Playing: *sigh* back to WoW -------- Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD --------- Played and loved: Eve and WoW -------- Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
EDIT: We probably can't lump guys into a "most guys" comment either. Later in the thread here...I saw someone say only women know which side of the dinner plate a fork goes on. That is COMPLETELY false. Not all men are cavemen. LOL Some men even wear suits to work each day and have lunch at restaurants that require a jacket. I assure you...there ARE men that not only know where the fork goes, but know where the salad fork AND dinner fork go, as well as the dessert spoon, soup spoon, butter knife, and steak knife, etc.
Well, I suppose I would fall into that category.
I go to work in suits (*cough* when employed that is) go to restaurants in dinner jackets, I know which forks go on which side as well as which knife, spoons, etc.
Probably because at some family gatherings we would have several course meals.
oh, and don't forget the bread plate with butter knife. hmmmm butterrrrr
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Don't mess with Shae, she use to be a cold blooded killer in Lineage 2
This coming from the killer dwarf himself... what a compliment!
I miss those days Tor; my blade dancer so needs a comeback soon in L3!
Bah, play some DAoC with me, it's not as pretty but it's way fun. I'll make an ugly, toadish dwarf and you can make a Valkyrie. It's all one giant super server now so there are plenty of people.
ok... fine... you've convined me. Im going to download.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
EDIT: We probably can't lump guys into a "most guys" comment either. Later in the thread here...I saw someone say only women know which side of the dinner plate a fork goes on. That is COMPLETELY false. Not all men are cavemen. LOL Some men even wear suits to work each day and have lunch at restaurants that require a jacket. I assure you...there ARE men that not only know where the fork goes, but know where the salad fork AND dinner fork go, as well as the dessert spoon, soup spoon, butter knife, and steak knife, etc.
Well, I suppose I would fall into that catagory.
I go to work in suits (*cough* when employed that is) go to restaurants in dinner jackets, I know which forks go on which side as well as which knife, spoons, etc.
Probably because at some family gatherings we would have several course meals.
oh, and don't forget the bread plate with butter knife. hmmmm butterrrrr
Wait, I want to know whether it was a guy who made the fork comment, or a girl. Guys can insult themselves (or other guys) and not cry about it, but women get upset.
AHHHHHHHHHH! Just kidding! Now I'm gonna get beat up.
Not if you quickly reach for your carefully placed dinner fork.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
EDIT: We probably can't lump guys into a "most guys" comment either. Later in the thread here...I saw someone say only women know which side of the dinner plate a fork goes on. That is COMPLETELY false. Not all men are cavemen. LOL Some men even wear suits to work each day and have lunch at restaurants that require a jacket. I assure you...there ARE men that not only know where the fork goes, but know where the salad fork AND dinner fork go, as well as the dessert spoon, soup spoon, butter knife, and steak knife, etc.
Well, I suppose I would fall into that catagory.
I go to work in suits (*cough* when employed that is) go to restaurants in dinner jackets, I know which forks go on which side as well as which knife, spoons, etc.
Probably because at some family gatherings we would have several course meals.
oh, and don't forget the bread plate with butter knife. hmmmm butterrrrr
Wait, I want to know whether it was a guy who made the fork comment, or a girl. Guys can insult themselves (or other guys) and not cry about it, but women get upset.
AHHHHHHHHHH! Just kidding! Now I'm gonna get beat up.
It was a guy that said that the way to determine if someone playing a female avatar was really female....was to ask them which side of the plate the fork goes on....and he said, I quote, "Only real women know this."
Just popping in to say that I'll be stickying the threads that make it into the spotlight for the week that they are in said spotlight. This should help actually mark threads as spotlighted threads in addition to our weeky blog post. When a new thread is selected next week, this thread will be unstickied and the "IN THE SPOTLIGHT:" bit will be removed.
Thanks guys and have fun!
EDIT: Also, please refrain from inflammatory/sexist comments, they really aren't helpful and most of all they are inappropriate and violate our Rules of Conduct.
It shocks me that this is still a seemingly big topic of discussion in 2010. I personally have not read all of the comments here, M afraid I'm currently running a bit short on time, but in my personal opinion, as a female gamer, that it shouldn't matter what we're playing just acknowledge that we do play. I find it annoying that s lot of game companies (not MMOs) seem to forget about us females. In games like TF2 that are not based on reality, why are there no female models for us to choose from?
Its questions like that, that I ponder often.
I'm currently playing EQ2, but I have tried damn newer all MMOs and found that one of my favorites is Fallen Earth. I personally don't lead a very "frilly" lifestyle.
It shocks me that this is still a seemingly big topic of discussion in 2010. I personally have not read all of the comments here, M afraid I'm currently running a bit short on time, but in my personal opinion, as a female gamer, that it shouldn't matter what we're playing just acknowledge that we do play. I find it annoying that s lot of game companies (not MMOs) seem to forget about us females. In games like TF2 that are not based on reality, why are there no female models for us to choose from? Its questions like that, that I ponder often. I'm currently playing EQ2, but I have tried damn newer all MMOs and found that one of my favorites is Fallen Earth. I personally don't lead a very "frilly" lifestyle.
I'll go one step further. i think that the reason "some" men are talking about this is because it is exciting to them. That the idea of women who would share not only the same hobby bu the same games as them is exciting.
My thought is that in the end, people are looking for "someone". Well, many people are. And as I have gotten older and as others have gotten older you realize that it is hard to meet people who are actually compatible. Who are actually in sync with you.
Now, stereotypes of the nerdy male who has trouble conversing and who is socially awkward, I think that in the back of some men's minds they are intrigued by the idea that they might not be alone in their hobby and might actually find someone else while playing their hobby.
The problem is that all relationships are subject to a reality check. who you meet online in a game is only going to be a partial representation of who these people actually are. That in the end there is no getting around the idea that you are going to have to actually know these people in a way that is completely beyond virtual.
In any case that is my thought while shooting from the hip.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
It shocks me that this is still a seemingly big topic of discussion in 2010. I personally have not read all of the comments here, M afraid I'm currently running a bit short on time, but in my personal opinion, as a female gamer, that it shouldn't matter what we're playing just acknowledge that we do play. I find it annoying that s lot of game companies (not MMOs) seem to forget about us females. In games like TF2 that are not based on reality, why are there no female models for us to choose from? Its questions like that, that I ponder often. I'm currently playing EQ2, but I have tried damn newer all MMOs and found that one of my favorites is Fallen Earth. I personally don't lead a very "frilly" lifestyle.
I'll go one step further. i think that the reason "some" men are talking about this is because it is exciting to them. That the idea of women who would share not only the same hobby bu the same games as them is exciting.
My thought is that in the end, people are looking for "someone". Well, many people are. And as I have gotten older and as others have gotten older you realize that it is hard to meet people who are actually compatible. Who are actually in sync with you.
Now, stereotypes of the nerdy male who has trouble conversing and who is socially awkward, I think that in the back of some men's minds they are intrigued by the idea that they might not be alone in their hobby and might actually find someone else while playing their hobby.
The problem is that all relationships are subject to a reality check. who you meet online in a game is only going to be a partial representation of who these people actually are. That in the end there is no getting around the idea that you are going to have to actually know these people in a way that is completely beyond virtual.
In any case that is my thought while shooting from the hip.
While that may be the case for a lot of people, there are other reasons why this is an interesting topic.
Me personally, I work in the video-game industry. And pretty much everyone I know reads sites like this, and is interested (obviously) in some aspect of game design and creation. That's why we're in this industry, because it's interesting to us in some way.
While on the PC and in the Casual market there is a wider female representation, it's severely lacking in the console market and MMOs, although I'd bet that MMOs are doing better than consoles (Wii excluded maybe).
Either way, personally, this topic is intriguing to me because I do wonder what can we do to attract a larger audience. The standard notion seems to be that girls don't enjoy combat as much as guys do, but that just doesn't cut it. So I find threads like this incredibly interesting.
Don't mess with Shae, she use to be a cold blooded killer in Lineage 2
This coming from the killer dwarf himself... what a compliment!
I miss those days Tor; my blade dancer so needs a comeback soon in L3!
Bah, play some DAoC with me, it's not as pretty but it's way fun. I'll make an ugly, toadish dwarf and you can make a Valkyrie. It's all one giant super server now so there are plenty of people.
ok... fine... you've convined me. Im going to download.
Don't mess with Shae, she use to be a cold blooded killer in Lineage 2
This coming from the killer dwarf himself... what a compliment!
I miss those days Tor; my blade dancer so needs a comeback soon in L3!
Bah, play some DAoC with me, it's not as pretty but it's way fun. I'll make an ugly, toadish dwarf and you can make a Valkyrie. It's all one giant super server now so there are plenty of people.
ok... fine... you've convined me. Im going to download.
I wasn't talking to you...
Yeah, but you had me at shiny armor
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I'm a girl gamer. I started way back when on the good ole' Atari, then graduated to the nintendo, the super nintendo, and on through the playstations. I was more of a console gamer, playing stuff like Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Left for Dead, until a guy I was dating at the time talked me into playing WoW. That relationship didn't last, but my love affair with MMO's has. Still play WoW, but I've also played Aion and Dungeons and Dragons online. I'm not a girly girl, but I'm not butch either. However, I have to admit that beating crap up is one of my favorite things to do in MMO's. ;-) Not that I'm against rp, but seems like when guys find out you're an ACTUAL girl, most rp goes out the window and you get tells wanting you to ERP, which I'm not a fan of.
As far as what kind of classes I play, I'm not a healer. I'm either dealing out tons of damage on my dps classes or I'm up front with my meat shield (aka Tank) while the rest of the raid brings it down. However, the two best healers in my guild are guys. And they'd rather heal than do anything else. I do pvp when I feel like it, but on my server, people don't always like to actually coordinate to win the BG's. So it's not that I don't like it, I just don't like watching 20-40 other people argue about who's fault it is that the other side captures stuff. lol
So, I guess the point of all this is that just like boy gamers can't really be put in a box, neither can we.
I'm a girl, and my first MMO was UO (which to this day remains my favorite)...
I started playing MMO's when I was 12, and now I'm 20. Though yeah, it's been an on and off relationship due to life.
I consider myself a girly girl, and yes, my preferred archetype is the healer.. but I've always found the PvP part of an MMO far more engaging than the PvE aspect. In fact, in Guild Wars I kinda skipped all the campaigns and just play in RA, TA, and HA... oops. And yes, I was stoked about Fury when it was going through beta before it flopped.
So.. yeah, even though we're relatively uncommon, hardcore gaming girls DO exist! Sadly though, whenever I mention that I'm a 20 year old female I still get comments like, "lol. sure ur not a 40 yr old living in his mom's basement eating fried chicken?"
Hmm, well last time I checked, yeah, I'm quite sure...
by the way, I tried WoW and never liked it... =/
On the other hand though! I have a few female friends who have played/play WoW and never tried anything else, so I guess there is some truth in the OP. Sigh.
I want to point out one observation from my personal experience. Although I have to admit that in the guilds I've been in, as I see it the women or girls brought in a lot of drama that wasn't there before they joined, the drama was always instigated by them. In many cases it was simply a case of lonely nerds duking it out to get in the girls favor.
I want to point out one observation from my personal experience. Although I have to admit that in the guilds I've been in, as I see it the women or girls brought in a lot of drama that wasn't there before they joined, the drama was always instigated by them. In many cases it was simply a case of lonely nerds duking it out to get in the girls favor.
Well the world is full of drama caused by men of any sort duking it out over a woman.
And vice versa ; )
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Even if your just playing the percentages thing, most girls will be playing WoW... simply because most people play that game, doesnt mean that WoW is more female friendly than any other game though, just that more people play it overall.. so law of averages says that its going to be the most popular game with women also.. though anyone who thinks that the semi naked female toons running around stormwind are actually female players.. probably doesnt get out enough
I'm a female gamer myself. I'm part of the first generation of women who grew up with gaming being a part of regular life. It all started when my dad brought home a Magnavox Odyssey and we put the plastic overlay on our TV screen and played 'Haunted House' and 'Cat and Mouse' for hours. We moved on to the Atari 2600 after that. In college I had no money for a TV or console, so I traded my videogaming habit for D&D and played with a group of friends every Sunday afternoon for a couple years. We had pretty much a 50/50 split of males/females there. Once I got out of school and had a job and money for gaming again, I started back with the RPG games. After shooting millions of Asteroids as a teen, FPS games don't hold as much appeal for me. If I'm going to shoot the snot out of something, I want it to have a purpose.
I've been playing Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online over the past few years, and now Star Trek Online. I'll be signing up for The Old Republic as soon as Bioware allows it. I have not touched WoW, I've just never been interested in it. Farmville? I'll fertilize the fields by urping on them.
I've played just about every class in LOTRO and GW, mainly because I like the versatility when playing with a group, and because I like to see how the game plays with different classes and races. I prefer DPS over tanking or healing. There's just something satisfying about freezing bad guys in place and then setting a bunch of them on fire at one time. No, I'm not a pyromaniac, I only play one in game. I play mostly female toons because I like some role-playing as part of my gaming experience, and I relate more to female characters. I do, however, play some male toons, particularly if they're beefy. And as a note to any developers who might be reading, PLEASE study male hip and rear-end anatomy and make it a little more realistic. Legs do not attach directly to the back. If I have to look at the backside of a male toon for the majority of the game, at least round those cheeks out a bit and make them cuter....Just don't tell my hubby.
I have done some PvP in Guild Wars, mostly with my guild so we can coordinate. I hate senseless dying, so I prefer not to PUG because it's almost always very disorganized, and in PvP disorganization=death . LOTRO and STO can't touch GW's PvP play, so I don't even bother playing PvP in those games.
The guild/kinship/fleet groups I play with are on the whole mature adults, so I don't usually have to deal with the "OMG there's a girl here!" stuff. I think some girls are more reserved in MMOs about admitting gender just so we don't get that, or worse, someone trying to make an awkward attempt at flirting. One time when playing LOTRO, a guy found out I was a real-life gal, and started to proposition me. I was laughing so hard at his ridiculous comments that it took me 10 minutes before I could add him to the ignore list.
One thing I want devs to think about is family gaming instead of just gender and age demographics. My hubby, my kids, and I all want to play The Old Republic when it comes out. We all have GW accounts, and my son and I play STO together. We have enough computers in the house and the bandwidth to do it. However, paying for accounts for all of us every month for TOR is not going to be cheap. We surely can't be the only family that games together--I'd love to see the companies create a family package where if a family has multiple accounts (within reason), they can get a discount.
More and more women play games, and as such online games. As more and more have grown up with computers and games in their vicinity, the less they stand out from the behaviour of men. Sure, some women play on their sex, and play on the stereotype, to gain advantages/special attention, but I sense it's a dying thing.
A lot of women don't want to act as if they were the weaker sex/gamers, as they are not. They are gamers, just like anyone else. As time goes, they will be just as serious, ambitious, competitively minded overall like men. The older they get, the more this will happen.
I have followed the industry since early 80's, and this is the direction it is taking. Most games are about violence, greed, social networking, "winning", and women are being compelled more and more to these aspects. Maybe because the "soft" concepts are not around in anything else but the casual gaming games.
When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off, encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.
I'd seen a lot of women go for EQ2, imo. It's just what I've observed and I could be completely wrong but yeah. I myself really enjoyed EQ2 simply for the graphics and how realistic they were when the game was first released. I have also played Second Life so the person on the first page who mentioned that might be right.
When I played Lotro there were a lot of women gamers. Tended to be husband and wife grouping in game when I came across them. Usually ended up being the nicest gals who got really into the game, especially noticeable when you would be running something and you hear kids screaming in the background.
I used to play City of Heroes/Villians with my girlfriend. She NEVER played games, but absolutely loved the idea of playing as a superhuman and took to the game quite quickly. We found out pretty fast that there were actually a decent amount of women playing CoH.
We both ended up loving the Mastermind class and using it religiously.
Comments
Of course most women that play MMOs play WoW.
It's where they can get the most attention
Playing: *sigh* back to WoW
--------
Waiting for: SW:TOR, APB, WoD
---------
Played and loved: Eve and WoW
--------
Played and hated: WoW:WotLK, Warhammer, every single F2P
Well, I suppose I would fall into that category.
I go to work in suits (*cough* when employed that is) go to restaurants in dinner jackets, I know which forks go on which side as well as which knife, spoons, etc.
Probably because at some family gatherings we would have several course meals.
oh, and don't forget the bread plate with butter knife. hmmmm butterrrrr
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
ok... fine... you've convined me. Im going to download.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Not if you quickly reach for your carefully placed dinner fork.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It was a guy that said that the way to determine if someone playing a female avatar was really female....was to ask them which side of the plate the fork goes on....and he said, I quote, "Only real women know this."
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Hi guys,
Just popping in to say that I'll be stickying the threads that make it into the spotlight for the week that they are in said spotlight. This should help actually mark threads as spotlighted threads in addition to our weeky blog post. When a new thread is selected next week, this thread will be unstickied and the "IN THE SPOTLIGHT:" bit will be removed.
Thanks guys and have fun!
EDIT: Also, please refrain from inflammatory/sexist comments, they really aren't helpful and most of all they are inappropriate and violate our Rules of Conduct.
asdfaasdfasdfasdfasf
Its questions like that, that I ponder often.
I'm currently playing EQ2, but I have tried damn newer all MMOs and found that one of my favorites is Fallen Earth. I personally don't lead a very "frilly" lifestyle.
I'll go one step further. i think that the reason "some" men are talking about this is because it is exciting to them. That the idea of women who would share not only the same hobby bu the same games as them is exciting.
My thought is that in the end, people are looking for "someone". Well, many people are. And as I have gotten older and as others have gotten older you realize that it is hard to meet people who are actually compatible. Who are actually in sync with you.
Now, stereotypes of the nerdy male who has trouble conversing and who is socially awkward, I think that in the back of some men's minds they are intrigued by the idea that they might not be alone in their hobby and might actually find someone else while playing their hobby.
The problem is that all relationships are subject to a reality check. who you meet online in a game is only going to be a partial representation of who these people actually are. That in the end there is no getting around the idea that you are going to have to actually know these people in a way that is completely beyond virtual.
In any case that is my thought while shooting from the hip.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
While that may be the case for a lot of people, there are other reasons why this is an interesting topic.
Me personally, I work in the video-game industry. And pretty much everyone I know reads sites like this, and is interested (obviously) in some aspect of game design and creation. That's why we're in this industry, because it's interesting to us in some way.
While on the PC and in the Casual market there is a wider female representation, it's severely lacking in the console market and MMOs, although I'd bet that MMOs are doing better than consoles (Wii excluded maybe).
Either way, personally, this topic is intriguing to me because I do wonder what can we do to attract a larger audience. The standard notion seems to be that girls don't enjoy combat as much as guys do, but that just doesn't cut it. So I find threads like this incredibly interesting.
I wasn't talking to you...
Yeah, but you had me at shiny armor
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I'm a girl gamer. I started way back when on the good ole' Atari, then graduated to the nintendo, the super nintendo, and on through the playstations. I was more of a console gamer, playing stuff like Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Left for Dead, until a guy I was dating at the time talked me into playing WoW. That relationship didn't last, but my love affair with MMO's has. Still play WoW, but I've also played Aion and Dungeons and Dragons online. I'm not a girly girl, but I'm not butch either. However, I have to admit that beating crap up is one of my favorite things to do in MMO's. ;-) Not that I'm against rp, but seems like when guys find out you're an ACTUAL girl, most rp goes out the window and you get tells wanting you to ERP, which I'm not a fan of.
As far as what kind of classes I play, I'm not a healer. I'm either dealing out tons of damage on my dps classes or I'm up front with my meat shield (aka Tank) while the rest of the raid brings it down. However, the two best healers in my guild are guys. And they'd rather heal than do anything else. I do pvp when I feel like it, but on my server, people don't always like to actually coordinate to win the BG's. So it's not that I don't like it, I just don't like watching 20-40 other people argue about who's fault it is that the other side captures stuff. lol
So, I guess the point of all this is that just like boy gamers can't really be put in a box, neither can we.
Who says cute and deadly don't mix??
I don't think girl gamers are THAT rare...
I'm a girl, and my first MMO was UO (which to this day remains my favorite)...
I started playing MMO's when I was 12, and now I'm 20. Though yeah, it's been an on and off relationship due to life.
I consider myself a girly girl, and yes, my preferred archetype is the healer.. but I've always found the PvP part of an MMO far more engaging than the PvE aspect. In fact, in Guild Wars I kinda skipped all the campaigns and just play in RA, TA, and HA... oops. And yes, I was stoked about Fury when it was going through beta before it flopped.
So.. yeah, even though we're relatively uncommon, hardcore gaming girls DO exist!
Sadly though, whenever I mention that I'm a 20 year old female I still get comments like, "lol. sure ur not a 40 yr old living in his mom's basement eating fried chicken?"
Hmm, well last time I checked, yeah, I'm quite sure...
by the way, I tried WoW and never liked it... =/
On the other hand though! I have a few female friends who have played/play WoW and never tried anything else, so I guess there is some truth in the OP. Sigh.
They aren't
I want to point out one observation from my personal experience. Although I have to admit that in the guilds I've been in, as I see it the women or girls brought in a lot of drama that wasn't there before they joined, the drama was always instigated by them. In many cases it was simply a case of lonely nerds duking it out to get in the girls favor.
Well the world is full of drama caused by men of any sort duking it out over a woman.
And vice versa ; )
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I highly recommend PvP to men who like beating on women. At least, it's a fair match and it doesn't hurt anybody
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Even if your just playing the percentages thing, most girls will be playing WoW... simply because most people play that game, doesnt mean that WoW is more female friendly than any other game though, just that more people play it overall.. so law of averages says that its going to be the most popular game with women also.. though anyone who thinks that the semi naked female toons running around stormwind are actually female players.. probably doesnt get out enough
I'm a female gamer myself. I'm part of the first generation of women who grew up with gaming being a part of regular life. It all started when my dad brought home a Magnavox Odyssey and we put the plastic overlay on our TV screen and played 'Haunted House' and 'Cat and Mouse' for hours. We moved on to the Atari 2600 after that. In college I had no money for a TV or console, so I traded my videogaming habit for D&D and played with a group of friends every Sunday afternoon for a couple years. We had pretty much a 50/50 split of males/females there. Once I got out of school and had a job and money for gaming again, I started back with the RPG games. After shooting millions of Asteroids as a teen, FPS games don't hold as much appeal for me. If I'm going to shoot the snot out of something, I want it to have a purpose.
I've been playing Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online over the past few years, and now Star Trek Online. I'll be signing up for The Old Republic as soon as Bioware allows it. I have not touched WoW, I've just never been interested in it. Farmville? I'll fertilize the fields by urping on them.
I've played just about every class in LOTRO and GW, mainly because I like the versatility when playing with a group, and because I like to see how the game plays with different classes and races. I prefer DPS over tanking or healing. There's just something satisfying about freezing bad guys in place and then setting a bunch of them on fire at one time. No, I'm not a pyromaniac, I only play one in game. I play mostly female toons because I like some role-playing as part of my gaming experience, and I relate more to female characters. I do, however, play some male toons, particularly if they're beefy. And as a note to any developers who might be reading, PLEASE study male hip and rear-end anatomy and make it a little more realistic. Legs do not attach directly to the back. If I have to look at the backside of a male toon for the majority of the game, at least round those cheeks out a bit and make them cuter....Just don't tell my hubby.
I have done some PvP in Guild Wars, mostly with my guild so we can coordinate. I hate senseless dying, so I prefer not to PUG because it's almost always very disorganized, and in PvP disorganization=death . LOTRO and STO can't touch GW's PvP play, so I don't even bother playing PvP in those games.
The guild/kinship/fleet groups I play with are on the whole mature adults, so I don't usually have to deal with the "OMG there's a girl here!" stuff. I think some girls are more reserved in MMOs about admitting gender just so we don't get that, or worse, someone trying to make an awkward attempt at flirting. One time when playing LOTRO, a guy found out I was a real-life gal, and started to proposition me. I was laughing so hard at his ridiculous comments that it took me 10 minutes before I could add him to the ignore list.
One thing I want devs to think about is family gaming instead of just gender and age demographics. My hubby, my kids, and I all want to play The Old Republic when it comes out. We all have GW accounts, and my son and I play STO together. We have enough computers in the house and the bandwidth to do it. However, paying for accounts for all of us every month for TOR is not going to be cheap. We surely can't be the only family that games together--I'd love to see the companies create a family package where if a family has multiple accounts (within reason), they can get a discount.
More and more women play games, and as such online games. As more and more have grown up with computers and games in their vicinity, the less they stand out from the behaviour of men. Sure, some women play on their sex, and play on the stereotype, to gain advantages/special attention, but I sense it's a dying thing.
A lot of women don't want to act as if they were the weaker sex/gamers, as they are not. They are gamers, just like anyone else. As time goes, they will be just as serious, ambitious, competitively minded overall like men. The older they get, the more this will happen.
I have followed the industry since early 80's, and this is the direction it is taking. Most games are about violence, greed, social networking, "winning", and women are being compelled more and more to these aspects. Maybe because the "soft" concepts are not around in anything else but the casual gaming games.
When the enemy is driven back, we have failed, and when he is cut off,
encircled and dispersed, we have succeeded.
I'd seen a lot of women go for EQ2, imo. It's just what I've observed and I could be completely wrong but yeah. I myself really enjoyed EQ2 simply for the graphics and how realistic they were when the game was first released. I have also played Second Life so the person on the first page who mentioned that might be right.
When I played Lotro there were a lot of women gamers. Tended to be husband and wife grouping in game when I came across them. Usually ended up being the nicest gals who got really into the game, especially noticeable when you would be running something and you hear kids screaming in the background.
I used to play City of Heroes/Villians with my girlfriend. She NEVER played games, but absolutely loved the idea of playing as a superhuman and took to the game quite quickly. We found out pretty fast that there were actually a decent amount of women playing CoH.
We both ended up loving the Mastermind class and using it religiously.