I do play a lot of female characters. Sometimes its awkward because i love to roleplay as well. And when it comes to sexuality related stuff - it can get pretty bad, because honestly flirting with guys is not my cup of tea.
So i try to limit my female characters to non-roleplay games/guilds.
So why do i do it?
My motivation is totally different than yours.
When I create a character its like i am trying to make new super cool comic hero.
My characters are stars of my story. Main actors of the game.
They are not me, neither they have any relation to me.
So why girls ?
Because i love female comic/fantasy characters. They could be so kick ass cool.
The combination of sexyness , frality but on other hand deadly and dangerous.
Tank Girl , Beatrix Kiddo , Nikita ...
One more note.
As you , I am visual designer. And I do tend to choose model that has better design&animation.
Its simple.....whose rear end do you want to have in your face for the next 50 levels......I find it weird that more men don't play female chars since there is no diference statistically.....Then its all about how deep you want to go....I'd never RP as a female character....so ...yeah
Like my buddy always says: " You get treated more fair in games and occasionally you get free stuff and help more easily, than male characters."
Personally, I never could play with female characters. In most games (mmorpgs) they just look like half-naked, trashy whores and brainless bimbos, not cool warriors or cunning thieves like the male characters do. Tabula Rasa was the only exeption, there even the gals had proper battlearmors - not just armor strips hiding the groins and nipples.
Now let me say ahead, I always respect everyone's decision what to play in a MMO. It is just a feeling. Let me explain. Now sure, as gay guy, I do not have the appeal to "see a girl's bum" while I play. But here is the thing. When I create MMO characters, I NEVER make "my idea man". And boy, I tried. Several times in MMOs I create a male character that looked as my "ideal looking man", and it SPOOKED THE HELL OUTTA ME. I can't even say why. But the idea to play a char that looks like my ideal man, was... wrong. It was something so outside anything I could identify or accpet. I always felt it was just wrong and spooky, to have some "cute puppet", some "love doll" or whatever. It felt just freaky. And that is why I shudder at the thought, no matter if you play same gender or opposite gender: this idea to create a character as "your ideal looking girl/guy" is what just feels so spooking me off.
For me, a character I play must represent something of *me*, some part of myself externalized. (Is that a word?) For instance, I loved my EQ2 Sarnath and my Fae Ranger. Both represented character traits of me. Both where a part of me, in a way I could not describe. Or my dark skinned characters I make in most MMOs as main. He is me, for reasons I can not explain. But he is FAR from the type of guy I want. I mean, I know some people would even play any random char because they don't care at all. But when you play a char so many hours as you do in a MMO, does it not evoke *some* feeling within you?
And that is what I don't get, how can you play a char months or even years which is your "love interest"? That sounds just so... bizarre. So it gives me more than a little doubt in players who do this. I know from experience with female gamers who talked to me, that female chars are usually treated better. If they enter older MMOs, they are WAY more likely to get help, money and other stuff. And that, shall we say, ulterior motive is what I also kind of suspect. Like they know, ok with a girl char people will be more helpful and nice. Which is the case. Female chars DO get more help.
So what do you think about it? And to you guys who play girls, how do you feel doing that? I wonder.
Well, i play male and female chars. Normally i choose base on class, race, gear looking, animations, etc.
I will never forget when once i create a mystic human male char in L2 and my little daughter make fun of me that my char runs like a girl.... and she was right, i delete and create a diferent one.
For me, some classes and/or some races look cooler on female or male, so in any game i play allways have both across all my chars.
I will never understand why is so weird a male create a female or a female create a male char, dont see nothing wrong in that, really.
To each his own, but it would be near impossible for me to role-play a female toon. I always play a male and have never really understood how a man can roleplay a woman.
Reading some of the responses, I think I understand a little better why some do it (helps them feel more compassion for their toon, etc and of course some just cannot get enough of looking at the female avatar), but I would never do it myself.
I have tried it before because my daughter wanted to create a "pretty elf lady", but quickly deleted.
I know there are also some who do it because they feel they get more groups, social chat, etc, but I think that is just a fraud and couldnt do that either.
I do play a lot of female characters. Sometimes its awkward because i love to roleplay as well. And when it comes to sexuality related stuff - it can get pretty bad, because honestly flirting with guys is not my cup of tea.
So i try to limit my female characters to non-roleplay games/guilds.
So why do i do it?
My motivation is totally different than yours.
When I create a character its like i am trying to make new super cool comic hero.
My characters are stars of my story. Main actors of the game.
They are not me, neither they have any relation to me.
So why girls ?
Because i love female comic/fantasy characters. They could be so kick ass cool.
The combination of sexyness , frality but on other hand deadly and dangerous.
Tank Girl , Beatrix Kiddo , Nikita ...
One more note.
As you , I am visual designer. And I do tend to choose model that has better design&animation.
Very often female models are better.
So - my main requirement -
Kicking ass and looking cool while you do it !
Hm, ok that certainly is an enlightning explanation. But it also seems to imply that most MMO developers fail to make convincing male character models for a number of gamers.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Now they are just figurines that I manipulate on the playing field, not personifications of me in any way. In fact, I interact so seldom with players in MMO's anymore no one even knows what my avatar is or whether I'm actually a female or not.
This reminds me a lot of my IRL friend who plays girl avatars sometimes, sounds almost exactly like what he says about mmo games.
Everyone looks at MMO's differently, and honestly I think each MMO sorta has its own feel with that... For instance in WoW I had a lot of characters and I didn't really identify with any of them much, but I had one DK that had a beard and looked a lot like me I enjoyed a lot and sorta did feel "attached" to and it kept me playing him for longer than I enjoyed it hehe. Yet there were a lot of toons I didn't care about and I just leveled to play the class and see what it was like and I enjoyed it for that too.
I can understand both sides...
TERA this past weekend, man some of those characters are indeed rather attractive lol
But female characters with skimpy armor looking like pin-up girls are fine?
More than fine. Ideal.
In fact, I have a hard time understanding the problem here.
The problem is that an ideal women, in eyes of men, should be one that is capable and not one that only looks hot.
So in the case of a warrior it should be someone who has the physique for it.
In the case of a sorceror it should be one who has the experience and brains for it.
And if you look, in RL, at the typical female soldier or female scientists they rarely look like playboy bunnies which female avatars usually look like.
Its simple.....whose rear end do you want to have in your face for the next 50 levels
That is the most ridiculous response to this topic. I don't find myself staring at ANY pixelated rear ends. I play the game and pay zero attention to the back side of my toon.
I dunno. If I make a female character, she looks good, but she also looks like a really violent person. Not my ideal girl lol. Same with my male characters. They look cool, but will either look really violent or like a psycho. Not someone I would want to hang out with.
I think what the OP is saying is that, he feels icky when he finds out the female toon he has been sex texting turns out to have a male player.
Way to showcase that you didn't even read the OP... =/
Third sentence from OP = "Now sure, as gay guy, I do not have the appeal to "see a girl's bum" while I play."
I always assumed about 50% of all forum users in a typical forum only reply to the topic title anyway. XD
I think this thread is a bit nonsense, but thats just my opinion. I've played with male and female chars, just to enjoy the game diferently. I even assume that i like to see those topmodels wearing plate tops and heavy greatswords ^-^
Never the less, i think thats not so spooky... It's just a game.
About reading the entire OP... hummm maybe when it has really important information or a relevant issue.
I think I can add something with a point (for once).
When I first picked up the MMO genre, all my characters were male, designed to look as close to myself as I could get them, and were generally an extention of myself. My SWG character was a prime example.
This occured in any game I tried up until one that changed my mind about the subject; FFXI
I played a human male, but with what little customization there was - it was impossible to connect with that character. So I went with a femchar, which was very aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I believe many people changed from my prior mentality to this new one based on experiences in that game as well. All it took was one game where it was nigh impossible to really "put yourself" into a character to realise it didn't matter in the first place.
If I RPed it would be a different story, but I don't. Even playeda femchar (briefly) in Face of Mankind, which ended up making me a pariah when I was straightforward about my real gender when amongst the *many* RPers in that game. Does that make me weird, or them for having those kinds of expectations and hangups? I had to reroll just to get my faction to take me seriously.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I only make guys when I rp them. My list of male chars take inspiration from wacky characters like shaggy,hard gay, gai/lee from naruto, Etc.
Ofc when i dont feel like rping those or if people around me dont rp, i just make girl chars just because they have better hair options. I dont think i can ever make an "ideal partner" char because thatll have more to do with personality than looks methinks. O.o
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni ( o.o) (")(") **This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Can't remember the last game I played and felt at character creation that it would be an extention of me in the world. Most mmo's I've played lately are large arcade games and the characters are littely more than the hands holding a gun you get in fps's.
SWG was the last game I purposely made a character that actually had effort in it (beyond picking for a racial or restricted class), he had quite a few makeovers too, the coolest male zabrak that ever lived, He was the person I wanted to play in that world, he's now dead so meh. If there's no real world what's the point.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I primarily play male characters just because I find them more relatable being myself, but if a game has a female character I feel I can make very attractive why wouldn't I make one, I am a guy afterall and here comes the cliche argument/point "I'd rather stare at a good looking girl all day than some guy".
But like I said, make "one". I always main a male character, always, but having a good female alt to play on every once and a while is nice lol.
That being said I would never RP as a girl, or act like a girl or tell people I am a girl, that is just incredibly odd.
hai guys, ok here's my 2 cents worth on this topic.
1 i pay my subs
2 i play whatever class, race, gender i choose. depends on the class i choose or if i wanna keep playing that char.
3 do i care what others think? nope
bottom line is as long as your having fun in any MMORPG thats all that matters...were lucky we get a choice because along time ago you didnt.
i most certainly will be making a female castanic...coz i wanna have a char that looks good not stupid....and i most certainly wont be making those elin or whatever they are called..heck i might give them all a try as long as i enjoy the game and not get fed up with it like i have with most mmos.
The topic reminds me of some discussions I had in the SWG days. You know, in SWG you could play Wookiee. Now players who played Wookiees had told me, they were usally treated very different by people. I don't recall their exact words now, but kinda like you treat a nice puppy or friendly dog. Or the like. They all told me, there were considerably differntly treated by other players than if they played other races. And I too always felt a bit "protected" or so, like having a cute big, strong teddy bear around you, when I had a Wookiee in my group.
That is why I think at least some people react quite different to you depending on what you play, maybe eben subcounsciously. I must admit it would be harder for me to give a harsh reply to a female char in a game, when that char misbehaves than with a male char, despite the rational though that the appearance means zilch. I sometimes I suspect some players use that on purpose. But then you could argue, that is entirely my problem, but being socialized in a society as ours (in the west) even I am socialized to be a "gentleman" to women. *shrug*
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me, The 1st thing I decide is the class. From there I try to create a name for my character that has some sort of double entendre.
The character's name has to be witty and has to have some kind of description of what the character is/does.
Once I come up with the name, does it sound it female or male? Is it available? Can I use a variation and does that variation change the gender? These determines the gender of the toon.
It's form follows fucntion. I also imagine what the character is going to look like down the road and that will influence.
For example, I don't roll male mages. Men in dresses? No!
In my history of games, I run almost an even 50/50 for M/Falts.
But female characters with skimpy armor looking like pin-up girls are fine?
More than fine. Ideal.
In fact, I have a hard time understanding the problem here.
The problem is that an ideal women, in eyes of men, should be one that is capable and not one that only looks hot.
So in the case of a warrior it should be someone who has the physique for it.
In the case of a sorceror it should be one who has the experience and brains for it.
And if you look, in RL, at the typical female soldier or female scientists they rarely look like playboy bunnies which female avatars usually look like.
Now if female avatars would look more like this:
and less like this:
I would have no problem playing one.
Funny thing for me, I usually pick the standard body type with male and female characters and focus on making the face attractive in the character creation. Take Rift for example. Those females are...body wise not exactly my ideal female in physicality but since I can make their faces quite attractive I still prefer them over the male avatars. I do the same with most games unless they have normal looking male avatars that aren't all beefcake and square headed, lol. I think Champions online and CoH were great at offering good male character options. Eve is pretty good too. Can't stand male characters in Aion because they are halfway to looking like females so I just make female characters there.
I could never make a female dwarf, they just don't look right, in any game, so those are always male. Same with animal hybrid races like Kerra or Iksar in EQ2, gotta go with male. But elves? Definitely females. Anyway, I think it just boils down to aesthetics and what someone is comfortable playing as. If anything, I find people who play distorted character models creepy. Like playing a gnome or halfling with a giant head. I don't get that at all.
Comments
I always assumed about 50% of all forum users in a typical forum only reply to the topic title anyway. XD
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"cough" Red Sonja "cough"
Life IS Feudal
Its simple.....whose rear end do you want to have in your face for the next 50 levels......I find it weird that more men don't play female chars since there is no diference statistically.....Then its all about how deep you want to go....I'd never RP as a female character....so ...yeah
Like my buddy always says: " You get treated more fair in games and occasionally you get free stuff and help more easily, than male characters."
Personally, I never could play with female characters. In most games (mmorpgs) they just look like half-naked, trashy whores and brainless bimbos, not cool warriors or cunning thieves like the male characters do. Tabula Rasa was the only exeption, there even the gals had proper battlearmors - not just armor strips hiding the groins and nipples.
Well, i play male and female chars. Normally i choose base on class, race, gear looking, animations, etc.
I will never forget when once i create a mystic human male char in L2 and my little daughter make fun of me that my char runs like a girl.... and she was right, i delete and create a diferent one.
For me, some classes and/or some races look cooler on female or male, so in any game i play allways have both across all my chars.
I will never understand why is so weird a male create a female or a female create a male char, dont see nothing wrong in that, really.
To each his own, but it would be near impossible for me to role-play a female toon. I always play a male and have never really understood how a man can roleplay a woman.
Reading some of the responses, I think I understand a little better why some do it (helps them feel more compassion for their toon, etc and of course some just cannot get enough of looking at the female avatar), but I would never do it myself.
I have tried it before because my daughter wanted to create a "pretty elf lady", but quickly deleted.
I know there are also some who do it because they feel they get more groups, social chat, etc, but I think that is just a fraud and couldnt do that either.
Hm, ok that certainly is an enlightning explanation. But it also seems to imply that most MMO developers fail to make convincing male character models for a number of gamers.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
my 1st mmo char was a guy but after that one I went all females -- I guess eye candy is only good reason i can give
even on these forums im listed as my main character from everquest (a game i no longer play)
if anyone hits on me or asks me - I tell them I'm a guy
EQ2 fan sites
This reminds me a lot of my IRL friend who plays girl avatars sometimes, sounds almost exactly like what he says about mmo games.
Everyone looks at MMO's differently, and honestly I think each MMO sorta has its own feel with that... For instance in WoW I had a lot of characters and I didn't really identify with any of them much, but I had one DK that had a beard and looked a lot like me I enjoyed a lot and sorta did feel "attached" to and it kept me playing him for longer than I enjoyed it hehe. Yet there were a lot of toons I didn't care about and I just leveled to play the class and see what it was like and I enjoyed it for that too.
I can understand both sides...
TERA this past weekend, man some of those characters are indeed rather attractive lol
The problem is that an ideal women, in eyes of men, should be one that is capable and not one that only looks hot.
So in the case of a warrior it should be someone who has the physique for it.
In the case of a sorceror it should be one who has the experience and brains for it.
And if you look, in RL, at the typical female soldier or female scientists they rarely look like playboy bunnies which female avatars usually look like.
Now if female avatars would look more like this:
and less like this:
I would have no problem playing one.
My gaming blog
That is the most ridiculous response to this topic. I don't find myself staring at ANY pixelated rear ends. I play the game and pay zero attention to the back side of my toon.
I dunno. If I make a female character, she looks good, but she also looks like a really violent person. Not my ideal girl lol. Same with my male characters. They look cool, but will either look really violent or like a psycho. Not someone I would want to hang out with.
I think this thread is a bit nonsense, but thats just my opinion. I've played with male and female chars, just to enjoy the game diferently. I even assume that i like to see those topmodels wearing plate tops and heavy greatswords ^-^
Never the less, i think thats not so spooky... It's just a game.
About reading the entire OP... hummm maybe when it has really important information or a relevant issue.
I think I can add something with a point (for once).
When I first picked up the MMO genre, all my characters were male, designed to look as close to myself as I could get them, and were generally an extention of myself. My SWG character was a prime example.
This occured in any game I tried up until one that changed my mind about the subject; FFXI
I played a human male, but with what little customization there was - it was impossible to connect with that character. So I went with a femchar, which was very aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I believe many people changed from my prior mentality to this new one based on experiences in that game as well. All it took was one game where it was nigh impossible to really "put yourself" into a character to realise it didn't matter in the first place.
If I RPed it would be a different story, but I don't. Even playeda femchar (briefly) in Face of Mankind, which ended up making me a pariah when I was straightforward about my real gender when amongst the *many* RPers in that game. Does that make me weird, or them for having those kinds of expectations and hangups? I had to reroll just to get my faction to take me seriously.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
OP you never played Tomb Raider friend? That's unfortunate...
Ofc when i dont feel like rping those or if people around me dont rp, i just make girl chars just because they have better hair options. I dont think i can ever make an "ideal partner" char because thatll have more to do with personality than looks methinks. O.o
''/\/\'' Posted using Iphone bunni
( o.o)
(")(")
**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Can't remember the last game I played and felt at character creation that it would be an extention of me in the world. Most mmo's I've played lately are large arcade games and the characters are littely more than the hands holding a gun you get in fps's.
SWG was the last game I purposely made a character that actually had effort in it (beyond picking for a racial or restricted class), he had quite a few makeovers too, the coolest male zabrak that ever lived, He was the person I wanted to play in that world, he's now dead so meh. If there's no real world what's the point.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I primarily play male characters just because I find them more relatable being myself, but if a game has a female character I feel I can make very attractive why wouldn't I make one, I am a guy afterall and here comes the cliche argument/point "I'd rather stare at a good looking girl all day than some guy".
But like I said, make "one". I always main a male character, always, but having a good female alt to play on every once and a while is nice lol.
That being said I would never RP as a girl, or act like a girl or tell people I am a girl, that is just incredibly odd.
I personally won't play any games where I am a female character.
hai guys, ok here's my 2 cents worth on this topic.
1 i pay my subs
2 i play whatever class, race, gender i choose. depends on the class i choose or if i wanna keep playing that char.
3 do i care what others think? nope
bottom line is as long as your having fun in any MMORPG thats all that matters...were lucky we get a choice because along time ago you didnt.
i most certainly will be making a female castanic...coz i wanna have a char that looks good not stupid....and i most certainly wont be making those elin or whatever they are called..heck i might give them all a try as long as i enjoy the game and not get fed up with it like i have with most mmos.
So no Beyond Good and Evil? or Silent Hill 3?
Hell of a hangup there... seriously.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The topic reminds me of some discussions I had in the SWG days. You know, in SWG you could play Wookiee. Now players who played Wookiees had told me, they were usally treated very different by people. I don't recall their exact words now, but kinda like you treat a nice puppy or friendly dog. Or the like. They all told me, there were considerably differntly treated by other players than if they played other races. And I too always felt a bit "protected" or so, like having a cute big, strong teddy bear around you, when I had a Wookiee in my group.
That is why I think at least some people react quite different to you depending on what you play, maybe eben subcounsciously. I must admit it would be harder for me to give a harsh reply to a female char in a game, when that char misbehaves than with a male char, despite the rational though that the appearance means zilch. I sometimes I suspect some players use that on purpose. But then you could argue, that is entirely my problem, but being socialized in a society as ours (in the west) even I am socialized to be a "gentleman" to women. *shrug*
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
For me, The 1st thing I decide is the class. From there I try to create a name for my character that has some sort of double entendre.
The character's name has to be witty and has to have some kind of description of what the character is/does.
Once I come up with the name, does it sound it female or male? Is it available? Can I use a variation and does that variation change the gender? These determines the gender of the toon.
It's form follows fucntion. I also imagine what the character is going to look like down the road and that will influence.
For example, I don't roll male mages. Men in dresses? No!
In my history of games, I run almost an even 50/50 for M/Falts.
Funny thing for me, I usually pick the standard body type with male and female characters and focus on making the face attractive in the character creation. Take Rift for example. Those females are...body wise not exactly my ideal female in physicality but since I can make their faces quite attractive I still prefer them over the male avatars. I do the same with most games unless they have normal looking male avatars that aren't all beefcake and square headed, lol. I think Champions online and CoH were great at offering good male character options. Eve is pretty good too. Can't stand male characters in Aion because they are halfway to looking like females so I just make female characters there.
I could never make a female dwarf, they just don't look right, in any game, so those are always male. Same with animal hybrid races like Kerra or Iksar in EQ2, gotta go with male. But elves? Definitely females. Anyway, I think it just boils down to aesthetics and what someone is comfortable playing as. If anything, I find people who play distorted character models creepy. Like playing a gnome or halfling with a giant head. I don't get that at all.
This is a real weird situation, dont know what to think, serious.