If you browse the Warhammer forums it seems that it is filled with posts arguing if they races can be categorized into good and/or evil. If we split them down race by race:
Empire
Elves
Dwarfs
Brettonia
Tomb Kings.
Lizardmen
Orcs
Dark Elves
Chaos
Skaven
Vampire Counts
It seems only by looking most people could pick out the races that are generally evil or good. Although it is said that in the Warhammer World that any of the races at any given time very well can be either good or evil depending on their current needs. This being the case they like to divide the groups into order vs. chaos. Again this brings to mind what one thinks of when they see the word order and the word chaos. Most think order= calm and good and Chaos= destruction and evil. So then would Chaos pretty much be evil and Order be the good guys? Looking at Star Wars where there are the Rebels and the Imperials this could very easily be argued. Rebels generally are tough, rough, against the grain so wouldn’t they be evil? And the Imperials are the law so would that make them good? We all know who the good and bad guys are there, so I guess it all really depends on who you are asking. No doubt the Imperials saw the Rebels as evil and vice versa.
Order to me refers to a set of linked social structures, social institutions and social practices which conserve, maintain and enforce “normal” ways of relating and behaving. Chaos inversly is the opposite …. a way to maintain and enforce “normal” ways of relating and behaving through chaotic actions.
which one of the above is good or evil. It all depends on your perspective, were the nazis evil … where they an ordered society though ?, was the inquisition all cuddly and nice … nope but none the less an institution enforcing a particulr view onto he masses ….
order can be as destructive as chaos as can chaos be constructive as order … its all about perspective …
Personally I’m going Chaos, heralding in a new order of social practices to the masses through the destruction of the old ways of life and destroying those who do not wish to join us in this new utopia …. am I evil, no I’m a visionary …
*rollseyes*
Chaos is for newbs.
or crotchy ole bastards like me he eh
bah no way to edit. 😦 philosophy is what I meant. 🙂
I think most people will end up viewing it exactly as you suggest JW – Order is good, Chaos is bad. The art direction for the various races reinforces this notion. We can break out dictionaries and philophy books and make other points about what chaos and order “really” mean, and we’d find it’s not so black and white (as Pixie suggests). But for the mmo audience, yes I think it will fall out that way.
I’ve always played on the “good” side in every MMO up to WoW, where I went Horde. But even there, I never really felt like a bad guy, maybe because of all the great folks I played with and people there really wasn’t anything meaningful happening in the world to delinate the good from the evil.
In War, I’m really split in my desires. On the one hand, I’d love to play a dwarf again (I didn’t in WoW). I have a dwarven character that’s several years old in roleplaying as well as mmos, and I’d love to see him reborn in War. On the other hand, there’s a certain allure to the Greenskins, the Empire, and the Dark Elves.
Maybe in Warhammer we’ll ultimately find that the “end game” is all about obtaining world peace, and we’ll open a portal to the secretly developed and recently announced “My Little Pwny” mmo that Cuppy has been working on. :p
Zomg! Godwin on the first comment! 😉
I see Chaos v Law as a separate issue from Good v Evil; probably because of the AD&D alignment system in which these were two separate axis. It reflects the real life political Left V Right and Authoritian v Libertarian. In that light, Chaos does not automatically equate to evil; opposition to tyrannical forces of law is arguably a good think (French resistance, the American founding fathers etc.)
The list for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is going to be:
Order:
High Elves
Dwarves
Empire
vs
Destruction:
Greenskins
Dark Elves
Chaos
It’s a Good vs Evil split whether that’s how everyone will perceive it or not. It’s the classic fantasy understanding that has become universal.
Yes thanks for the correction in that Keen. I got my Chaos and Destruction confused:)
laws are made to be broken Grimwell ….
“Good, bad.. I’m the guy with the gun.”
I just want a character who can smash skulls with a giant warhammer. Considering “warhammer” is the name of the game, they’d darn well better make that sort of character fun! Chaos Chosen for me, with a Marauder as my first alt. =)
Order vs Destruction certainly makes more sense than Order vs Chaos as types of society. Every society will have some order and some chaos. But the Warhammer grouping seems to be more about what each race wants to impose upon the world. Do they want to bring all lands under one flag? Or do they wanto to burn their enemies’ civilizations to the ground?
I’ve never played a Warhammer game and don’t know much about its lore, but it sounds like it has some pretty fun and interesting storylines.
It will always be that Order = Good and Chaos = Bad. Mind you it all depends on how the story is told. The way I look at it is the Empire was Order and the Rebels where Chaos in Star Wars. But yet the empire was considered the “evil” empire. So the same will come with this, the game will make order the “good guys” and chaos the “bad guys” seeing that is how the general public will perceive them.
I vote maybe! I don’t know a lot about WarHammer fantasy but you could argue the Empire is every bit as opressive and evil as the Chaos legions they fight. I mean they feed how many thousands of psychers to the emperor a day?
If I recall it’s pretty much the same universe but the fantasy stuff takes place on more primitive worlds than the 40k stuff, so I go with everyone’s a bad guy. Or everyone’s a good guy, depending on whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow.
Order doesn’t always mean good, an example of this would be the very ordered society of Nazi Germany which was one of the greatest evils of our time.
Destruction on the other hand has to for the most part be associated with evil, since destruction is what comes from evil. But destruction can be used for a good cause, the example I can think of is the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in WWII. My reasoning here is that the destruction caused by these bombings acually saved lives by finally bringing about the surrender of the Japanese Empire without an invasion of the home islands. It was estimated that the casualty count from a full scale invasion at approx 1 million deaths, far less than was caused by these two attacks.
From what I know of Warhammer lore the realms of Order and Destruction can be connected with the traditional battle between the forces for Good (Light) and the Dark forces of Evil. How else would WAR be waged. If both sides were good then the game would be about tupperware parties.
Being somewhat familiar with the Warhammer world (played the tabletop game for many years) I can safely say all side are ‘evil’. The High Elves plot for their own purpose, just like the Empire does. The Wood Elves are only concerned with themselves, and the Britons are a very war-like feudal structure that are always attempting to expand.
On the other hand, the Greenskins are just a bunch of war bands forming and reforming simply for the enjoyment of combat. They don’t really care who they fight, although the naturally hate dwarves.
If nothing else, the Warhammer world has a VERY fleshed out back story, so good that Blizzard went along and ripped it for many of their games. I highly recommend anyone interested to search around and read up on the overall lore of Warhammer. The story behind the first great necromancer, Nagash, is particularly good.
Tupperware Online?!
…I’d play it