Me man, me like crafting. I always like the crafting not for making money, I always end up losing money more often then not (all the friends that get free stuff made) I dont think it has anything to do with gender, its got to do with personalaty. (I know I cant spel if my life depended on it) The only game where I could make big money on "crafting" was the old swg. Why the "" on crafting? Beqous I made money on renting ppls lots and puting up something like 50 difrent mines and selling the minerals i gatherd. My real crafing gave me almost nothing. And for the stuff I sold I lost money, it was beter to sell the minerals
Of all the women i know playing mmorpgs, from the times UO came out were they were very few, to WoW were they are quite alot, tradeskills was definately never something i would say they are naturaly drawn to, of all the women i have met i don't think any ever played a game for the tradeskills or even really mastered the tradeskills.
The one thing i have seen common in women is that they are drawn to games or activities that strongly encourage socializing, even if socializing is not the main point, EQ was allways the mmorpg of choise for women and WoW has drawn to it quite a few because the way raids are made in these games they encourage guilds, and the women i have met enjoy the fact that they belong to a guild almost as much as the raiding itself, which i think women enjoy much more then men, raiding that is, and they are allways much more loyal and generaly they are an asset for guilds.
AO needs a special note here as although we all enjoyed the extend character customization this game has i think women were in their heaven.
I have not met many women who are into PvP but the few i have are as efficient and as driven as any male even maybe more, but the majority doesn't really enjoy it even in games designed around PvP like DAoC, interestingly though although in DAoC the women generaly didn't enjoy roaming group vs group pvp when the call to defend a castle was made they were first to run and rally the others, so what can i say women are allways like that unpredictable, who can really say that he understands them... /shrug.
I don't think crafting or fighting are either male or female. Each person is unique in what they want out of a game. I played computer games when my kids were young and now that they are married, I play mmo's to amuse myself. There are more of us older women playing games than you think. I personally get bored with crafting because I do enough of that in RL, (baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, crochet, etc.). I want adventure and exploration.
Originally posted by dnisis I don't think crafting or fighting are either male or female. Each person is unique in what they want out of a game. I played computer games when my kids were young and now that they are married, I play mmo's to amuse myself. There are more of us older women playing games than you think. I personally get bored with crafting because I do enough of that in RL, (baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, crochet, etc.). I want adventure and exploration.
Nice to see some of us...err more mature woman in to MMO's LOL! I wish I knew how to sew have thought of taking up some classes, but I think that is why I am tailor in all the MMO games I play now
Originally posted by osiloa Nice to see some of us...err more mature woman in to MMO's LOL! I wish I knew how to sew have thought of taking up some classes, but I think that is why I am tailor in all the MMO games I play now
Go for it! The local colleges sometimes have old fashioned home economics classes teaching sewing and even tailoring. Ours has gourmet cooking also. I want to take a stained glass class this fall so I can start making some decorative panels.
Nice to see some of us...err more mature woman in to MMO's LOL! I wish I knew how to sew have thought of taking up some classes, but I think that is why I am tailor in all the MMO games I play now
Go for it! The local colleges sometimes have old fashioned home economics classes teaching sewing and even tailoring. Ours has gourmet cooking also. I want to take a stained glass class this fall so I can start making some decorative panels.
"I don't do crafting in games; it is tedious and not creative like crafting in rl." -Brynn
"Lets stop rehashing the same devide and forget the whole female gamer debate." - Sinkael
I agree with these statements. Stereotypes are just plain wrong. I liked to collect rescources in UO. I had my own business. Selling hides. That way i did combat, made a buck and felt involved in the virtual community. You might think that this borders on a job, and youd be right. But how do you make an online world, get thousands of people to interact and not have it end up like a single player experience? By making people useful to one another.
And most people i know who are involved in trades in reallife are men.
Well I am a femail gamer and over 40. I will be 48 this August to be exact and I have been gaming since the Commodore 64 and Atri 2600. lol My first mmo was Asheron's Call and that hooked me, before that I loved Diablo and Warcraft. But I degress. I am happiest with a sharp sword in my hand. I will do crafting to the extent that I need a lot of potions as I solo alot, so I will learn alchemy and whatever else the current mmo requires to be efficient at it, and that is about it. Oh in Wow I also did enchanting for much the same reason, to boost my skills, but that's it. I love wielding that sword and yes I was/am a "tomboy" and a rebel.
Julie "Lissette" Myers Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of LotRO formally, Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of DDO Lyssette of Anarchy Online Lissette of Shadowbane Lissette of Asheron's Call Lissy of World of Warcraft And many more!
Crafting can be amusing at times, but I dont play video games to make money in them........ I play to have fun.
Crafting to me (can) feel like working---- and I dont need to come home from a long day at work just to sit down and play a game where I feel like im right back at work.
Im there to kick @$$ and take names, chat with my guildies and have fun.
Originally posted by Lissette Well I am a femail gamer and over 40. I will be 48 this August to be exact and I have been gaming since the Commodore 64 and Atri 2600. lol My first mmo was Asheron's Call and that hooked me, before that I loved Diablo and Warcraft. But I degress. I am happiest with a sharp sword in my hand. I will do crafting to the extent that I need a lot of potions as I solo alot, so I will learn alchemy and whatever else the current mmo requires to be efficient at it, and that is about it. Oh in Wow I also did enchanting for much the same reason, to boost my skills, but that's it. I love wielding that sword and yes I was/am a "tomboy" and a rebel.
Oh, I think I've seen you on AO a few times in the past ... When I used to play.... I'm kind of with you there, I tend to solo a lot mostly because I don't have a regular timing for groups and am always switching windows ;x
Originally posted by daniellex55 Crafting can be amusing at times, but I dont play video games to make money in them........ I play to have fun.
Crafting to me (can) feel like working---- and I dont need to come home from a long day at work just to sit down and play a game where I feel like im right back at work.
Im there to kick @$$ and take names, chat with my guildies and have fun.
I don't think crafting has anything to do with gender, either. Ideally, gender should be a non-issue in MMOs in general. Unfortunately, there are a lot of stereotypes that affect game design. It's not so much that game developers aren't doing enough to specifically target women; it's that they've been focusing too much on targeting men. The main problem is that in our culture, for a variety of reasons that could fill up a book, many of us still think of video games as being made for guys. Even women who don't believe that have a sense of being a "rebel" and a "tomboy" if they love video games (myself included).
Trying to target women with things the stereotypical woman should like will not fix the problem. I think most men will also agree that the MMO genre needs a lot of work; they get bored of repetitive gameplay, too! More innovation and varied gameplay should attract more female gamers and more gamers in general. The last thing we need is more stereotypes; don't games already rely too much on male stereotypes?
OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it.
Now to tie this to the craftign thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG trhough all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer coudl change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothign to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversly means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsiblity for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children aswell who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE).
So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
As a female myself, I am going to put myself on the non-crafting side of the fence. I just don't do tradeskills. I guess I feel like time spent making stuff is boring and could be better spent wreaking havoc. If I wanted to make stuff, I'd go crochet irl instead of making fake stuff inside a game. The only tradeskills I have ever raised at all were:
A) baking in EQ, once they added Plane of Knowledge with vendors right next to each other selling bat wings and fresh fish (cheap items to raise skill on). That was a "because it is there, and it is easy, and it is 2 hours til raid time" moment.
Skinning in WoW, because it is easy bonus loot.
Pretty much, if it doesn't involve cracking skulls or risking my virtual hide, I'm not doing it.
I don't think tradeskills are a female thing. I have known a couple of really tradeskill obsessed people who had multiple characters to cover every possible crafting angle, and who had maxed every tradeskill they could (and got good and rich for all that investment, in the end), and they were both men. I've known some women who did some tradeskilling too, but it never occurred to me to ever think that it was a more feminine pursuit in game. I'd have thought that men and business go together, and tradeskills, in the end, are business. *shrug*
... This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Originally posted by jaxinknight OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it. Now to tie this to the crafting thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG through all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer could change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothing to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversely means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsibility for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children as well who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE). So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
LOL! I absolutely refused and still refuse to play wow cause I want realism in the graphics/character graphics. Wow is just too "cartoony" for me
At the end what it really comes down to is that Game Developers are designing their games in sections and not as one whole unit. Crafting could be designed to be just as entertaining and rewarding as any quest you ever take if time was put into the system.
I agree with the point that having to quest for hours on end for a particular item just so i can fill a slot and hit the create button is pretty lame. If you could give me something that helps unlock the full potential of the item I just quested for that would make me feel alot better.
As for making crafting into a minigame. that is pretty iffy as it could have the possibility of alienating alot of players if they cannot establish the proper profeciency for the game. Also we dont want to play the game over and over again for minor items. SWG was good in this in terms that you could mass produce products.
The "crafting game" maybe should be some kind of building game to make it feel like your actually creating something. Games like yahoo games has listed. For instance for mining you can play one of these bejeweled games for creating potions the alchemy game. And you score could represent the amount of experience you receive and also the higher the score and the higher the difficulty the more you could mine or the better quality your potion would be.
That would be interesting. This would give artisan some nice down time that lets them advance their skills in a fun way rather then grinding and they can chat with other artisan.
Technically you can use all sorts of minigames across the skill ranges for "training" purposes. Instead of having people grind mindlessly. Everytime you wish to acquire a new skill you play a game to see where you profeciency starts at.
So we can rap this up the sky is the limit folks sky is the limit.
I wouldn't expect crafting in the current crop of MMORPGs to be especially interesting to anyone, including women.
1. It's too competitive.
For some reason, most MMORPG designers seem to think of crafting as a sales game. So they design their crafting systems just to give players something to sell.
That's fine for people who enjoy competitive sales games, but that doesn't describe everyone. There are also gamers who enjoy building things for the pleasure that creative activity offers. They only "craft" in MMORPGs because that's as close as they can come to making new things.
2. It's too focused on being a mere support function for the real focus of a game: combat.
When the whole point of your game is combat, but you also want to have a strong player-run economy, you tend to design your crafting system merely to support combat. This means that crafting becomes all about making a standardized product in large quantities. If your combat players can't get the gear they want when they want it at a cheap price, they'll be unhappy, and we can't have that.
So crafting becomes merely cranking out copies of stuff. There's no room for surprise, and no tolerance for individuality.
Which is why for several years now I've been proposing that crafting ought to be designed to be a fun activity in and of itself. Not merely as a sales game; not just to insure that combatants have all the armor and weapons they could ever want; but because a minigame that truly enables creative gameplay would bring in more paying subscribers.
Crafting needs to stop being designed in terms of product, and should instead be designed to highlight process. Sure, you ought to be able to make lots of the same thing if you want, but mass-produced stuff should never be as good as handmade items. Crafters should be able to experiment with new resources, and with putting different resources and components together in different ways to achieve surprising results.
In short, make the process of crafting fun. Make it enjoyable to create some new thing even if no one would ever want to buy that thing. Even "failures" can be instructive; not everything has to have an obvious purpose.
For the true crafter, the joy of crafting isn't about what you do with a thing once it's made -- it's in the making. It's not the product that matters -- it's the process.
When game designers start to appreciate this, their games will begin to attract the many men and women who are turned off by constantly competitive gameplay (combat and sales).
And if you wanted to attract women in particular, you'd design crafting so that it also rewards social and cooperative activities that build and nurture long-term relationships. That's not what every woman wants, but it does appear to be something that many women value, and game designers would be smart to recognize it and design gameplay accordingly.
Originally posted by osiloa Originally posted by jaxinknight OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it. Now to tie this to the crafting thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG through all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer could change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothing to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversely means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsibility for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children as well who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE). So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
LOL! I absolutely refused and still refuse to play wow cause I want realism in the graphics/character graphics. Wow is just too "cartoony" for me
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to beign completly item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor woudl always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its conan, 3 its rated mature which shoudl in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is goign to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunkin bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Originally posted by jaxinknight Originally posted by osiloa Originally posted by jaxinknight OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it. Now to tie this to the crafting thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG through all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer could change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothing to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversely means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsibility for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children as well who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH Nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE). So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
LOL! I absolutely refused and still refuse to play wow cause I want realism in the graphics/character graphics. Wow is just too "cartoony" for me
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to being completely item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor would always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its Conan, 3 its rated mature which should in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is going to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunken bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Oh ya! LOL! I have been a tailor in Star wars galaxies for 3 years now, still in the game despite NGE having killed my business. Right now I am waiting to see if Dark and light can iron out their launch problems Bugs graphics and the likes, wont even touch that game till at least August. Aion looks awesome I am hoping they will impliment crafting in that game. Heroes Journey looks like it is going to be a good game to and I can't forget Pirates of the burning sea.Conan Eh I have never liked the conan comic books/movies So I just can't get into that LOL!
Originally posted by osiloa Originally posted by jaxinknight Originally posted by osiloa Originally posted by jaxinknight OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it. Now to tie this to the crafting thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG through all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer could change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothing to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversely means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsibility for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children as well who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH Nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE). So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
LOL! I absolutely refused and still refuse to play wow cause I want realism in the graphics/character graphics. Wow is just too "cartoony" for me
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to being completely item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor would always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its Conan, 3 its rated mature which should in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is going to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunken bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Oh ya! LOL! I have been a tailor in Star wars galaxies for 3 years now, still in the game despite NGE having killed my business. Right now I am waiting to see if Dark and light can iron out their launch problems Bugs graphics and the likes, wont even touch that game till at least August. Aion looks awesome I am hoping they will impliment crafting in that game. Heroes Journey looks like it is going to be a good game to and I can't forget Pirates of the burning sea.Conan Eh I have never liked the conan comic books/movies So I just can't get into that LOL!
Forget teh comics and arnold, the books is where its at. Granted though they were written in the 30's and are not politically correct by any standard( which is why i love them they are realistic to the world today in terms of racial and gender tensions). Howards conan kicks arnolds butt anyday, and he could do it with hsi mind not just his sword.
The Game is also going to have an indepth craftign system that is meant to be better for the guild. I plan on being a weaponsmith in addition to my barbarian so that i might craft teh perfect atlantean steel blade that never dulls. But until then any peice of good steel will do whcih is why i like the game, coolness doesnt' = clones, liek the old composite clone wars or the jedi clones today in swg.
<p>I dont really understand why this is a debate. I have been playing MMO's for almost 4 years now, and never once have I encountered any gender roles besides lonely guys trying to pick up girls. I have played in many guilds in countless games with female players, and never once have they been treated any different than the male players, or see as tradeskillers or whatnot.
And umm, I cook, I sew my own stuff when I have to, cause I certainly am not gonna go crying to mom (who enjoys sewing) for it, and I clean my own damn apartment. I think some people are to stuck in the fact that somehow woman are still stuck in the roles they had in the 50's.
Granted, yeah, woman are still passed over in some areas of life for men, as some men dont realize the world has changed, and alot of the women could do twice as good a job s they could, but they have the dick, so they are the king. Its pathetic really, and I should know. I live in an area where women still have a difficult time getting good positions, because most of the businesses are run by men who give their "buddies" all the top positions, regardless of wether they can do their damn job or not.
Of course, take for instance my mother, who, despite this, is a manage of both human resources AND plant management, and has plenty of these manly men under her command.
The fact is, woman can do just as well as men, and vice versa. Still, your going to have woman who like to be housewives, who like their men to be manly dominate apes. Your gonna have guys who wanna be housedads while the wife brings in the money. Times are changing people, either get with the flow, or go and hide in a shack, cause frankly your just gonna be hurting the population with your stupidity, and your gonna hate your life cause the majority of people arnt going to agree with your primative and oppresive ways.
(I want to say here, that why some of this is a little rude, I believe it needs to be said, because there are still, sadly enough, people in this world who live by outdated, unmoral, stupid codes of conduct. There are still those who believe blacks dont have the same rights as white, or woman are inferior to men. Its stupid, its retarded, and I, as a man who knows woman more talented that him, and respects them for it, and proud to say those people can shove it. Attitudes like that will get us nowhere in this world, and while this post may seem somewhat immature and rude, its how I feel. Of course, something we all need to realize, and something I do to, is that this is how the world will be. There are always gonna be folk who want to believe something thats horrible, or oppresive, or deviate, or whatever youd like to say. I just wanted to speak/rant my opinion here, to give others insight. Thanks for reading, and if its offends, my apologies, but I needed to say it. And one last thing I wanna say. There are certain things, that women like more than men, and men like more than women. That doesnt mean to say women like those things is sexist, or whatnot. I have no doubt there is differences between men and women, hell, look at our biology for example. But I think people get to worked up over this stuff, and freak out, when there is no reason to, because in the end, its pretty damn stupid to think one sex is better or worse than the other.)
Aight buddy i hate to do this but i have to. The Job: you need a 20 tons of heavy brick moved from the query to the trucks. You have 3 hrs. you have two crews to choose and cannot mix and match. If the job does not get done you are fired. The first crew consists of 20 men, all average build . The second crew consists of 20 women, all average build. The average man can support up to 2 times his weight on his back before he will fail to lift the object. the average woman can support 1.3 times her weight due to her different biological structure designed to center weight on her hips. therefore for all purposes the 20 men group has the power of twice its wieght in carrying potential per trip to the truck, while the female group has only 1.3 per trip. No tools such as forklifts, backhoes, or pulleys can be used. Which group do you choose for the job?
If you answered the women, i know your reasoning, they will work together and get done quicker. Now lets do soem more math. a carying wieght of 1.3 times body weight means that in order to get only a .6 increase over the man it takes twice the (wo)man power reducing the total bricks carried by half per trip. This equals more trips which equals more time which means your fired. Average weight of a woman that is in shape and of medium build is 120lbs that means at most she can carry 160 lbs of brick. This multiplied by 20 women means roughly 1 ton is carried on the trip. if each trip takes 20 minutes to the truck and back you can get 9 trips which is only half of the load. the men on the other hand have an average weight for the average build of 175 lbs. This allows each man to carry 350 lbs that means that 7000 lbs or 3 and a half tons are carried per trip. if you have 9 trips you could move 27 tons of brick.
So you see there are some jobs men are better equiped for, now lets look at the corperate world. Women have a more interconnected corpus collosum, or the organ that conects both hemispheres of the brain. This means a woman can better utilize both halfs of the brain in making decisions. This gives the appearance of multitasking because it allows a woman to quickly jump back and forth between task. This also means that both tasks with take longer to perform than simply doign the first task first and moving on. in a corperate world one is required to make decisions and meet deadlines. Delay sometimes cost millions of dollars. in theory you would want the fastest decision maker, if the decisions sucks well sometimes indecision is worse than a poor one. The so-called "glass ceiling" exists only because women in general let it exist. Most women that take the initiative to challenge the ceiling do break through it if they can cut it. And most of the companies that only give work to men that are less qualified fall behind due to crappy work. Now unfortunalty the women who do push ahead are shunned by their fellow women( this is the reason we won't have a female president in america any time soon the women wouldnt' vote for her because its like helpign the competition). Yes times are changing, but they will only change so far. As i once said in my government class, You can't have equality and still have high pedestals,( this was with regards to affirmative action in schools but it works here too) you cannot reward someone for how they were born if one can not also penalize them.
As a female gamer, I enjoy crafting for the product. I enjoy crafting for my friends becuase I seem to have more patience then they do. However, in the games I play though maybe a while after I do, most of the guys do pick up a craft. Usually, becuase of boredom. "Gathering" can be an exciting part of the game. That all depends on the game. In some games, you get attacked when gathering and another pc will steal your haul. In other games, it is only monsters or critters you have to watch out for. What games need to improve on in their crafting world is to roll everything up. Make gathering a little more interesting. Not saying everytime you go out you get killed. However, maybe the really nice objects you want for crafting come from a Dragon's Lair. Then, making the objects usable, now that is more mundane not much danger their and it should stay that way, unless your working with chemical type stuff. Finally getting the finished project, what really upsets Master crafters, those who have topped out on their craft is not getting master items very easy when they spent all the time and money on it. Don't forget, a large part of crafting is variety. Or even a makers mark. Having multiple designs available to create your own thing.
On the other hand I know many female gamers that are just as happy to go into a killing mode as any male gamer. There the excitement is power, and challenge. To be in a different role then what they live in.
As far as females and males working in different environments, that is mostly right. Except that now you have females that are roughly the size and build of men that can and will carry what they can. As well as some men that just work better in a corporate environment.
My point to all this is that stereo-typing is not always accurate. Percentage wise usually you can stereo-type by more then 50percent. Crafting is an important part of the games, but not always what women want to see.
Above all, women as well as men play this game to succeed in a different reality. They may be the top of their food chain in their real life profession, but what's wrong with a little variety and being the best assassin? Or, maybe just a housewife in real who wants to lead armies of pc's with her tactical expertise? It's all a game, and if you want players, make it more enjoyable to them then what they would be doing off the computer.
Comments
I only craft when i am bored...its kind of relaxing..have a weaponcrafter on daoc..
Playing daoc and loving it totally..
have Played
Eq,Eq2,WoW,Coh,Cov,
and other..
which i have forgotten..
Me man, me like crafting.
I always like the crafting not for making money, I always end up losing money more often then not (all the friends that get free stuff made) I dont think it has anything to do with gender, its got to do with personalaty.
(I know I cant spel if my life depended on it)
The only game where I could make big money on "crafting" was the old swg.
Why the "" on crafting? Beqous I made money on renting ppls lots and puting up something like 50 difrent mines and selling the minerals i gatherd. My real crafing gave me almost nothing. And for the stuff I sold I lost money, it was beter to sell the minerals
Ohh, I got a bit oftopic there
Crafting is for all not just women!
Of all the women i know playing mmorpgs, from the times UO came out were they were very few, to WoW were they are quite alot, tradeskills was definately never something i would say they are naturaly drawn to, of all the women i have met i don't think any ever played a game for the tradeskills or even really mastered the tradeskills.
The one thing i have seen common in women is that they are drawn to games or activities that strongly encourage socializing, even if socializing is not the main point, EQ was allways the mmorpg of choise for women and WoW has drawn to it quite a few because the way raids are made in these games they encourage guilds, and the women i have met enjoy the fact that they belong to a guild almost as much as the raiding itself, which i think women enjoy much more then men, raiding that is, and they are allways much more loyal and generaly they are an asset for guilds.
AO needs a special note here as although we all enjoyed the extend character customization this game has i think women were in their heaven.
I have not met many women who are into PvP but the few i have are as efficient and as driven as any male even maybe more, but the majority doesn't really enjoy it even in games designed around PvP like DAoC, interestingly though although in DAoC the women generaly didn't enjoy roaming group vs group pvp when the call to defend a castle was made they were first to run and rally the others, so what can i say women are allways like that unpredictable, who can really say that he understands them... /shrug.
Worst debate ever.
Crafting = Money
Everyone loves money, male or female!
I don't think crafting or fighting are either male or female. Each person is unique in what they want out of a game. I played computer games when my kids were young and now that they are married, I play mmo's to amuse myself. There are more of us older women playing games than you think. I personally get bored with crafting because I do enough of that in RL, (baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, crochet, etc.). I want adventure and exploration.
Go for it! The local colleges sometimes have old fashioned home economics classes teaching sewing and even tailoring. Ours has gourmet cooking also. I want to take a stained glass class this fall so I can start making some decorative panels.
Go for it! The local colleges sometimes have old fashioned home economics classes teaching sewing and even tailoring. Ours has gourmet cooking also. I want to take a stained glass class this fall so I can start making some decorative panels.
I just may do that.
"I don't do crafting in games; it is tedious and not creative like crafting in rl." - Brynn
"Lets stop rehashing the same devide and forget the whole female gamer debate." - Sinkael
I agree with these statements. Stereotypes are just plain wrong. I liked to collect rescources in UO. I had my own business. Selling hides. That way i did combat, made a buck and felt involved in the virtual community. You might think that this borders on a job, and youd be right. But how do you make an online world, get thousands of people to interact and not have it end up like a single player experience? By making people useful to one another.
And most people i know who are involved in trades in reallife are men.
Julie "Lissette" Myers
Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of LotRO
formally,
Lissette, Lissy, Lyssette etc of DDO
Lyssette of Anarchy Online
Lissette of Shadowbane
Lissette of Asheron's Call
Lissy of World of Warcraft
And many more!
Crafting to me (can) feel like working---- and I dont need to come home from a long day at work just to sit down and play a game where I feel like im right back at work.
Im there to kick @$$ and take names, chat with my guildies and have fun.
I don't think crafting has anything to do with gender, either. Ideally, gender should be a non-issue in MMOs in general. Unfortunately, there are a lot of stereotypes that affect game design. It's not so much that game developers aren't doing enough to specifically target women; it's that they've been focusing too much on targeting men. The main problem is that in our culture, for a variety of reasons that could fill up a book, many of us still think of video games as being made for guys. Even women who don't believe that have a sense of being a "rebel" and a "tomboy" if they love video games (myself included).
Trying to target women with things the stereotypical woman should like will not fix the problem. I think most men will also agree that the MMO genre needs a lot of work; they get bored of repetitive gameplay, too! More innovation and varied gameplay should attract more female gamers and more gamers in general. The last thing we need is more stereotypes; don't games already rely too much on male stereotypes?
OK, i think this debate is only a top layer of the more central debate in female gamers vs male gamers. In my opinion the finishing decision be it subconscious or conscious is the item and its importance in an MMO. Games like WOW are extremely item centric, in other words its not player skill that determines success but your equipment. THis allows the collector to have a handicap in their favor when entering PVP. Women in general are more Item Centric by nature. How many guys go out and by that pair of diamond earrings that match that one outfit that they will only wear once, the answer is not many therefore the more item centric the game is the more likely women are to play it.
Now to tie this to the craftign thing. What better way to get all the items you'd ever want than to be a crafter. I've played SWG trhough all three combat systems and the majority of the Tailors, Chefs, Dancers, Image Designers, and Creature handlers i ever encountered were women. Now lets think about it, it couldn't be the collecting nature of these professions or the fact that an image designer coudl change her makeup on the fly and craft the clothign to match it. I also think the reason for the majority of the Creature handler profession being female was due to the back seat combat style. You didn't fight your pets did, which also conversly means when you loose its your items fault not yours meaning you do not have to take responsiblity for your actions. Now this is not only true of women but of insecure men and children aswell who also can not accept the fact that there is someone out there that is better than them in every way possible. The fear of the woman is that it is a man, the fear of the man is that it is a woman, and the fear of the child is that it is anyone and they will cry when it happens.( NERF this i lost to a jedi NERF this i lost to a BH nerf the game to my level and call it the NGE).
So in conclusion, Item Centric nature is the greater draw for female gamers than a skill centric game that makes equipment take a back seat to strategy, and also takes the responsibility off of the player for failure.
As a female myself, I am going to put myself on the non-crafting side of the fence. I just don't do tradeskills. I guess I feel like time spent making stuff is boring and could be better spent wreaking havoc. If I wanted to make stuff, I'd go crochet irl instead of making fake stuff inside a game. The only tradeskills I have ever raised at all were:
A) baking in EQ, once they added Plane of Knowledge with vendors right next to each other selling bat wings and fresh fish (cheap items to raise skill on). That was a "because it is there, and it is easy, and it is 2 hours til raid time" moment.
Pretty much, if it doesn't involve cracking skulls or risking my virtual hide, I'm not doing it.
I don't think tradeskills are a female thing. I have known a couple of really tradeskill obsessed people who had multiple characters to cover every possible crafting angle, and who had maxed every tradeskill they could (and got good and rich for all that investment, in the end), and they were both men. I've known some women who did some tradeskilling too, but it never occurred to me to ever think that it was a more feminine pursuit in game. I'd have thought that men and business go together, and tradeskills, in the end, are business. *shrug*
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
At the end what it really comes down to is that Game Developers are designing their games in sections and not as one whole unit. Crafting could be designed to be just as entertaining and rewarding as any quest you ever take if time was put into the system.
I agree with the point that having to quest for hours on end for a particular item just so i can fill a slot and hit the create button is pretty lame. If you could give me something that helps unlock the full potential of the item I just quested for that would make me feel alot better.
As for making crafting into a minigame. that is pretty iffy as it could have the possibility of alienating alot of players if they cannot establish the proper profeciency for the game. Also we dont want to play the game over and over again for minor items. SWG was good in this in terms that you could mass produce products.
The "crafting game" maybe should be some kind of building game to make it feel like your actually creating something. Games like yahoo games has listed. For instance for mining you can play one of these bejeweled games for creating potions the alchemy game. And you score could represent the amount of experience you receive and also the higher the score and the higher the difficulty the more you could mine or the better quality your potion would be.
That would be interesting. This would give artisan some nice down time that lets them advance their skills in a fun way rather then grinding and they can chat with other artisan.
Technically you can use all sorts of minigames across the skill ranges for "training" purposes. Instead of having people grind mindlessly. Everytime you wish to acquire a new skill you play a game to see where you profeciency starts at.
So we can rap this up the sky is the limit folks sky is the limit.
Faranthil Tanathalos
EverQuest 1 - Ranger
Star Wars Galaxies - Master Ranger
Everquest2 - Ranger WarhammerOnline - Shadow Warrior
WOW - Hunter
That's right I like bows and arrows.
I wouldn't expect crafting in the current crop of MMORPGs to be especially interesting to anyone, including women.
1. It's too competitive.
For some reason, most MMORPG designers seem to think of crafting as a sales game. So they design their crafting systems just to give players something to sell.
That's fine for people who enjoy competitive sales games, but that doesn't describe everyone. There are also gamers who enjoy building things for the pleasure that creative activity offers. They only "craft" in MMORPGs because that's as close as they can come to making new things.
2. It's too focused on being a mere support function for the real focus of a game: combat.
When the whole point of your game is combat, but you also want to have a strong player-run economy, you tend to design your crafting system merely to support combat. This means that crafting becomes all about making a standardized product in large quantities. If your combat players can't get the gear they want when they want it at a cheap price, they'll be unhappy, and we can't have that.
So crafting becomes merely cranking out copies of stuff. There's no room for surprise, and no tolerance for individuality.
Which is why for several years now I've been proposing that crafting ought to be designed to be a fun activity in and of itself. Not merely as a sales game; not just to insure that combatants have all the armor and weapons they could ever want; but because a minigame that truly enables creative gameplay would bring in more paying subscribers.
Crafting needs to stop being designed in terms of product, and should instead be designed to highlight process. Sure, you ought to be able to make lots of the same thing if you want, but mass-produced stuff should never be as good as handmade items. Crafters should be able to experiment with new resources, and with putting different resources and components together in different ways to achieve surprising results.
In short, make the process of crafting fun. Make it enjoyable to create some new thing even if no one would ever want to buy that thing. Even "failures" can be instructive; not everything has to have an obvious purpose.
For the true crafter, the joy of crafting isn't about what you do with a thing once it's made -- it's in the making. It's not the product that matters -- it's the process.
When game designers start to appreciate this, their games will begin to attract the many men and women who are turned off by constantly competitive gameplay (combat and sales).
And if you wanted to attract women in particular, you'd design crafting so that it also rewards social and cooperative activities that build and nurture long-term relationships. That's not what every woman wants, but it does appear to be something that many women value, and game designers would be smart to recognize it and design gameplay accordingly.
Just my opinion, of course.
--Flatfingers
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to beign completly item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor woudl always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its conan, 3 its rated mature which shoudl in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is goign to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunkin bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to being completely item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor would always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its Conan, 3 its rated mature which should in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is going to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunken bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Oh ya! LOL!
I have been a tailor in Star wars galaxies for 3 years now, still in the game despite NGE having killed my business.
Right now I am waiting to see if Dark and light can iron out their launch problems Bugs graphics and the likes, wont even touch that game till at least August. Aion looks awesome I am hoping they will impliment crafting in that game. Heroes Journey looks like it is going to be a good game to and I can't forget Pirates of the burning sea.
Oh yeah i played wow for all of abotu 1 month and did allittle beta testing. The cartoonish graphics always bugged the hell out of me, and once the game went to being completely item centric( which wasn't the case in beta) and i realized it did not matter how strategic i was that Paladin with perfect loot armor would always kill my hunter, i said screw this and went back to SWG, because at least there ( this is cu era) strategy meant something. I am really looking forward to Age of Conan, because 1 i am a Howard nut. 2 its Conan, 3 its rated mature which should in theory cut down on the 12 year olds. 4 its looking like its not going to be extremely item centric( there are whole classes that specialize in no armor or little to no armor) and a sword is going to be deadly at any level but more deadly in the trained hand. Plus theres drunken bar fighting. It's a man's game though atm on the AOC forums, btu i hope that changes slightly. But i also hope it doesn't change because the nature of the game goes PC instead of true to howard.
Oh ya! LOL!
I have been a tailor in Star wars galaxies for 3 years now, still in the game despite NGE having killed my business.
Right now I am waiting to see if Dark and light can iron out their launch problems Bugs graphics and the likes, wont even touch that game till at least August. Aion looks awesome I am hoping they will impliment crafting in that game. Heroes Journey looks like it is going to be a good game to and I can't forget Pirates of the burning sea.
Forget teh comics and arnold, the books is where its at. Granted though they were written in the 30's and are not politically correct by any standard( which is why i love them they are realistic to the world today in terms of racial and gender tensions). Howards conan kicks arnolds butt anyday, and he could do it with hsi mind not just his sword.
The Game is also going to have an indepth craftign system that is meant to be better for the guild. I plan on being a weaponsmith in addition to my barbarian so that i might craft teh perfect atlantean steel blade that never dulls. But until then any peice of good steel will do whcih is why i like the game, coolness doesnt' = clones, liek the old composite clone wars or the jedi clones today in swg.
<p>I dont really understand why this is a debate. I have been playing MMO's for almost 4 years now, and never once have I encountered any gender roles besides lonely guys trying to pick up girls. I have played in many guilds in countless games with female players, and never once have they been treated any different than the male players, or see as tradeskillers or whatnot.
And umm, I cook, I sew my own stuff when I have to, cause I certainly am not gonna go crying to mom (who enjoys sewing) for it, and I clean my own damn apartment. I think some people are to stuck in the fact that somehow woman are still stuck in the roles they had in the 50's.
Granted, yeah, woman are still passed over in some areas of life for men, as some men dont realize the world has changed, and alot of the women could do twice as good a job s they could, but they have the dick, so they are the king. Its pathetic really, and I should know. I live in an area where women still have a difficult time getting good positions, because most of the businesses are run by men who give their "buddies" all the top positions, regardless of wether they can do their damn job or not.
Of course, take for instance my mother, who, despite this, is a manage of both human resources AND plant management, and has plenty of these manly men under her command.
The fact is, woman can do just as well as men, and vice versa. Still, your going to have woman who like to be housewives, who like their men to be manly dominate apes. Your gonna have guys who wanna be housedads while the wife brings in the money. Times are changing people, either get with the flow, or go and hide in a shack, cause frankly your just gonna be hurting the population with your stupidity, and your gonna hate your life cause the majority of people arnt going to agree with your primative and oppresive ways.
(I want to say here, that why some of this is a little rude, I believe it needs to be said, because there are still, sadly enough, people in this world who live by outdated, unmoral, stupid codes of conduct. There are still those who believe blacks dont have the same rights as white, or woman are inferior to men. Its stupid, its retarded, and I, as a man who knows woman more talented that him, and respects them for it, and proud to say those people can shove it. Attitudes like that will get us nowhere in this world, and while this post may seem somewhat immature and rude, its how I feel. Of course, something we all need to realize, and something I do to, is that this is how the world will be. There are always gonna be folk who want to believe something thats horrible, or oppresive, or deviate, or whatever youd like to say. I just wanted to speak/rant my opinion here, to give others insight. Thanks for reading, and if its offends, my apologies, but I needed to say it. And one last thing I wanna say. There are certain things, that women like more than men, and men like more than women. That doesnt mean to say women like those things is sexist, or whatnot. I have no doubt there is differences between men and women, hell, look at our biology for example. But I think people get to worked up over this stuff, and freak out, when there is no reason to, because in the end, its pretty damn stupid to think one sex is better or worse than the other.)
The Job: you need a 20 tons of heavy brick moved from the query to the trucks.
You have 3 hrs.
you have two crews to choose and cannot mix and match. If the job does not get done you are fired. The first crew consists of 20 men, all average build . The second crew consists of 20 women, all average build. The average man can support up to 2 times his weight on his back before he will fail to lift the object. the average woman can support 1.3 times her weight due to her different biological structure designed to center weight on her hips. therefore for all purposes the 20 men group has the power of twice its wieght in carrying potential per trip to the truck, while the female group has only 1.3 per trip. No tools such as forklifts, backhoes, or pulleys can be used. Which group do you choose for the job?
If you answered the women, i know your reasoning, they will work together and get done quicker. Now lets do soem more math. a carying wieght of 1.3 times body weight means that in order to get only a .6 increase over the man it takes twice the (wo)man power reducing the total bricks carried by half per trip. This equals more trips which equals more time which means your fired. Average weight of a woman that is in shape and of medium build is 120lbs that means at most she can carry 160 lbs of brick. This multiplied by 20 women means roughly 1 ton is carried on the trip. if each trip takes 20 minutes to the truck and back you can get 9 trips which is only half of the load. the men on the other hand have an average weight for the average build of 175 lbs. This allows each man to carry 350 lbs that means that 7000 lbs or 3 and a half tons are carried per trip. if you have 9 trips you could move 27 tons of brick.
So you see there are some jobs men are better equiped for, now lets look at the corperate world. Women have a more interconnected corpus collosum, or the organ that conects both hemispheres of the brain. This means a woman can better utilize both halfs of the brain in making decisions. This gives the appearance of multitasking because it allows a woman to quickly jump back and forth between task. This also means that both tasks with take longer to perform than simply doign the first task first and moving on. in a corperate world one is required to make decisions and meet deadlines. Delay sometimes cost millions of dollars. in theory you would want the fastest decision maker, if the decisions sucks well sometimes indecision is worse than a poor one. The so-called "glass ceiling" exists only because women in general let it exist. Most women that take the initiative to challenge the ceiling do break through it if they can cut it. And most of the companies that only give work to men that are less qualified fall behind due to crappy work. Now unfortunalty the women who do push ahead are shunned by their fellow women( this is the reason we won't have a female president in america any time soon the women wouldnt' vote for her because its like helpign the competition). Yes times are changing, but they will only change so far. As i once said in my government class, You can't have equality and still have high pedestals,( this was with regards to affirmative action in schools but it works here too) you cannot reward someone for how they were born if one can not also penalize them.
As a female gamer, I enjoy crafting for the product. I enjoy crafting for my friends becuase I seem to have more patience then they do. However, in the games I play though maybe a while after I do, most of the guys do pick up a craft. Usually, becuase of boredom. "Gathering" can be an exciting part of the game. That all depends on the game. In some games, you get attacked when gathering and another pc will steal your haul. In other games, it is only monsters or critters you have to watch out for. What games need to improve on in their crafting world is to roll everything up. Make gathering a little more interesting. Not saying everytime you go out you get killed. However, maybe the really nice objects you want for crafting come from a Dragon's Lair. Then, making the objects usable, now that is more mundane not much danger their and it should stay that way, unless your working with chemical type stuff. Finally getting the finished project, what really upsets Master crafters, those who have topped out on their craft is not getting master items very easy when they spent all the time and money on it. Don't forget, a large part of crafting is variety. Or even a makers mark. Having multiple designs available to create your own thing.
On the other hand I know many female gamers that are just as happy to go into a killing mode as any male gamer. There the excitement is power, and challenge. To be in a different role then what they live in.
As far as females and males working in different environments, that is mostly right. Except that now you have females that are roughly the size and build of men that can and will carry what they can. As well as some men that just work better in a corporate environment.
My point to all this is that stereo-typing is not always accurate. Percentage wise usually you can stereo-type by more then 50percent. Crafting is an important part of the games, but not always what women want to see.
Above all, women as well as men play this game to succeed in a different reality. They may be the top of their food chain in their real life profession, but what's wrong with a little variety and being the best assassin? Or, maybe just a housewife in real who wants to lead armies of pc's with her tactical expertise? It's all a game, and if you want players, make it more enjoyable to them then what they would be doing off the computer.