Dark Side Unit Analysis Bonus: Lizardmen Racial Morale
Lizardmen are impossible to acquire in Dark Side, and never show up in enemy hands either. The weird thing is they've got Morale stuff fully coded up, modified for Dark Side; it's not just leftover code they failed to remove. I guess they didn't have the chance to properly code up the rest of the Lizardmen stuff they wanted to do, and just abandoned them entirely rather than half-implement them? That would be sad, by virtue of being the most significant casualty of Dark Side's incomplete nature, if it is true.
Regardless, here's the racial Morale stuff that's in the code, as a bonus update.
They don't have a mono-racial Morale bonus anymore.
Racial relations-wise...
-2 Morale for Orc presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Demonic presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Undead presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Light Human presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Traitor Human presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Light Elven presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Dark Elf presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Light Dwarven presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Zwergr presence in allies.
-2 Morale for Viking presence in allies.
-3 Morale for Dragon presence in allies.... Lizardmen hate everyone, but especially Light people.
And yes, the dragons are still coded to be offended back. And also yes, Dragon Riders aren't included in the list of 'dragons offend Lizardmen'. It's very odd.
Here's what other races would think of Lizardmen if it was possible to actually get Lizardmen in-game:
-1 Morale for Lizardmen presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Lizardmen presence in allies.-5 Morale for Lizardmen presence in allies.
-5 Morale for Lizardmen presence in allies.-2 Morale for Lizardmen presence in allies.The usual Dark stuff, aside from Orcs not liking them for some reason. I'm curious why Orcs and not, for example, Dark Elves or Zwergr. It's not surprising Traitor Humans aren't coded to dislike them, as Humans have always been notable for being one of the few races that play nice with Lizardmen, but otherwise this seems a bit strange.
But yeah. Whole faction completely cut from the game. The odd thing is this is the second time in the row for Lizardmen, since the base version of Warriors of the North was lacking them. I'm curious why Lizardmen in particular suffered this fate not once but twice. I guess they were they a low priority by virtue of being unpopular with the Russian fans? (Which was apparently a thing)
In any event, next time we move on to Chaos Magic in Dark Side.
In my opinion, the Lizardmen have been removed from the Dark Side because the developers may have felt that the Lizardmen faction is too primitive towards, for example, Demons or Orcs. Besides, Gorguana's talent "Whisper of K'Tahu" was a reference to K'Tahu - a character from Teana, and as we know, he was not from Endoria or Netana. The next things are: What role would the Lizardmen play and where would they live if they were on the Dark Side? After all, in the Amazon in the basement you can see the statues of, for example, Gorgula, Brontorów, that lizardmen died out in Netan. The last thing are the heads of the interlocutors. There would be no point in repeating the talking lizard people's faces many times, which repeat several times, e.g. in "Armored Princess" Gorgula's head belonged (with different colors) to: Gagash, Sarkash, etc. a few characters from "Dark Side" are mixed up.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's it end...
Whisper of K'Tahu got renamed to Whisper of the Creator when Ice And Fire brought the Lizardmen into Endoria. The question of how Lizardmen would fit into Dark Side is also a questionable one; Vikings don't have much of a place in Dark Side's story either, and they still got put in, with their own island. Face icons being repeated is a common thing throughout the games as well, both in the sense of cross-game repeats (Many semi-major Dark Side characters use the portrait of a minor character from a prior game) and in the sense of a given game repeating a picture with minor changes or sometimes no change at all; trying to suggest this is a uniquely Lizardman problem is strange. And I have extreme difficulty taking seriously the idea that Lizardmen are more 'primitive' than Orcs, let alone that this would somehow be a reason to cut Lizardmen.
DeleteIt's far, far more likely they got cut due to Dark Side's generally-incomplete state.
Hello again. I was missing for a much longer time that I thought I would, but I'm here now and ready to continue.
ReplyDeleteEven after being cut as a full race/in-game faction, Lizardmen were still supposed to be present in some way. Apparently as (near?) extinct Dark race. With spell that allows to summon them, propably locked by a specific quest. There are still trails of the idea. And the disabled spell is still there too.
Their units are actually still in game (minus Elder and Councilor) and fully functional. They have mimimal changes from older games. They are all Dark through. Without anu bugs on that side 'insert picture of sad Orc Shaman'. Oh, and they have no race-wide abilies at all; a developer comment says that they don't need any nor do they need any buffs as Lizardmen already a strong race.
As I once told you, they were cut as a race early in development, and indeed, their files are from older stage.
Atleast Katauri quite liked their Lizardmen; they were never popular among the fans through. For various reasons. Hm, is it possible we spoke about it already?
Whisper of the Creator is still called that way btw. And there are some internal references to Scragg, through it can be just remnants of WotN or placeholders.
The gap worked out as I've been... really sick, and am still working through it right now... so I'll probably be even slower to get caught up on stuff than before for a while.
DeleteMan, I'd figured they were in a more obviously dysfunctional, unusable state. That's sad, given DS's problems.
And yeah, we've been over the 'Russian fans didn't like Lizardmen/were mad they didn't get dark elves/etc' stuff. Tweaked that bit of commentary appropriately, in fact.