Girls and boys in the game

k2blader

DenMoria wrote: »

k2blader wrote: »

Darn, late to this thread. Will be fun to scroll through. :-)

I don't have any guy characters; I think it's weird if a girl chooses to make a guy character, but it's more weird to me when guys make girl characters.

edit: lotta typos today, lol

Why? In TESO, I'm creating a female character (recreating actually since I'm a little more familiar now) and I want her to be a sorcerer. I've always played mages as females in all the ES games. It's just a little thing for me.

I love playing male melee characters as well as female melee characters, but with mages/sorcerers, for some reason I almost always play female.

And, of course they have to be drop-dead. I have never in all my years created any male of female character that wasn't easy on the eyes.

I dunno. I guess part of me wants to know who are the real women playing. :-)

UrQuan

Kazzy56 wrote: »

Anyone remember the days when you wandered into a chat room to be instantly bombarded with, 'ASL...??' I don't do chat rooms now, but maybe they still do it.

Are chat rooms even still a thing?

IrishGirlGamer

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

The sadness of people trying to find love in a video game and finding sausage instead would make Buddha laugh.

What does that make me? I met my wife in WoW 11 years ago without even trying, it just clicked. We've been together since, now happily married since 6 years.

Morale of the story? Stop searching and it may happen?

@Leandor, is that a mouse pun?

A gaming spouse is an awesome spouse. (Same for GF/BF). If you can't share what you love, what's the point, right?

Sharing is overrated.




Seriously, though: I once had a date ask to use my computer to check their e-mail. I knew it wouldn't last when they asked: "Hey, why does your mouse have buttons on the side ..."

Leandor

Hehehe... We have strictly separated computers. I have my gaming monster, she has hers. While I do a lot of maintenance on hers, I only ever touch it after she asks me for it and she decides by herself what part she wants upgraded with what. For me that is a question of trust...

I get almost decapitated each time I show her something and by accident touch her monitor. That picture made me laugh out loud, it's so true.

Banky71

I have all guy characters BTW but I do have one fine lady character named Helena Handbasket but the joke is kinda lost since I am on console. I long for the day when I can send someone looking for something straight to Helena Handbasket.

k2blader

Banky71 wrote: »

I have all guy characters BTW but I do have one fine lady character named Helena Handbasket but the joke is kinda lost since I am on console. I long for the day when I can send someone looking for something straight to Helena Handbasket.

Lol that name is hilarious!

firstdecan

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

I'm a guy, and my "roster" is filled out with 5 females and three males. Of the toons I have played through at least silver, 2 are male and 2 female. I don't give it a second thought when playing, I don't identify with the character. It's not me on the screen, nor is it any projection of myself or my psychological desires. When I create characters, I simply like to create something that's attractive and\or looks cool (attractive in the appealing sense, not necessarily the sexual sense).

I can understand looking for something in common with other players (especially given the way many boys are on the internet), but what difference does it make what gender your toon is?

Banky71

firstdecan wrote: »

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

I'm a guy, and my "roster" is filled out with 5 females and three males. Of the toons I have played through at least silver, 2 are male and 2 female. I don't give it a second thought when playing, I don't identify with the character. It's not me on the screen, nor is it any projection of myself or my psychological desires. When I create characters, I simply like to create something that's attractive and\or looks cool (attractive in the appealing sense, not necessarily the sexual sense).

I can understand looking for something in common with other players (especially given the way many boys are on the internet), but what difference does it make what gender your toon is?

Some people think it's weird and some people think it's not weird. It's really just personal preference. It's all about all of us being different and that's the awesome thing about life is our differences.

k2blader

firstdecan wrote: »

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

I'm a guy, and my "roster" is filled out with 5 females and three males. Of the toons I have played through at least silver, 2 are male and 2 female. I don't give it a second thought when playing, I don't identify with the character. It's not me on the screen, nor is it any projection of myself or my psychological desires. When I create characters, I simply like to create something that's attractive and\or looks cool (attractive in the appealing sense, not necessarily the sexual sense).

I can understand looking for something in common with other players (especially given the way many boys are on the internet), but what difference does it make what gender your toon is?

You bring up an interesting point. I do tend to identify with my characters, even if they are just bank alts. And because I have really no interest in "being" a male, I have no interest in creating a male character. While I know it's just a game, my character is still a representation of myself-- some part or other of myself, anyway-- IRL. Often I see sexual harassment level stuff in the game-- presumably from guys because it's sexual objectification of women-- and it turns me off, further solidifying my lack of interest in "being" in any way, male.

Rosveen

firstdecan wrote: »

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

Their answer is usually "it just feels wrong." I guess if you see your character as an extension of yourself, which most people do, then playing as a woman might appear unmanly. On the other hand, if you don't identify with your character, then it's dangerously close to playing with dolls, which is also unmanly. I say unmanly because people usually don't question women playing male characters.

Dunno, before the internet helpfully informed me about it, it never even occured to me that playing as the other gender might be considered weird. I've always played characters of both genders in games (and often didn't have any choice in that matter).

newtinmpls

Rosveen wrote: »

I guess if you see your character as an extension of yourself, which most people do, then playing as a woman might appear unmanly. On the other hand, if you don't identify with your character, then it's dangerously close to playing with dolls, which is also unmanly. I say unmanly because people usually don't question women playing male characters.

Besides gaming, I also love to write and I don't limit myself to only writing characters of only one gender or only one viewpoint.

In other trivia, I'm a psych NP (will be, once I pass the certification) and there is this thing called "theory of mind" that is the stage in development where we begin to understand our own (and others') motivation, thoughts and goals and to truly process and 'get' that we all do not think alike (usually happens or starts to happen in preschool). This is a psycho-social skill that can be very difficult for persons with autism spectrum disorders to master.

So I think it's fair to say that if someone is playing a character of a particular gender ... all it necessarily means is that they happen to be playing a character of a particular gender. As evidenced by this thread, there are quite a few reasons for the various choices.

Taz

I just assume everyone is a girl until proven otherwise.

Female who plays mostly female characters, here. But I've played plenty of male characters in the past, as well as different species, etc. To me it's about the character I write and play more than me trying to copy paste myself into Tamriel. When I was younger I used to play more male characters because I thought they were inherently more interesting than female characters; after all, I had little experience seeing interesting and layered female characters. The core traits of a female character seemed to be 'cute' or 'sexy'.

So I suppose now I tend to play female characters more than male because that was a sad thing to think and I still see it thought a lot. Luckily I also see more variety and TESO itself is super great about character representation of both genders.

I'm used to seeing an equal-ish amount, if not more, female gamers in my MMO experience, but I think that might be because the roleplaying population is fairly evenly distributed and open/welcoming/approachable with regards to gender. PvP and PvE has been more of a mixed bag, and forums are forums.

As far as it being weird/not weird to play the other gender, I almost feel like some comments of "I need my pixelated butt to appear attractive!" seem like they're trying too hard to prove that they're "manly" by assuring everyone around that their woman character is indeed a digital piece of meat and in no way are they at all identifying or enjoying getting in touch with their feminine side, nope, not at all, never.

But eh, then I see some of the top mods in Skyrim and I realize they're probably being honest.

God-eater

Oryctolagus wrote: »

It's comforting to me that whenever I visit a game's forum for the first time I can depend on seeing this thread. It's like a warm welcome. Thanks.

And, every time, the page count goes thru the roof. Never understood it myself - the actual gender of another player is about as irrelevant as it gets in an RPG.

I'm often male, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm a humanoid cat with a septum ring. Once, I was a stocky Italian plumber and another time I was a middle-aged, scarfaced lesbian space marine who banged a genderless blue alien.

I wouldn't get too hung up on people's character choices, is my point - or who is really behind the screen.

k2blader

God-eater wrote: »

Oryctolagus wrote: »

It's comforting to me that whenever I visit a game's forum for the first time I can depend on seeing this thread. It's like a warm welcome. Thanks.

And, every time, the page count goes thru the roof. Never understood it myself - the actual gender of another player is about as irrelevant as it gets in an RPG.

I'm often male, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm a humanoid cat with a septum ring. Once, I was a stocky Italian plumber and another time I was a middle-aged, scarfaced lesbian space marine who banged a genderless blue alien.

I wouldn't get too hung up on people's character choices, is my point - or who is really behind the screen.

There's a natural interest in maleness and femaleness that's existed since the beginning of time. So maybe get over your anger over it a tad. We're not talking about you. :-)

God-eater

k2blader wrote: »

God-eater wrote: »

Oryctolagus wrote: »

It's comforting to me that whenever I visit a game's forum for the first time I can depend on seeing this thread. It's like a warm welcome. Thanks.

And, every time, the page count goes thru the roof. Never understood it myself - the actual gender of another player is about as irrelevant as it gets in an RPG.

I'm often male, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm a humanoid cat with a septum ring. Once, I was a stocky Italian plumber and another time I was a middle-aged, scarfaced lesbian space marine who banged a genderless blue alien.

I wouldn't get too hung up on people's character choices, is my point - or who is really behind the screen.

There's a natural interest in maleness and femaleness that's existed since the beginning of time. So maybe get over your anger over it a tad. We're not talking about you. :-)

Bemused, not angry. And it's been my experience that the driving force behind the topic is less natuaral curiosity and more boys who want to know if that's a girl under those pixels. No one ever questions my gender when I play males - only my females get asked. The whole thing just feels a bit sexist to me.

PBpsy

Ok! ok! ok. So who here wants to arm wrestle?

Kharnamatic

Gamer girls play female toons, because its so hard to make pretty characters in

waterfairy

Taz wrote: »

As far as it being weird/not weird to play the other gender, I almost feel like some comments of "I need my pixelated butt to appear attractive!" seem like they're trying too hard to prove that they're "manly" by assuring everyone around that their woman character is indeed a digital piece of meat and in no way are they at all identifying or enjoying getting in touch with their feminine side, nope, not at all, never.
.

I'm a manly man and have created several serious female characters in Skyrim but I don't think it's to get in touch with my feminine side...if it is then my "feminine side" has more balls then most masculine characters as my main female was a battle hardened warrior woman with dirt and scars on her face, wearing the hide she ripped off a werewolf.
I made a pretty pack mule in ESO but I can't take a blatantly beautiful, flawless face seriously in a world full of monsters and people trying to kill you. My women need to have a balance of badass and brutal beauty for me to really get into them.

pumpkingirl

[quoteIn my experience it seems to be like maybe 10% are actually women. Where did you find that statistic? I'm sure my experience could be completely skewed.][/quote]

Consider that your experience is not neccessarily the actuality. The other commenter was right, it is actually 52%. Which is quite a stretch from your 10% personal experience....
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/52-percent-people-playing-games-women-industry-doesnt-know

k2blader

God-eater wrote: »

Bemused, not angry. And it's been my experience that the driving force behind the topic is less natuaral curiosity and more boys who want to know if that's a girl under those pixels. No one ever questions my gender when I play males - only my females get asked. The whole thing just feels a bit sexist to me.

Sorry for the earlier snark. I was just talking about this thread's existence but I think I understand what you're saying now (maybe, lol).

You kind of got me thinking.. This is the first mmo I've played where people are so insistent on using VoIP ("voice" such as TeamSpeak, etc.) for things. Having started with WoW I'm used to typing in-game and would much rather type and not talk. Also, call me weird (yeah I know I am!) but I don't like the sound of random strangers' voices blabbing in my home. Anyway, it goes without saying that a girl/woman speaking on voice immediately "outs" herself (unless she has a very manly sounding voice!) which can bring about unwanted attention out-of-the-blue. It's one reason I rarely talk when I have to get on voice. I don't want people treating me "differently" because I'm not male; but at times I feel there's no way to avoid it.

drake_murray28ub17_ESO

I'm a guy and my main in ESO is a female. I guess I just got bored with creating a male character in pretty much every other RPG/MMO I've played, wanted to shake it up a little. With that said, I have been approached by a few people in game who have asked if I'm a girl lol

snackrat

I agree the inverted-triangle motif is very strong on the males.

I tried to make a slender male and the only way I could get him looking realistic was to narrow his shoulders as much as possible, and put hips/booty/legs up to max - just to get that vertical 'banana' body type.

I saw someone playing a skinny khajiit who'd done the opposite of that and I nearly threw up in my mouth.

Mitchblue

Rosveen wrote: »

firstdecan wrote: »

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

Their answer is usually "it just feels wrong." I guess if you see your character as an extension of yourself, which most people do, then playing as a woman might appear unmanly. On the other hand, if you don't identify with your character, then it's dangerously close to playing with dolls, which is also unmanly. I say unmanly because people usually don't question women playing male characters.

Dunno, before the internet helpfully informed me about it, it never even occured to me that playing as the other gender might be considered weird. I've always played characters of both genders in games (and often didn't have any choice in that matter).

It's not about the extension of yourself but the fact guys playing MMO's, like to look at a female toon's ass. That's the weird part. If that's not why someone plays a female character then this part doesn't partake to them.

Pawkette

There's actually a fair amount of evidence to support that men just wanna be women.

Moonscythe

I prefer first person play so I naturally identify with my character, thus, I play women. If I were going to play third person I might well play a very easy on the eyes guy. I made one tonight in character creator. I didn't keep him but he was really very nice to look at. I did notice something though. I was making a Breton and I had to make him kind of short because tall made him into a pinhead. That was weird.

FancyTuna8

So I'm not the only guy who plays female characters? I'm about 50-50 split--I just can't watch a guy run around skyrim all day long, and when I know I'm going to play hundreds of hours, I need some change of pace. Plus, in games like Dragon Age the dialogues with npc's were vastly different based on gender. The RP aspects
I chalk my mix of male/female with this up to the Dragonlance series--by the time the original trilogy was done, Tanis was my second favorite to Laurana because I couldn't quite forgive him for some of his stupid/dubious choices, whereas she had grown so much. I identified as him.

The real question is how many people make old female characters? There should almost be an achievement for beating some late-level boss with an old lady, because I'd bet it is the lowest percentage demographic made.

newtinmpls

FancyTuna8 wrote: »

The real question is how many people make old female characters? There should almost be an achievement for beating some late-level boss with an old lady, because I'd bet it is the lowest percentage demographic made.

Hmmmm now you are giving me an idea for another character

Rosveen

Mitchblue wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

firstdecan wrote: »

I have a general question I'd like to add to this thread: Why do some people think it's unusual for a person to play a cross gender character?

Their answer is usually "it just feels wrong." I guess if you see your character as an extension of yourself, which most people do, then playing as a woman might appear unmanly. On the other hand, if you don't identify with your character, then it's dangerously close to playing with dolls, which is also unmanly. I say unmanly because people usually don't question women playing male characters.

Dunno, before the internet helpfully informed me about it, it never even occured to me that playing as the other gender might be considered weird. I've always played characters of both genders in games (and often didn't have any choice in that matter).

It's not about the extension of yourself but the fact guys playing MMO's, like to look at a female toon's ass. That's the weird part. If that's not why someone plays a female character then this part doesn't partake to them.

How can that be weird? It's perfectly normal for a straight guy to enjoy looking at a female character's ass.

FancyTuna8 wrote: »

The real question is how many people make old female characters? There should almost be an achievement for beating some late-level boss with an old lady, because I'd bet it is the lowest percentage demographic made.

I have an oldish character who lost her children in the war (dead and/or missing) and picked up her old sword to avenge them. I'm considering creating her daughter as well, as the same character with younger, less scarred sliders. but that'd be my last character slot, so I'm not sure.

Danikat

God-eater wrote: »

Oryctolagus wrote: »

It's comforting to me that whenever I visit a game's forum for the first time I can depend on seeing this thread. It's like a warm welcome. Thanks.

And, every time, the page count goes thru the roof. Never understood it myself - the actual gender of another player is about as irrelevant as it gets in an RPG.

I'm often male, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm a humanoid cat with a septum ring. Once, I was a stocky Italian plumber and another time I was a middle-aged, scarfaced lesbian space marine who banged a genderless blue alien.

I wouldn't get too hung up on people's character choices, is my point - or who is really behind the screen.

And every time there's more posts debating why people want to know and why people make the choices they do than actually giving their gender or asking for other peoples.

FancyTuna8 wrote: »

So I'm not the only guy who plays female characters? I'm about 50-50 split--I just can't watch a guy run around skyrim all day long, and when I know I'm going to play hundreds of hours, I need some change of pace. Plus, in games like Dragon Age the dialogues with npc's were vastly different based on gender. The RP aspects
I chalk my mix of male/female with this up to the Dragonlance series--by the time the original trilogy was done, Tanis was my second favorite to Laurana because I couldn't quite forgive him for some of his stupid/dubious choices, whereas she had grown so much. I identified as him.

The real question is how many people make old female characters? There should almost be an achievement for beating some late-level boss with an old lady, because I'd bet it is the lowest percentage demographic made.

That's actually an interesting idea.

My crafter is an older guy (mid-late 50's), a bit overweight and heavily scarred because I like to have a background that makes sense for all my characters and I knew he'd have to have some fighting skills and the willingness to travel around, but it didn't make sense to me that someone who could hold their own as an adventurer would choose to spend most of their time crafting. So I made him an older mostly retired adventurer, he's been through the wars before the 3 banners war even started and would really like to be done with it and settle down, but keeps getting pulled back in. (And yes, if I could I'd give him a limp.)

I'd not thought about an older female character however. There's definitely potential there, and it could be really fun to play but I'm not sure how exactly I'd approach it.

ContraTempo

I usually have a story behind each character as to why they are who and what they are. So I play what fits that story.

I have noticed that I have gotten most of my friend requests and guild invitations while playing females. Like 90%.