This is a bit of an unexpected and entirely arbitrary lore re-release. Essentially our disgust with the Orc race and how it has been portrayed for a long time now has been an ongoing cause for a headache. Including but not limited to: Playing ug-glub-wub-snub me orc me smash me drink beer rawr Orcs is terrible. Orc culture and design was entirely tribal, which was a concept already touched well with the Url, besides that the design was cliche tribal "hurr hurr skulls", "hurr hurr animal bones". Orcs lacked design variation. They were pretty much all tropes of the same scantily clad fur muscle beaters with 0 intellect. This redesign has: Increased skin tone choices from 1 to 4 Increased Body Shape sizes from Brute to Brute and lesser Brute Added a more intellect based Orc design in the diminutive Valuur Orcs. Rewrote Orc history to remove the Gur and Jarr. Rewrote Orc history to make a bit more sense. Rewrote Society to emphasize the complexion of Orc society layers Rewrote Orc mentality to remove the angry bashing and create a cyclical personality Added the Orc Orken Thrift, a sort orken "Period" where they just want to pick fights with everyone for a week to get rid of pent up aggression. Rewrote Orc culture to remove every single cliche barbarian design and replaced it with re-envisioned barbarism in juxtaposition to Regalian culture, but civilized status by itself. Rewrote physical characteristics to downsize the Orc size a bit to remove the god-rp aspect about them. Wrote in the Orc Goor concept, an idea stolen from the Maiar that encourages players to enter the Goor hierarchy and have their Orc naturally grow in size based on how many Orcs they control in their hierarchy. Added a fully explained rolling system and a fair structure to Goor challenges and a progression for Orcs. Reworded some of the Avarr lore not to conflict with the Sihai Lova lore. Added Orc Architecture with its own unique twist so it's not just shit hovels. Added Orc clothing to get rid of the barbarity and incompatible fur idiots that run around Regalia just picking fights. Added extra layers of societal and cultural complexity to Orcs that arguably make them the second or third most civilized species, even if they maintain some aspects of their Orc Tribe heritage. Religion remained the same. Combat and Warfare remained the same. Proficiency boosts remained the same. Eyes are no longer golden, but instead are a lighter scelera shade of gray, and either blue or brown irises. Silven are now capable of being Orc. Done away with the whole Warchief and chief concept and gave each rank in the hierarchy its own applicable term. Removed the "Ironsmasher" and "bouldereater" surname principles, enforcing Orc language surnames. Added a few extra hair color varities. All in all, it's a big change. Most Orcs who are currently being played should really be looked into as this is a major lore change. Most characters should be able to survive just fine without too many changes, except that Orcs should behave differently and dress less like tribal manure squatters. As a side effect of the slow progression of removal of races, the Maiar race has officially become unplayable. For lore continuity Maiar will retain their lore position as a sentient race with their own cities and lore constructs, but players will be indefinitely disallowed from playing Maiar as they are retired as an active playable race. They will at some point (maybe) come back under a magical revision when the time is right, but for the time being everyone will have to stop playing their Maiar characters, and we will not be making any exceptions. Link to the Orc Page: https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Orc Link to the Maiar Fauna Page: https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Maiar
If the Maiar's retirement is due to people making muscular Maiar without having low intelligence as a drawback, as was stated in a previous race revision thread, simply mentioning that aspect of Evolutionary Physiology on the wiki would solve that problem. If it they were removed for another reason, then disregard this.
I think we want to focus more on extra content padding for existing races, instead of spending time working for a race like 3 players played.
I believe there's about 5 or 6? approved Maiar characters, 1 other that was recently submitted for review, and a couple that were unapproved. There was also talk among me and other Maiar players about making a Maiar neighborhood for Regalia V5, and we had enough people to do so, though the person in charge of creating the neighborhood, Aresi, decided earlier today not to make the neighborhood due to most people not playing their Maiars as their main character. Also, they haven't been played much lately due to the mention of a possible removal a couple months back, and there haven't been many that have done much in the grand scheme of the roleplay scene, so I understand the reasoning. I feel that if they were readded, there's enough interest in the race for them to have a chance, especially compared to races like Varran which have even fewer people playing them, as far as I've seen.
It's unfortunate, but Maiar no longer fit in our vision of the lore continuity as a playable race. Rashaq and Wulong are going when the Sihai update goes live and the Lampar are out in a few weeks. This was announced a long time ago. And that's about the last I'll say on the matter.
That's fair. Hope to see them again someday, and I agree that the bar has been raised when it comes to racial lore and such.
Hopefully Lampar can make a comeback one day. Same with Maiar. Lampar have a lot of potential but I feel like their use as a quarantine race for Cutsie RP hamstrung them every rewrite.
Honestly this rework in a way wants me to try out an orc, it seems like a change that fits well into the playstyle, if that makes any sense, of the server. You got a thumbs up from me!
Is the plan still to add a Varran crossbreed as compensation for the loss of Lampar/Rashaq as stated in the Upcoming Race Reworks + Removal Part 2 post?
@MonMarty I noticed there wasn't any section explaining half orcs beyond their birthing, I'm wondering if this means they are mentally the same as normal orcs or if this was simply forgotten when updating?
Will the Sihai lore release include a race or sub race in anyway similar to Wulong? If not, are Wulong going to be entirely redacted from lore, or simply kept in unplayable limbo like the Maiar and a previous iteration of Thylan? Nevertheless, very excited for the Sihai release. Also the orc rewrite was fuckin heavenly to read. The changes made were phenomenal and IMO greatly needed.
There's a sort of monkey-tail Sihai thing going on there, but the whole concept of an ape person is being wiped from lore. Sihai lore is completely being reworked.
#WaterBendingForLife (Hopefully) I need that. For a moment I thought Bone singing was like metal water bending, but then I realized the truth...
