I know this topic can get heated in some forums. I do not wish to start a war but would like to know what gender people prefer to play. I am a mature male (68 yrs young). my first character in eq, which was my first online mmo was a male warrior. My wife and I played together on 1 pc and it was ok. Her first character was a female Paladin. After a month or so we made a female druid and we really got into the class. We got into a group of friends and they were not sure who was playing . I then realized they were not all happy with a male playing a female character. When she was on they were a lot more friendly than when I was at the controls. I then ,1999. went to a computer shaow and bought all the hardware for a new machine and put it together with the help of a friend who was a comp student and new how to make it work. Then we opened a new account and I made a FEMALE woodelf druid for myself. Since I was already 25 levels behind them I went off on my own to catch up. It only took about a month and a half and i was able to go with the group again. I really got fond of playing a female druid and have done so in all the games we played.
My question is do many people object to men plaing female or females playing males. This will in no way affect my character style. It is just that some people are in the mind that female characters should recieve special treatment and men who play them usually are looking for handouts. As a druid in eq I Never charged for sow or porting and was always ready to help people. Anytime i was in e commons or newbir area i would buff the lower levels to help them. Many times I would stop my adventuring when I recieved a tell for a port etc.
any opinions of the subject. My characters name was Syreene in the veeshan server in eq1 and I have kept the name in all the games i played. Not sure if anyone new my character.
I'm a male in real life and always play male characters in game. It would feel weird to play a female character to me as if I was pretending to be something that I wasn't. I don't get annoyed when I find out a male is playing a female character but I do find it a bit weird especially if they are into role playing. I guess role playing a female can be fun for some but it just strikes me as a little weird.
Play the gender you are comfortable playing and do so proudly. Many more women are into games today and I see little evidence left of female characters receiving more favors for simply being a female character. It's seriously silly for someone to be upset if someone chooses to play the opposite gender especially since we're already pretending to be something we're not.
I, myself, tend to stick to female characters while my husband has been known to play both genders.
I will admit that I play both genders. For me the look of the character models determines whether I play a male or female of any given race. In Rift for instance, I could not play any race but Dwarf as male, I just hated how the male models in all the other races looked, so I had a Dwarf male and a female uhhh I forget the race now, Eth? I say play whichever one you want, I knew women in guilds that also had both female and male characters. Is it more common for males to play female toons? probably, but personally it does not offend me either way. My daughter, who plays a lot of different games, also has male characters as well as female.
I play female characters as I feel I can connect with them better, but I have played a male character or two (I had a male undead rogue in wow and had a lot of fun playing him). I personally don't understand why people would get upset at someone playing a character of the oposite gender, its a game not a dating site/app lol.
I had a lot of friends in SWG and WoW that were men playing a female character and vice versa, never felt weird playing with them because they were there to play the game :)
I dont think its a big deal now especially with voice chat being so common. I think the big problem in EQ was (aside from it being the first mmo experience for most people, most certainly the first mmo experience with 3D models) were male players playing female and not admitting it. I remeber some guild drama where a female character had been doing some heavy "cybering" with a couple of fellow guildies only to find out she was a he. It was glorious drama but led to several people quitting the game/guild. I am sure others have had similar experiences.
But today with a more mature (as in the industry has been around for awhile) mmo gamer its not a given that the gender of the character reflects the gender of the player and I dont think most people care as long as you are upfront about it. Though funny aside, I was in a guild a couple of years ago and there was a female character that had a perpetual "broken" microphone and again was "cybering" with another guildy causing many lols in the guild. That same guild the raid leader played a female character but didnt hide that he was male (was actually a pretty gruff kinda dude) and it was never brought up at all.
I do not object to men playing female characters if that's who they feel like playing. I object to men playing felmale characters, and acting like a RL female, in order to get free stuff.
I have always played male characters for no reason other than I'm a guy and have never thought about playing a female.
Rachael said:I had a male undead rogue in wow and had a lot of fun playing him)
:) Yeah, a male undead rogue was my first Character in WoW.
For me it was nothing to think about, that I play male characters when beeing a male in RL. But then I switched from horde to the alliance and I wanted to play a druid as my new main character. Absolutely not liking the model of the male night elfs, I started to play a female night elf druid.
Since then I have no more a strict preference for the gender of my character. It depends on a few things, e. g. if I don't like the male/female model of a race. Now the gender of my character can change from alt to alt.
For me it doesn't matter what gender someone wants to play. Neither the gender of the other players character, nor their RL gender does affect my willingness to help a specific player or to favor that player. If it is a kind person is much more important to me.
And no I don't play female characters to get any benefits out of this and I will never make a secret out of my RL gender.
I had a friend who created multiple level 1 female casters in EQ so that he could beg for money from higher level characters "for his level 1 spells". He would then consolidate all the donations onto one character and play with that.
As an experment he did it with level 1 male casters one day just to see the difference...he made significantly less money.
That story had nothing really to do with your question, it just made me remember those days and laugh...
Seriously though, play whatever you want, how could anyone else possibly care?
I'm a female IRL and I always play female characters. I'm just more comfortable playing what I am; in the past I've tried roleplaying males and am no good at it. My RP'd males are too stiff, too stereotypical "male". But as far as other folks are concerned, if they aren't hitting on me I don't care what they are or what they're playing. Ain't none of my business.
Years ago though, I had a female gaming buddy who always played male toons. She specialized in playing tanks and was convinced that she always suffered gender bias if it was discovered that she was a female IRL. That was back before voice comms were de rigueur. I have to admit though, she did get treated like crap a couple times when she admitted to being female.
I play my same gender in RL. Partly because I tend to play the character with a demeanor and attitude that is an idealized version of myself. (honestly, nice)
I have an opportunity to ignore my flaws through the character because the character has no flaws except those that are meaningful in game and can be improved i.e. player expertise. It is the overcoming of these in game flaws that also has me enjoy the game as those flaws are more easily and readily rectified in game, as opposed to some RL flaws that are not so easily rectified.
This is also why I don't like Mic's and will prefer to be in the background and chat or only listen/read. Partly because my excitement may get too intrusive and sometimes I can spit out "effective, laser sharp barbs" in seconds (or so I have been told, ho-ho). Also if I see things that others do not I can be persistently interruptive.
In RL I sound sarcastic when I am earnest, and belittling when I try to simplify for (your) sake what was originally perceived as pedantic.
I can say in RL "I love you" and you will think I am kidding. (tested, double blind, more than 1)
I can type, I love you....and I do.
*filters, on*
I depends upon how I'm going to play the race/class combination. My crazy gnome wizard? Female. My upstanding and valiant Paladin? Male. My Troll Shaman? That just yelled 'female troll'. Later on when Beastlords were released she got a similarly named brother and I would 2-box them as siblings who constantly argued with each other. Ranger? Definitely feels more male than female. Ikar Monk? Female only because everyone else with an Iksar played a male. Females had more interesting facial/cranial options.
My choice with Pantheon will be a Shaman but I'll need to see the style of armor, etc to see which gender it will be.
Zorkon said: Well... it's really weird and distracting to be in voice chat and hear a voice like Sam Elliott and have to figure out that voice goes to that little Female Wood Elf
One of the officers in my EQ2 guild never used voice chat on raids. We always joked that he was a 12 year old Asian girl. He said something in the middle of a raid one time and we were all shouting "who the hell was that?!?!" Yup, could have been Sam Elliot.
Just for information, this issue (known as gender bending) has been studied statistically in major MMOs (including EQ and WoW) .
A result is that gender bending increases with age (young players under 20 rarely gender bend, older player more)
Another result is that quite a large proportion of players gender bend .
And the last result is that males gender bend much more than females : 48% (basically a half) males have at least 1 female character while only 23 % (basically a fourth) of females have at least 1 male character .
So to answer your question, probably nobody objects to gender bending because many players, especially males, do it themselves . Females do it less but the studies don't say if they object to males playing females .
I approach this at multiple angles. Usually my main character is always what I consider the best looking male race that looks the best in armor. After that I make boxes or w/e based off of what I feel a certain role may be more gender appropriate or make female character because they look sexy and I know a lot of people would rather stare at that all day than a male character, which most the time is the reasoning I've come accross from people on why they play female characters. My onle rule is never make a small race lol.
I play both sexes. It's either because one model looks better than the other, or because I've decided that one sex fits my character better.
I haven't received any special treatment while playing female, except for the "special treatment" of one player following my character around and complimenting her breasts in lewd terminology repeatedly. That was weird.
I don't have any problem with people playing whatever sex they want to, and I don't have any problem playing with people who gender-bend. It's just a game. :)
I play both genders. My guys have guy names, and my chicks have chick names.
I don't larp. I have no interest in pretending to be an elf or troll or something. I play MMOs because I like how the classes work. Certain classes just scream female character to me, like enchanter.
I don't pretend to be a female. Everybody knows who and what I am. The female characters just often look so much cooler than the guy ones, and honestly sometimes it just looks awesome to see a female character pulling all these sweet moves and kicking the crap out of monsters.
Best advice I can give you on what to choose, is just play whatever you want. It's a game, supposed to be for enjoyment.
Best advice I can give everyone else -- always assume the person behind the character is a male until proven otherwise. Also, don't look for cybering partners in a game. Go out and meet people. There are plenty of single people out there looking for someone to hang with as long as you shower, brush your teeth, wear clean clothes, etc.
Be yourself in the real world, or at least be a clean version of yourself. This is just a game, don't take it too seriously.