The Daily Grind: Why do people love to play the good guys?

by Brooke Pilley Jun 25th 2009 at 8:00AM

When you look at MMOs like World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and Aion*, you'll find that the "good guys" are usually the most popular. The primary conflicts in these games are between Alliance vs. Horde, Order vs. Destruction, and Elyos vs. Asmodian and it seems that more people choose to play on the side of good than evil. That "evil" is actually more of a "misunderstood" in two out of the three games I mentioned, yet the perception seems to stick.

Is it because we were all raised on fairy tales that hammered strong values and good morals into our heads? Maybe it's because the general trend in storytelling predominantly focuses on heroes of virtue? There are even stories about anti-heroes. Flawed though they may be, these protagonists still manage to absolve themselves of their sins and save the day most of the time.

I usually choose to play the villain in MMOs because I see them as the underdog. It isn't something I consciously think about but maybe there's part of me that wants to see the bad guy shine for a change. That doesn't mean I root for the latest serial killer on the nightly news, but in a fantasy world I want to escape from my normal role as a model citizen and cause a little mayhem in a place that doesn't hurt anyone.

* Aion Korea, where the game is actually released.

Tags: aion, evil, good, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

MCRaider said on 8:13AM 6-25-2009

When WAR came out I think it had an opposite effect. Since in WoW the vast majority of the player base was Alliance people wanted to be the "underdog" for once in a game.

However it turned out once WAR was released that Destruction just rolled all over Order on a lot of the servers. The population difference made scenarios hard to win or even get full groups for.

But I would bet this trend will continue in SWtor with more people playing Sith then being a part of the Jedi/Republic.

Brooke Pilley said on 8:40AM 6-25-2009

This is a good point. When WAR released, it did have a larger Destruction population. If you look at the servers now though, Order has a slight advantage. Before release, many of us were complaining that Mythic was marketing Destruction way more than Order and that it would throw populations way out of balance. Pre-release polls were showing a 60/40 split in favour of Destro...

Maybe that was a smart move after all since Order now has a minor lead on most servers. Without that major Destro push, I wonder if Order would have completely dominated.

The Claw said on 8:57AM 6-25-2009

WoW had it's turnarounds, too. Alliance certainly drew a larger playerbase initially, but maybe a year in, once battlegrounds had launched, and people discovered just how loooong the queues can be if you're on the overpopulated side, rerolling Horde became a popular pastime. And some of the PvP servers that launched around that time.. wow. Incredible imbalance in favour of Horde.

ScytheNoire said on 11:29AM 6-25-2009

That's not true at all. I played WAR at launch and while Destruction typically had more players, Order had the better quality players. On three of the servers I know of, Order controlled things. At least in North America. Good just had the better players, Destruction had a lot of kiddies.

Kdolo said on 10:44AM 6-25-2009

i think it's because the prettier characters are usually on the "good" side.

BookhouseBoy said on 8:33AM 6-25-2009

In the case of WoW, I think this has more to do with people wanting to play "pretty" races, and until Blood Elves, the Horde was lacking in that department.

Skypp said on 4:49PM 6-25-2009

I came to WoW from a guild in Everquest that was near 50% ladies, and at release there were not bloodelves. If there had been Bloodelves we probably would have been hoarde, most of the guys(except me) wanted to be orcs, trolls and such. But almost 0% of the ladies would even consider playing hoarde. So we were alliance.

Epocrates said on 8:38AM 6-25-2009

Is that true? At least in the case of WoW I don' t think that "more" play alliance anymore. That might've been the case 1 year out but now, I think everyone has tried it out.

I do agree that most saw horde as "evil" but once you played a char through it, (esp if you read the quests) you find that there is more grey than you would've expected.

I think as in life having opposing factions that both think they're the good guys works well...for simulated conflict anyway.

Drackni said on 8:42AM 6-25-2009

It cant be because of pretty because i play a Dranei lol unless its the races with the prettier women that matter (I play on an RP server so its probably this) but i play an ugly as hell dranei male. in cases like wow it could just be the content surrounding the starter zones Eastern kingdoms is a lot nicer than Kalimdor its allmost as if Kalimdor was made first with an inferior designer

MeowCat said on 8:43AM 6-25-2009

I agree with the two previous posters that 1) the appearance of the avatar matters, and 2) the "good" side usually looks better. Some people don't buy that but at this point it's pretty well established that appearance matters in games. You might be able to extend this with a LOTRO example. Most of us that have been stuck in Moria for months want OUT. A lot of people have stayed out because its so dark. Who knows if we can draw that comparison but there is definitely something about comfort level and appearance addresses that at least in part.

barth said on 8:57AM 6-25-2009

Exactly, and this is part of why destruction was so much more popular than order at first in WAR. The destruction character design is much better than the order counterparts, who typically look cheesy at best. Even the supposed prettiest of the pretty order characters, the elves, look slightly mentally handicapped while the dark elves are smoking hot.

JGaltTK said on 8:47AM 6-25-2009

That's funny, because the only reason I even looked into playing AION was because I had the chance to play a demon/devil.....

TexRob said on 9:01AM 6-25-2009

So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Bill said on 11:16AM 6-25-2009

LOL

Aganazer said on 9:17AM 6-25-2009

I blame women! But then again, I blame most things on women...

MCRaider said on 9:27AM 6-25-2009

I remember playing as a Rune Master and just getting stomped in almost every scenario. About 2 weeks into the game I re-rolled as a Desto (different server) and won almost every scenario. I could level faster with PvP then I could with PvE, I would just do quests in-between que pops which did not take long at all.

However I stopped playing about 2 months after release but I hear population is a bit more balanced. As other have said as well I think a lot of people do like the "pretty" races and choose to play them.

I think it also comes down to people not wanting to lose. This is in almost every game but in a MMO with PvP it can get pretty bad.

People hate losing thats a fact, but when you get rolled almost every time you play the game is not fun at all. So people go and play the winning side, however that side gets way over populated and winning all the time can get boring too.

The masses will flock to the winning side of any game weather its an FPS, MMO, Sports (to an extent). So I think that also plays a roll in choosing what faction/side to play.

THAC0 said on 9:27AM 6-25-2009

I play the good guys because quite honestly it gets depressing when you run around reading quests about all the terrible things you are doing, torturing, raping, looting and killing all the innocent people. I like my leisure time to be a bit more uplifting and less gloomy.

Bill said on 11:16AM 6-25-2009

I second that. I have tried to play the bad guys but I just end up feeling bato level.and such to level.

Bill said on 11:19AM 6-25-2009

The above was supposed to read "I second that. I have tried to play the bad guys but I just end up feeling bad as they make me club baby seals and such to level."

Claw said on 9:42AM 6-25-2009

I always play bad guys. I'm hoping that in SWTOR that I'll be able to be as mean as you could be in most previous Bioware games.

Honestly, it's not the evil part that appeals; it's being a bit of a jerk with choices that's fun. In Mass Effect it was delightful to threaten people into agreeing with you - in particular "the fan" was hilarious when you used intimidate during the conversation.

For me it's about being the person I'm not in the real world. I open doors, I help people carry heavy things, I'm generally polite... in games it would be nice to tell an NPC to go fetch his own rat skins, to give an NPC a shake to get an extra few coins out of them. Petty evil is what I love.

And often they dress better. In WAR, for example, all the best looking armour is Dark Elf. High Elves look like pansys. Dark Elves are all black and spikey.

And can we talk about WoW? Since when was Horde evil? Ok, they are classically the evil races... but lore wise they aren't actually evil. Aggressive, yes, but no more dark than the Alliance when it comes down to it.