Comments on: The Bloody Villains of WAR

By: Einherjer

Einherjer — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:40:53 +0000

People seem to forget the rp in mmorpg.
I don’t mean everyone should speak with “thee”’s and “thou”’s but simply that it is perfectly ok to play a character completely opposed to your set of values.
You can be a christian and play a devourer of infants, you can be left-winged liberal and play a fascist knight. Heck, my religious beliefs can be defined as pagan and i often play a cleric or a paladin. It’s ok.
You’re not gradually turn into the “dark side”. Do whatever you want with your software as long as you do the right thing with your fleshware. ;)

By: Shalkis

Shalkis — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:55:01 +0000

I specifically chose Horde in WoW to be able to try out some thought experiments about the nature of evil. For example, my main is a slightly unhinged troll mage. She’s manipulative, scheming, violent, homicidal and even outright sadistic. She’s the kind of person that makes her allies shudder and be glad that they’re not on the receiving end of her spells. But she also chooses her prey carefully. She’s either in the frontlines fighting the next Big Bad, knee-deep in the dead. Or she’s at the sidelines, sweet-talking various factions to join the fight (for their own good, she says). But is she evil? She doesn’t think so, but her methods may cause more harm in the form of collateral damage than good.

Oh, and before anyone asks, I created her long before I heard about Dexter. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.

By: Mesar

Mesar — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:17:58 +0000

I’m really on agreement with Zenke on this one. I’ve been part of a pre-release Destruction guild for the past two years.

When I started playing I found the stories behind Chaos and the DE starting areas to be so bleak and depressing.

Then I rolled a Dorf and joined The Older Gamers on the Order side and had an absolute blast bashing on the ugliness of Destruction!

I’m now completely torn between joining my pre-release guild on Dest or TOG on Order… OH THE GUILD DRAMA!!!!

By: Plotter

Plotter — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:35:51 +0000

From the article: “The forces of Destruction want nothing more than to see every elf, dwarf, and human dead. [...] I’m seriously considering playing an Order character. Probably a Warrior Priest. Hammer to the FACE!”

There’s certainly something to be said for a “Hammer to the FACE!”, but… do you think that every Warrior Priest of Sigmar doesn’t want to see every Dark Elf, Ork and Chaos-Corrupted, dead?

The conflict is Order versus Chaos, not Good vs. Evil. (And really as far as Warhammer lore goes it’s usually everybody versus everybody except for the current “big crisis”.)

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:06:52 +0000

I’m not familiar with the Warhammer lore, but Barnett is and has stated a few times that Order vs Destruction is not Good vs Evil. All of the races want one or more of the others completely wiped out. But they each envision the ideal world in a different way.

In that sense, it’s a typical fantasy setting. Races in fantasy worlds usually act as symbols. Their characters and actions shouldn’t be taken completely literally (so fantasy stories generally don’t tout racism or genocide). Such stories are not really about peoples fighting; they’re about cultures struggling for domination. The destruction of a fantasy race isn’t genocide; it’s a victory of ideas.

Most fantasy settings state or imply that certain values are superior. Warhammer apparently doesn’t, and that’s what makes it unique.

Perhaps the game, as opposed to the books and tabletop, makes the races of Order seem good. I haven’t enough time with them in the game to know.

Anyway, yes, I consider the fiction when deciding which character will be my main. But to what extent depends on how vital the lore is to the game and how well that lore is communicated. In most MMOs, gameplay largely ignores lore. For example, races that supposedly hate each other are commonly found grouping. So far, I’ve found the WAR quests to be generally well-written. Mythic has done a great job of giving each race a unique tone and style of speech. And the lore is integrated well into gameplay.

By: Tinman_au

Tinman_au — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:31:44 +0000

“Do you consider the fictive implications of a character before you make it?”

Not really.

There’s always the “Jessica Rabbit Factor” to consider. Just because a given race is considered “evil” by a particular author in a setting doesn’t mean all members of that race are evil, or that the entire race is actually “evil”. If the novel you read was about a Witch Hunters pursuit of Chaos in a village/city where he has killed women and children (as WH are wont to do) I think you’d have a different perception of the Empire perhaps?

Not all characters are actually evil, sometimes there just drawn that way.

And the Greenskins actually require combat to continue living (something to do with a chemical in there fungal based brain). If no one else is around, they’ll quite happily kill each other to survive. As such I consider them more like “sharks” of the WAR universe, and not actually “evil” per se.

For any _good_ fantasy RPG/novel, the moral view is totally dependant on the particular “outlook hill” the author/protagonist stands on, otherwise the story will be crap :)

And considering how the novel in question made you think about things, I don’t think it was all bad…

By: michael, St E

michael, St E — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:26:48 +0000

On Warhammer: the original short story collections – Ignorant Armies, etc – are still my favourite. Creepy, dark, with big borders and black and white plates. Gosh, that was a long time ago. They were also remarkably well-written, hardly surprising given the list of authors they managed to rope into the project. And, of course, Jack Yeovil == Kim Newman, who’s simply top.

40k’s fluff, of course, strips away the comedy-mediaevalism from WFB’s background, gives you a full-on galaxy-smothering human fascist theocracy, and then justifies it. Oh, the horror.

For my first Eve Online character, abandoned after a few months play several years back, I chose the Gallente race, since their fluff was the least unpleasant.

Second time around, and I have three Amarr mains. Someday I’ll actually roleplay, someday.