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I think there is a lot of difference between actual role playing or simply gaming with an avatar of the opposite gender. The second is far less personal and you don't necessarily have to identify with the character, it is more of a tool or a companion rather than an alter ego. I wonder if the article really separates between the two types of play.

 Melissia wrote:
But you can't deny that he had a huge influence on a ton of art in the "Escher Girls" tumblr.

Sorry, I am not enough into comic books to actually know. Or care.
Maybe he was a big influence for the bad anatomy, but he certainly was not that influential for the heavy-handed sexualization anyway, and that what was I was referring to.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Well, it is called "Escher girls" and I only saw a couple of drawings which were remarkbly similar before posting so I thought that this was a blog mocking the horrible cheesecake art of one German guy.

That is a funny misunderstanding, because Escher was actually a pretty good painter. He drew stuff that did not make any sense, but he did it on purpose. A good example is the famous stairs :

It is pretty much like R'lyeh geometry at work .
The blog is about making a big collection of art that:
- sexualize women out of context, and
- feature massively distorted anatomy for the sake of “sexiness”.
It is even written in bold at the beginning of every page .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Nothing kills a boner more than a body contorted to a horrifying degree.

Kill yours, certainly. Some people obviously like it.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Why do we sexualize violence so much?

I would say it is more about people liking violence (well, pretty much every one registered here likes playing war!) and liking sex, so deciding to mix both, and damn the consequence or realism.

I am going to beat myself up for ages for missing that reference. And for not actually reading what the page said.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I really don't buy that excuse (mind you, I also don't think you NEED an excuse to play either gender in a game). It seems rather lame, since most of the time you are looking at the world around the character if you're actually playing the game.

This.

It's not like the man butt of your male characters was magically drawing your eyes toward it. Well.. for most of you anyway.

Speak for yourself!

Just kidding. I do tend to play female avatars in RPGs for most of the reasons already given. But also, because I'm usually in first-person view - I can tell if I'm getting hit by someone off-screen better. If I hear a woman's voice going "Ooof!" I know some hidden archer or frickin' rat is trying to take a chunk out of me. I don't role-play or project myself onto these characters like other gamers, so I have no problem playing a woman. Plus, 99% of the time they're better drawn/rendered/animated. And their armor looks cooler. And they actually have hair selections instead of just different grades of shaved heads.

I think there's an interesting point about the choosing of outfits - because it must require there to be a different "goal" for the one person who creates a female character ONLY for the chainmail bikini, and the person who wants to play a female character for, say, the novelty of RP'ing them.

And then you have to consider how in some games, there's no other choice for a female character to wear anything other than than the sexualised/ridiculous costumes. That has to rest with whoever designs the apparel, no?

I can understand how the two cross over though - I played an evil, high-speech & charisma female in Fallout NV, - basically, playing as a bond-villainess character, and naturally, dressed appropriately. At the same time, my pro-brotherhood alt (also female) was never seen outside of power-armour. I consider that storytelling, rather than voyeurism, but I expect someone could see it differently.

I don't see a problem with trying to give people the option to clothe their characters however they want, after all, RPGs and the like are escapism, and should be open,(within reason - no moon boots in Skyrim, thank you...) but sadly, there's always some people who will take that carte blanche too far.
Which is a shame really, but the "gaming community" is a mixed bunch - and not everyone wants the same things out of their games. Some want to tell a story, some want to be someone else for a few hours... and some people want to stare at the backside of an elf sorceress, or so I'm informed

 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?

'it sucks because I say it sucks'

good arguement... Millions would disagree with your in-depth review. Where did I say you weren't allowed to like it? I just pointed out that thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster nerds are everywhere bashing anything that is remotely mainstream, power to you girl, you can do it too, you don't need no man.

MarsNZ wrote:

 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?

'it sucks because I say it sucks'

good arguement... Millions would disagree with your in-depth review. Where did I say you weren't allowed to like it? I just pointed out that thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster nerds are everywhere bashing anything that is remotely mainstream, power to you girl, you can do it too, you don't need no man.

Way to belittle and dismiss dissenting opinions! Get back into line! Think inside the box!

MarsNZ wrote:
Millions would disagree with your in-depth review.

Just like millions of tweens would like to tell me that Beiber is a great musician.

And yet in neither case do I care!

MarsNZ wrote:
I just pointed out that thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster nerds are everywhere bashing anything that is remotely mainstream

That is an utterly ridiculous argument. By your extremely flawed logic anyone who dislikes something popular is automatically a 'hipster' and bases their dislike on attention seeking.

Hehe costume choice... my main female RP alt has multiple outfits.. its getting so bad.. I was often on the WoW forums joining in the RPG requests for a Wardrobe slot in the bank tab.

One of the things a lot of RPers are looking forward too are the new classification of certain items.

 Palindrome wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
I just pointed out that thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster nerds are everywhere bashing anything that is remotely mainstream

That is an utterly ridiculous argument. By your extremely flawed logic anyone who dislikes something popular is automatically a 'hipster' and bases their dislike on attention seeking.

When I gender swap in games its mainly for Variety and Theme.

There such a huge excess of stereotypical gruff, steroid chugging Alpha Male protagonists (especially in FPS) that it sometimes gets boring playing male characters all the time, so if given the choice I tend to create female characters.

And I also tend to associate certain character archetypes with a certain gender. In Skyrim (and other fantasy games), if I want to play a lithe, fast and agile Assassin or Thief who focuses on stealth, speed and cunning and uses archery, daggers and light armour; I'll create a female character. And if I want to play a strong, aggressive berzerker or warrior who relies on brute strength, raw aggression and uses battleaxes, hammers, shields, heavy armour etc I'll make a male character. And I prefer playing the former anyway, so tend to play more female characters.

Its just personal preference.

The only MMO I play is The Lord Of The Rings Online (because I'm a LOTR fan) and I don't roleplay. (And my favourite LOTRO character is a female Warden "Shield Maiden" type character inspired by Eowyn. My second favourite is a Dwarf Guardian).

I kindof like to defy archetypes like that.

In City of Heroes, my Invulnerable/Energy Melee Tank was a 5'0" slender girl in a tee-shirt and baggy jeans. Meanwhile my Sylvari Warrior in Guild Wars 2... uses a rifle as her main weapon. And I already mentioned my Hobbit Guardian from LotRO.

 Melissia wrote:
I kindof like to defy archetypes like that.

Yuup.

Roleplaying a female Blood Elf (Usually played as anime gurls) as a 9' overpowered Death Knight behemoth is fun.

((Have I ever mentioned that I love massive overpowered evil people in huge spiky armour?))

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I kindof like to defy archetypes like that.

Yuup.

Roleplaying a female Blood Elf (Usually played as anime gurls) as a 9' overpowered Death Knight behemoth is fun.

((Have I ever mentioned that I love massive overpowered evil people in huge spiky armour?))

Wow, Ash, your character must be buckets of fun to deal with.

What's so anti-archetypical of a blood elf being an evil overpowered villain?

 Melissia wrote:
What's so anti-archetypical of a blood elf being an evil overpowered villain?

Because when you normally see Belf characters everywhere looking like



then seeing something like



is quite different.

(Sorry for the glitchy graphics at the knees and forehead, modelviewer be buggy.)

The 2D chestplate really bothers me though. It makes her belly and arms (And hands, actually) look sickly thin. It is bad enough without armour...

People rarely play evil characters as evil. (It's a lot harder to play evil.) So playing a villain blood elf is kind of subversive.

I do my best.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And I also tend to associate certain character archetypes with a certain gender. In Skyrim (and other fantasy games), if I want to play a lithe, fast and agile Assassin or Thief who focuses on stealth, speed and cunning and uses archery, daggers and light armour; I'll create a female character. And if I want to play a strong, aggressive berzerker or warrior who relies on brute strength, raw aggression and uses battleaxes, hammers, shields, heavy armour etc I'll make a male character.

I play female dwarf. Dwarves do not do agile, or fast, or stealth, and especially not lithe .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And I also tend to associate certain character archetypes with a certain gender. In Skyrim (and other fantasy games), if I want to play a lithe, fast and agile Assassin or Thief who focuses on stealth, speed and cunning and uses archery, daggers and light armour; I'll create a female character. And if I want to play a strong, aggressive berzerker or warrior who relies on brute strength, raw aggression and uses battleaxes, hammers, shields, heavy armour etc I'll make a male character.

I play female dwarf. Dwarves do not do agile, or fast, or stealth, and especially not lithe .

I play Dunmer and Nords the most in Skyrim.

It all really all depends on the type of character I'm trying to make, honestly.

Guild Wars 1, for instance; All of my warriors were Female just because the Male warrior model was this giant hulking figure that was twice the size of everyone else.... But my Elementals, Mesmers, and Ritualists were all Males just because. That elementalist dance, though :/


Mind you, my PVP characters literally swapped every time I made one, just for varieties sake.....

I played a female character for my Pokémon X playthrough. Mostly because I used a male in Y, and because this tiny ten-year-old girl with a ten-foot golem, a giant killer wasp and three dragons is hilarious. Loses points for having the fairy-type Xerneas which is pretty feminine, but still not the archetypal party for such a character.

Extra funny points in that she defeated the Pokémon league (so professional battlers) with said golem dressed like a ballerina. I just find that hilarious.

(the Pokémon mentioned above are Golurk, Beedrill, Flygon, Garchomp, and Zweilous, as well as Xerneas. Still need to evolve Zweilous into Hydreigon)

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
What's so anti-archetypical of a blood elf being an evil overpowered villain?

Because when you normally see Belf characters everywhere looking like



then seeing something like



is quite different.

(Sorry for the glitchy graphics at the knees and forehead, modelviewer be buggy.)

The 2D chestplate really bothers me though. It makes her belly and arms (And hands, actually) look sickly thin. It is bad enough without armour...

Needs more spikes!

Anyways personal habits. Pokemon games for an entire standard generation cycle (2 games, 1 completed version, 2 remakes) ends with me having about 3:2 MtF ratio.

As per RPG games where I can select my gender it ends up being about 70:30 or 60:40 MtF. Sometimes I'll rp sometimes its just because I want to. In the end all look the same to me. Either robed or fitted in full metal.

Besides that, at last I know why I have been mistaken for being a female on several occasions! I just can't seem to tear out them emoticons from my typing

 LordofHats wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
I just pointed out that thick-rimmed glasses wearing hipster nerds are everywhere bashing anything that is remotely mainstream

That is an utterly ridiculous argument. By your extremely flawed logic anyone who dislikes something popular is automatically a 'hipster' and bases their dislike on attention seeking.

Aww man... thats one of my favorite movies of all time , without the hipster glasses though

I just play what looks best, which usually means i'm playing a female. Something about most of the MMOs makes the females look better than the males - or at least a more interesting model, and generally far better hair styles. It's important to me that my characters look good (at least 40% of why I play is to have a great looking character) and I find female forms more appealing.

Plus, hey, if you're going to be staring at a butt all day, it may as well not be man-butt.

 Sparkadia wrote:
Plus, hey, if you're going to be staring at a butt all day, it may as well not be man-butt.

We need a counter somewhere on how many time people posted variations of this sentence in this thread!

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sparkadia wrote:
Plus, hey, if you're going to be staring at a butt all day, it may as well not be man-butt.

We need a counter somewhere on how many time people posted variations of this sentence in this thread!

I almost find it disturbing that people even count butt-staring in when they create characters.

 Ashiraya wrote:


I almost find it disturbing that people even count butt-staring in when they create characters.

Hey. If you're going to be seeing it for hours on end during the grind to max level, it might as well be pleasant

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


I almost find it disturbing that people even count butt-staring in when they create characters.

Hey. If you're going to be seeing it for hours on end during the grind to max level, it might as well be pleasant

Cloaks.

I only see the cloak, helm, shoulders, hands, and boots of my character when I play.

Yay for cloaks.