New Player - Deciding Male or Female Orc

Zykerion

Which option would :you: pick?

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

So I'm making this poll with regard to a thread that I made over in the Players Helping Players forum, and haven't gotten a whole terrible lot of feedback on.

I'm a new player to the game, and at the moment I'm sitting and staring at the character creator trying to decide whether I want to play a male or a female orc templar, as I'm the sort of indecisive person who will go into the game, play about five minutes, consider what might be cooler about the other option, go back, remake as said option, play five minutes, repeat ad nauseam. When faced with this problem, I like to go around and ask opinions from the community for what they feel would be more interesting or cooler or just whatever opinions they might have on option A vs. option B.

I like to roleplay, and I already have something of a backstory worked out for the character, but as mentioned, can't decide if male or female is a better fit. The gist of it is that they're a follower of Trinimac (as espoused by either the new religion in Orsinium by King Kurog or those in the Aldmeri Dominion) who believes in strength, order, and justice (very paladin-y) and metes out said justice with a two-handed axe. Smithing being important to the orcs I figured I'd throw that in with the character too, and plan to do crafting as well.

Any suggestions for further backstory improvement as well as where they might fit best alliance-wise for RP purposes are appreciated and encouraged. Make sure to place your vote!

Pictured below are the options, pictured with some stuff from the gear preview...thing in-game.

<---Granakh gro'Barosh | Lazhka gra'Barog--->

Dojohoda

Granakh gro'Barosh

Since you asked for opinions of which is more interesting or cooler, my vote goes to male orc.

Nemesis7884

Lazhka gra'Barog

those are different genders?

Araneae6537

Granakh gro'Barosh

Wow, ignore the rude replies, OP. Sometimes these forums are extra salty.
My recommendation would be, if you have the character slots, make them both and play both a bit until you know which one feels right to you.
Sorry if that isn’t terribly helpful! But what character you should play is very much a personal decision and what feels right to you and most interesting. Others can really only tell you what they like, or what would be most typical lorewise or the current meta (which gender does not effect). All that said, for what it’s worth, for the character you describe, I would probably go with the male orc.

Aelorin

Granakh gro'Barosh

I woud go for the male. Not so fond on female orcs.

Edit for typos. Spelling predictor can be weird sometimes.

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Wow, ignore the rude replies, OP. Sometimes these forums are extra salty.
My recommendation would be, if you have the character slots, make them both and play both a bit until you know which one feels right to you.
Sorry if that isn’t terribly helpful! But what character you should play is very much a personal decision and what feels right to you and most interesting. Others can really only tell you what they like, or what would be most typical lorewise or the current meta (which gender does not effect). All that said, for what it’s worth, for the character you describe, I would probably go with the male orc.

I certainly appreciate the input. Thing is, I've been logging in with both of them and sort of toying around with animations, moving around with them, just testing things out with both male and female all day and there hasn't really been anything that has helped lead me in one direction or the other, hence the poll, haha. XD

A lot of times when I bounce questions off the community it helps to solidify the concept in my head which helps with the whole decision process. Instead of trying to argue pros and cons solely in my head, getting some fresh perspective and all that.

Wing

Lazhka gra'Barog

my personal vote is female orc

but

a big male orc in a wedding dress is kind of an eso classic at this point.

bearbelly

Lazhka gra'Barog

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

those are different genders?

Yes.
Males use the 'gro-' prefix in their surname; females use 'gra-'.

Oh... wait. My sarcasm meter just went off. I must need to change the battery; stupid delay.

Nemesis7884

Lazhka gra'Barog

they are actually good looking orcs and the female one is quite sexy... but kissing her must be a b*** with those thieves

zvavi

Lazhka gra'Barog

I dont understand in rp, but since the question was what would i chose, it is female. I dont like buffy buff type of characters hehe.

SydneyGrey

Lazhka gra'Barog

They both look awesome.
If you're playing on PC you can get access to the test server (the PTS) and try the characters out on the test server first before you play them in your game. The test server gets "wiped" every once in a while, though, so whatever character you make on there won't be permanent, but it's a great place to try out characters for a while before you put them in your game.
I use it to tweak my character's appearance before putting them in my live game.

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They both look awesome.
If you're playing on PC you can get access to the test server (the PTS) and try the characters out on the test server first before you play them in your game. The test server gets "wiped" every once in a while, though, so whatever character you make on there won't be permanent, but it's a great place to try out characters for a while before you put them in your game.
I use it to tweak my character's appearance before putting them in my live game.

I am on PC, so may have to give that a try as well. Most of the time this kind of indecision only happens with first characters with whatever game I'm getting into for the first time, since I assume the first ones will be my main, and thus the ones I'm spending the most time on/with, so I want to make sure it's something I'm really really happy with.

phaneub17_ESO

I have 3 of every class and 2 of every race, with one guy and one gal. So far it works out, I'm just missing a second High Elf and Wood Elf. If you're an altaholic, its worth having all 18 slots eventually.

Foxhearted

Granakh gro'Barosh

Normally I'd go for female orc, because they look much better in my opinion. The males are so wrinkly
But after seeing yout male Orc, I shifted my vote. I'm impressed, you managed to make a cool looking male orc
She looks great as well though. Like said before , since you can have several character slots you can still make both.

RefLiberty

Lazhka gra'Barog

Enjoy that ass prancing around (per current results)

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

Foxhearted wrote: »

Normally I'd go for female orc, because they look much better in my opinion. The males are so wrinkly
But after seeing yout male Orc, I shifted my vote. I'm impressed, you managed to make a cool looking male orc
She looks great as well though. Like said before , since you can have several character slots you can still make both.

I will at some point no doubt be making one each, I'm sure, haha. Just the matter of which one gets to be this character in particular, as whichever it ends up, male or female, the opposite would be someone entirely different backstory-wise.

An added wrinkle into the mix, since this thread is going better than I was hoping: Aldmeri Dominion or Daggerfall Covenant? I've been doing a lot of reading today while mulling this whole business over and can see fairly decent lore reasons for either. Standing with the orcs of Orsinium and trying to show them that there is a way forward through a new vision of Malacath/Trinimac is a good hook for keeping them with the Covenant, though there's that lingering issue of the Bretons and Redguards having sacked Orsinium in the past, and will do so again in the future more than likely.

The Dominion has a somewhat progressive queen at the helm, and it's possible the orsimer could reconcile old differences and be brought back into the fold, more likely if they venerate traditional elven gods like Trinimac. The problem children here are all the racists and supremacists that are very much a part of Dominion society, from what I've gathered.

Cirantille

Male
Orcs males in dresses are pretty

LMar

Granakh gro'Barosh

You don't need the apostrophe after gro or gra!
Female orcs are too good looking in ESO. Go for male!

CassandraGemini

Lazhka gra'Barog

The way you described your backstory, it resonates more with a female Orc for me, since they oftentimes seem to be the ones who are more involved with smithing and this sort of thing. Or at least I immediately pictured a female Orc from what you wrote.

On the other hand I agree that the female Orcs are kind of too... cute in ESO, compared to, say, how they looked in Skyrim. In Skyrim they were badass, imposing warriors - here, whenever I see an Orc girl with pigtails I just can't help but shake my head and silently go: Wtf... It just looks... wrong, I don't know. Visually I vastly prefer the male Orcs.

So, yeah, sorry for the ambivalent answer, probably not very helpful. If you don't care about how they look, I'd go for female, though, personally. But ultimately that's really your decision, and, as someone else mentioned, maybe just try them both out for a while and see which one 'feels' better?

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

LMar wrote: »

You don't need the apostrophe after gro or gra!
Female orcs are too good looking in ESO. Go for male!

You're very right! Should be a hyphen instead, having looked at some Skyrim NPCs.

mrsrobot

Lazhka gra'Barog

I voted female because the name is better and I like female characters but after seeing your male and female characters in the screenshots I prefer the male character.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

Granakh gro'Barosh

I like your male orc better, but I have a thing for male orcs, so this answer was to be expected.

As for the alliance... well, I'd never go Dominion with an orc, but once again that's just my personal preference. I don't like the open racism/speciesism many Altmer show towards orcs (and pretty much everybody else). Yup, I can cope better with the passive-aggressive speciesism in the other alliances .

Araneae6537

Granakh gro'Barosh

gold_silver_masterb14_ESO wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

They both look awesome.
If you're playing on PC you can get access to the test server (the PTS) and try the characters out on the test server first before you play them in your game. The test server gets "wiped" every once in a while, though, so whatever character you make on there won't be permanent, but it's a great place to try out characters for a while before you put them in your game.
I use it to tweak my character's appearance before putting them in my live game.

I am on PC, so may have to give that a try as well. Most of the time this kind of indecision only happens with first characters with whatever game I'm getting into for the first time, since I assume the first ones will be my main, and thus the ones I'm spending the most time on/with, so I want to make sure it's something I'm really really happy with.

No reason that the first has to be your main! I think I created five characters at least when I started because I wanted to try everything and even then, those that I thought would be my mains haven’t turned out to be as a character I created more on a whim just happened to really click with me. And in a way, I would say I currently have two “mains” — my main crafter and DPS NB who I do most story and achievements with and my main for endgame as I’ve always enjoyed playing healer/support most in such content. But I love all the characters I have and am working on developing each into different roles.

Nemesis7884

Lazhka gra'Barog

id be rather interested when the motif becomes available...

does look more lie an orc (mongol) motif anyway, rather than a khajiit

Gravord

gold_silver_masterb14_ESO wrote: »

Which option would :you: pick?

Orcs dont use silly ' in their names, should be gro-Barosh and gra-Barog

Aliyavana

Granakh gro'Barosh

I generally do not enjoy female orcs. male orcs are the way to go usually

Zykerion

Granakh gro'Barosh

Wow, 50 votes and it looks like Lazhka's ahead by a hair.

The sorts of things I can envision the character saying are starting to sound a lot more natural coming from a female mouth than a male one (naturally this is open to interpretation):

"Long have we suffered, long have we endured! But brothers and sisters we are being held back! I tell you now that Trinimac, hero god of our ancestors yet lives, trapped by falsehood that our people perpetuate to this day.

How do I know this, you ask? It is told that Boethiah ate Trinimac through treachery and then excreted the being we call Malacath, the one we call Mauloch. Did not Boethiah also take on Trinimac's appearance, and their own voice to fool their followers? How are we to know that the Prince of Plots truly expunged that which they had consumed? It would be a trifle to concoct some ploy, a pretender in their place to subvert us, to watch as we continued in ignorance and suffered at the hands of a usurper.

Boethiah's joy would be boundless, watching through the ages as an entire people muddle through the dark, listening to the teachings and guidance of a false prophet intended only to prolong our trials. Can you see it now, friends? The air of the Queen of Shadows hangs heavily over this story, and we had only to look for the truth to see it plainly."

TheShadowScout

Lazhka gra'Barog

I made my orc girl with a similar "paladin-ish" backstory, so that is what I would suggest.

(You can always make your orc boy as a different character, after all! Cover the paladin with Lazhka, and make her father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate Granakh as a unrepenting bandit, or cruel murderer, or cowardly thief, or treehugging shaman, or necromantic corpsefu... lover.)

Mr_Walker

Wing wrote: »

my personal vote is female orc

but

a big male orc in a wedding dress is kind of an eso classic at this point.

My big male orc wouldn't be seen DEAD in a wedding dress!

.

.

He prefers an elegant evening gown.

Hapexamendios

Granakh gro'Barosh

Go with a guy. I called mine Grog.