Mein Gott! A WW2 German FPS?

Hikaro Takayama said:

Well, in some of my more cynical moods, I'd say that Germany, thanks to the 30 Year's War, the failed Revolution of 1848 and the unification under the authoritarian Prussians in 1866 resulted in all the free-thinkers, libertarians and egalitarianists being killed or fleeing to the US or Switzerland, which is why those nations became the paragons of democracy that they are now and Germany devolved into an Authoritarian cesspit... But that wouldn't be entirely accurate.

As for nobody else being capable of doing such things, I already said that the Japanese and Russians committed equally heinous acts, but then again, they were both oppressive, totalitarian regimes, much like the Nazis.....

No DEMOCRACY has ever done anything on NEAR that scale...

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I'm not talking about countries, political systems or regimes, committing crimes. I'm talking about individuals. And any individual from anywhere, put into Germany, or Japan, or some aforementioned country, history or regime, at the time, would have had the potential to be a racist murderer. Unless you buy the theory from that 50s book I was talking about, that some whole nations of people, in their blood and genes, somehow are intrinsically more sheepish and likely to submit to some guy like Hitler. Although that's a racist statement in itself.

This is why I'm wary of anyone who can entirely dissociate themselves from the guilt of what happened in those gas chambers.

No, not genetically, but Culturally predisposed, and how does committing racism and mass-murder become culturally acceptable, hmmmm?

Easy answer: by a history of literature, poetry, art and GAMES that condoned and/or glorified those who are racists and promote their ideals, hence why I avoid anything that portrays the Nazis (and the Nazi military, by definition is Nazi itself) in any kind of positive light!

Calling every soldier in the WW2 german armies a jew-murdering nazi is just as racist as saying that evey jew is a money hoarding big nosed sub-human. In fact I'd go so far as to say your attitude is rather anti-germanic as much as it is anti-nazi.

I realize that, being a Jew yourself, the holocaust would (and should) be a very traumatic part of the history of your people, but you seriously need to calm down, take a deep breath, and not label an entire group of people as EVIL when most of them had little to do with it, not everyone could have disguised themselves as a girl.

There is still NOTHING in the game about the holocaust or other 'evil'. They BAN people on the forums for posting the swastika. Nor do I know of any game that portrays the Germans in any kind of positive light, most either present it from the American, British or Russian POINT OF VIEW and then have you play on the German side in multiplayer in which there is no real difference between the sides other than weapons. Other games will offer no point of view on either side at all.


I read once that after the Roman occupation of Gaul many men cut off their pinky fingers so they could not wield a sword properly and thus could not be drafted into the Roman Army. The Romans drafted them anyway.
I don't know if this actually happened or not, but the morale of the story does not need a true story.

Hikaro, please take it apon you to read a book, as it appears you are misimformed.

Not every single German soldier in the history of ever is or was a Nazi. The German Army drew it's traditions from before the Nazi Party, in fact, many of divisions made from the Reichwehr's units, such as Grossdeutcheland, which was formed from the Reichstag ceremonial guards, what also existed before the Nazis. Therefore, by default, not all, or even most, German formations were based on Nazi ideas (the Waffen-SS being the most notable exception).

You state that democracies could not commit atrocity, war crime or the like. Obviously, what you are trying to tell us is that the USA COULD NOT and therefore DID NOT systematically destroyed the Native American tribal system, which was actually a GOVERNMENT POLICY for most of the Nineteenth Century. You are also stating that the USA COULD NOT and therefore DID NOT commit obvious war crime in, for example Mai Lay (spelling may be incorrect). By your logic, the British COULD NOT and DID NOT incarcerate Boer citizens in the 2nd Boer War, that the French COULD NOT and DID NOT wipe out the native populations of almost everywhere they settled, and that the Polish (which were, by the way, ruled by military junta) COULD NOT and WERE NOT oppressing the Jews before Hitler even got there. If you actually believe that they COULD NOT and DID NOT, you are WRONG.

If this were ADOLF HITLER: THE VIDEO GAME, I'd understand your sentiments, but it isn't. It's a game which just happens to have a German campaign, which does not explicitly state you are playing as a Nazi.

Actually he was saying that democracies have committed atrocities, but not on as large of a scale in several years as the holocaust. However e350tb still raised some very good examples of democracies (although, contrary to popular belief, the USA is not a true democracy, it's a constitutional republic) in which they committed prejudice/anti-racial acts against entire peoples/nations/ethnic groups. Not to mention the civilian death toll in any war, such as the on-going Iraq War which the USA initiated (but that's a topic for a different thread).

EDIT: I also do not know of any games that actually condones and promotes Nazi racial policies.

Also, this game isn't going to have "neo-nazi and KKK types crawling out of the woodwork". Besides DoD being a pretty mediocre game, as in every game population (kind of like in a real population) there will be a very SMALL MINORITY of people who promote racism and half of those might not even be very racist at all, they just do it for the lulz. Not that it makes them right to do it. And I could add more but I have to leave.

EDIT2: The people you met in DoD, I've seen them in other source games too, there is a minority of people who play source games and use crude and very offensive language a lot, and I have seen them in Counterstrike Source, Zombie Master mod, Battle Grounds 2, and several other source mods. Usually they either have their own servers or more likely there just are not any admins on to ban them. I havn't run into many of them in other games, in fact none when I played Call of Duty: United Offensive or World at War or Red Orchestra. Nearly every server does NOT tolerate that kind of behaviour/racism NOR do those games promote it in any way shape or form except in your imagination.

I've met a number of Germans and briefly stayed in Germany a year ago at a friend's house, they are normal people more or less just like everyone else. I enjoyed excellent hospitality and the Germans are indeed very very very sorry for WW2 and the holocaust.

Neo-nazis are for the most part attention demanding misfits. KKK types, well, a lot of people are no where near being like the KKK and are racist against African people, and even more people (including Africans) will use the occasional joke or slur for teh lulz.

I also am uncomfortable with the argument that people who live in democracies never did any sort of murdering. Sure, we don't go out there and shoot people in the head or gas them, but sometimes I think we might as well. On a daily basis we decide to sort of ignore the millions of people we could easily and directly help around the world. I wonder how history, or some alien species (who knows!) will or would judge us.

Anyway, yeah, I don't really see the game promoting or even portraying nazism in a positive light. Especially in a game focused on realism like the one this thread was about. It's about history, after all.

Let me get one thing straight: I AM NOT ANTI-GERMAN, if you'd be bothered to read my avatar and location information, you would fairly easily deduce that I'm also part Pennsylvania German (I'm one of those crazy Mennonites living in an Amish Paradise.....), and am in the process of learning the Pennsylvania German language, and my OTHER great-grandfather on my mom's side's last name, before he changed it during WWI, was VON HOHENZOLLERN!

I'm ANTI-NAZI, and the Wehrmacht, by supporting the Nazi government, as far as I'm concerned, made it just as Nazi and guilty of the crimes committed by said government, much like the military units who KNEW about what was going on in Gitmo or Abu Gharib, but didn't do anything about it are just as guilty as the Bush Administration for ordering the torture of prisoners in the first place! (and let's stop calling it "water-boarding" and call it what it REALLY is: "Chinese" Water Torture, you know, like the Japanese used on US POW's in WWII and the Vietcong used on US POW's in Vietnam).

I was in the US Navy from 1999 - 2005, and I took my oath to support and defend the constitution seriously... If anyone, even the president himself, would have ordered me to torture prisoners for information, I'd have told them to f--k off, and damn the consequences to my career or any disciplinary action that may have followed! (Actually, that attitude was why pretty much all the officers on board the ship I was stationed on hated my guts). If the Wehrmacht soldiers were REALLY "not Nazis" then they would have done the same thing... After all, not even HITLER can do much if the military mutinies, but they didn't, meaning that they either supported the Nazi regime's actions, or were spineless cowards who were more afraid of death than dishonoring themselves by supporting such an evil.... Either way, they were therefore part of the problem by not being part of the solution.

What is so damn hard to figure out about that? The logic is so simple a brain-dead village IDIOT can follow it through to this conclusion!

In my opinion, playing a game AS a member of such an organization that supported such a regime is pure, dead WRONG, and I won't support it....

Good on them for banning the obvious racists, but by creating a game where one plays as the Nazi military, they should have realized that they were ASKING for those types to pop up!

It's just like in Counter-Strike... What kind of SICK individual CHOOSES to play as a TERRORIST?!?! I spent almost six years of my life fighting those inhuman bastards (seriously, they are so brainwashed that you might as well try reasoning with a ROBOT as convincing them that what they're doing is wrong!), so why would anyone want to play a game as a murdering, religious extremist, bigoted child-murdering terrorist A-hole, unless they happened to BE some kind of Hannibal Lechter type sick-ass, warped kitten-torturing, dog-kicking psychopath!

Wow... um 'kay? People choosing to play as terrorists in Counter-Strike are sick in their minds. Right. I'm guessing any sort of hobby or art form that isn't portraying pretentious righteousness is only used by deranged people uh.

You compare your situation in the US army to that of a German soldier directly affected to torture (whom you are not playing as in this particular game anyway and were not the the root of the debate). It's a rather tenuous link and a really different time and place and background.

And then you say you wouldn't torture people but you end up by calling them "inhuman" (where did I hear that again?). Yeah, inhuman bastards, robotic too.

Why do I ever have discussions on the internet anyway, such a waste of time.

The average Wehrmacht soldier is German and for the most part were much more concerned with defending their homeland.

The concentration camps were not public knowledge. While there was a lot of propaganda which helped anti-Semitism (which was already a problem in many western countries, many Jewish refugees had trouble escaping before the war and were refused entry into other countries, even the USA and Canada) and certainly many German people and the Wehrmacht were caught up in anti-semitism, it certainly wasn't everyone. The extermination camps were hidden from public knowledge and from the knowledge of the allies.

The people who lives near the extermination camps would likely have known what was going on to some degree but would have kept quiet out of fear and there isn't much civilians can do against armed soldiers. People in the rest of Germany and the majority of the Wehrmacht would have kbown that A) There is a lot of anti-semitism B) Jews were being rounded up C) Jews were being shipped to camps. And that is likely it. The Wehrmacht was busy holding the land it had gained, fighting in Africa, and especially on the Eastern Front which consumed an incredible amount of resources, and the death camps were hidden away and disguised as factories aiding the war effort (and many camps as you probably know were factories using slave labour).

Also people would rather go with a more pleasant idea (that what the propaganda goes with) than believe any rumours of mass death camps.

And I'm pretty sure every WW2 game developer expects some people to need to be banned, hence why they implement tools for server admins to ban undesirable users, but the vast majority of the players are like in any other game, regular people playing a game set in WW2 Europe.

EDIT: You say you were in the US Navy, you should then be aware of many practices in the army to indoctrinate soldiers and the pressures on them to believe what the army tells you and follow your orders or ELSE! The basic premises will still be there, despite whatever changes 65 years has brought.

I can see a problem if the game had you play as the Waffen-SS, It was a volunteer group and was largely responsible (directly) for the holocaust.

But claiming the Wehrmacht itself is reprehensible is pure folly, a large portion of its members were conscripted or in the case of the eastern front simply supporting what seems like the lesser of two evils, To someone who had successfully lived under a National Socialist government for years without anyone you know getting killed it would seem like a good enough cause to flock to when you find the Stalinists bearing down upon your homeland.

Yes, some real Fascist bastards existed within the Wehrmacht but claiming that someone who is simply refusing to leave their family at the mercy of Ivan is responsible for the holocaust is in my view quite closed minded and indeed Anti (European) German

Have you ever had one of your friends burn to death from 3000 gallons of flaming jet fuel washing over him? I don't think so! Seriously, the only way to end terrorism is to convince them, somehow that they are NOT going to get their 73 virgins, or to kill them all....

Personally, I prefer the former, and the easiest way to do that has already been figured out by the Russians and US special forces in the Phillipines... I.e. bury them in pig skin, or shoot them with bullets covered in pig blood (which, according to Islamic Law means that they will NEVER get into heaven, no matter how many "infidels" they murder)....

The whole war on terrorism would be over in a matter of WEEKS if the rest of the Coalition forces would adopt those practices (you don't hear much anymore about terrorism in Chechnya or the Philippines do you?)

Still, as the one guy said, this game is a SIMULATION, and research has proven that the more times one does something, the more ingrained it becomes.

And yes, those who play as terrorists are either completely callous, or are sick individuals, particularly those who install mods where you can play as Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein!

Again, that is one of the MANY reasons I stopped playing Counter-Strike (that and all the AWP lamers and 12-year-olds running around like ******ed grasshoppers, speed hackers, wall hackers, aimbots and other annoying crap.

About the only FPS I'll play anymore is either Halo (where the enemy is REALLY inhuman in every meaning of the term and its in a completely fictional setting) or Unreal Tournament, where everyone is in it for the "big prize" and it's in a completely fictional setting anyways.... No racists, neo-nazis, or other ne'er-do-wells to contend with.

EDIT: The FIRST COMMENT on this announcement is by a HOLOCAUST DENIER! I believe I can safely rest my case. Or to use the internet vernacular, Oh, SNAP!

EDIT II: I've nothing against the European Germans either... Especially once they figured out that anti-Semitic, oppressive totalitarian regimes were not the way to go.

Then according to you I should have killed several jews and then blown myself up on one of the local ferries after shooting up my school and assassinating JFK via time machine by now

There isn't ANY mention of jews in Red Orchestra at all! Simulation bullhorsehockyulation. The worst that could happen is someone attacking either a russian or a german with a replica rifle.

I happen to find WW2, in it's entirety, very interesting. I think the German military uniforms were very stylish, does that make me a nazi? No. If I said I admired the efficiency of the concentration camps, yes that would be a very bad thing to say and think and I would be a horrible person.

As for first comment... how do you even know he's a holocaust denier? Because he posted something he knew would inflame everyone? Sounds more like a typical internet troll to me. Reading a bit further down the page, most of the comments are pretty much the same mishmash of trolling, stupidity, and some actual on topic posts where people look forward to seeing both sides of point of view.

ANYTHING is subjected to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law and even more so if it is about WW2.

To troll about something as serious as the Holocaust, as far as I'm concerned, is as bad as being an actual racist, so either way, he's a complete douche-bag, and I guarantee others will follow his lead.

Seriously, though, while I conceed that MAYBE the average German soldier had no idea about the death camps (although the Nurenburg trials proved that all too many DID) and there were enough who were "defending" their "home land" (although it beggars belief that invading Poland and Russia could be concieved of as a "defensive" maneuver), the mere thought of playing as a Nazi soldier makes my stomach turn something awful, and the Commies, IMO, are almost as bad....

Besides the point is moot anyways, due to the fact that none of my systems have the liquid-cooled, quad-core 8GHz processer, 64 GB of RAM and triple 512-Meg video cards that you need to run a game like this anyways.... (my best system is rocking a dual-core processor with a GeForce 7050 and 2 GB of RAM, and the other two get progressively more obsolete from there.)

I think I'll stick with Age of Empires (II & III), Imperialism II and Civ III.

...Still, if they would offer an expansion where you could play as the British or the US, then I might be interested, due to the unique realistic weapons handling (Nothing pisses me off more than seeing SAS, GSG-9 and Seal Team 7 members jumping around like ******ed grasshoppers and shouting "WTFBBQ?! TEH CAMPING FAG F**KING AWPED ME!" and other such witty and intellectual comments)

The number of ******s on Earth (including Holocaust deniers) will not change because of Red Orchestra 2.

SimonL said:

The number of ******s on Earth (including Holocaust deniers) will not change because of Red Orchestra 2.

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Hikaro Takayama said:

To troll about something as serious as the Holocaust, as far as I'm concerned, is as bad as being an actual racist, so either way, he's a complete douche-bag, and I guarantee others will follow his lead.

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I agree he's a douchebag, but I doubt others will follow his lead. Seeing a troll post isn't a gateway to trolldom.

Seriously, though, while I conceed that MAYBE the average German soldier had no idea about the death camps (although the Nurenburg trials proved that all too many DID) and there were enough who were "defending" their "home land" (although it beggars belief that invading Poland and Russia could be concieved of as a "defensive" maneuver), the mere thought of playing as a Nazi soldier makes my stomach turn something awful, and the Commies, IMO, are almost as bad....

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The Nuremberg Trials were not trying the Werhmacht soldiers, they went after leadership for the most part, iirc there were 185 people tried during the multiple trials.

The idea of defending ones homeland can be an odd one especially when you were the aggressor. However once the war with Russia started it was only going to end with the complete destruction of either side and there is more to it than that.

When I'm playing a video game, I don't really see the characters on screen as people, maybe at first or if the game actually manages to make you feel for them (WW2 shooters don't really do that, especially in multiplayer). They are just exactly what they are, digitalized renders based off history. Kill the enemy team for points and fun. Albeit the colours and shapes and symbols do have a lot of meaning tied onto them by humans.

Besides the point is moot anyways, due to the fact that none of my systems have the liquid-cooled, quad-core 8GHz processer, 64 GB of RAM and triple 512-Meg video cards that you need to run a game like this anyways.... (my best system is rocking a dual-core processor with a GeForce 7050 and 2 GB of RAM, and the other two get progressively more obsolete from there.)

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You overkilled the overkill with those specs. The Unreal 3 engine isn't that demanding. I have a Q6600, 2 gigs of ram, WinXP, and an 8800GT which is plenty for this game. Your card is very out of date though, might want to get a new one soon.

...Still, if they would offer an expansion where you could play as the British or the US, then I might be interested, due to the unique realistic weapons handling (Nothing pisses me off more than seeing SAS, GSG-9 and Seal Team 7 members jumping around like ******ed grasshoppers and shouting "WTFBBQ?! TEH CAMPING FAG AWPED ME!" and other such witty and intellectual comments)

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There is the Darkest Hour mod (or some name like that) for Red Orchestra which focuses on the Western Front. I'm not sure how stable it is, probably better now than a year or so ago when I played it. And agreed those people are irritating.

Welp, this thread turned to crap pretty thoroughly.

I have conquered the world via PGI/II many a time. I guess I'm a Nazi

PrinceScamp said:

The idea of defending ones homeland can be an odd one especially when you were the aggressor. However once the war with Russia started it was only going to end with the complete destruction of either side and there is more to it than that.

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That, IMO, from a purely strategical standpoint, was Hitlers BIGGEST MISTAKE, EVER... He could have probably gotten a favorable peace settlement if he'd have stopped with France and Poland, but, as anyone who has even seen some excerpts from Mein Kampf can tell you the guy was a madman.... Yes, there WAS a method to his madness, but it was still madness.

When I'm playing a video game, I don't really see the characters on screen as people, maybe at first or if the game actually manages to make you feel for them (WW2 shooters don't really do that, especially in multiplayer). They are just exactly what they are, digitalized renders based off history. Kill the enemy team for points and fun. Albeit the colours and shapes and symbols do have a lot of meaning tied onto them by humans.

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I guess if you think of it as an over-glorified paintball or airsoft game, I can see your point.... After all, they DO have the "Oklahoma D-Day"9 paintball extravaganza (complete with guys in home-made paintball tanks and panzers).....

You overkilled the overkill with those specs. The Unreal 3 engine isn't that demanding. I have a Q6600, 2 gigs of ram, WinXP, and an 8800GT which is plenty for this game. Your card is very out of date though, might want to get a new one soon.

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...but, but I just BUILT that system (granted, its a Mini-ITX)... Dunno If I have room for an additional video card on top of the built-in one... Maybe If I can find a 90^o header for the PCI expansion slot.... Still, there's not that much room in my super-compact case (The whole PC is about the size of a PS-3).

There is the Darkest Hour mod (or some name like that) for Red Orchestra which focuses on the Western Front. I'm not sure how stable it is, probably better now than a year or so ago when I played it. And agreed those people are irritating.

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I might try the game out, but not now, too many other things on the go... I got school, a Civ III story game I need to finish (been running for over a year now), among other things...

nonconformist said:

Welp, this thread turned to crap pretty thoroughly.

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I thought it got more interesting.

In reference to the earlier "OMFG WE ARE CELEBRATING NAZIS!" rants ealier, those exact same accusations are made against German WWII reinactment groups. They persist besides the fact that most groups include collectors and reenactors who do so for multiple sides and because of the critisism are hyper sensative to even the hint that a member is an actual Nazi sympathizer. You probably won't find more outspoken anti nazi/racism people anywhere else.