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[Neonivek]

I suppose when you've made a great game, it'd be dumb not to use it as an advert for the sequel.

In all fairness I eat up features like this.

If only there were more bonuses.

[Dunamisdeos]

I suppose when you've made a great game, it'd be dumb not to use it as an advert for the sequel.

In all fairness I eat up features like this.

If only there were more bonuses.

Yeah I am usually like, that whiny canon-stickler with LOTR, but this game is so fun. It is the exception for me.

[Ozyton]

I wonder how successful the game would be if they had stripped out all the LOTR stuff and made their own IP or used a lesser-known one?

[scriver]

The orcs probably wouldn't be half as fun.

[nenjin]

Other than select pieces of movie-canon armor, what really makes the Orcs in SoM Tolkien Orcs? At this point they sound like slightly more articulate 40k orcs.

I think the Nemesis system is easily extensible to lots of other places. What game about killing things would not be improved by procedurally generated, visually interesting enemies with dynamic game play systems behind them, and backed up with plenty of contextual voice acting? I think the real issue is that mentally it's hard to separate the Nemesis system from Middle Earth, because it took something we took for granted (hordes of nameless, mostly faceless orcs we love killing) and breathed new life in to it as an idea. The idea that the things you kill aren't just faceless, static drones stamped out of a mold. SoM's Nemesis system may not have delivered on that in spades, but it did a damn sight more than any game I can think of. I seriously do not enjoy killing anything in a game more than I've enjoyed killing SoM orcs.

But yeah. Any Ubisoft game would be dramatically more entertaining with systems like this in them IMO. Far Cry, AC, Uncharted, Tom Clancy's Whatever The Fuck. The Division. Dynamic enemies of any variety would have improved the bad guys you're supposed to hate in those games.

[Egan_BW]

Yeah, SoM Orcs are a lot closer to 40k than Tolkien imo.

[nenjin]

To me it's the damn British and Cockney accents. I never thought of Tolkien orcs as British. To me they were always snarling, guttural, accent-less baddies. When I hear a Brit doing an Ork accent, I automatically think 40k because it's what, to me, coined the association between the two.

But I swear to god 90% of all video game voice actors for hire are British, and no one seems sick of hearing them yet. It's like my gripe with fantasy movies people make today. Is it Fantasy? Welp, better hire a million British actors. Oh, is the main character/bad guy a "foreigner" like an Egyptian Pharaoh? British actor. 

I get people think that British voice actors automatically make things funnier, more proper sounding, more refined.....I'm just kinda sick of hearing them. And SoW is doubling down on this, especially with the very first orc character you dominate. (Bruz or whatever.) I read some other places where people were like "Oh yeah, that's exactly what I want to hear out of orcs in SoW, THAT'S personality." But when I heard him start talking all I could think was "Great, now I've exchanged cheeky British one-liners for fucking British speeches from the orcs."

Please, for the love of god people who cast voice actors, start hiring someone else besides the Brits. I know the American ear is simply fucking enchanted by British accents but there is something as too much of a good thing. Like, WoW didn't make their orcs Brits and they did just fine. They still managed to be comic relief without the tiredly overdone accents.

[Neonivek]

Honestly I miss the classic Warhammer Orc accents.

Cockney.

[ZeroGravitas]

To me it's the damn British and Cockney accents. I never thought of Tolkien orcs as British. To me they were always snarling, guttural, accent-less baddies. When I hear a Brit doing an Ork accent, I automatically think 40k because it's what, to me, coined the association between the two.

But I swear to god 90% of all video game voice actors for hire are British, and no one seems sick of hearing them yet. It's like my gripe with fantasy movies people make today. Is it Fantasy? Welp, better hire a million British actors. Oh, is the main character/bad guy a "foreigner" like an Egyptian Pharaoh? British actor. 

I get people think that British voice actors automatically make things funnier, more proper sounding, more refined.....I'm just kinda sick of hearing them. And SoW is doubling down on this, especially with the very first orc character you dominate. (Bruz or whatever.) I read some other places where people were like "Oh yeah, that's exactly what I want to hear out of orcs in SoW, THAT'S personality." But when I heard him start talking all I could think was "Great, now I've exchanged cheeky British one-liners for fucking British speeches from the orcs."

Please, for the love of god people who cast voice actors, start hiring someone else besides the Brits. I know the American ear is simply fucking enchanted by British accents but there is something as too much of a good thing. Like, WoW didn't make their orcs Brits and they did just fine. They still managed to be comic relief without the tiredly overdone accents.

There's a section in LOTR where Frodo or Sam overhears some orcs talking. I think they were written with lower-class English speech patterns but I don't recall exactly.

[Neonivek]

Naw they are accentless... That means American.

[scriver]

"The scum tried to knife me" is as British as it can get without exchanging scum sum for bloke.

[Neonivek]

"The scum tried to knife me" is as British as it can get without exchanging scum sum for bloke.

I am starting to be reminded of the language of Soul Calibur... You cur!

[Jacob/Lee]

Other than select pieces of movie-canon armor, what really makes the Orcs in SoM Tolkien Orcs? At this point they sound like slightly more articulate 40k orcs.

Minor quibble, but nearly all the enemies in Shadow of Mordor identify themselves as Uruk-hai and not the garden-variety Orc.

What traits would make them "Tolkien Orcs?" I struggle to remember how they were supposed to act in his books.

[Virtz]

Tolkien was British, so having orcs talk like pillocks with cockney accents seems kind of appropriate. I'd also say in general it sounds more "authentic" to have pre-colonial settings with British accents, seeing how other parts of the English-speaking world didn't really have a "proper" medieval age (with the plate-armoured knights and castles and such).

And yeah, it's the Peter Jackson movies that solidified that. Along with Tolkien orcs being a male-only race of truffles you pull out of the ground rather than the corrupt elves they were apparently supposed to be.

I'd say their defining characteristic as "Tolkien" orcs at this point is that they're more grey and black than green. And they're unambiguously evil. And there's like a hundred cross-breeds, with the true default being the short goblin-like ones. So they're pretty accurate to Tolkien, I'd say.

[lordcooper]

I wonder how successful the game would be if they had stripped out all the LOTR stuff and made their own IP or used a lesser-known one?

I honestly don't think the IP is benefiting them all that much.  Selling it as a LoTR game isn't fooling anyone who knows more than the very basics of the lore, and it's probably alienating at least a few curmudgeonly gits.

I always thought they missed a trick by not going with Warhammer Fantasy instead.  Oddly charismatic greenskins fit the lore far better, and they're already basically ultraviolent comic relief.  Plus the DLC/expansion potential would be basically limitless with the plethora of different races, anyone who can say they wouldn't pay for at least Skaven, Chaos/Beastmen (think of the mutations!) and Vampire Counts is either a liar or a fool.  Also, y'know, goblins.

Their weird McGuffin of a new Ring would fit in better with a world that has umpteen million powerful artifacts, the new enemy types they shoehorn in already have very close equivalents in WHF, and the lore is just generally convoluted but open enough for them to get away with a lot more craziness than is feasible with LotR.  Hell, even the weird wraith possession thing would make far more sense with an IP switch.  OR they could drop it entirely and let players lead the WAAAGH as an orc.  The early game could consist of you carving your way through the nemesis system to become a chieftain/warboss.

A WHF based Mount & Blade style game using something like the Nemesis system in place of generic lords would be pretty much my dream game.

TL;DR: Green iz da best.