Oi! I have seen some hot Russian women. God bless international students! Scottish, er dunno. Too much British breeding maybe... I am a complete believer in the "if I have to stare at an ass all day, it will be female's" argument. If you are a male giving up creds or precious items to an avatar just because they have that ass (possibly male) then knock it off. It's a game, usually not a matchmaking service.
Personally anyone that uses that excuse is a very sad person indeed. Serious, you feel the need to judge a pixelated toon? Very sad excuse indeed. I would never look at my toon in any videogame with the mindset of, is it sexy or not.
Watch much anime?.
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
It's their game. It's their choice... although I do wonder if they have fully thought out whether their values would require them to check that male toons are really male. But that's for them to figure out. Strangely this practice makes a certain sense, but does seem excessive regardless. Why not just filter the chat??
Woot, woot and verily woot! I wanna get a job in that company if they start requiring men to prove their manhood >D (fem here) I'll institute a ranking system as well, no crap like size doesn't matter lol, apparently it does! LOL!
Honestly though, I know several males who play female characters who are in steady relationships with no homo issues, one of them is actually getting married to his misses very soon, and they all have pretty good reasons to do so, the most pre-eminent of these being:
a: female avatars DO look nicer graphic-wise, and men are notorious for liking to look at a nice arse. Even more so if you can do so without having to run after other people's toons.
b: male players respond in the old and established DOH-A-GIRL-*DROOLS* way when they face female avatars, and some people enjoy taking advantage of such idiots. Why not after all, men know how men think, they also know what to do to get the most of it.
c: several games of late have started introducing effeminate male toons, and in the mind of the male players I know playing a gay belf for example is far far more homo than playing a girl.
d: for role-players there are also role-play reasons why they might choose to make a female toon, but usually these aren't their mains, but they're still there.
These are reasons I can understand, as a real fem, and totally accept as being, well, reasonable, and they are just a few. I am pretty sure there are more reasons for male players. As for the female bit of having to PROVE you are female, they can kiss my pretty female *** if they think that I am going to be distributing pictures of me to people I don't know and/or approve of just for the sake of bits and bytes. It's my choice to give my piccy to someone and noone has the right to enforce an involuntary disclosure. Game over.
Originally posted by sinjin Personally anyone that uses that excuse is a very sad person indeed. Serious, you feel the need to judge a pixelated toon? Very sad excuse indeed. I would never look at my toon in any videogame with the mindset of, is it sexy or not. Watch much anime?.
<--- Hai hai, while it wasn'tdirected at me, I watch anime, yet doesn't play girls in games because of any sad excuse you mentioned. For me it's more simple than that... I play it after which class I'm going for, how the overall look of the character is, and how the universe is in the game I'm playing. Then again, people put too much emphasis on the gender of players. For many, playing a male or a female isn't much more of a drama decision than choosing between Warrior/Mage, Human/Orc or Good Side/Evil Side. I doubt there's a really high percent that is actually using their chars to cyber with, though that exists.
- Kenneth Tarre - Aion Correspondent The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
"I'd rather looked at something nice for hours on end."
Then paste a picture of a woman to the side of your monitor. Your avatar is the virtual extension of YOU for that gameworld. Playing as a female toon is saying; "Hi, I would like to be a female." I just dont understand, unless your gay or tranny or something, why would you want to be a female if your not?
Anyway, wish more mmo's would do this. E-transvestites need to be put to an end.
Dude, grow up. And that is only your interpretation that your avatar is an extension of the person playing....on some lvls that's of course, on other lvls....well, since when are you ever going to be an orc, elf, robot, spaceship, etc etc outside of a game or in make believe. So the same should be applied to genders in game. I mean really...who cares anyways. Players are players, if you are worried about if you are being duped, stop trying to pick up chicks in a video game.
Destructoid is reporting that a Chinese MMORPG titled King of the World now requires players of female avatars to prove that they are indeed female in real life, as they will ban any male players caught using avatars not of their own gender.
Obviously not as sensitive to the needs of transgendered gamers as we in the west, it would seem that Chinese game companies take a dim view of males who want to be females -- in computer games, at least. Chinese MMORPG King of the World won't accept male players masquerading as female characters and is putting a stop to such shenanigans. Aurora Technology, a subsidiary of Shanda and developer of the game, is freezing the accounts of male gamers with female avatars, and anybody who chooses to play as a female in the game will have to prove they are of permitted gender via webcam. While nonsensical to us, you have to remember that China does love its reckless regulations, so this could almost seem normal coming from the land where skeletons are outlawed in World of Warcraft. Of course, the rules could just be a scam to get webcam shots of gamer girls for the developers.
Have to chime in on the "nicer to look at" side, though that's not the only reason I ever play female characters. On FFXI for instance, Mithra was the best race to play for certain jobs such as thief and ranger, and male Mithra as a playable option doesn't exist.
Nor does playing the best looking cluster of pixels immediately imply playing a female. I mean, guys will often play whatever looks physically the best out of all options available. (I won't speak for the women). Have you seen female dwarves in WoW? Just... fugly. And if the only gender option for a certain job/class is male, guys will usually choose the biggest, buffest looking badass dude toon they can, for the simple matter that noone wants to roleplay a fat slob.
I said I won't speak for women, but one thing I do know for fact is that many females play male toons just to avoid being hit on and harassed by guys. That being said, if this Chinese company were to apply the same rules re male toons having to be male irl, they'd probably find that they lose a lot of subscriptions completely. As it is, they might find that their world suddenly becomes completely devoid of female characters altogether, as guys will know that a female toon they see is really a female and the girls won't get any peace, IF any girls bother to stay subscribed as it is.
Last note, afaik, China IS a superpower, has been for a long time, it just isn't a democratic one. (Re the poster who said China will be a superpower in the next 10 years).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scientists have now conclusively proven that gravity does not exist. The earth just sucks.
I think this is a more Asian thing in general... I remember Ragnarok Online would only give you characters of the gender you specified when you set up your account, so if you wanted to make a female character you had to lie about your gender in your member profile and either way you wouldn't be able to have characters of different genders on the same account.
My guess is that this is related to the different place that online worlds have in society over there. More people are looking to online worlds for romance, so to a limited extent signing onto an MMO and pretending to be the opposite sex is like signing onto match.com and pretending to be the opposite sex.
That having been said, I think the fact that it's in China does contribute to the company's ability to get away with this sort of thing.
I actually had a great laugh at this whole cherade, but I can't say I disagree with it.
I have a younger sister, and awhile back (as in 3 years ago), my brother and I tried to get her into Final Fantasy 11. She started playing, and leveled up her White mage to around level 39, and then just got bored of the game. So she gave me the character since she no longer wanted it. She was also involved with a guild, and they each had posted a couple pics of themselves on the guild website. There were quite a few guys who were unhealthily obsessed with her, and that's all I'll say about that.
Skipping a few unnecessary details, a lot of people knew who she was and what she looked like, but not that she had quit the game. One day I logged on to her character to mule some items for my character, and I was immediately pestered with some tells "Oh my God, HI! I thought you quot beautiful!" Repeat this phrasing, switch up a few words, and make it seem a little less friendly/more stalkerish, and you're probably getting the picture. I just ignored them, but they kept on talking. I asked my sister if she wanted me to say anything to them, and she was just like "I don't really care, do whatever you want".
Soooo.... I decided I'd ask for gil. Let's see what happens, right?
The next day I checked her inbox, and I had 2 semi-nice items, and 3,000,000 gil in my inbox, along with some messages like "These are for you sexy!"
Rather than come clean, I thought it was hilarious, so I played along for awhile. I logged into the guildchat once and was like "Hey guys", and immediately welcomed and hit on. It was gross, but damn if I wasn't laughing it up.
I think I raked in a solid 10,000.000 gil, several free power-leveling sessions, and quite a few nifty items. All of which I acquired by saying nothing more than a simple "Hello, how are you?" to most of the people.
While I think it's sad that they are requiring proof of gender, I can at least understand what they're trying to prevent in their game.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Guys hitting on girls who just want to play videos games are getting upsets?
I think I am going to buy a T-shirt saying: I am the l33t elf babe you gave gold to yesterday!
Dude...do they really have a shirt like that? I want one too! lol.
Seriously, if male gamers are using MMOs as a match making service, then they deserve what they get. It's a game, a ROLE PLAYING game at that. If you assume that all female avatars are females in RL (or vice versa), you need to leave the game for a while and go experience real life.
There is a reason why you see many more men playing women than women playing men.
The reason is bound in how society accepts deviance in gender based behavior.
Generally its much more accepted for women to copy male behavior than it is for men to copy female behavior. Every person male or female is not 100% of either gender in our psychology, we all got male and female sides. But in the real world where women can act out and use some of their male personal traits every day in real life, men cannot in any way act out any of their female traits without serious social reactions.
MMORPGs has become an outlet where men can act out those side of their personalities that women can act out in the real world and that is the major reason why you see so many men play female characters.
All the other stuff with looking at a nice body, getting gifts and so on is just a natural followup on the need to act out part of your personality that you as a man has to suppress 100% in your daily life if you want a normal social enviroment.
And it has nothing to do with homosexuality, its just a way for men to enjoy what most women in the modern world already have acess to.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
This is a great idea. I think we aught to ban people who are trying to play dwarves, elves and trolls if they can't prove it. We want webcam evidence or you can't play.
Ok sarcasm off..
Its a game not a dating service, people need to get a grip on that. Some guys just get sick of seeing nothing but guys in games, so they log a toon in as a girl big woop. I play a dwarf and I'm 6'2" omg someone ban me.
Obviously one too many of them have fallen in love and cybered with a man playing a women I think that is their issue anyway, not a man being a women as such, but them feeling vulnerable to be decieved. I don't really quite understand why a guy would want to play a female avatar, the thought of me being a male avatar just doesn't appeal to me. How can a guy feel comfortable with other guys thinking the avatar that represent him is sexy? There is only three reasons that spring to mind: they are homosexual, they are transexual or the avatar is the only female they have in their life. That said my fella always plays a female avatar in mmos, his reason being that if he's going to be spending all his time staring at an avatar he'd rather it'd be female then him having to stare at a hairy man
Gay men don't want to be women. But your barely coherent posts indicate you have trouble getting the point of things, so I won't make too big a deal of it.
Very very seriously, I would like someone to justify the legality behind this ruling, and whether or not their players should start stacking lawsuits against the company regarding invasion of privacy, personal rights, confidential information, sexism, so on and so forth. I would like to know the reasoning behind this decision, because I don't agree that it's a publicity stunt. I would also like to know under what sort of legal system is a gaming company allowed to maintain files containing private -and presumed confidential till now, unless not in China- information about it's players/subscribers INCLUDING photographs, and sex. I know Interpol has files of this sort, but I wasn't aware that gamers were criminals. Do we need to give fingerprints to the company as well? DNA samples maybe? How is all this prepostrous situation justified and under what law? If, for example, I went to the legal system of any country that claims to be an advocate of the freedom of speech and freedom of being, what would the lawyers say about this?
I don't think we realise how serious this issue could potentially be. And what if, if the company is allowed to pass this ruling, other companies begin instituting "big brother" in online gaming...?
Well, I suppose I would have to know more about the game and the game play before I came to a solid decision on whether this is right or wrong to do. The game is called King of the World after all which is already perhaps a bit sexist. I mean what, no Queen of the world? What possible game play mechanisms could exist that would require gender verification on a player's avatar?
On the other discussion, I am male and I have never understood the desire of other males to play female characters. After reading this thread, there seems to be two different answers that are given. One, it is a roleplaying game where it isnt necessary to take the same role you have in real life. Okay, I agree with that but are the males who play female characters *really* roleplaying a female character?
The other answer given is that they "would rather look at a female character than a male character". So, if you look in the mirror would you rather see a female? What does it matter if your avatar looks sexy to you or not? You would rather play a female because the male avatar looks like a hairy ape? Well, if you are a male in life you should have gotten use to looking like a hairy ape.
I forgot to add another reason why at least I, and I'm sure some others play female toons. It's just a personal preference, couldn't possibly tell you how it developed, but I like the idea of the girl who can whip around and kick some serious a$$, instead of running away, tripping on a leaf and twisting her ankle. I'm a huge fan of Buffy, Xena, I was getting into Painkiller Jane before they cancelled the show, and other such examples.
Now don't get me wrong, I also enjoyed Angel, Hercules (the Kevin Sorbo version), and I LOVE the Die Hard movies. I just like the female heroes better, as a rule. A lot of guys do I'm sure. If Tomb Raider were ONLY about T&A, there's no way it would have been as popular as it was, since there's tons of games out there strictly devoted to that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scientists have now conclusively proven that gravity does not exist. The earth just sucks.
Dunno if anyone has mentioned this yet, I haven't read the whole thread, but China has a sex disparity issue....more men than women, in part due to cultural issues where people prefer to have sons rather than daughters, and they don't get to have multiple children due to population control issues.
So it's not surprising that this carries over to the virtual world based in China as it is here. The fear that the hot chick you think you're developing a relationship with (online) is actually another guy.
This also tracks with an authoritarian mindset in China.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
I think it's only logical male players prefer watching the behind of a female character, except if they are gay of course, and vice versa, only 5/100 members of my guild in guild wars are female, but all of them play male characters. Don't blame us, blame nature!
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
Some women play as men to not be hassled and bothered, so why would a guy want this?
To answer I am always telling everyone I am a really a bloke but I prefer looking at my character as a female is a bit lame
Though its a free choice why do you want to decieve other players. You must get guys come on a bit, do you ever role play and suddenly think crap I am now flirting with a guy who thinks I am female?
I do play female characters occasionally in say Baldurs Gate but not MMOS; I AM NOT female so why do I want to pretend/confuse/act like an amazon etc in an online game.
THE GOLDEN RULE OF ONLINE GAMING: EVERYONE YOU'RE PLAYING WITH IS A MALE UNLESS THEY SEND YOU A PICTURE OF THEIR BOOBS WITH YOUR SCREEN NAME WRITTEN ON THEM IN CHOCOLATE.
I don't know...sometimes I think an armor clad warrior chic swinging a axe makes more of a statement from time to time. Reminds of Heavy Metal the movie. When I choose to play male characters I don't choose them to represent me....I choose what my Ideal picture of a badass is and what type of story I can attach to him. Ie: I want scars and tats on my warriors because in my head they have been through some shit.
I don't choose female characters because I think like omg...this toon is sexy. It's more like she and her look fits into a story I created for her.
It's like being a writer. Being a writer you have to create stories for any gender, race, creature, beast.
You think that Xena Warrior princess had all females writing her lines? How about Lara Croft, Milla"s character in RE, or any female character in any movie, play, book, script, dialog of any sort in any form of media.
Good thing im not in China. Theres no way i would pose myself infront of a webcam just cause some game tells you so. The day this happens to me is the day that game can kiss my ass goodbye. Its just wrong..
It's like being a writer. Being a writer you have to create stories for any gender, race, creature, beast.
Nicely said
It's all about creativity. Some ppl see only a pack of skills, stats and equips on screen, while others always, maybe subconciously, give their characters "ghosts" (hello, GitS ).
Personally, when I play a MMO, I always create some kind of backstory for my character, some reasoning like "why did heshe done this". It even affects this chars playstyle (for example, when I play rogue-class chars - they supposed to be greedy, bitchy and "every way to win is a fine way"-like, so I can easy kill someone with a backstab or steal someones loot ^,..,^). It's also about class - I too think that male-mages look stupid in robes, especially when almost in every MMO males are muscular and monkey-like... and, WTF? You want THIS guy to wear a robe?))) It's a nice option to be able to change constitution of char for such puposes, though the only game which I played in which this was implemented was Anarchy Online.
Well, and "yes", it's always more pleasing to watch females ass all day long, in place of male's ^^
It's really about aestethics - you want your char to look cool and so on. Now tell me, guys, are you able to measure women's beauty? Guess you are, though even it will be just your personal opinion. And now tell me - can you measure MEN'S beauty?))) Guess not. I hardly ever find males beatuful, my subconcious just doen't work that way. I see all males... dunno... the same, I can never understand why girls think than some guy is more cute than others... I just can't get it, I AM guy myself) So, back to the topic. Players always want they char to look cool and beatyful. It is, exept someone really wants to RP himself in the game. So, what do we get? Normal, geterosexual male without any mental problems, prolly wouldn't want to see himself "big, muscular and hairy", just because he's fine with what he is in RL. So, he will want to be aesthetically satisfied with his char. If a man can be aesthetically satisfied while lookin' at a "big, muscular and hairy" male all day long... then hell yeah, he is a gay))) We cannot measure male aesthetics, that is why we play female chars).
Besides, it can be really fun to act like, for example, dwarf or orc girl. When you see that some guy harrasing some female char, and what is worse - there is really a girl playin' that char, you can start running after him screamin' like "Come here, sweetie" and stuff like that, usually underaged kids (which usually are the ones, who try to date girls in a game) get really embarassed) And besides it's really fun to PK someone using female char, and it's not so shameful, when some fem char kills you fem char)
Comments
Personally anyone that uses that excuse is a very sad person indeed. Serious, you feel the need to judge a pixelated toon? Very sad excuse indeed. I would never look at my toon in any videogame with the mindset of, is it sexy or not.
Watch much anime?.
Woot, woot and verily woot! I wanna get a job in that company if they start requiring men to prove their manhood >D (fem here) I'll institute a ranking system as well, no crap like size doesn't matter lol, apparently it does! LOL!
Honestly though, I know several males who play female characters who are in steady relationships with no homo issues, one of them is actually getting married to his misses very soon, and they all have pretty good reasons to do so, the most pre-eminent of these being:
a: female avatars DO look nicer graphic-wise, and men are notorious for liking to look at a nice arse. Even more so if you can do so without having to run after other people's toons.
b: male players respond in the old and established DOH-A-GIRL-*DROOLS* way when they face female avatars, and some people enjoy taking advantage of such idiots. Why not after all, men know how men think, they also know what to do to get the most of it.
c: several games of late have started introducing effeminate male toons, and in the mind of the male players I know playing a gay belf for example is far far more homo than playing a girl.
d: for role-players there are also role-play reasons why they might choose to make a female toon, but usually these aren't their mains, but they're still there.
These are reasons I can understand, as a real fem, and totally accept as being, well, reasonable, and they are just a few. I am pretty sure there are more reasons for male players. As for the female bit of having to PROVE you are female, they can kiss my pretty female *** if they think that I am going to be distributing pictures of me to people I don't know and/or approve of just for the sake of bits and bytes. It's my choice to give my piccy to someone and noone has the right to enforce an involuntary disclosure. Game over.
<--- Hai hai, while it wasn'tdirected at me, I watch anime, yet doesn't play girls in games because of any sad excuse you mentioned. For me it's more simple than that... I play it after which class I'm going for, how the overall look of the character is, and how the universe is in the game I'm playing. Then again, people put too much emphasis on the gender of players. For many, playing a male or a female isn't much more of a drama decision than choosing between Warrior/Mage, Human/Orc or Good Side/Evil Side. I doubt there's a really high percent that is actually using their chars to cyber with, though that exists.
-
Kenneth Tarre - Aion Correspondent
The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
Then paste a picture of a woman to the side of your monitor. Your avatar is the virtual extension of YOU for that gameworld. Playing as a female toon is saying; "Hi, I would like to be a female." I just dont understand, unless your gay or tranny or something, why would you want to be a female if your not?
Anyway, wish more mmo's would do this. E-transvestites need to be put to an end.
Dude, grow up. And that is only your interpretation that your avatar is an extension of the person playing....on some lvls that's of course, on other lvls....well, since when are you ever going to be an orc, elf, robot, spaceship, etc etc outside of a game or in make believe. So the same should be applied to genders in game. I mean really...who cares anyways. Players are players, if you are worried about if you are being duped, stop trying to pick up chicks in a video game.
QFE!
Read more here.
lmao, finally those creeps are going to have to fufill their nasty fantasys some other way....
Have to chime in on the "nicer to look at" side, though that's not the only reason I ever play female characters. On FFXI for instance, Mithra was the best race to play for certain jobs such as thief and ranger, and male Mithra as a playable option doesn't exist.
Nor does playing the best looking cluster of pixels immediately imply playing a female. I mean, guys will often play whatever looks physically the best out of all options available. (I won't speak for the women). Have you seen female dwarves in WoW? Just... fugly. And if the only gender option for a certain job/class is male, guys will usually choose the biggest, buffest looking badass dude toon they can, for the simple matter that noone wants to roleplay a fat slob.
I said I won't speak for women, but one thing I do know for fact is that many females play male toons just to avoid being hit on and harassed by guys. That being said, if this Chinese company were to apply the same rules re male toons having to be male irl, they'd probably find that they lose a lot of subscriptions completely. As it is, they might find that their world suddenly becomes completely devoid of female characters altogether, as guys will know that a female toon they see is really a female and the girls won't get any peace, IF any girls bother to stay subscribed as it is.
Last note, afaik, China IS a superpower, has been for a long time, it just isn't a democratic one. (Re the poster who said China will be a superpower in the next 10 years).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scientists have now conclusively proven that gravity does not exist.
The earth just sucks.
I think this is a more Asian thing in general... I remember Ragnarok Online would only give you characters of the gender you specified when you set up your account, so if you wanted to make a female character you had to lie about your gender in your member profile and either way you wouldn't be able to have characters of different genders on the same account.
My guess is that this is related to the different place that online worlds have in society over there. More people are looking to online worlds for romance, so to a limited extent signing onto an MMO and pretending to be the opposite sex is like signing onto match.com and pretending to be the opposite sex.
That having been said, I think the fact that it's in China does contribute to the company's ability to get away with this sort of thing.
--Ditchdigger
It amazes me, the amount of men who think that women do not play online games.
(Cos we all know online games players are american males..
..)
This well this just makes me laugh...almost as much as Lord of the rings Online not making available to players female dwarves.....
I actually had a great laugh at this whole cherade, but I can't say I disagree with it.
I have a younger sister, and awhile back (as in 3 years ago), my brother and I tried to get her into Final Fantasy 11. She started playing, and leveled up her White mage to around level 39, and then just got bored of the game. So she gave me the character since she no longer wanted it. She was also involved with a guild, and they each had posted a couple pics of themselves on the guild website. There were quite a few guys who were unhealthily obsessed with her, and that's all I'll say about that.
Skipping a few unnecessary details, a lot of people knew who she was and what she looked like, but not that she had quit the game. One day I logged on to her character to mule some items for my character, and I was immediately pestered with some tells "Oh my God, HI! I thought you quot beautiful!" Repeat this phrasing, switch up a few words, and make it seem a little less friendly/more stalkerish, and you're probably getting the picture. I just ignored them, but they kept on talking. I asked my sister if she wanted me to say anything to them, and she was just like "I don't really care, do whatever you want".
Soooo.... I decided I'd ask for gil. Let's see what happens, right?
The next day I checked her inbox, and I had 2 semi-nice items, and 3,000,000 gil in my inbox, along with some messages like "These are for you sexy!"
Rather than come clean, I thought it was hilarious, so I played along for awhile. I logged into the guildchat once and was like "Hey guys", and immediately welcomed and hit on. It was gross, but damn if I wasn't laughing it up.
I think I raked in a solid 10,000.000 gil, several free power-leveling sessions, and quite a few nifty items. All of which I acquired by saying nothing more than a simple "Hello, how are you?" to most of the people.
While I think it's sad that they are requiring proof of gender, I can at least understand what they're trying to prevent in their game.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Dude...do they really have a shirt like that? I want one too! lol.
Seriously, if male gamers are using MMOs as a match making service, then they deserve what they get. It's a game, a ROLE PLAYING game at that. If you assume that all female avatars are females in RL (or vice versa), you need to leave the game for a while and go experience real life.
-Raenz-
There is a reason why you see many more men playing women than women playing men.
The reason is bound in how society accepts deviance in gender based behavior.
Generally its much more accepted for women to copy male behavior than it is for men to copy female behavior. Every person male or female is not 100% of either gender in our psychology, we all got male and female sides. But in the real world where women can act out and use some of their male personal traits every day in real life, men cannot in any way act out any of their female traits without serious social reactions.
MMORPGs has become an outlet where men can act out those side of their personalities that women can act out in the real world and that is the major reason why you see so many men play female characters.
All the other stuff with looking at a nice body, getting gifts and so on is just a natural followup on the need to act out part of your personality that you as a man has to suppress 100% in your daily life if you want a normal social enviroment.
And it has nothing to do with homosexuality, its just a way for men to enjoy what most women in the modern world already have acess to.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
This is a great idea. I think we aught to ban people who are trying to play dwarves, elves and trolls if they can't prove it. We want webcam evidence or you can't play.
Ok sarcasm off..
Its a game not a dating service, people need to get a grip on that. Some guys just get sick of seeing nothing but guys in games, so they log a toon in as a girl big woop. I play a dwarf and I'm 6'2" omg someone ban me.
Very very seriously, I would like someone to justify the legality behind this ruling, and whether or not their players should start stacking lawsuits against the company regarding invasion of privacy, personal rights, confidential information, sexism, so on and so forth. I would like to know the reasoning behind this decision, because I don't agree that it's a publicity stunt. I would also like to know under what sort of legal system is a gaming company allowed to maintain files containing private -and presumed confidential till now, unless not in China- information about it's players/subscribers INCLUDING photographs, and sex. I know Interpol has files of this sort, but I wasn't aware that gamers were criminals. Do we need to give fingerprints to the company as well? DNA samples maybe? How is all this prepostrous situation justified and under what law? If, for example, I went to the legal system of any country that claims to be an advocate of the freedom of speech and freedom of being, what would the lawyers say about this?
I don't think we realise how serious this issue could potentially be. And what if, if the company is allowed to pass this ruling, other companies begin instituting "big brother" in online gaming...?
Well, I suppose I would have to know more about the game and the game play before I came to a solid decision on whether this is right or wrong to do. The game is called King of the World after all which is already perhaps a bit sexist. I mean what, no Queen of the world? What possible game play mechanisms could exist that would require gender verification on a player's avatar?
On the other discussion, I am male and I have never understood the desire of other males to play female characters. After reading this thread, there seems to be two different answers that are given. One, it is a roleplaying game where it isnt necessary to take the same role you have in real life. Okay, I agree with that but are the males who play female characters *really* roleplaying a female character?
The other answer given is that they "would rather look at a female character than a male character". So, if you look in the mirror would you rather see a female? What does it matter if your avatar looks sexy to you or not? You would rather play a female because the male avatar looks like a hairy ape? Well, if you are a male in life you should have gotten use to looking like a hairy ape.
I forgot to add another reason why at least I, and I'm sure some others play female toons. It's just a personal preference, couldn't possibly tell you how it developed, but I like the idea of the girl who can whip around and kick some serious a$$, instead of running away, tripping on a leaf and twisting her ankle. I'm a huge fan of Buffy, Xena, I was getting into Painkiller Jane before they cancelled the show, and other such examples.
Now don't get me wrong, I also enjoyed Angel, Hercules (the Kevin Sorbo version), and I LOVE the Die Hard movies. I just like the female heroes better, as a rule. A lot of guys do I'm sure. If Tomb Raider were ONLY about T&A, there's no way it would have been as popular as it was, since there's tons of games out there strictly devoted to that.
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Scientists have now conclusively proven that gravity does not exist.
The earth just sucks.
well there goes that game's community lets see the next moronic gameing company try to do this
Ancient Everquest Player
Dunno if anyone has mentioned this yet, I haven't read the whole thread, but China has a sex disparity issue....more men than women, in part due to cultural issues where people prefer to have sons rather than daughters, and they don't get to have multiple children due to population control issues.
So it's not surprising that this carries over to the virtual world based in China as it is here. The fear that the hot chick you think you're developing a relationship with (online) is actually another guy.
This also tracks with an authoritarian mindset in China.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
I think it's only logical male players prefer watching the behind of a female character, except if they are gay of course, and vice versa, only 5/100 members of my guild in guild wars are female, but all of them play male characters. Don't blame us, blame nature!
You know it, the best way to realize your dreams is waking up and start moving, never lose hope and always keep up.
Just their way to say tits or gtfo imo
Some women play as men to not be hassled and bothered, so why would a guy want this?
To answer I am always telling everyone I am a really a bloke but I prefer looking at my character as a female is a bit lame
Though its a free choice why do you want to decieve other players. You must get guys come on a bit, do you ever role play and suddenly think crap I am now flirting with a guy who thinks I am female?
I do play female characters occasionally in say Baldurs Gate but not MMOS; I AM NOT female so why do I want to pretend/confuse/act like an amazon etc in an online game.
ATB
Chrimwinster
THE GOLDEN RULE OF ONLINE GAMING: EVERYONE YOU'RE PLAYING WITH IS A MALE UNLESS THEY SEND YOU A PICTURE OF THEIR BOOBS WITH YOUR SCREEN NAME WRITTEN ON THEM IN CHOCOLATE.
I don't know...sometimes I think an armor clad warrior chic swinging a axe makes more of a statement from time to time. Reminds of Heavy Metal the movie. When I choose to play male characters I don't choose them to represent me....I choose what my Ideal picture of a badass is and what type of story I can attach to him. Ie: I want scars and tats on my warriors because in my head they have been through some shit.
I don't choose female characters because I think like omg...this toon is sexy. It's more like she and her look fits into a story I created for her.
It's like being a writer. Being a writer you have to create stories for any gender, race, creature, beast.
You think that Xena Warrior princess had all females writing her lines? How about Lara Croft, Milla"s character in RE, or any female character in any movie, play, book, script, dialog of any sort in any form of media.
Good thing im not in China. Theres no way i would pose myself infront of a webcam just cause some game tells you so. The day this happens to me is the day that game can kiss my ass goodbye. Its just wrong..
Nicely said
It's all about creativity. Some ppl see only a pack of skills, stats and equips on screen, while others always, maybe subconciously, give their characters "ghosts" (hello, GitS
Personally, when I play a MMO, I always create some kind of backstory for my character, some reasoning like "why did heshe done this". It even affects this chars playstyle (for example, when I play rogue-class chars - they supposed to be greedy, bitchy and "every way to win is a fine way"-like, so I can easy kill someone with a backstab or steal someones loot ^,..,^). It's also about class - I too think that male-mages look stupid in robes, especially when almost in every MMO males are muscular and monkey-like... and, WTF? You want THIS guy to wear a robe?))) It's a nice option to be able to change constitution of char for such puposes, though the only game which I played in which this was implemented was Anarchy Online.
Well, and "yes", it's always more pleasing to watch females ass all day long, in place of male's ^^
It's really about aestethics - you want your char to look cool and so on. Now tell me, guys, are you able to measure women's beauty? Guess you are, though even it will be just your personal opinion. And now tell me - can you measure MEN'S beauty?))) Guess not. I hardly ever find males beatuful, my subconcious just doen't work that way. I see all males... dunno... the same, I can never understand why girls think than some guy is more cute than others... I just can't get it, I AM guy myself) So, back to the topic. Players always want they char to look cool and beatyful. It is, exept someone really wants to RP himself in the game. So, what do we get? Normal, geterosexual male without any mental problems, prolly wouldn't want to see himself "big, muscular and hairy", just because he's fine with what he is in RL. So, he will want to be aesthetically satisfied with his char. If a man can be aesthetically satisfied while lookin' at a "big, muscular and hairy" male all day long... then hell yeah, he is a gay))) We cannot measure male aesthetics, that is why we play female chars).
Besides, it can be really fun to act like, for example, dwarf or orc girl. When you see that some guy harrasing some female char, and what is worse - there is really a girl playin' that char, you can start running after him screamin' like "Come here, sweetie" and stuff like that, usually underaged kids (which usually are the ones, who try to date girls in a game) get really embarassed) And besides it's really fun to PK someone using female char, and it's not so shameful, when some fem char kills you fem char)