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[Duke 2.0]

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That's why Americans are all about "we fought and won both world wars for you, eurofag". Annoying gits and even more annoying glorified patriotism.

And why Europeans are all about "Americans are ignorant pricks who would understand nothing about us" and your idiotic sense of morality concerning our patriotism.

 Which is why we need to keep this thread chill. Let us continue to discuss a theoretical shooter based on this theme rather than blaming all responsible for it not happening before. That road just leads to RAEG and rather harsh words based on generalizations of many nations that are represented here.

[Virtz]

And playing an FPS as the Germans in WW2 is kinda lame. You'll spend your whole time defending and retreating.

Yes, because that's how Axis forces conquered most of Europe - by defending and retreating. :|

Even when they were on the offensive, they advanced like the wind and broke through lines so fast that there wasn't really much cool combat to be hand.

That actually sounds like how most WW2 FPSes handle it - you end up killing at least 100 incompetent enemy soldiers and nearly singlehandedly advancing the frontline by 10 kilometers.

And even then, you're faced with the realization that you're fighting for the losing team...

You mean like in all the Vietnam games? Oh, wait.

Which brought me to my final point. They all failed in the end. :/

What? How is conquering a country considered failure? That's actually a successful campaign, regardless of what happens afterwards. That's like saying all of Rome's conquests were a failure because Rome fell later.

[sonerohi]

That's why Americans are all about "we fought and won both world wars for you, eurofag". Annoying gits and even more annoying glorified patriotism.

Pretty much every European country pumped just as much into the war as the U.S. from day 1, AFAIK. Except France, which IIRC, had been invaded already and was still putting up resistances to take heat away from other countries. Not all of us Americans are dickweeds, so please don't call me an annoying git with glorified patriotism, because I didn't get to choose which side of which sea I was born on. 

I really want a game like this. Sometimes, it's the extremely simple ideas that shake up the genre.

What, no one else is posting? Did I do something wrong?

[Puck]

stuff

Look, I know a few things about the gulags, and about the cruelties, and the death toll and whatnot. In no way I wanted to compare those two horrors. I never said anything about the russians, I'm just trying to reason why no "love for the wehrmacht".
And as I said- nothing else was as _organized_ as the nazi killing machine. There is something really twisted and horrible about this... meticulously planned and executed massmurder and ... well... it was a whole industry. I actually really dont wanna talk about it.

and the whole "people just believed what the nazi propaganda told them" is a bit of an iffy thing. Yes, it was true in the beginning, it might have been true for rural areas... but people in bigger cities caught on rather quickly.

This was actually a longer post about a lot of the stuff that was going on back then. I'm from austria, born some 40 years after the war, but my great grandparents, my grandparents and my parents, they all lived through WWII, and they all have different stories to tell. We got "war heroes", we got rebels, we got victims, we got nazis. All in one family... Well, by now there aren't a lot of them alive anymore, but my grand uncle (do you call it that way?) even had stories from WWI 

Shit, if you take your time around here, to listen to any old lady you meet in a park, you probably can listen to stories about the führer five minutes into the conversation. I kid you not. You still get a lot of "but we didnt know what was going on" then usually a short pause and then "but we kind of suspected there was something wrong, when our third neighbour was taken away by the gestapo and nobody ever heard of him again". The more honest ones, maybe the perceptive ones, tend to tell you they did their best to _actively_ block out that part, but mostly, actually, people just straight tell you they knew what was going on and that they were scared shitless.

And afaik "the truth" even reached the soldiers on the frontlines. We even had an exhibition about that exact topic - the wehrmacht and how much the soldiers knew, if you will.

Anyways I'm rambling... what I wanted to say was... if the wehrmacht just had said "screw you guys, I'm going home", the world probably would have lived through a lot less shit. Not saying I would have had the balls to risk my execution, but in that particular situation it would have been the right thing to do, and that's probably why there arent a lot of people rooting for the wehrmacht. At least in case they are in their right mind. (Yes, I do acknowledge that there were "innocent" soldiers, who thought they were just fulfilling their duty. But there is another side, too). And if you dont have many people rooting for a team, chances are, the game you're going to make about that team isnt going to sell all that well.

And that's probably why we dont have an "axis shooter".

But yeah, if you're able to actually integrate the part about the "guilt" of the average wehrmacht soldier, about how much they knew, about how they were in conflict and whatnot, MAYBE, just maybe you might be able to create a "tasteful" and good game, maybe something that even educates people.

But you'd need two things for that, two things that are rarer than three breasted hookers:
Good writers and a mature audience. Fat chance.

[Servant Corps]

Well, Puck has a point. The Wehrmacht did conduct war crimes when they were subduing the Eastern Front, and not in the mere "hold territory so the SS can come in and 'take care' of the undesirables". The Wehrmacht occupation policy was brutal, taking all the resources from Russia to feed the German army (and letting the Slavs to starve), and killing all those who opposed the Occupation and alienating those who would have been willing to work with Germany against the Soviet Union government. The Wehrmacht has blood on its hands, and they willingly did this sort of thing, because while they may have hated Hitler, they certainly hated those Commies more. And when you had the partisan groups, the Wehrmacht reacted violently: you see a "these people killed my fellow solider, so let us kill them before they strike again"  mentality.

Any Wehrmacht FPS must ignore this history.

[Vattic]

It seems inappropriate to post this now considering what Puck has said and that I don't disagree with him. On the other hand it is somewhat relevant in a silly sort of way. SS asks "are we evil?" sketch from That Mitchell and Webb look tv programme.

While true that the OP didn't mention the Nazis I just remembered another game where you play as them, its one of those art games. It would be best to read the short article. It's fairly tasteful but not necessarily fun.

If the name(sim-stalg)is in any way relevant to the game concept, then it's more about german military POW camps.

I stand corrected.

[Puck]

It seems inappropriate to post this now considering what Puck has said and that I don't disagree with him. On the other hand it is somewhat relevant in a silly sort of way. SS asks "are we evil?" sketch from That Mitchell and Webb look tv programme.

Holy shit, I found that hilarious. It's a nice metaphor for the whole ... inner conflict thingy.

And seriously... that skull... I ALWAYS found that very very weird.

[Virtz]

Look, I know a few things about the gulags, and about the cruelties, and the death toll and whatnot. In no way I wanted to compare those two horrors. I never said anything about the russians, I'm just trying to reason why no "love for the wehrmacht".

Well, I'm saying that it's pretty double-standard "rooting" for Soviets (or rather considering it acceptable to play as them), which weren't all that better, but pretty much won the war, while treating the other side as some taboo. Both or none, I say.

Anyways I'm rambling... what I wanted to say was... if the wehrmacht just had said "screw you guys, I'm going home", the world probably would have lived through a lot less shit. Not saying I would have had the balls to risk my execution, but in that particular situation it would have been the right thing to do, and that's probably why there arent a lot of people rooting for the wehrmacht. At least in case they are in their right mind. (Yes, I do acknowledge that there were "innocent" soldiers, who thought they were just fulfilling their duty. But there is another side, too). And if you dont have many people rooting for a team, chances are, the game you're going to make about that team isnt going to sell all that well.

You could also say that there'd be a lot less shit if all armies of the world refused to attack anyone. But that's pretty far-fetched wishful thinking. What exactly would you have them do? Ignore the possibility that the orders were right and Germany is in fact being invaded? Desert and be killed by their more Hitler-crazy peers? They might've had unknowingly saved the world from a lot of shit, but they'd end up dead, branded as cowards and most likely getting their families persecuted (which would hardly be "the right thing to do").

But yeah, if you're able to actually integrate the part about the "guilt" of the average wehrmacht soldier, about how much they knew, about how they were in conflict and whatnot, MAYBE, just maybe you might be able to create a "tasteful" and good game, maybe something that even educates people.

Well, personally I'd like it done Operation Flashpoint style - realistic and serious. Or at least in a way that would present more or less how the Wehrmacht worked. I'm rather curious as to how it looked compared to the others.

Well, Puck has a point. The Wehrmacht did conduct war crimes when they were subduing the Eastern Front, and not in the mere "hold territory so the SS can come in and 'take care' of the undesirables". The Wehrmacht occupation policy was brutal, taking all the resources from Russia to feed the German army (and letting the Slavs to starve), and killing all those who opposed the Occupation and alienating those who would have been willing to work with Germany against the Soviet Union government. The Wehrmacht has blood on its hands, and they willingly did this sort of thing, because while they may have hated Hitler, they certainly hated those Commies more. And when you had the partisan groups, the Wehrmacht reacted violently: you see a "these people killed my fellow solider, so let us kill them before they strike again"  mentality.

Any Wehrmacht FPS must ignore this history.

You speak as though all sides didn't commit war crimes. Soviets pretty much went overkill on Berlin (including rape and pillage) and later made everything from Berlin to the East their sattelite countries. They also pacted with the Nazis, executed Polish officers and waged war on neutral Finland. I'm not sure of the Western Allies, but I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere of mistreatment of PoWs, due to the mentality you just mentioned.

And, to my knowledge, Call of Duty doesn't feature a "shoot the Polish officer in the back of the head", nor an "apply the hammer to the tied down German's head" mini-game. It's pretty obvious you'd skip the more inhumane sides of an army you're aiding in a game.

[Strife26]

I laughed at the video . . .

We like to see the endings of games. You COULD make a game that ended after the fall of France or the beginning of the siege of Stalingrad, but it would feel unfinished. Here's a metaphor that only I will get. Try reading Red Storm Rising, then stop at page 400. Not knowing how the book comes to it's inevitable (Tom Clancy wrote it, so you KNOW that the commies lose) would bug you.

You could try to make the game artsy, but it'd be tough. You'd have to accurately portray the inevitability of your eventual loss for it to work well. I'm not sure if most companies could do it. This does give further credence to the "Clone Toady" plan.



I'd also like my cookie for not rising to the flame war.

[Sensei]

Trying to stay out of the flame war, but... it's worth saying there is no history that must be ignored. "Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it", no?

Anyway, anyone who says all Nazis (when I say Nazi, I mean anyone involved in the war machine) needs to see this. Now, imagine if the scientist had a gun. Or gas chambers. And you were (erroneously or not) brought to hate to the person you were shocking. And even with all of this, Germany at large was sick of the war by the time it ended.

It's quite feasible to have the campaign/story make sense for a Nazi soldier at any rate, plenty of shooters are guilty of forcing you to lose a battle at large, even if you have the pimpin' skills necessary to stand against 10,000 AI controlled mooks. CoD4 even had a cheap player death-by-nuke.

At any rate, calling the Nazi war machine/Wehrmacht a 'genocidal race' is (disclaimer- this is not flame) basically the same kind of generalization that had people hating the Jewish enough for them to pull what they did before a total rebellion started (the death camps, the first thing that comes to mind now, were kept mostly secret then).

Isn't the whole narrative point of the idea to show that all Wehrmacht soldiers weren't mass murders and committers of war crime?

EDIT: Replaced link with a specific video that I liked, rather than a search- you're free to search 'Milgram Experiment' if you think it's just a BBC filler story.

[Heron TSG]

What about a game during the German advance as opposed to the German Retreat?

[Aqizzar]

Well, the thread has completely escaped me into a endless cycle of recriminations and repeatedly proposing and defeating the same ideas.  As I guess I should have expected, but it was worth bringing up.

You could try to make the game artsy, but it'd be tough. You'd have to accurately portray the inevitability of your eventual loss for it to work well. I'm not sure if most companies could do it. This does give further credence to the "Clone Toady" plan.

Don't worry, it's my own development list, after my cash-cow MMO.  It'll be a nice warmup to my GTA Khandahar magnum opus.

[WorkerDrone]

I'll be his writer!

[Servant Corps]

You speak as though all sides didn't commit war crimes.

Yes, but all these war crimes were usually ignored in FPSes. That's my point. Want to create a game on the Wehrmacht and try to protray them in a positive light? Don't try to bring up all the bad stuff they did as well. Even worse if you bring up all the bad stuff they did, and then try to justify it, that'll rile some people up.

I'm not sure of the Western Allies, but I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere of mistreatment of PoWs, due to the mentality you just mentioned.

The firebombings of Dresden, and, to a lesser degree, Tokyo.

And, to my knowledge, Call of Duty doesn't feature a "shoot the Polish officer in the back of the head", nor an "apply the hammer to the tied down German's head" mini-game. It's pretty obvious you'd skip the more inhumane sides of an army you're aiding in a game.

Actually, I think the latest Call of Duty WWII game actually had one mission objective for the Russians: "Kill the German Captives". I guess that does undermine my point, but they try to glance by it, and by then, since you are playing a CoD game, you are in favor of killing every German you see, even if they aren't holding a weapon, so it's not really showcasing any sort of "inhumanity".

EDIT: One thing I realize, the storyline for Star Wars Battlefront 2, where you get to play as an Imperial Stormtrooper through both the Clone Wars and the Rebellion, is a possible model for this future game. Altough they did get away with a lot of racism, support for dictatorship, and xenophobia because, well, Star Wars is a fictional universe. They also ended after the Battle of Hoth, at the height of the Imperium victory right before the Empire came crumbling downwards at the Battle of Endor.

[umiman]

Well, the thread has completely escaped me into a endless cycle of recriminations and repeatedly proposing and defeating the same ideas.  As I guess I should have expected, but it was worth bringing up.

You could try to make the game artsy, but it'd be tough. You'd have to accurately portray the inevitability of your eventual loss for it to work well. I'm not sure if most companies could do it. This does give further credence to the "Clone Toady" plan.

Don't worry, it's my own development list, after my cash-cow MMO.  It'll be a nice warmup to my GTA Khandahar magnum opus.

What's on the list? Clone Toady or make the art-style Nazi FPS?