, really rare. So I doubt it would be that high on the priority list.

As for whether or not there should be orcish revenants amongst the regular undead spawns… I have no idea. I’d honestly prefer there not to be, as the two factions are currently very distinct to fight against. Where fighting the undead is mostly a matter of endurance and attrition, fighting Orcs is about being able to deal with their raw offensive power. Having a unit that hybridizes the two would pull the rug out from under both I think, unless it was only found in very rare circumstances.

[Sarissofoi]

In my understanding necromancers were human before they switch. As former humans they can connect and control only former humans. Orcs are too alien for them.
They have different aura and its just simply to for necromancers to control things that they can’t grasp.
Notice that they can’t also reanimate ghouls and their control over them are limited.

[GOD]

Wïedergangers. :P Poetically translated it can be phrased as ‘those who walk again’. That was how the thought occurred to me. I wondered whether the necromancers didn’t raise Orc bodies, raised them with human models or raised them as Orcs and I just hadn’t found any. They’d be similar, though different from living Orcs, just like human undead. No charge, speed, aggression, stun, perks, etc. Their presence would also be limited to geography and battles from which they were raised.

Jago wrote:

XD
Yeah, that would work. It’s not difficult to make the fluff sound logical. For example orc bones could be to heavy for the spells to work properly. Or orcs possess a natural resistance against magic, even in death.

Sarissofoi wrote:

In my understanding necromancers were human before they switch. As former humans they can connect and control only former humans. Orcs are too alien for them.
They have different aura and its just simply to for necromancers to control things that they can’t grasp.
Notice that they can’t also reanimate ghouls and their control over them are limited.

Those are both ways they could rationalise it if they don’t want to use it or parts of it. There’s no lore on it that I’ve seen yet, it’s more a matter of whether adding it is a good idea and if so, whether doing it is feasible.

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