As suggested by the latest little interview, Inquisitors seem a likely candidate for a class. What does that mean when it comes to Exterminatus... I mean, any Inquisitor can order an exterminatus on a planet... I realize they most likely aren't going to be an option for players.. but lore-wise. If we have inquisitors, and we obviously have the black templars there to carry out the order, an exterminatus would be a possible option for the imperium.

Problem is having large numbers Inquisitors running around. Like Officio Assassinorum assassins, they're not a common sight. You might have a small group of Ordo Malleus Inquisitors facing a daemon infestation or perhaps an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor assessing (re: viral bombing) an outbreak of heresy with acolytes in tow, or maybe an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor investigating an alien incursion, but you wouldn't have them all grouping up at once in large numbers. There are only a finite number of Inquisitors and over a billion worlds in the Imperium - they'll be thin on the ground where ever you go.

As for the Inquisitor class itself, if indeed it is one, I imagine you'll start off as a fresh Acolyte and eventually, such as the Space Marine might play out, you'd become a full Inquisitor. I do wonder if they'll restrict you to a certain Ordo - personally, if push came to shove & I made an Inquisitor, which isn't too unappealing an idea considering I've just gotten my 'Inquisitor' rulebook off the shelf and had a shuffle through it**, I would rather be Ordo Xenos than Hereticus or Malleus. Or if they left you without an Ordo and let you choose - that'd be good.

**Ah, I loved playing Inquisitor. Such a great boardgame...until you realise how long it takes to play & how boring it is waiting for your turn again...

Yeah, I don't like the idea of there being actual playable inquisitors either, for the same reason. Inquisitors are rare, and their job is not warfare (barring Ordo Malleus vs. daemons, but even then that's the lesser part of their occupation), their job is to root out conspiracies, alien infestations, subversive cults, and that sort of thing. They're investigators. That's what their strength is. If the Imperium wants something dead, they send in guardsmen or space marines or the navy or something. If they suspect there's foul play afoot, an inquisitor will find his way to the place, use agents and proxies, and expose the source of the treachery.

Inquisitors would not only be inappropriate for a combat-focused game like this, they'd defy all rationality by having legions of them in a place at once, where in 40k it's uncommon for even two inquisitors to be in the same place at the same time. Just read the Ravenor or Eisenhorn series of books. Inquisitors should be quest-givers and otherwise storyline characters, or very rarely the target of some high-level quest or whatever.

That said, if Games Workshop didn't care enough to bar Mythic from abusing the witch hunters in Warhammer Fantasy, I doubt they'll care enough to keep Vigil from doing the same to inquisitors if they so choose.

Well, Chaos could also level a world, as could most battle fleets. Apparently the planets being fought for are too valuable to destroy.

Inquisitors come from interrogators, and interrogators come from Throne agents working for an inquisitor who are a part of a normal profession like guardsman, arbiter, techpriest, etc, and who demonstrate the exceptional qualities necessary to become an agent for an inquisitor.

But anyway, the bottom line is that a game about tanks and space marines Imperial Guard armies and titans and stuff battling it out across various planets is a pretty unsuitable for the kind of intrigue and mystery which characterizes the activities of the Inquisition.

A playable Inquisitor class in an MMO is about as bad an idea as a playable Jedi class...<cough-starwarsgalaxies-cough>...

Even worse than that really. At least Jedi's primary role is to hit people with laser swords. Inquisitors who find themselves in a fight probably made a big mistake somewhere along the way, or they're really desperate. The reason they have absolute authority is so that they can enlist arbiters, or PDF, or guardsmen, or assassins to kill the bad guys after they've ferreted them out. Playable inquisitors would contravene not only the fluff in that inquisitors are fairly rare and do not congregate en masse to war zones, but that they are scientists and investigators first and soldiers second or third or fourth.

The problem is, Star Wars isn't really anything without Jedi. That's pretty much all they've got. :/

I concur, and would also like to add that not even Acolytes ( Inquisitors in training; we apparently all know that, just pointing it out again for no real reason...) would find themselves in large enough numbers in a war-zone to warrant a MMO class. So even if they decided to make something like an Inquisitor... an Acolyte ( that wouldn't finish his or her training during the course of the game) is as far as they could go and even that would be a too much of a stretch.

The thing that worries me is that the dude in the interview apparently doesn't know what he's talking about...