They were founded by Seer Nakha (one of the Mag’har orcs from Garadar). Sometime after we dealt with the orc spirits and the darkened Naaru K’ure, she personally traveled into Oshu’gun and spoke with Mother Kashur, who essentially inspired her/told her to listen for the song that only spirits could hear.
Lok’osh itself means “a song of the heart” or “a song of the spirit” in Orcish.[2]
She will have separate dialogue for those who have and haven’t done the quest chain.
I like that. I’ve referred to Light magic as the music of creation because there is something melodic about it. As opposed to the Void which I figure should be characterized as the silence of entropy.
That is good that Orcish Priests are leaning towards the “inner faith / zeal within one’s self” aspect of the light, and not so much “THE Light” itself as the thing to worship. There is a subtle difference, at least to me.
I always like those small details.
I find those are some of the most important in RPGs.
Fallout New Vegas is great for a lot of reasons but every action having a response from the world is it’s best feature. And a lot of it doesn’t effect the game at all. A favorite bit is there’s a nest of Deathclaws, some of the most deadliest enemies in the game, somewhat near the starting zone. So if you go near them an NPC warns you it’s certain doom to proceed.
Unless you run into that NPC at a very high level. In which case his dialogue changes to one of relief, because it looks like a bad enough dude finally rolled into town. Oh and then there’s a third dialogue option for if you meet him as a low level, then come back strapped to the nines.
It’s such a minor thing. But it makes a world of difference. RPGs are defined by the role you’re playing, and if that role doesn’t appear to effect the world around you, then it starts to feel like a theme park ride instead of a world.
This is awesome! Blizzard did an amazing job turning this around from something dissapointing to something wonderful. This is a win for both Orcs and worldbuilding at large. Orc fans benefit from additional and noncontradictory lore while those interested in the Light or cosmic forces can use this info to see how it relates to the wider universe. This is proof that Blizzard can still make good lore.
My first playthrough of that game was focused on beating it (siding with myself) and my second was on exploring. I had a goal of visiting everywhere in the game and killing everyone at those places. I had wiped out every Legion and NCR base before going to Caesar’s Fort. When I got there, Caesar listed every base I had destroyed, and while I thought he was going to declare me an enemy and try to kill me after he was done talking, he thanked me for completely purging his ranks of weakness and invited me to join him. That’s what convinced me to join Caesar’s Legion, which is something I did because the developers took what I did into account and made the characters react to it logically.
I have more playthroughs on that game then I can count. I’ve done everything in every order, if anything to see if I could catch the game slipping up. Never does. They really accounted for every possible player actions, even ones that are staggeringly unlikely to happen.
Compare that to Skyrim where the warrior’s guild The Companions will always refer to your PC as an unproven nobody. Now they’re in the first city you’re directed to in the game, and literally walk up and tell you about the option of joining. Probably because they’re the only way to become a werewolf, which was apparently a real pain to program, and they didn’t want you missing out.
So on a first playthrough that makes sense. But you can stand before them as a demi god who’s saved the world three times wielding legendary weapons gifted by literal deities, and they’ll still regard you as some no-name hobo they’re taking a big chance on.
And just one line of dialogue to the effect of “You may be a hero to many, but we’re all equals in the Companions, so you start at the bottom just like anyone else” while changing NOTHING ELSE would’ve made it work.
And obviously this is much more acceptable in a MMO. I’m not expecting to have unique dialogue with starter zone quest givers if I come there at level 70. But just some acknowledgement I’ve interacted with these characters before is nice. Vice versa would be great too. Ben has history with Wrathion, so that makes sense. But it’s weird how he uses that same familar term with toons he’s never interacted with.
That pretty boy bastard. I knew he said those sweet nothings to all the mute murder machines that paid him the time of day.
A “song” that she heard in Oshu’gun? Yeah so basically she/the orcs are another race inspired by the Naaru.
This does raise an interesting side point on orcish language -
Lok’ seems to be used in a lot of orcish words, and many of them refer to songs:
Lok’osh - A song of the heart / spirit
Lok’amon - Orcish song about starting a family
Lok’tra - Song about a battle
Lok’vadnod - song about the life of a hero
Compared to-
Lok-narash: To arms
Lok-regar: Ready for orders
Lok-tar: Victory
So either Lok is a universal word for song or the term can either refer to a song or something of a battlecry depending on if it is joined by a ’ or -
Perhaps that or Lok-tar more literally translates into a ‘song of victory’
… that or the writers really just adding lok to the start of orcish words because they have no consistency in their language.
When I played the game last year I tried to do a playthrough where I played as if I was actually in that situation. Things went bad when I got to Freeside because I didn’t need to kill anyone up until then. I’m looking forward to playing that game with mods now that I have a new computer.
This is sort of a problem I noticed when I made this character. During the prepatch characters were acting like we had worked together before. This character has never interacted with Khadgar before but he was acting like we’re good friends. On the other hand, Jaina forgets every expansion how much the Elf I’ve had since TBC has helped her. “We main characters will work through the conflict together, oh and this random champion too.”
I’m going to guess it’s that. Characters never run into any language barriers. Which isn’t the biggest problem as just like with universal translators in scifi I’m fine with Azeroth having a spell or potion for that.
But it does get weird when like in DF you run into a translation problem with the Furblog. Which didn’t actually bother me. But it would’ve been 5 stars if they Star Trek, Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra’d the situation. Where the furblogs have a weird manner of speaking that makes them difficult to understand even if you can otherwise understand it word for word.
Do we know if there are any Shadowmoon Orcs among them?
Would be a shame if they all died out or were left behind when the Mag’har Orcs went to Azeroth.
Shadowmoon Priests are still hanging around the AU Mag’har area of Orgrimmar, of course, but they don’t seem to have anything to do with this. This story is very specifically about giving Orcs a justification for using the Light.
This is because this bifactional bargain bin Justice League routine wasn’t always the norm. The Warchief used to only talk to the Horde, and the High King only to the Alliance. When they made Halls of Reflection, they recorded two different versions of the dialogue so only Alliance would work with Jaina and only Horde with Sylvanas.
Now the writers have a handful of favorite characters they force on everyone.
They have still done this as late as BFA.
To a somewhat amusing degree in Zin’Ashara. Because we got Thalyssra showing us around. In what I thought was a top notch quest. Her personal connection to the place gave a sense of loss and sorrow to what easily could’ve been just another set of ruins. This was a happy place once, full of life and opportunity, all destroyed in an instant by a mad woman’s lust for power. Then on que Azshara pops up, delighting in Thalyssra’s horror as she sicks her old apprentice on the shocked First Arcanist. In a tragic twist it was Thalyssra who recommended the young woman, now a sea platter monstrosity, come to this city in the first place. She feels responsible for this, because she somewhat is, and Azshara is loving every moment of it.
In the Alliance version, you get Jania Proudmoore. But I’m sure that personal sense of grief and guilt wasn’t all that necessary to the quest being so memorable. Jania read about this in a book once that’s practically the same thing.
Eh, could just be something like a “there, their, they’re” situation.
Exactly. Making dual narratives like that in a way that each branch is satisfying might be more effort than they feel like putting in at this point. Halls of Reflection made good choices using Sylvanas and Jaina - for this BFA quest Alliance could’ve used basically any night elf character who has ever lived rather than Jaina and been better off. But Jaina is a writers’ favorite.
I would have also accepted them using the light based on their faith in their ancestors or some of their gods. Such as the Wolf Spirit, which Orcs have appropriated to Lo’gosh / Goldrinn. As seen in Cata when a group of orcs travelled to Goldrinns shrine.
Oshu’gun was always a spiritual center for Orcs as they were able to see their ancestors. Hence why a major burial ground was next to it. They just weren’t aware of what allowed them to see their ancestors until far later. Ner’zhul being the first once he realized he was being duped. Velen did try to tell them the truth but they wouldn’t hear it. The Orcs as a whole learned the truth in TBC. This was set up in Rise of the Horde and in TBC.
WoD later expended this idea with the Shadowmoon Clan. With how they built their society around the shards of Oshu’gun that landed in Shadowmoon Valley. Which also allowed them to communicate with their ancestors. Just that it was a darkened K’ara (aka the Dark Star) that did this, while it was a Darkened K’ure over in Nagrand. They knew the ‘Dark Star’ was dangerous but for other reasons.
I can see it as meaning different words depending on the context. Which is true for real life languages. Such as English. I can think of one particular word that starts with f… that has different meanings depending on the context.
What are you talking about? This is just wrong because our version has Shandris for the Alliance version of the event you are talking about.
Edit: I can’t believe so many Horde players agree with you.
I vividly recall people telling me it was Jania Proudmoore and outrage about how the Horde had better Nelf content now.
Granted a lot of the Nelf Posters back then were kinda, frothing. I haven’t personally revisited it on an Alliance toon as I’ve no burning desire to resisit that zone.
Mainly I remember that quest, the one WQ where the Tortollans tore an army of naga to hamburger meat with a spinning shell, and that one insufferable jellyfish jumping.
I dont know who(although I have guesses) told you that but they were wrong. Shandris was our mirror character to Thalyssra in BfA. Particularly for that questline about “someone they know being turned into a monster/feeling sad about it”
If anything Jaina was closer to being a mirror to Lother’mar for that patch due to their connection in Mists.