Poll: Playing As The Third Riech

[maxben]

snip

I get that, I personally refuse to play Christians in CKII or EUIII/EUIV. I don't hate Christians or Europe, but I like the concept of invading Europe with a foreign host. In my current EUIII game (using my favourite mod) I am at war with the HRE after conquering Africa and the Middle East as Morocco, Westernizing, and establishing the Caliphate. I am having a lot of funny marching on Vienna.

 

[Flames66]

Yes, I would even accept playing through an exact recreation of events, so long as it makes for a good game, and remains unbiased to either side of the war at the time, as impossible as that is to pull off.

I don't see why it has to be unbiased, The ideologies of the war itself certainly weren't. I think it would be quite fun to be cast as the absolute villain in a game.

I don't want to play a game or watch a movie about a Jewish refuge running away from the SS, I want to watch a movie or play a game about the SS hunting down Jews. I want to see how far down the rabbit hole we can go.

I would like to play both of those. One could be a tense survival horror game set in Nazi occupied France with jewish refugees trying to avoid SS patrols coordinated by a sinister Jew Hunter style character. The other could be from the opposite perspective, commanding forces trying to hunt down clever refugees as they attempt to escape. It could even be multi-player with people on both sides.

The very idea of it baffles me to the core. Of course not. No fucking way in hell I am comfortable with playing as them.

Why is that? You would not actually be committing those atrocities, only acting them out for entertainment.

Don't know about him. But I'm fairly sure most people wouldn't want to play as Islamic Extremists in a modern shooter. Frankly anyone who would want to would either be an extremist themselves or some armchair warrior who's anti military who doesn't have a fucking clue what's happened in the last 15 years.

I wouldn't want to in a "modern shooter", but only because I don't like "spunkgargleweewee" games anyway. I would be interested to play such a character in a story driven game.

 

[Kanova]

I prefer playing as Germans in WW games. They look awesome, and have really gnarly guns. Also, someone was talking about Axis always winning in Red Orchestra. It is always skill, and the map. Rakowice, Germans will almost always win because its a pretty big map with 3/5 cap points being almost impossible to take. Spartanovka, Russians usually win because the church is pretty easy to defend and it is easy to base rape early if you have an at least decent team. Its all skill. Then again, I only play on the 2FJG servers. Lots of regulars, almost always full.

 

[kasperbbs]

I would be fine with playing as the ordinary nazi soldier who is forced to fight in the war to protect his family and obviously he wouldn't be all that thrilled about fighting the whole world for his leaders fucked up ambitions.

 

[AmberSword]

I don't see why it has to be unbiased, The ideologies of the war itself certainly weren't. I think it would be quite fun to be cast as the absolute villain in a game.

Well unbiased is a very strong word, and quite frankly impossible to achieve, but I have no other way to put it really.
What I mean is that they of course could be portrayed as the villians, maybe some of them enjoying their positions of power, while others secretly pitying those they oppressed.

I just don't want the game to suddenly become a Nazi apologist fest, or have an entire game based around things like concentration camps, and every fellow that ever existed in the Third Reich sharing the same ideals/ being a sadistic torture loving scum etc etc. (unless its so far away from reality that it doesn't matter, but I think such games do already exist)

Basically, if a semi-realistic game is created based on the Third Reich, they should try to show more sides of the story, handle it in a mature manner, not try to cover up, but at the same time not try to exaggerate. This is basically impossible as I have already mentioned, because the media would blast said developer into non-existence.

 

[Naeras]

As an old Company of Heroes-player, I have to say yes. Wehrmacht from CoH is one of the best designed RTS-factions ever made.

 

[Nergui]

I haven't played EU4 much yet, but in 2 and 3, my favourite nations were the Ottomans or one of the Russian states. Draw a line from Latvia down to Greece and conquering everything east of there was too much fun.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, only a matter of time before Nazis are redeemed into troubled heroes like pirates or vampires have been.

Maybe they'll sparkle.

 

[RealRT]

The very idea of it baffles me to the core. Of course not. No fucking way in hell I am comfortable with playing as them.

Why is that? You would not actually be committing those atrocities, only acting them out for entertainment.

I view it as disrespectful to my great-grandfather who fought in the war and millions of my countrymates who died from that.

 

[Lieju]

Eh, only a matter of time before Nazis are redeemed into troubled heroes like pirates or vampires have been.

Maybe they'll sparkle.

Or rather the Crusades.
It's already idealized in fiction.
And I've been fairly creeped out by several people who thought they were a good thing, and well-organized armies of righteous Christians fighting for their faith.

And not huge uncomfortable messes.

 

[Roofstone]

I actually do want a game where you are soldier on the nazi side for once. Not a evil bastard of course, someone who struggles with morals and loyalty and relationships and so forth and so forth.

A more historical version of The Line or whatever that game was called I suppose it would be.

...I also want someone with good skills to write it.

 

[Flames66]

The very idea of it baffles me to the core. Of course not. No fucking way in hell I am comfortable with playing as them.

Why is that? You would not actually be committing those atrocities, only acting them out for entertainment.

I view it as disrespectful to my great-grandfather who fought in the war and millions of my countrymates who died from that.

Fair enough.

I actually do want a game where you are soldier on the nazi side for once. Not a evil bastard of course, someone who struggles with morals and loyalty and relationships and so forth and so forth.

A more historical version of The Line or whatever that game was called I suppose it would be.

...I also want someone with good skills to write it.

That could be a very moving and emotional game. Personally, I would want to play as an evil bastard. I would love a WWII game that let me be cartoonishly evil.

 

[Roofstone]

I actually do want a game where you are soldier on the nazi side for once. Not a evil bastard of course, someone who struggles with morals and loyalty and relationships and so forth and so forth.

A more historical version of The Line or whatever that game was called I suppose it would be.

...I also want someone with good skills to write it.

That could be a very moving and emotional game. Personally, I would want to play as an evil bastard. I would love a WWII game that let me be cartoonishly evil.

Could also be entertaining. Though it would be very hard to make a comical game about the jew gassing faction. At least one that most people would accept. Many people might avoid something like that on principle alone.

 

[zen5887]

The very idea of it baffles me to the core. Of course not. No fucking way in hell I am comfortable with playing as them.

Why is that? You would not actually be committing those atrocities, only acting them out for entertainment.

I view it as disrespectful to my great-grandfather who fought in the war and millions of my countrymates who died from that.

Entertainment is definitely not the right word to use.

If a game was going to tackle something like this there is no way it should be something light or easy to deal with. It should be confronting and challenging. I mean, there have been movies about Hitler and the German side to WWII, why can't there be a videogame?

The biggest issue is though (and here I am about to answer my own question), I really don't trust game devs (AAA game devs, at least) to put out something that with the maturity level that this subject matter demands.

 

[RealRT]

Entertainment is definitely not the right word to use.

If a game was going to tackle something like this there is no way it should be something light or easy to deal with. It should be confronting and challenging. I mean, there have been movies about Hitler and the German side to WWII, why can't there be a videogame?

The biggest issue is though (and here I am about to answer my own question), I really don't trust game devs (AAA game devs, at least) to put out something that with the maturity level that this subject matter demands.

Well the question wasn't about whether or not it can be done. It can. The question was whether people are comfortable with the idea. Most people are, which I find disturbing, I am not, but my opinion doesn't matter anyway.

 

[Macsen Wledig]

Don't know about him. But I'm fairly sure most people wouldn't want to play as Islamic Extremists in a modern shooter. Frankly anyone who would want to would either be an extremist themselves or some armchair warrior who's anti military who doesn't have a fucking clue what's happened in the last 15 years.

Not even when the Islamic extremists were the good guys and America was giving them guns, money and training to fight those evil Russians in Afghanistan?

 

[Redryhno]

Well the question wasn't about whether or not it can be done. It can. The question was whether people are comfortable with the idea. Most people are, which I find disturbing, I am not, but my opinion doesn't matter anyway.

They're comfortable in the sense that they want to see it be done. There's been tons of other media depicting the war from the German AND Nazi side, very rarely pulling punches with how it's portrayed in either case. It was a shitty situation for pretty much every German, and a game showing how shitty it could be while still having actual PEOPLE instead of the caricatures they've become in the last few years is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Hell, anything that clears the air so that every German forever isn't tagged as a Nazi because their great-grandfather happened to be a tower guard at one of the camps is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Off-Topic: as much as you say your opinion doesn't matter, you sure have responded and made your opinion of this idea and everyone supporting it very well known...

 

[DSK-]

Absolutely!. I've played as American soldiers, American special forces, British special forces, British "desert rats" tank driver, Russian soldiers, Russian terrorists, SIGINT Ninjas and all sorts. No problem with playing anything German from WW1/WW2.