The following is in response to the situation, not aimed at the author of the article.
Sounds like someone high-up, muckity-muck, or one of their male family/friends found out that the little hot piece o'tail he ruined his keyboard over was biologically male.
Maybe they met, maybe it was a huge joke on someone, perhaps someone clued someone in that his "she" was really a "he".
Someone lost face big time and is blaming players.
Boo-hoo big boy, go wash your hands, get a new keyboard, and stop trying to chase tail on the 'net before you actually meet the person.
fgs, I thought they only let adult intelligence people run corporations nowadays!
My advice to this overly-quick-to-rant author is that he attempt to understand the context of this situation with this developer. Especially when dealing with a culture that has always been much different than ours, situations like this can be easy to misread. I seriously doubt this mmo dev made the decision on a whim. I doubt they would have made this decision if they thought all their players would feel the same way as our indignant crusador of political correctness. Hey, if they found good reasons to force male players to play only male toons and their player base pretty much supports their decision than guess what... they aren't stupid and it's not a dumb decision. And if they are actually just saying "F YOU!" to the rest of the world then good for them. At least someone out their has balls enough to do something about what they find ridiculas in their world which, in this case, is idiot male players playing female chars.
I think that playing same sex and watching a man ass all the time you play as a male is a gay.
I like girls so I always play with female chars.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration ______\m/_____ LordOfDarkDesire
Originally posted by nate1980 To serve as an example, that what becomes a no brainer for westerners is not what other countries want or are used to, when I was in Iraq when I was in the Marines, back in 2003, the goal passed down to us troops was that Bush wanted to bring democracy to the mid-east. I guess democracy was something that the U.S. would stand behind, to support the war with more zeal, but democracy is great from our perspective. It is not great, as recent history has proven, for the people over there. They aren't used to it, their cultural norms don't support it, and many don't like it. This would baffle a western person, because having more freedom should be a no brainer, but they liked their lives that THEY were used to.
Nice insight. So why were you over there killing them?
While I personally dont agree with the "war on terror" bullshit that is pumped out by the US gov. I support the troops 100%
The whole thing is a media whitewash, the affair was handled badly from the get-go and the excuses and justifications pumped out were lie upon lie. That being said the troops over there had nothing to do with that and were just good people put into a bad situation. They did what they had to do and have my total respect.
If Nate, god-forbid, did have to fire upon people over there I'm sure it was'ent a thing that was taken lightly and he was simply doing what he had to in that situation. The blame falls far from him and the other troops sent over.
I find it a little off putting that you can ask that of him when you know full well the answer. Nate did'ent decide to invade, he just did what he had to.
MMO's are not supposed to be real in any way. It's one thing to get to know someone on vent but to care about weather someone is a girl or not just by their toon is flat out stupid.
Yes I have been fooled by a guy rping a girl before but I thought it was super hilarious not offensive. It's not like I'm going to take them out on a date. I mean it's ones and zeros people. This is the internet and not a singles bar. Treat people with respect and they will treat you with respect no matter what gender they are. Taking yourself too seriously in a game no less is a sign of lack of maturity and sanity; and hey we all have our moments but where is the internet stamp that says everything on the internet is real. Even if there was such a stamp it would not be prudent to take it as fact just because it is on your monitor.
But in all reality the policy changes nothing because you can fake anything over the internet. So who even cares lol.
My advice to this overly-quick-to-rant author is that he attempt to understand the context of this situation with this developer. Especially when dealing with a culture that has always been much different than ours, situations like this can be easy to misread. I seriously doubt this mmo dev made the decision on a whim. I doubt they would have made this decision if they thought all their players would feel the same way as our indignant crusador of political correctness. Hey, if they found good reasons to force male players to play only male toons and their player base pretty much supports their decision than guess what... they aren't stupid and it's not a dumb decision. And if they are actually just saying "F YOU!" to the rest of the world then good for them. At least someone out their has balls enough to do something about what they find ridiculas in their world which, in this case, is idiot male players playing female chars.
Wasting your time mate, I've been saying this for pages .. seems people would rather rant about "Those stupid Chinese" than actually try to see a different cultural viewpoint.
Its been a long thread though .. but I'm out. Maby you can get some of them to actually think about the impact on the target audiance rather than the impact it would have on them, even though its not even proposed for the western market.
i prefer to look at girls. thus my characters tend to be female *shrugs*
You are not just looking at a "girl" (girl avatar actually but that is beside the point). You are controlling a girl avatar. It is not like watching a movie with a women in it, because you are in fact controlling this character.
Now if you are a man, why would you want to do that (beside for roleplaying reasons)?
But to be honest I really dont care why you are doing it, I just think it would be nice to know that the person I am talking to, and playing with is a girl or a man because as I mentioned in another post. Men and women are different (not better or worse, different) and as such men tend to act different among women and vice versa.
I mean just last night, I was playing Aion, and a female avatar walked up to me and was doing the dance emote. Now I usually dont dance with guys and since this female avatar most likely is a man then I just ignored him/her and moved on. Was it a women I would have acted differently.
Silly example I know, but just an example to how you may act differently if you know if that person is indeed a guy or a women. Also, I for some reason, act nicer towards women than men. Like if a guy, who is a stranger, need some help I usually dont help him but if a women does it I am more inclined to do it. That is just how I am raised (and probably many others) but in MMORPGS since I have no idea if that guy really is a guy or that women really is a women I just assume they are all guys and act accordingly (since majority of MMORPG gamers I heard are guys).
So what I am trying to say, I think it is good to know the gender of someone you are interacting with.
My advice to this overly-quick-to-rant author is that he attempt to understand the context of this situation with this developer. Especially when dealing with a culture that has always been much different than ours, situations like this can be easy to misread. I seriously doubt this mmo dev made the decision on a whim. I doubt they would have made this decision if they thought all their players would feel the same way as our indignant crusador of political correctness. Hey, if they found good reasons to force male players to play only male toons and their player base pretty much supports their decision than guess what... they aren't stupid and it's not a dumb decision. And if they are actually just saying "F YOU!" to the rest of the world then good for them. At least someone out their has balls enough to do something about what they find ridiculas in their world which, in this case, is idiot male players playing female chars.
Wasting your time mate, I've been saying this for pages .. seems people would rather rant about "Those stupid Chinese" than actually try to see a different cultural viewpoint.
Its been a long thread though .. but I'm out. Maby you can get some of them to actually think about the impact on the target audiance rather than the impact it would have on them, even though its not even proposed for the western market.
Peace.
Yeah, you know if they weren't "chinese" we wouldn't get away with defending them whatsoever. Imagine the backlash if it was an euro/american company that tried what they did. OMG!
Cheer up. It's a beautiful thing to be vocal against the consesus.
It's really a form of discrimination and sexual harassment against women. I mean, let's distill it down to what it is: If you're a girl show me your pussy or you can't play. Whatever rationalization or justification the developers give is irrelevant.
Imagine this for a second. You get up early one morning and on your way to the kitchen to make some breakfast you see your mom....or your sister....with their pants down holding the webcam over their vagina. Who the hell is okay with that but some sick person.
This has turned into an argument over guys play male toons so they must be gay, bla bla bla. No, the argument is actually more fundamental than that, it's a question of women being forced to do something demeaning to participate in the same thing that a male does. It's discriminatory and demeaning.
I love my female cleric...if I'm ever forced to stop playing her I'll likely quit MMOs and go to single players so I can make all the female toons I want.
Totally unrealistic imo. Us males can play whatever gender we want!
It's really a form of discrimination and sexual harassment against women. I mean, let's distill it down to what it is: If you're a girl show me your pussy or you can't play. Whatever rationalization or justification the developers give is irrelevant.
Imagine this for a second. You get up early one morning and on your way to the kitchen to make some breakfast you see your mom....or your sister....with their pants down holding the webcam over their vagina. Who the hell is okay with that but some sick person.
This has turned into an argument over guys play male toons so they must be gay, bla bla bla. No, the argument is actually more fundamental than that, it's a question of women being forced to do something demeaning to participate in the same thing that a male does. It's discriminatory and demeaning.
Point 1 - "Show me your pussy or you can't play"
Odd but i did'ent see that anywhere. The method of proof required was'ent stated because the writer could'ent bother his lazy arse to do some research. As far as we know all it requires is a valid credit card (Your sex is linked to your credit card account btw) Your just taking the worst possible case and running with it, the same as the OP infured. Its called media-hype .. learn to see past it.
Point 2 - "Can't play"
/sigh Did you even read the artical at all? Female gamers are free to play males with no sex verification required. So to say they can't play if they dont verify it totally wrong again. Discrimination against women? Ok so lets get this straight. Woman can play male characters no problems as can males. Women who verify thier sex (Again ... less of the show us your pussy talk and be reasonable .. credit card? Passport? Fucking DRIVERS LICENSE?) can play females but males never can. According to you thats discrimination against women? Err ok, rock on genius.
Hey.. I hate people who choose to play a character of the opposite gender WITHOUT stating their real gender. Why? Because they're lying when they do it (I hate liars & being deceived). It is very annoying for me to find out after x months of discussion that the guy I talked with is actually a girl or vice versa. My mental image of the person gets almost nulled and I end up forgetting various personal traits the person had.
I think I should point out that I'm a straight male who's never used a female character in a multiplayer game before. Nor have I ever wanted to date anyone I've talked with on the internet.
So for me this is a good thing.
Although I am not a fan of the webcam aspect. Find a better way to do it please..
Edit: I read the post above mine. Credit cards would work..
I love my female cleric...if I'm ever forced to stop playing her I'll likely quit MMOs and go to single players so I can make all the female toons I want.
Totally unrealistic imo. Us males can play whatever gender we want!
OMG is about all I can say at this point.
No where is has it been said that this is planned for the western market. Yes, for the western market it is totally unrealistic. We are not talking about the western market though. Try to expand your world view and look at this from the Chinese perspective. The OP was trying to stir up a hornets nest and he did ... try and see past that rubbish though and understand the real picture here.
Nothing to do with the western market or the games we play.
Only relevent to the Chinese market place.
Now if you want to enter a discussion about that, how it effects that market, how the people there feel about it, is it just a media ploy, thats fine. If you want to carry on waving a pitch fork and chanting about how it wont fly in your game (when they never even looked sideways at your game to begin with) then ignore me and carry on ... its a witch after all so BURN IT!
i like the idea. people could finally cybersex with each other without a risk tat there is a guy on the other side
If you're silly enough to cybersex at all, why the hell would you care if it was a man or woman? It could be a monkey on the other end, but as long as you think it's a beautiful woman, then who the hell cares?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
It's really a form of discrimination and sexual harassment against women. I mean, let's distill it down to what it is: If you're a girl show me your pussy or you can't play. Whatever rationalization or justification the developers give is irrelevant.
Imagine this for a second. You get up early one morning and on your way to the kitchen to make some breakfast you see your mom....or your sister....with their pants down holding the webcam over their vagina. Who the hell is okay with that but some sick person.
This has turned into an argument over guys play male toons so they must be gay, bla bla bla. No, the argument is actually more fundamental than that, it's a question of women being forced to do something demeaning to participate in the same thing that a male does. It's discriminatory and demeaning.
Point 1 - "Show me your pussy or you can't play"
Odd but i did'ent see that anywhere. The method of proof required was'ent stated because the writer could'ent bother his lazy arse to do some research. As far as we know all it requires is a valid credit card (Your sex is linked to your credit card account btw) Your just taking the worst possible case and running with it, the same as the OP infured. Its called media-hype .. learn to see past it.
Point 2 - "Can't play"
/sigh Did you even read the artical at all? Female gamers are free to play males with no sex verification required. So to say they can't play if they dont verify it totally wrong again. Discrimination against women? Ok so lets get this straight. Woman can play male characters no problems as can males. Women who verify thier sex (Again ... less of the show us your pussy talk and be reasonable .. credit card? Passport? Fucking DRIVERS LICENSE?) can play females but males never can. According to you thats discrimination against women? Err ok, rock on genius.
Point 1- Maybe you should read the article. Here's a quote from the OP:
This company cares so deeply that not only are they freezing the accounts of any male players who may have happened to have created female toons, but they are even going so far as to require "gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam."
Point 2- Anyone playing a female toon must show proof of their gender. Since males are excluded from playing female toons as is their policy, only women wishing to play a female toon would be subjected to this policy. So yes it is discriminatory. Back at you, genius.
I love my female cleric...if I'm ever forced to stop playing her I'll likely quit MMOs and go to single players so I can make all the female toons I want.
Totally unrealistic imo. Us males can play whatever gender we want!
OMG is about all I can say at this point.
No where is has it been said that this is planned for the western market. Yes, for the western market it is totally unrealistic. We are not talking about the western market though. Try to expand your world view and look at this from the Chinese perspective. The OP was trying to stir up a hornets nest and he did ... try and see past that rubbish though and understand the real picture here.
Nothing to do with the western market or the games we play.
Only relevent to the Chinese market place.
Now if you want to enter a discussion about that, how it effects that market, how the people there feel about it, is it just a media ploy, thats fine. If you want to carry on waving a pitch fork and chanting about how it wont fly in your game (when they never even looked sideways at your game to begin with) then ignore me and carry on ... its a witch after all so BURN IT!
So the Chinese have less right to free choice?, did the players complain about being given the choice? Why would you want to justify tyranny based on race or nationality??
I love all the comments on western vs eastern philosophy and just because 'we westerners don't get it' doesn't make it wrong.
I'm not saying its wrong....but it eastern authorities have to make a rule to enforce a philosophy, then apparently the eastern masses 'don't getting it' either.
EDIT: corrected my horrible grammar lol was late for a meeting!
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone www.spankybus.com -3d Artist & Compositor -Writer -Professional Amature
I forget where I read it, either here or massively. But in Asian countries MMOs exist also as a means of social networking/dating (at least thats the idea), like facebook or myspace here. Because of that I believe companies are afraid of their clients becoming disillusioned that the hot elf chick they are hitting on is actually another guy.
Imagine how disappointed they'll be when they find out she's not an elf!
I mean, seriously. You *know* that no one looks like their avatar -- in most games, it's not even possible to come close, given limited hair/body styles.
And I have to love the "Oh noes! What if I find out I've been cybering with a GUY? Will I get AIDS?" response from the usual morons. Dude, even if the person you're cybering with is female, odds are good she doesn't look like a Blood Elf. And nothing else you think you know about her is verifiably true. Maybe she is a 19 year old hot bisexual coed with a roommate that likes to fondle her while she's cybering you. And maybe she's a 40-something working mom with two screaming kids and no husband who likes to remember back when she really was young and hot, or she just likes someone treating her like she is, even if it's all a fantasy. And as for you, guys... do you REALLY tell the truth, the whole truth, when some "hot elf babe" asks what you look like in real life? Or do you drop a few inches from your waist and then add them to your... height? Lie about your income? Your martial status? Your accomplishments?
Cybersex is, by defnition, a lie. You're writing a story with someone else. Nothing about it is true, anymore than any other work of fiction is true. Tell me, if you found out that some "true" letter to Penthouse written by a supposed hot chick was, in fact, cranked out by some 50-something male editor looking to fill column space, would you suddenly feel your gender identity threatened because you wanked to it? If yes, then, dude, better look for a place in Greenwich Village or the Castro, 'cause 99% of porn written by 'women' is actually written by men. (You can always tell porn written by women. It's got 'feelings' and 'emotions', not Hot Throbbing Tab A sliding into Pulsing Engorged Slot B.) If not, then, cybering with a guy is no different. He's not really a hot elf chick, and YOU'RE not really 6'8" of hard-muscled man-meat. Get over yourselves.
(And, frankly, if you're that easily squicked, odds are good you've got some Unresolved Issues. Might want to deal with them.)
Wasting your time mate, I've been saying this for pages .. seems people would rather rant about "Those stupid Chinese" than actually try to see a different cultural viewpoint.
Oh, please, spare me this PC nonsense.
When someone murders their daughter because she "shamed" their family by being seen with 2 square inches of skin showing, I don't want to be told, "Oh, we must be tolerant of other cultures and not impose our point of view on them." As far as I'm concerned, MY culture allows me to strangle anyone who says that with their own intestines. Don't agree? Too bad, you've already undermined any counter-argument you can make.
And, no, banning people from online games isn't the same as murder. However, once you begin with the "We mustn't judge other cultures" crap, the slope is pretty darn slippery and I've never encountered anyone who can define a point where they say, "OK, it's safe to judge them now." Either there are absolute human rights which no culture should violate, regardless of their "traditions" or "beliefs", or everything's fair game. Is there an absolute human right to play an RPG? No -- these are private games and if a game company wants to mandate that you can only play if you're a brown-haired Taurus with no beard, then, that's their right. However, the fact they've got a right to do it doesn't mean I can't say, "Damn, that's STUPID."
The game company has a right to set whatever rules they wish for access to their property. And everyone else has a right to call them fracking morons for doing so and point, laugh, and jeer at them. (And to do the same to anyone who squeaks about 'tolerance' and 'understanding'. They're MORONS. Period.)
Playing a character of a sex other than your own is called "gender bending" (I'm sure most of you know this, I'm just saying it for the sake of those who don't). As most MMOs show player avatars from the rear, the "gender benders" are mostly resolutely heterosexual males who'd "rather look at a female behind than a male one". Also, such people seldom gender bend their first character in the game - they do it with their second or third, for the sake of variety. And they would certainly never lie about their RL gender if asked.
This means that, ironically, by effectively banning gender bendng, the "Chinese company" in the article is virtually guaranteed to scare off gamers who are not only the most "testosterone rich", but also the most dedicated. They'll just go and play something else. Leaving the company with a bancruptsy it deserves.
Of course, there may be a very small minority of males who play as females simply to phantasize about being the opposite sex. For such a man, faking his "gender verification" results is peanuts - he'll just put his sister in front of his webcam for a day instead of himself. Most likely though, he wouldn't be bothered - and leave like any other guy.
Comments
Love the Frankenfurter image!
The following is in response to the situation, not aimed at the author of the article.
Sounds like someone high-up, muckity-muck, or one of their male family/friends found out that the little hot piece o'tail he ruined his keyboard over was biologically male.
Maybe they met, maybe it was a huge joke on someone, perhaps someone clued someone in that his "she" was really a "he".
Someone lost face big time and is blaming players.
Boo-hoo big boy, go wash your hands, get a new keyboard, and stop trying to chase tail on the 'net before you actually meet the person.
fgs, I thought they only let adult intelligence people run corporations nowadays!
My advice to this overly-quick-to-rant author is that he attempt to understand the context of this situation with this developer. Especially when dealing with a culture that has always been much different than ours, situations like this can be easy to misread. I seriously doubt this mmo dev made the decision on a whim. I doubt they would have made this decision if they thought all their players would feel the same way as our indignant crusador of political correctness. Hey, if they found good reasons to force male players to play only male toons and their player base pretty much supports their decision than guess what... they aren't stupid and it's not a dumb decision. And if they are actually just saying "F YOU!" to the rest of the world then good for them. At least someone out their has balls enough to do something about what they find ridiculas in their world which, in this case, is idiot male players playing female chars.
I think that playing same sex and watching a man ass all the time you play as a male is a gay.
I like girls so I always play with female chars.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
Nice insight. So why were you over there killing them?
While I personally dont agree with the "war on terror" bullshit that is pumped out by the US gov. I support the troops 100%
The whole thing is a media whitewash, the affair was handled badly from the get-go and the excuses and justifications pumped out were lie upon lie. That being said the troops over there had nothing to do with that and were just good people put into a bad situation. They did what they had to do and have my total respect.
If Nate, god-forbid, did have to fire upon people over there I'm sure it was'ent a thing that was taken lightly and he was simply doing what he had to in that situation. The blame falls far from him and the other troops sent over.
I find it a little off putting that you can ask that of him when you know full well the answer. Nate did'ent decide to invade, he just did what he had to.
All I can say is that someone up there must have been heartbroke by a "female" character lol...
good article lol
MMO's are not supposed to be real in any way. It's one thing to get to know someone on vent but to care about weather someone is a girl or not just by their toon is flat out stupid.
Yes I have been fooled by a guy rping a girl before but I thought it was super hilarious not offensive. It's not like I'm going to take them out on a date. I mean it's ones and zeros people. This is the internet and not a singles bar. Treat people with respect and they will treat you with respect no matter what gender they are. Taking yourself too seriously in a game no less is a sign of lack of maturity and sanity; and hey we all have our moments but where is the internet stamp that says everything on the internet is real. Even if there was such a stamp it would not be prudent to take it as fact just because it is on your monitor.
But in all reality the policy changes nothing because you can fake anything over the internet. So who even cares lol.
i prefer to look at girls.
thus my characters tend to be female *shrugs*
Wasting your time mate, I've been saying this for pages .. seems people would rather rant about "Those stupid Chinese" than actually try to see a different cultural viewpoint.
Its been a long thread though .. but I'm out. Maby you can get some of them to actually think about the impact on the target audiance rather than the impact it would have on them, even though its not even proposed for the western market.
Peace.
You are not just looking at a "girl" (girl avatar actually but that is beside the point). You are controlling a girl avatar. It is not like watching a movie with a women in it, because you are in fact controlling this character.
Now if you are a man, why would you want to do that (beside for roleplaying reasons)?
But to be honest I really dont care why you are doing it, I just think it would be nice to know that the person I am talking to, and playing with is a girl or a man because as I mentioned in another post. Men and women are different (not better or worse, different) and as such men tend to act different among women and vice versa.
I mean just last night, I was playing Aion, and a female avatar walked up to me and was doing the dance emote. Now I usually dont dance with guys and since this female avatar most likely is a man then I just ignored him/her and moved on. Was it a women I would have acted differently.
Silly example I know, but just an example to how you may act differently if you know if that person is indeed a guy or a women. Also, I for some reason, act nicer towards women than men. Like if a guy, who is a stranger, need some help I usually dont help him but if a women does it I am more inclined to do it. That is just how I am raised (and probably many others) but in MMORPGS since I have no idea if that guy really is a guy or that women really is a women I just assume they are all guys and act accordingly (since majority of MMORPG gamers I heard are guys).
So what I am trying to say, I think it is good to know the gender of someone you are interacting with.
My gaming blog
Wasting your time mate, I've been saying this for pages .. seems people would rather rant about "Those stupid Chinese" than actually try to see a different cultural viewpoint.
Its been a long thread though .. but I'm out. Maby you can get some of them to actually think about the impact on the target audiance rather than the impact it would have on them, even though its not even proposed for the western market.
Peace.
Yeah, you know if they weren't "chinese" we wouldn't get away with defending them whatsoever. Imagine the backlash if it was an euro/american company that tried what they did. OMG!
Cheer up. It's a beautiful thing to be vocal against the consesus.
It's really a form of discrimination and sexual harassment against women. I mean, let's distill it down to what it is: If you're a girl show me your pussy or you can't play. Whatever rationalization or justification the developers give is irrelevant.
Imagine this for a second. You get up early one morning and on your way to the kitchen to make some breakfast you see your mom....or your sister....with their pants down holding the webcam over their vagina. Who the hell is okay with that but some sick person.
This has turned into an argument over guys play male toons so they must be gay, bla bla bla. No, the argument is actually more fundamental than that, it's a question of women being forced to do something demeaning to participate in the same thing that a male does. It's discriminatory and demeaning.
I love my female cleric...if I'm ever forced to stop playing her I'll likely quit MMOs and go to single players so I can make all the female toons I want.
Totally unrealistic imo. Us males can play whatever gender we want!
"I play Tera for the gameplay"
Point 1 - "Show me your pussy or you can't play"
Odd but i did'ent see that anywhere. The method of proof required was'ent stated because the writer could'ent bother his lazy arse to do some research. As far as we know all it requires is a valid credit card (Your sex is linked to your credit card account btw) Your just taking the worst possible case and running with it, the same as the OP infured. Its called media-hype .. learn to see past it.
Point 2 - "Can't play"
/sigh Did you even read the artical at all? Female gamers are free to play males with no sex verification required. So to say they can't play if they dont verify it totally wrong again. Discrimination against women? Ok so lets get this straight. Woman can play male characters no problems as can males. Women who verify thier sex (Again ... less of the show us your pussy talk and be reasonable .. credit card? Passport? Fucking DRIVERS LICENSE?) can play females but males never can. According to you thats discrimination against women? Err ok, rock on genius.
Hey.. I hate people who choose to play a character of the opposite gender WITHOUT stating their real gender. Why? Because they're lying when they do it (I hate liars & being deceived). It is very annoying for me to find out after x months of discussion that the guy I talked with is actually a girl or vice versa. My mental image of the person gets almost nulled and I end up forgetting various personal traits the person had.
I think I should point out that I'm a straight male who's never used a female character in a multiplayer game before. Nor have I ever wanted to date anyone I've talked with on the internet.
So for me this is a good thing.
Although I am not a fan of the webcam aspect. Find a better way to do it please..
Edit: I read the post above mine. Credit cards would work..
OMG is about all I can say at this point.
No where is has it been said that this is planned for the western market. Yes, for the western market it is totally unrealistic. We are not talking about the western market though. Try to expand your world view and look at this from the Chinese perspective. The OP was trying to stir up a hornets nest and he did ... try and see past that rubbish though and understand the real picture here.
Nothing to do with the western market or the games we play.
Only relevent to the Chinese market place.
Now if you want to enter a discussion about that, how it effects that market, how the people there feel about it, is it just a media ploy, thats fine. If you want to carry on waving a pitch fork and chanting about how it wont fly in your game (when they never even looked sideways at your game to begin with) then ignore me and carry on ... its a witch after all so BURN IT!
If you're silly enough to cybersex at all, why the hell would you care if it was a man or woman? It could be a monkey on the other end, but as long as you think it's a beautiful woman, then who the hell cares?
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Hahaha I liked the webcam picture of the gina idea. OR maybe they could do something like this picture here...
Just a thought
Point 1 - "Show me your pussy or you can't play"
Odd but i did'ent see that anywhere. The method of proof required was'ent stated because the writer could'ent bother his lazy arse to do some research. As far as we know all it requires is a valid credit card (Your sex is linked to your credit card account btw) Your just taking the worst possible case and running with it, the same as the OP infured. Its called media-hype .. learn to see past it.
Point 2 - "Can't play"
/sigh Did you even read the artical at all? Female gamers are free to play males with no sex verification required. So to say they can't play if they dont verify it totally wrong again. Discrimination against women? Ok so lets get this straight. Woman can play male characters no problems as can males. Women who verify thier sex (Again ... less of the show us your pussy talk and be reasonable .. credit card? Passport? Fucking DRIVERS LICENSE?) can play females but males never can. According to you thats discrimination against women? Err ok, rock on genius.
Point 1- Maybe you should read the article. Here's a quote from the OP:
This company cares so deeply that not only are they freezing the accounts of any male players who may have happened to have created female toons, but they are even going so far as to require "gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam."
Point 2- Anyone playing a female toon must show proof of their gender. Since males are excluded from playing female toons as is their policy, only women wishing to play a female toon would be subjected to this policy. So yes it is discriminatory. Back at you, genius.
OMG is about all I can say at this point.
No where is has it been said that this is planned for the western market. Yes, for the western market it is totally unrealistic. We are not talking about the western market though. Try to expand your world view and look at this from the Chinese perspective. The OP was trying to stir up a hornets nest and he did ... try and see past that rubbish though and understand the real picture here.
Nothing to do with the western market or the games we play.
Only relevent to the Chinese market place.
Now if you want to enter a discussion about that, how it effects that market, how the people there feel about it, is it just a media ploy, thats fine. If you want to carry on waving a pitch fork and chanting about how it wont fly in your game (when they never even looked sideways at your game to begin with) then ignore me and carry on ... its a witch after all so BURN IT!
So the Chinese have less right to free choice?, did the players complain about being given the choice? Why would you want to justify tyranny based on race or nationality??
I love all the comments on western vs eastern philosophy and just because 'we westerners don't get it' doesn't make it wrong.
I'm not saying its wrong....but it eastern authorities have to make a rule to enforce a philosophy, then apparently the eastern masses 'don't getting it' either.
EDIT: corrected my horrible grammar lol was late for a meeting!
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
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Imagine how disappointed they'll be when they find out she's not an elf!
I mean, seriously. You *know* that no one looks like their avatar -- in most games, it's not even possible to come close, given limited hair/body styles.
And I have to love the "Oh noes! What if I find out I've been cybering with a GUY? Will I get AIDS?" response from the usual morons. Dude, even if the person you're cybering with is female, odds are good she doesn't look like a Blood Elf. And nothing else you think you know about her is verifiably true. Maybe she is a 19 year old hot bisexual coed with a roommate that likes to fondle her while she's cybering you. And maybe she's a 40-something working mom with two screaming kids and no husband who likes to remember back when she really was young and hot, or she just likes someone treating her like she is, even if it's all a fantasy. And as for you, guys... do you REALLY tell the truth, the whole truth, when some "hot elf babe" asks what you look like in real life? Or do you drop a few inches from your waist and then add them to your... height? Lie about your income? Your martial status? Your accomplishments?
Cybersex is, by defnition, a lie. You're writing a story with someone else. Nothing about it is true, anymore than any other work of fiction is true. Tell me, if you found out that some "true" letter to Penthouse written by a supposed hot chick was, in fact, cranked out by some 50-something male editor looking to fill column space, would you suddenly feel your gender identity threatened because you wanked to it? If yes, then, dude, better look for a place in Greenwich Village or the Castro, 'cause 99% of porn written by 'women' is actually written by men. (You can always tell porn written by women. It's got 'feelings' and 'emotions', not Hot Throbbing Tab A sliding into Pulsing Engorged Slot B.) If not, then, cybering with a guy is no different. He's not really a hot elf chick, and YOU'RE not really 6'8" of hard-muscled man-meat. Get over yourselves.
(And, frankly, if you're that easily squicked, odds are good you've got some Unresolved Issues. Might want to deal with them.)
There's a guy behind every MMO female character until otherwise proven in vent is what I say.
R.I.P Chikaca Whachuchu
Oh, please, spare me this PC nonsense.
When someone murders their daughter because she "shamed" their family by being seen with 2 square inches of skin showing, I don't want to be told, "Oh, we must be tolerant of other cultures and not impose our point of view on them." As far as I'm concerned, MY culture allows me to strangle anyone who says that with their own intestines. Don't agree? Too bad, you've already undermined any counter-argument you can make.
And, no, banning people from online games isn't the same as murder. However, once you begin with the "We mustn't judge other cultures" crap, the slope is pretty darn slippery and I've never encountered anyone who can define a point where they say, "OK, it's safe to judge them now." Either there are absolute human rights which no culture should violate, regardless of their "traditions" or "beliefs", or everything's fair game. Is there an absolute human right to play an RPG? No -- these are private games and if a game company wants to mandate that you can only play if you're a brown-haired Taurus with no beard, then, that's their right. However, the fact they've got a right to do it doesn't mean I can't say, "Damn, that's STUPID."
The game company has a right to set whatever rules they wish for access to their property. And everyone else has a right to call them fracking morons for doing so and point, laugh, and jeer at them. (And to do the same to anyone who squeaks about 'tolerance' and 'understanding'. They're MORONS. Period.)
There's a guy behind every MMO female character until otherwise proven in vent is what I say.
You're aware real-time voice changing technology gets better every day, right?
OK, we can go to webcams... but even then, five years from now, you'll have real-time image filtering.
Playing a character of a sex other than your own is called "gender bending" (I'm sure most of you know this, I'm just saying it for the sake of those who don't). As most MMOs show player avatars from the rear, the "gender benders" are mostly resolutely heterosexual males who'd "rather look at a female behind than a male one". Also, such people seldom gender bend their first character in the game - they do it with their second or third, for the sake of variety. And they would certainly never lie about their RL gender if asked.
This means that, ironically, by effectively banning gender bendng, the "Chinese company" in the article is virtually guaranteed to scare off gamers who are not only the most "testosterone rich", but also the most dedicated. They'll just go and play something else. Leaving the company with a bancruptsy it deserves.
Of course, there may be a very small minority of males who play as females simply to phantasize about being the opposite sex. For such a man, faking his "gender verification" results is peanuts - he'll just put his sister in front of his webcam for a day instead of himself. Most likely though, he wouldn't be bothered - and leave like any other guy.