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 Palindrome wrote:
Sexy little outfits are perfectly fine if they are justifiable. The problem is that they are rarely justifiable and are there purely for titillation which I find childish.

Eh. They make money, though. TOR's cash shop makes bank off of sexy little outfits.

It's kind of funny, too; every time someone suggests maybe getting rid of the bondage gear and whatnot on the forums, the fiercest dissenters are always female. They like the outfits for themselves, y'see, and like dressing their boytoy male companions up like they're hitting the Castro district, too.

Is it a reflection of their sexuality?

I doubt it. I think it's more a curious note about the behavior of people in games that might speak to the changing face of gender or maybe to underlying ideas about gender?

That would be the point of research

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, let's get back on track. To reiterate my previous question why do you think we place such weight on what gender males/females choose for their avatars? Is it a reflection of their sexuality?

Maybe if they're insecure.

 LordofHats wrote:

Is it a reflection of their sexuality?

I doubt it. I think it's more a curious note about the behavior of people in games that might speak to the changing face of gender or maybe to underlying ideas about gender?

That would be the point of research

Indeed. I think the most interesting point bout this particular study is how there are unconscious male/female behaviors that arise despite what gender you display. It would seem that males are more assertive and enjoy hitting funny buttons to make funny moves and females enjoy putting emotion into written language.

Or at least that's the generally accepted way for men and women to act anyway. But that's a discussion for a different thread, which usually breaks out in fights anyway, so let's not go too deeply in there

I've mentioned before in other threads, but you can often tell the gender of an author just from reading a few pages written by them*. Not with 100% accuracy of course, but there are notable trends.

Another stereotype, that men write very spare prose, sacrificing description to plot, is also disprovable. They simply may choose to describe things in other ways, or describe other things altogether, than women would. It's rather like the difference between journalistic and artistic photography.

Is the difference based in being a man or woman, or based in the perceptions and expectations of men and women influencing the way they see the world and thus the way they portray it? The argument of course is that gender isn't like biological sex. Biological sex is a binary question in nearly all cases, while gender is a broad spectrum. Some men are more masculine that others etc etc. Maybe that's more than just an outside perception we make about appearances but also about an individuals internal world and perceptions.

EDIT: And of course, what I mean here is that studying gender swapping in games, might be connected to this and lead to a better understanding of how we think about ourselves and each other.

*You can especially notice this in the ways men and women write characters of the opposite sex.

 EmilCrane wrote:
While I'm not saying "if blah blah blah happened hitler would have won the war", the nazis did invent guided munitions, operational jet air craft, ballistic missiles, night fighting equipment, and assault rifles, just to name a few.

Well, the allies (and actually there was a lot of work here done by scientists that had fled away from the nazi, quite a bunch of them from Hungary) did invent nuclear bombs. That does out-power guided munitions and assault rifles imho .

 Melissia wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Yeah, let's get back on track. To reiterate my previous question why do you think we place such weight on what gender males/females choose for their avatars? Is it a reflection of their sexuality?

Maybe if they're insecure.

I am insecure, and my choice of avatar is not in any way a reflection of my sexuality. It is a reflection of what I find badass at the moment, usually .

I find that what gender you mostly play in an RPG often correlates to how you relate to characters in stories. For me I relate to characters by imagining me as them, or imagining who I would want to be in this story, therefore I mostly play male characters because I am male. Other people may relate differently, or distance themselves from their player character in a way I don't.

I'm pretty glad people dropped the edgy-kid routine of bashing WoW simply because it's one of the most successful games of all time.

I have 4 characters in my current MMO, all of which are female. Male animations look awkward, females have better clothing options in this particular game, females also have a smaller avatar (although the game has a fixed hitbox) which can fool newbies into not shooting me when they can't see my avatar - yet my hitbox is still showing.

But yeah, it's probably to do with my sexuality, some insecurity, or I'm just a sexist pig. Yeah. OK.

Most of my 'DIY' characters in RPGs are females, because I'd rather be staring at a female (probably in skimpy armour) for hundreds of hours than a guy.

Also, it's led to one of the funniest moments I've had in a game. Standing around in Guild Wars with my Ranger in the notoriously skimpy elite Druid armour, I get a whisper from someone random.

Them: Hi
Me: Hi
Them: Your hot. Wanna chat?
Me: I'm a guy
Them: OH MY GOD
*other person logs off*

MarsNZ wrote:
But yeah, it's probably to do with my sexuality, some insecurity, or I'm just a sexist pig. Yeah. OK.

I do not think anyone was seriously suggesting that .

Regarding the whispering... I must be lucky I guess. Been playing female avatars non stop for seven years on WoW and had whispers twice. Once, when some random guy came up to a lvl 4 alt and whispered cute and put 50gd into the trade window, I accepted (as why wouldn't you) and he never said another thing. Then more recently, I got propositioned to dominate another character in some kind of sexual nature, but I never responded. They didn't press me any further and to be fair that was in Goldshire on Argent Dawn where frankly its a ERP disaster zone, but also the location of the Darkmoon faire portal. Thus I log out characters there who are static and just popping on once a month to level professions.

As to me playing female alts, I used to assume it was for the butt thing... these days I know better, but as I age I seem less bothered about what others think of me and my traits.

 -Loki- wrote:
Most of my 'DIY' characters in RPGs are females, because I'd rather be staring at a female (probably in skimpy armour) for hundreds of hours than a guy.

Also, it's led to one of the funniest moments I've had in a game. Standing around in Guild Wars with my Ranger in the notoriously skimpy elite Druid armour, I get a whisper from someone random.

Them: Hi
Me: Hi
Them: Your hot. Wanna chat?
Me: I'm a guy
Them: OH MY GOD
*other person logs off*

This happens too often

I rarely get whisper harassed as a female avatar. (Never as a male one.) It might just be that I haven't played too many newer mmos in awhile, or maybe people just think I am a man.

 EmilCrane wrote:
I find that what gender you mostly play in an RPG often correlates to how you relate to characters in stories. For me I relate to characters by imagining me as them, or imagining who I would want to be in this story, therefore I mostly play male characters because I am male. Other people may relate differently, or distance themselves from their player character in a way I don't.

I can see why you'd do this. It is very tempting. But as I am an avid roleplayer self-inserting yourself too much can very rapidly become very ugly- people thinking that their character failing and themselves failing is the same thing is one of the more noticeable problems in the community.

I have inserted some traits of myself in my character. (Notably, gender.) But I blend that with things that are quite different from me.

I think all of us insert at least a little bit of ourselves in our PC OCs.

It's hard not to put a bit of yourself in your character since you, the player, are basically the brain of this mindless avatar. All thoughts and actions are being processed through your frame of mind.

Well said, and I agree.

Personally, I try to regard my characters and their experiences like a distanced novel, movie or theater piece where I'm just the director - but at the same time, I also inject pieces of my own personality or preferences into them, but sometimes contrasted by traits I would never agree to in real life.

I wonder if, subconsciously, I may regard it as a sort of "what if" experiment? Or is it really as simple as simply projecting things we like or approve of, and some people feel a need to do this more than others (to the point of almost "copying themselves")?

I prefer to become my characters myself by consciously altering my perspective on life. Some characters have philosophies I entirely disagree with but I roll with anyway because I don't consider characters to be the ideal variant of me. Of course, getting this immersed has it's issues as Ashiraya has pointed out and I have fallen victim to it in the past. Gotten better though.

Something tells me we went somewhat off topic.

That just tends to happen in forums, especially after a certain pagecount.

If you want to steer the debate back to the original topic, what is your opinion on the subject? Do you have anything to add, or have points on it that would warrant discussion?

MarsNZ wrote:
I'm pretty glad people dropped the edgy-kid routine of bashing WoW

Because I played it and it sucks.

If that's "edgy", yay, I'm "edgy", whatever that means.

Or apparently just because people like the garbage-heap that is WoW, I'm not allowed to dislike it?

 Melissia wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
I'm pretty glad people dropped the edgy-kid routine of bashing WoW

Because I played it and it sucks.

If that's "edgy", yay, I'm "edgy", whatever that means.

Or apparently just because people like the garbage-heap that is WoW, I'm not allowed to dislike it?

You're allowed to dislike it and you're also allowed to think that it's a garbage-heap.

Other people are allowed to find it ultrasuperuberawesome, ofcourse.

Hard to consider a game with such success a garbage heap.

I despise the game, and ive played it before for a good while, but I can see what the game has done and respect that.

To me a garbage heap game would be.

FF14
Guild wars 2
Vanguard
etc

Games like that.. who launched.. and player base dropped to nothing due to many game issues / design flaws.

Of course everyone can have their own idea of what they think.

----
Now to on topic.

I think its more visual armor style/character model then anything else for someone to play a female character.

But I see it as 2 groups.

1: Guys playing Female characters running around in cash shop or the least covering armor as they can acting like they aren't a guy.
2: Guys playing female characters using whatever armor looks cool due to the armor model differences and not acting any other way.

At the same time, I don't use gender specific names if I am on a female character.
Id feel odd running around a Sally. I use the same name for all characters.

 Spyder68 wrote:
Hard to consider a game with such success a garbage heap

Why? Just because a product is successful doesn't make it good.

 Spyder68 wrote:
Games like that.. who launched.. and player base dropped to nothing due to many game issues / design flaws.

Which didn't happen to Guild Wars 2.

 Spyder68 wrote:
Hard to consider a game with such success a garbage heap.

I despise the game, and ive played it before for a good while, but I can see what the game has done and respect that.

To me a garbage heap game would be.

FF14
Guild wars 2
Vanguard
etc

Games like that.. who launched.. and player base dropped to nothing due to many game issues / design flaws.

Of course everyone can have their own idea of what they think.

----
Now to on topic.

I think its more visual armor style/character model then anything else for someone to play a female character.

But I see it as 2 groups.

1: Guys playing Female characters running around in cash shop or the least covering armor as they can acting like they aren't a guy.
2: Guys playing female characters using whatever armor looks cool due to the armor model differences and not acting any other way.

At the same time, I don't use gender specific names if I am on a female character.
Id feel odd running around a Sally. I use the same name for all characters.

Do you now? Why is that? I mean, I used to do the same, but I think it's a bit uncreative to just use the same exact name for everyone.

I personally give my characters feminine/masculine names because I'd feel weird playing a Draenei girl named "Dave".

Actually, that'd be pretty funny. "It's pronounced Da-vay! Not Dave!".

 Melissia wrote:

 Spyder68 wrote:
Hard to consider a game with such success a garbage heap

Why? Just because a product is successful doesn't make it good.

 Spyder68 wrote:
Games like that.. who launched.. and player base dropped to nothing due to many game issues / design flaws.

Which didn't happen to Guild Wars 2.

Odd, last time i logged into GW2 there was less then 10 pvp matches going on, along with chat and towns were dead. Maybe its my server ?

If a product wasn't good.. it wouldn't be successful. An MMO that has lasted how long ? With how many players ? As much as i dont like WoW, its the most successful game that has come out. hence people are still talking about the game and its talked about all over.

New mmo comes out.. eh its like wow, or wow does this... Sorry i don't see people compare every new mmo to GW2/Vanguard or star wars galaxies.


I could say the Atari ET game was good... but it doesn't make it successful. (Though id rather play that then GW2 again)
I can say WoW is the worst game ever... but doesnt change the fact how successful the game has been.

Yeah but even if it is successful it can still be trash.

 Spyder68 wrote:
If a product wasn't good.. it wouldn't be successful.

Justin Beiber.

The Barbarossa Card Game was successful on Kickstarter!

It's totally not a nazi anime girl in panty shot themed trash fest.

I think Melissia would love it.

The only real instances I remember of gender swapping in games was when an online male friend in runescape changed genders to be a woman. I basically just picking on him and teasing him. Eventually some guys were nearby and saw I was doing that and actually wanted to help him out because I was being a bully. It was really odd and we both laughed and I told them the 'woman' was actually a dude.

The only other time I remember an instance in 'diablo 2' where for no reason and because I was a young immature dude (and am not much more mature now) and made an amazon to play the game through and titled the game 'hot sex' or something. Basically one dude entered the game and just told me his d*ck size as if I wanted to hear that. I told him I was actually a dude. I probably should've said something along the lines of 'that's about the same size as mine' if it made him feel awkward.

---------

Hard to say what to think about women in games. I have totally fought some woman in starcraft 2 asked if they were them, they replied yes, I said 'cool' and I no longer talked. When they win they just get super 'you got beat by a girl' or similar with it or just really, really poor with sportsmanship. With a different woman I said similar and she was totally a good sport about it. We just played the game I got owned because I suck at starcraft 2 and that was that. I also had a bad experience just trying to play a game with one woman on each of our sides in command and conquer: red alert 2 and the female players kept insulting us. Because you know we made actual defense to fight the things they weren't prepared for. After that they just betrayed us and killed us because there wasn't gak we could do since we tried to protect them with what shortcomings they had. Total b*tches those two. There are some good female players around and these bad experiences with women are often isolated events but I feel this needs to be addressed too.

---------

 MrDwhitey wrote:
The Barbarossa Card Game was successful on Kickstarter!

It's totally not a nazi anime girl in panty shot themed trash fest.

You mean like the quality of most harem animes in general?