There was a lot of hype about Degenesis before it came out, and then it just dropped to 0. The expansion book, Black Atlantic was announced in 2014 and we've still yet to hear a single word on when the fuck it'll actually be coming out.
I was going to post about how their social media accounts are dead, but last month they started hyping up something completely new (and some adventure for Degen). It looks okay, given that it has the same artists.
Just looks like stylized Europeans and Native American Orcs, which sounds fine and dandy to me.
"A lot of people have asked us, what Orken is about. I have only one answer: “What if everything you ever knew about Orks was a lie, fabricated by Humans, to justify theft, murder and genocide?” This question was the base premise of building this IP, and we’re very eager to show you more of what we’ve come up with. It’s a unique take on the fantasy genre. We never wanted to reinvent the wheel. Just rethink it."
Parker Scott
...
Nolan Walker
WHERE IS THE BEEF
I love that artist, but what's the real conflict about? "Orcs being misunderstood" and "humans being murderous pricks" (for religious reasons as well) as a premise was done to death. It just doesn't appeal to me because it seems like it's the same stale soup in the new can. Degenesis was great with its whole neotribalism idea, but from what I see so far it seems like I can do the same in DnD three fucking point five without buying their books.
I'm not sold. You need to sell harder.
Nathan Rodriguez
Yeah, I'm not super sold on it, but I trust that they'll do something cool. Really, they could do whatever and I'd buy it so long as the rules aren't total ass like they were in Degenesis.
Luke Gomez
This.
"What if race traditionally portrayed as evil were misunderstood dindus?" is literally the same old boring black-and-white premise, only turned on its own head and given a huge stick up its ass.
Cameron Cruz
What's the point of these handlebars? To help your enemy wrestle you to the ground?
Ryder Adams
Even if the premise sounds fucking gay, the armor looks rad.
Adam Mitchell
This is moronic. It's just like the mindless contrarianism of Degenesis
>European whites are savages >African blacks are advanced imperialists
What next,
>Devils are caring, compassionate misunderstood souls >Humans are evil corrupts genociding the race of poor devils
So clever, inversion muchly.
Elijah Bennett
Degenesis walked the fine line though. Africans were pretty fucking ruthless, and at least weren't the misunderstood good guys. They fit the "every group of people is a tribe when all bets are off" narrative perfectly.
This is just MUH HUMANS INVADING MUH LAND I'M SAAAAD tier.
William Hughes
Well, the contrarianism of Degenesis would be pretty accurate on a cooler Earth, where everything North of Germany is trapped beneath glaciers and the land that was previously sun-scorched Saharan wasteland is now only as warm as Southern France.
Juan Rivera
user, Degenesis niggers were literally mass murderers and rapists, and imperialism was there just because Africa wasn't fucked up that badly resource-wise after the meteors came down.
Matthew Torres
>Reading the setting is hard so I'll just shitpost like a retard
Benjamin Long
new pocahontas movie sure looks great
Jose Lee
They better deliver with that armor. I can get behind Aztec Orks if they go all out with it.
Eli Collins
When I read the post, I was literally looking over concept art that's basically that cartoon scene from the beginning.
Andrew Turner
>unique take
Shiggy diggy. I'll be stealing those Aztec orks for character art.
Nathaniel Reyes
The art will be interesting and worth looting. The game mechanics will be overly fiddly character build tree sort of stuff. The fluff will be ham fisted and simultaneously offend everyone somehow. The production values will be high, look dope, etc. so hype will be up. It'll flash here for a bit, then everyone will forget about it or try to so people stop using it as /pol/bait. Not sure if they'll make enough returns to do it again. No idea what sales for Degenesis were.
Juan Gutierrez
>Not sure if they'll make enough returns to do it again. No idea what sales for Degenesis were.
I messaged their page a few minutes ago and they directed me towards an interview. Almost right away they mentioned that Degenesis isn't making them any money and they 'celebrate when they can break even'.
I'm confused. Don't they know that you can have a culture of bloodthirsty monsters while still making them just as complex and three-dimensional as any real humans? Case in point: pretty much every single human culture, particularly the ones they stole these orcs' clothes from.
Jace Turner
The high cost of entry probably helped kill the hype quite a bit. Only one US distribution partner that I know of, and shipping it from Euroland is a double threat of book cost and high shipping cost.
