Hello.
I was wondering which camp you all preferred in the first Gothic game. The choice that the game offers is by far my favorite part of the Gothic experience, and the game became much more interesting once I decided to love one camp aand hate the other two.
The Old Camp is familiar, it is orderly, and it is a total bureaucracy, centering around the extremes of conservativism. They think that the swamp camp is crazy and that the New Campers are brutal Thugs. Old campers do offer substantial protection and even friendship to those who follow the rules and pay their dues.
The New Camp favors complete anarchy, seeing value only in each individual's ability to defend himself. I see it as the extreme of liberalism, or maybe libertarianism, and the New Campers view the Old Campers as weak for hiding behind their bureaucracy. Any advancement in this camp comes purely from one's individual strength, and authority must always be proven.
The Swamp Camp houses the weed-smoking religious cultists. They don't care about the arguments of the other camps, preferring to focus on working together to please their deity. Their social structure is extremely sacred and ceremonial, with everything revolving around their bond to the weed and the Sleeper.
I had to put some serious thought into choosing which camp to join, and eeach camp gave me reasons to love it and to hate it, but I eventually settled on the New Camp. As a new recruit, I seriously had to start at the bottom of the totem pole. Every single in-game day, I had to go to the rice fields and hand out water to the workers, for the simple reason that Letty was stronger than me. If I didn't follow orders, he would attack me.
The freedom I felt when I was finally able to take down Letty was amazing. I almost didn't know what to do with myself when I no longer had to worry about handing out water. I knew that I had earned my place in the New Camp, and nobody could take that away because it was based purely on my own abilities.
I haven't finished the game yet, and I'm currently on a quest for an Ulu-Mulu. Wish me luck.
-Iceburg

I went for the Old Camp, myself, because I am a person who has some respect for the social order. The New Camp made no secret of the fact that they wanted to bring the magical barrier down by blowing it up with a ton of magic ore. Besides the fact that I questioned the wisdom of trying to break out of a prison with a massive explosion, I decided that setting all the convicts in the colony loose on the world would probably be a bad thing.
I went on to play Gothic 2 after I finished the first game, so I know I was right about the last part, at least.
That said, none of the leaders of any of the factions are really objectively good. There's only degrees of selfishness and blindness distinguishing them. I had no respect for the self-styled Ore Baron at all, but he seemed less dangerous to the world at large than the rebel general in the New Camp or the fanatical cultists in the swamp.

I joined the Old Camp on my first time through the game, but on subsequent occasions I have experimented with the other camps. Each has clear advantages and disadvantages, but in general any desired play style is valid for any of the factions--with the key exception of magic use, which is available very early with the Old Camp, about half-way with the Swamp Camp, and only very near the end with the New Camp.
As for Lefty it is actually possible to get in and out of the camp without him noticing you (this works best at night when he and his goons sit down nearer to the warehouse).
Gothic II has the same dynamic but the factions are very different, and so are their reasons for being at odds with the other factions. It also introduces sub-factions, something Gothic 3 expanded on significantly.
I've always been impressed by how Piranha Bytes manages to pull off multiple "middles"; most games force you down a single path--or allow you to join every faction, as in The Elder Scrolls, making the faction differences utterly insignificant--and save any major variety for the endgame.
Talking about this makes me feel like firing up Gothic again, even though I just finished it a couple of months ago for probably the third time. :D

Argh, nostalgic memories, the bane of all Gothic fans. Perhaps I will also fancy a replay in the near future. :)
Ah, where to start? The first time trough the game, confuset and tired after a two day (ingame) dance for life with really big killer chickens, I welcomed the safe haven that was the old camp, complete with its collection of losers, scumbags and rare wellwishers. The experience was new, and an authoritarian guidance was curiously appealing. It was also the path of the least resistance, and in a way you wanted to return the favour to Diego.
In my second run at it, I chose to follow the path of the New camp, which was in essence a less regulated version of the old camp, but behind the shell of all that anarchy talking there was still an organised leadership, more akin to tribal elders and a chieftan figure. To some extent, it was the best path of the three, since all the decisions the leaders made was summarised in one simple goal: escape. Even though the plan was crazy and far fetched, it was better than puffing smokes in the swamp camp and hoping a god will save the day, or to enforce the status quo in the old camp. Also, the armours were cool.
The swamp? Well, you could smoke your worries away, or get fanatical in your devotion to... something or other, I didn't really pay that much attention to all that preaching, took the three cigs and ran out. :)

I finished the Swamp camp, the thought of a bunch of stoners working together sounds good to me. They were a bit nutty about religion but I just joined for the free weed. I ended up saving the world with their help and training. Not too shabby I would say.

I'm playing it now - Not the GOG version, the boxed one(Bought Gothic 2 Gold off here in the sale a while back, and decided I had better complete the first game - sadly it crashes 3 times out of four when I try to load a savegame)...
Anyways, on to the point: The Old Camp I see as a well organised dictatorship with a clear pecking order. The Top Dogs are happy being in the barrier as they have life better there than they would outside. The Sect... Are nutters. They don't care too much about being imprisoned, and the majority of them are only there for the weed. That and they live in a swamp. Come on! Imagine the stench! The New Camp, I see as a wretched hive of scum and villainy. On the one hand - as a convict, I'm all for breaking out from that bloody valley, but its the kind of place you could get your throat cut just for being there.
And so: Whilst the New Camp follows more along my philosophy in the game, the Old Camp with its Police-State mentality is who I'm backing for this playthrough. The Sect can go smoke themselves into oblivion.

I went for the New Camp - I prefered the people there (Gorn and Lee had my respect), the place was more beautiful, and I wanted to ESCAPE that place and tried to help my best.

The camps were an awesome idea, and I have finished the game with all three. Even though the game ending is the same, the journey is different and it was an awesome experience. The Old Camp is probably the most obvious choice because Diego recommends it to you, but, for me, it was the camp i hated the most. The camp's atmosphere was very tense. The guards constantly harassed you for protection money (I was attacked in the Old camp more often than the new), and the rigid social structure was firmly enforced. And then it was that constantly nagging feeling that you were working for a mobster. While the other camps were searching for a way to get out of the colony, the old camp was happy to maintain its monopoly on the ore trade with Myrtana. The only characters I respected were Diego, Thorus and the mages.
The other camps were better. The swamp camp had its faith and, although it eventually destroyed them, their way of life was the most peaceful even though it was quite dull sometimes. But, the best was the new camp. You had the most freedom, met the some of the best characters and if offered the best character development. Basically it goes like this:
The Old Camp means you become a shadow and then you have a choice of being strictly a guard or a mage with little middle ground. And you didn't even get to wear the awesome Heavy Guards armor because of the plot twist. Sure you could get adopted into the New Camp but why not join the New Camp in the first place? Unless you wanted to be a pure mage from the beginning, there's not much of an incentive to join the Old Camp. The swamp camp was a bit better. The most well balanced character I ever had in all Gothic games was the Templar. Proficient in melee and you could learn spells up to the 4th circle of magic, enough to get you death to the undead runes and other goodies. But even that was a bit broken because you never get to become a guru. So, in my opinion, the best was the New Camp. You can rise in the ranks of rogues, mercenaries AND mages. You have access to both the best warrior skills and all the magic in the game. It gave you the broadest opportunity to develop your character and it was the most important camp in the whole storyline.
So from best to worst my rating of the camps is New Camp, Swamp Camp and Old Camp.

What Arkose said. I'd have to say I had the most fun with the swamp camp and all of their weird rules plus it is fairly easy to be accepted. In both games, I had the hardest time being a merk. I had a hard time with their playground mentality, constant gamesmanship and cons.

Diego was nice to me when I had no friends and I value that, so I joined the Old Camp out of loyalty to Diego.

I`ve finished G1 and G2 with all possible factions. It`s a pity, that there are so few faction related quests and the storyline keeps pretty much the same in the later stages of the game. (thi applies more to G1 than to G2)

Anyway, when it comes to Gothic 1, my first choice was the Old Camp. I`ve chosen it because I prefered the structures and I like playing as a knight/paladin in RPGs. I really wanted to have that great looking armor of the guards and so it was clear, that I wanted to join Thorus` guys, although Lee is also a great character and provoked me to join the New Camp at my second playthrough. The light mercenery armor is special, due nobody else wears it. Definitaly understandably though ;)

I answered here before but I have a confession to make. In my first play through, I planned on joining the old camp even if its organized crime style of rule really didn't appeal to me (and I eventually did). However, I spent much of the early game running away from creatures while trying to find it. Found the other two (swampers frustrated me - how to get them to speak!) but not the old camp. Why (ready for this?)? I believed the guard at the bridge when he said it was under the bridge (I figured there was a gorge somewhere where it was located) and their attitude made me think I found the new camp. See why the new camp appeals the least to gullible me?

That`s a hilarious outcome! I was also slightly confused about that statement in the first occasion too ;)

New Camp is so much better than the other two camps it's not even funny (IMHO of course).