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MMO Bans Men Playing As Women
jkcity writes "In a bizarre move Aurora Technology the owners of the King of the World MMORPG has taken the unusual step of banning men who play women characters but the ban itself does not stretch to women playing men. If you want to play as a woman now in game you have to prove you are a women via web cam. This is something that people ask for in many mmorpgs I myself have seen people say people who play women in EVE online as being some kind of degenerate but how long can a policy of verification by web cam last since its so easy to get around it doesn't seem to solve much and is an insult to many."
no role playing in a Role Playing Game?
Time to become a transsexual.
If I am playing a MMORPG, I am going to be spending a lot of time looking at my avatar. Why can't my avatar be something I like looking at?
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
... for the Aurora guys to look at gamer girls on their webcams.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
Is this really a good idea, especially from a marketing perspective? A lot of adolescent male players buy these games so that they can dress up as a hot chick! Do you think Everquest would have sold as many copies if it wasn't for the hot she-elf on the cover of the game?
I've played male and female chars in mmo's and have had no problems. It depends on the person playing, if they are going to cause trouble they are going to cause trouble no matter what gender.
Also, no matter how hard you beg the developer, that hot elven chick just won't be that way in real life. And this step doesn't get you closer to that.
...as suddenly, the in-game populations turn to about 80% male, 20% female.
And that's a conservative guess...I bet most would skew it even more towards male players.
This is something that people ask for in many mmorpgs I myself have seen people say people who play women in EVE online as being some kind of degenerate but how long can a policy of verification by web cam last since its so easy to get around it doesn't seem to solve much and is an insult to many.
Maybe the mods are to blame for that, but wow.
If it's just a one-time webcam thing, the people who are really desperate can have their mom or sister appear on the webcam for them. Even Grandma Nana counts as a woman!
This is a role playing game. One of the attributes of a role is gender. And you get to choose. I play WoW and I have both male and female chars. This is quite normal IMO. You fond out the true gender of somebody when having them in voice chat. You can be friends with them and adventure together before/without that.
Also would this one-sided policy not directly violate anti-discrimination laws? Seems to me it does.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yah sure, they want webcams for all the female characters to "verify their gender". What you missed in your article is the fine print:
Webcam rules:
1.) Webcam image quality must be sufficient to see subject clearly.
2.) No objects should be placed so as to obstruct at least the top half of the body.
3.) Subject should be nude.
4.) No fatties.
I /do/ look like Lucy Lawless!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
It's not too hard for a men to disguise as a women, specially under a webcam feed. Really motivated (and weird) dudes will certainly keep playing as women if they want to.
And in other news, all female characters disappear from King of the World. :)
is the final link in the summary.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
So can I not be a 400 year-old wise mage, when I'm neither old, nor wise?
And all of a sudden, female avatars started gathering more male players than ever before trying to get them into their multiplayer party, and harass them with guild recruitments. :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
When playing a game that requires a huge time commitment, I'd rather oggle at the backside of a female with revealing cloth armor for hours on end than the backside of a male.
If my avatar online is female, what difference does does it make whether the player behind it is male or female unless you're only online to try to have sex with me?
I really can't see any good reason that this is bothering anyone other than slightly creepy people. (Which I guess includes the game company running that MMO.)
...at online chat rooms. Everyone seems to think I need to verify my gender. It's getting to be where a guy can't pose as a female anywhere anymore.
Sheesh!
Take your mod and shove it!
So there was something unaccepatble about me playing as Chun Li in SF2 so many years ago?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
...if i were a woman, i would have to buy a webcam to play a woman in a game? yeah, sounds... kinda idiotic.
If this were happening on WoW or Everquest in a civilized First World nation, it might be news. That it's happening in a totally fouled-up place like China is just not very interesting at all.
Like, there are going to be some existing male-as-female players, and to bring them in line with the policy, you'd have to make the female avatar male. Doesn't an RPG have to have some storyline reason for this?
(If they're planning to "grandfather" ["grandmother?"] existing male-as-female avatars, that'll probably create even more problems for them.)
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
And I was just getting into Metroid Prime 3.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
"My virtual wife is a real man" we'll speak you gamers whose online marriages were a sham.
There's nothing that a wig and a little make-up won't fix.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
When Sexybabe88, the Night Elf Priestess, gets on vent and sounds like the guy from "Saw"... my heart breaks a little every time it happens :(
One of my favorite MUD characters was a Pratchett-style dwarven woman (I'm a man). I had such a blast enjoying peoples' double-takes, whenever they'd see me stroking my beard in thought.
At least let men play female dwarves. They're practically male anyway.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
...if they only let single hotties in too. And your username must include your dimensions.
AFAIK there's not significant roleplaying in most MMORPGs.
;).
;).
So, say you're a straight guy and not into role playing. Why would you prefer looking at a male character for hours? Usually the camera position in such games would be _behind_ the character, so you'd be staring at the male character's ugly back or butt for hours
While the male characters are unlikely to be as bad as goatse.cx, given the larger numbers of males in the game developing industry - I'm sure the female characters are going to look better than the male ones
If I control an animal, robot, car or vehicle in a game, I sure don't expect it to resemble me.
A little known MMO that I have never heard of has pulled a publicity stunt and gotten some free coverage from Slashdot. What what what? Slashdot is there target demographic. Congratulations sirs PT Barnum would be proud.
Do they require the full sheila-na-gig? Because anyone can dress like a female. And I've seen masculine looking women, who really ought to talk to an endocrinologist, or at least a beautician.
Also, incontrovertible webcam proof can run them afoul of child pornography laws if they don't have extremely robust age verification in place. (Credit card age verification is not enough since kids sometimes "borrow" their parents' credit cards)
More music, fewer hits
Any straight man who enjoys staring another man's arse for X hours a day is not straight. THAT is why I play a woman in MMORPGs.
There can't be anyone who couldn't get a female to pop onto the cam for a minute in order to spoof the system. Not even difficult enough to act as a preventative measure. The only point I could see is as a way of making sure that players 'know' it's part of the TOS, and for free advertising.
Everything will be taken away from you.
Everyone knows that 99% of female players in any game are just sneaky little greedy losers who like to find some little 14 year old and charm him into giving her all kinds of free stuff. I've seen it in 3 different games I've played. But it's kinda stupid cuz the actual females playing as females do that too.
Where's the escapism? Why would they waste their time doing that in a game when they do it every day in real life?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Crow T. Robot: Aaaah, women. Women, women, women, women, women, women, women. Ha-ha-ha-ha. For you young fellows, fresh on the cusp of a blooming manhood, the questions are abound: What are women like? What do women want? How should I treat a women[sp!]? Perhaps the thorniest problem facing any young man is finding a woman in the first place! It turns out to be... nearly impossible! This reporter spent countless hours searching for a woman, like these pictured here:
...to no avail. The nearest we came during a tense stakeout was this fellow:
...who experts believe, is not a woman. We begin to wonder, where are all the women? The over-heated references in poetry, the images that dominate our media, is it all an elaborate fraud? This grainy photograph is the only direct evidence we have of a woman in her natural environment:
...while possibly the work of jokesters, is another piece of the puzzle! And it is hard to discount this man's terrifying story!
[clips of Hobgoblins, with Amy and Daphne in them]
Crow T. Robot:
[a clip of Mike Nelson biting into a sandwich,]
Crow T. Robot:
[A black and white, Bigfoot-like photo of a large woman in a forest]
Crow T. Robot: The longer hair, the gentle and nurturing demeanor are typical of how witnesses describe their supposed encounters with women. This footprint...
[Crow stands beside a clay model of a huge Bigfoot-sized footprint]
Crow T. Robot:
Mustachioed Crow T. Robot: Then... uh... this woman - I think it was a woman... she... uh... married me.
Crow T. Robot: [off-screen as interviewer] Did you have any children, sir?
Mustachioed Crow T. Robot: I don't remember!
Crow T. Robot: Some day perhaps, an actual woman will emerge, and they will no longer exist only in the realm of myth and maybe. Thank You.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
In EVE Online you can't get out of your ship anyway! What difference could it possibly make?
I had both male and female toons in WoW also. I don't see what's the big deal.
Apparently the recently deceased whackjob of a supreme leader, Saparmurat Niyazov (AKA Serdar Turkmenbashi, "Leader of All Turkmen") banned male TV news anchors from wearing makeup because he mistook one for a woman. I wonder if that will be the next step in King of the World's plan.
Sex: M/F
Real-life sex: M/F
I predict this will last until a woman does the webcam thing and the person on the other end says "no way you look too much like a dude to play a girl character". She sues and this retarded policy is amended.
I am male. So for me to spend hours a day sitting at my computer desk, clicking away on a mouse and keyboard, making-believe that I am a hulking, heroic barbarian that battles dragons and saves worlds is all perfectly OK, but making-believe that I am a FEMALE hulking, heroir barbarian that battles dragons and saves worlds is silly, degenerate, etc? This doesn't make any sense to me.
Of course this is me in this webcam! Huh, you think it's odd that I'm erotically stripping? That's what I always do! I can prove that this is really me - see, I just put a shoe on my head!
So, if you're a guy, especially with a big beard and a deep voice verify anyway.
"But you're a guy"
"How dare you sir!"
"But you have a beard"
"And I'm a little sensitive about it. I'd rather you didn't mention it"
"And a deep voice"
"Yes. A lot of people comment on that."
"I'm not convinced you're a woman"
"I'll strip naked for you to prove it if you prefer"
"Yikes! No. That won't be neccesary. Thankyou for verifying you gender. Have a nice day, maam".
Is like a day behind on this "news" and apparently hasn't noticed the part about it not being even kinda true. Typical.
If I'm going to be staring at a virtual ass for 100's of hours I'd rather it be a female ass.
Not that I never play men in MMORPGs, but sometimes the character just works better as a woman. People who are actually trying to hit on someone based on their avatar need to get out more.
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
...if dude looks like a lady?
"But it's kinda stupid cuz the actual females playing as females do that too."
;)
Well, that's what females do in real life; use their feminine wiles to their advantage.
But your complaint is absurd. If one is unable to resist the feminine wiles of an online-character, then it's his own fault, not fault of the the person playing the female character.
I've known many that have played characters of the player's opposite sex (both men playing as women and women playing as men), and I see no problem with it. The whole point of playing RPGs (either multi-player or single-player) is to get to assume a role you could never assume in real life. The ability to choose your character's gender, ethnicity, etc, goes along with that.
This business of requiring webcams for anyone playing as a woman is the stupidest thing I've heard of in a long time.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Erm, what about transgendered individuals, such as your mother?
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
welcome to king of the world, where the men are men, the women are men, and the 12 year old girls are fbi agents...
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
Guess I can't play Metroid any more or I'll be a degenerate. Guess I had better not accept Princess Peach as a randomly generated character in Mario Kart either. Better not accept any randomly generated Wii characters either.
What a load of crap. It's fantasy - a game for goodness sake. My guess is really some loser who runs the service just wants to look at pictures of the people playing women characters.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
These games are fantasy. People will use them for prurient ends, but that's the nature of most people. Trying to make these games like reality is probably appealing to those of you selling "virtual objects," but upon inspection, is probably a really bad idea.
technical writing / development
What a fucked-up rule. I mean, it doesn't even make sense. Who cares?
And yes, I'm a guy who plays some female characters (and some male) in WoW. Not because I particularly look at them closely (I keep the camera way out), but just because it fits the character. Timi the tiny little warlock wouldn't be as FUNNY as a guy.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Raise your hand if you think an admin/dev had chat sex with one of the "female" players, and then found out it was a guy.
| | | |aaaaaa
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That's a hand, btw.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Isnt there some fake webcam software that shows some stock video? Using this can get you play as a gurl.
This is a wide-open target for a discrimination suit. You simply aren't allowed to say "no men as women" and still allow "women as men".
It's not just a gender thing. You can't make a rule at your restaurant "No Goatees". You might get away with "No Beards".
First, the company needs to establish that it has the right to even demand to know the gender of its customer. (This in itself might be evidence of a discriminatory practice). Then the company needs to establish that it's unacceptable (actionable, legally) that the customer represented the opposite gender when made to disclose this.
They would be better off terminating accounts for "no reason at all" than to do it for something that's obviously discriminatory on a gender bias. I imagine their contract lets them terminate without breach. But once you give a reason -- and that reason is one of those hot potatoes like gender, ethnicity, or religion -- you run the risk of finding yourself in court, defending your decision against a very motivated plaintiff (even if their case seems completely ridiculous to you.)
Getting away from the legal considerations, there's another issue: It's a bad idea to piss off the gays. Ask Kathy Griffin; the gay crowd is a gold mine.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Because of many complaints where male players prefering to have more attractive avatars, Aurora Technology has announced a compromise.
All players can continue to have female avatars, but unless they show themselves to be female in a webcam, the avatar must have a strap-on.
What a strange, strange policy. I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why they would even consider spending time and effort enforcing such a silly rule. ...Unless a certain executive got cyber-naughty with a hot "babe," only to look up their user information and get a mild shock. :D
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
The game will show how much of a sausage fest it really is. Numbers of female characters drop to incredibly low numbers and female players will get hounded and hunted by the droves of male players.
It's the same way with music. Back in highschool and college, I loved punk, I went to all the concerts until I realized they all were sausage fests. So I started going to POP music conerts and got so much tail I felt like a rock star.
You just didn't get to meet many chicks at a black flag concert at CBGB's and the ones that were there were scary or had angry boyfriends, you had your pick and could find someone to go home with you at a richard marx concert.
oh man, I feel old.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I can't imagine the level of comment's female characters will start receiving in game. When it's confirmed that each women character is really a female the comments will fly. My wife plays an MMO and gets people asking her constantly if she's a girl and if so they follow it up with some other comments that aren't very appropriate hehe.
Given the anonymity factor people are likely to say anything online.
Seriously, if you're going to spend untold hours looking at the rear of your character, then why not make it female? Or do you like staring at a male tush for hours on end?
Plus, if you're going to spend more time with your character than with your wife or girlfriend, why not make it female? A female avatar will either remind you about how the real thing is better, or it will soon become the only woman in your life. It's a win-win decision.
I don't know where this law comes from. An effort to protect women from men who pretend to be women is certainly the press release explanation, but it seems more likely due to men who want freedom to harass women, and don't want to be in a situation where they accidently harass another man. In any case it is a daft rule, as all it will do is increase the percentage of female registrants. Anyone who wishes to play a women can get a women to pose as the registrant. Or perhaps just dress as a women. I can just imagine the resulting lawsuit the first time they say a women looks too much like a man and deny's membership.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I started out in MMO's nearly a decade ago and I decided then, in the early years of Everquest, that I didn't want to play through 50 levels(at the time) and possible expansions looking at the back end of a male ogre(or a female ogre). So I chose a female woodelf and played for 4 and a half years.
Yikes, I'm sure this is shocking, earth-shattering news for the three MMO fans who don't play WOW.
Comment of the year
I happen to be a 53 year old guy playing female toons because I think girls are cute and if I'm going to stare at a toon for hours on end I might as well enjoy what I am looking at. I have always been straight forward about my identity, When I join a guild I fill in my profile who I am, I also give a truthful answer when people as me who I am. There are antics that I get to enjoy because stuck-up, men are too puffed up stiff with pride that they won't allow themselves to find fun, where a male toon would look stupid.
Any game that starts out bossing me around about my personal preferences when I'm not harming anyone, because I'm HONEST, is a game I'm NOT going to play any more or even stop playing!
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
Who the hell has one? Maybe 7 years ago they were super popular. Why not just look at the users registration info? If I was a woman I'd sure as hell wouldn't be sending in a live video/photo feed of myself.
Also this IS a game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game . Yes this is their software/game but this web cam Id request goes past weirdness as compared to a male players choice to play a female game character.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Obvious countermeasure: grab a girl webcam stream to disk and re-stream it when asked to "authenticate".
I think it actually goes something like this:
"TITS OR GTFO"
... would be for a large number of males to pick a female character, when they demand the webcam identification, the victims flash their throbbing male members and/or distended anus at the camera, and logoff.
Lets face it, this policy is only there to pink-triangle all the women on the game so that they can be marked for online stalking by whatever horny male geeks thought this policy up. But after being made to stare deeply and thoughtfully into the depths of a couple of hundred hairy male goatses, the gender nazis behind the cameras would probably decide that this rule would be more trouble than it's worth.
Remember, boys and girls, it's only racist if you're white and only sexist if you're male.
Hey, I know this is slashdot where the concept of a *girlfriend* is a strange one, but a lot of people do have them, even geeks! It doesn't even have to be a girlfriend, it can be your mother, your sister, or just a female friend. Have them come over and stand in front of the webcam to "prove" that they're female, then you'll play the character. How the heck is anyone in-game going to know that the "player" changed? Are they going to require that the webcam be kept up for as long as you're playing? If they do that, well that's one MMORPG that won't be around very long. People are going to vote with their feet and the game will be dead and shut down before the dust settles.
the fact that they wont allow you to play a woman unless you look "women enough", that they think that a simple low-res video will suffice in determining a persons gender, or that they seem to think that every male player playing a female avatar is just a guy trying to scam others out of items or trying to *GASP* trick the poor straights into catching "Teh GAY"!
of course there is no ban on women players playing as male avatars... cause everyone knows that if a male avatar is pining after a female avatar then chances are good it's male behind the keyboard, if it is a female player then lesbianism is hot! *rolls eyes*
well, I know one gaming company that won't be getting any of my money any time soon....
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
WTF? Sites like that with lame pop-up ads and shit like that are ripe for malware you stupid fuck.
As in real life, using sex to exploit another person would be immoral (unless there is a cultural double standard). The same principle applies online, if the situation is such that one could reasonably assume so. But a game, especially a role-playing game, where everyone is running around an elf, ninja, wizard, hacker, orc, alien, commando, or whatever, and the purpose is to have fun playing a game, then one cannot reasonably assume so.
ROFL My Waffles, I actually did a report in a college class on gender about gender selection in MMOs...
Out of about 6 or so people interviewed, the most common reasons given for playing as female were:
- Male characters are ugly in many games
- People (males) give you free stuff if you're a female character, especially a newbie
- People are more likely to help you if you're an attractive female character
- Females get better looking clothes
- Men want to look at an attractive avatar, and don't necessarily think of it as being themselves
- Females want to play an attractive character, or like the clothes a female char gets, but don't necessarily think of it as being themselves
Reasons people don't like playing female:
- Guys hit on you constantly
- Occasional stalkers
- Many female avas are overtly sexual or 'slutty'
- Female avas don't look tough or 'butch' even as warrior-types
One female gamer said that when asked her gender while playing her female char, she tells people she's a guy because that gets them to stop bothering her. WHen she plays as a male, she tells them her real gender because that also freaks them out. The people I talked to basically just want to play the game, and don't like having sexual or gendered attitudes imposed on them, so I wonder what they will think of this.
This move by the company really seems like implicitly supporting the idea of using MMOs as a hook-up site, instead of a fantasy realm, so I doubt it will be popular among the people I talked to.
They want me to spend years playing a game looking at a guy's butt? No thanks.
It's hardly surprising that a game with a sexist name like "King of the World" is unenlightened in sexual politics.
The whole point of stuff like this is being somebody else, assuming a role in an online fantasy.
There was a good article in New Scientist recently looking at people and their Second Life avatars. Some people have very good reasons for wanting to be somebody else, whether it's folks in wheelchairs who want to walk around, or transgendered folks who want to try on a new gender.
...laura
A good idea, but I think they have to go a few steps further: you may not play a dwarf character unless you are really small, you may not impersonate a wizard unless you are one in real life, and you may not use any kind of weapon in game if you are not eligible to use one in the country you live in.
I mean, can you imagine how rediculous it would be, were you to act out a mere *fantasy* in a game? Pretending to be something you are not really? There mere thought of it...!
Women gamers are fairly rare sure. But you don't have to be a gamer to play a MMOG, and there's TONS of women playing them. A good quarter of the people in my guild are stay at home moms.
When anyone requires starts requiring proof of gender I wonder how they define the genders in the first place. Appearance? Role? Chromosomal sex?
The issue is that actually nature gets it wrong quite often. We all start developing as female regardless of chromosomes but various triggers cause male sexual characteristics to develop. Sometimes that doesn't work. There are women who were born women but are chromosomally male (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome).
One of my pet rants it the argument about marriage being the union of one mad and one woman. No one ever defines what they are. Should a woman with CAIS (Chromosomally male) marry a woman or a man? Also what about those who are neither? At least 1 in 1000 babies has some level of sex ambiguity. I know someone with one ovary and one testes.
This is a can of worms that these guys really don't want to open...
I play Torn City, which doesn't have avatars, yet there are a lot of males pretending to be females. Believe me, when you find out hotgirl69 is really a 12 year old boy, you have to wonder if this is a good phenomenon. Try explaining to a judge and jury that it was only a game or your wife.
Then there is the faction of male US Marines who marry each other to live in a better house. I'm sure their Gunny will just take their word for it that it's only a game, as well as their fellow grunts. Right or wrong, that would get you thrown down a flight of stairs in my day.
Women Playing MEN Playing Women? How could you tell? And better yet, what about any Hermaphrodites who want to play? Slippery Slope...
Are they really saying that 13 year old girls have to go on webcam to some creepy guy to prove they're a girl so she can play one in the game? does anyone else think that's wrong? I mean I wouldn't let my daughter do that online.
I choose female 'cause I don't wanna watch a guys fanny all day... I'm not gonna be all 'gross, a guys ass' but if I have to have it constantly in view, I want it to be pleasing to look at....
pixles or no.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If you're interested, you can read the details of Nick's research, along with an earlier study of gender switching in Everquest.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
I myself have seen people say people who play women in EVE online as being some kind of degenerate
So the grammatically-challenged, obviously teenage and sexually-challenged writer of the summary thinks it's his inalienable, god-given right to hit on anything with pixellated boobies, and finds the very idea of people role-playing in a role-playing game to be degenerate. Perhaps he shouldn't be such a slavering mess of inadequacy that he feels the need to flirt in a role-playing game with any avatar that approximates female and then be disturbed when the controlling player isn't. Avatar. Not player. The two are distinct, and it merely shows the stupidity of a significant proportion of MMO players that they can't appreciate that fact.
Amusingly enough, my captcha for this post was 'redneck'.
Yes, that he most certainly is.
Is this some sort of really bad joke? Having to prove your gender via web cam sounds like a solution created by a 10 year old. I could get my sister to stand behind the web cam to get past their "check".
This wouldn't be an issue if so many idiots didn't sexually harass anyone playing a female character in any MMORPG. In my opinion, this new rule will only make things worse. For example, in WoW there are a ton of female characters running around. Everyone knows the WoW playing population isn't 40% female, so it probably helps keep harassment to a minimum because in the back of your head to tell yourself there's a good chance the player is actually a guy. But in a game where you have to verify your gender visually? I see it driving away a good number of females.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Could the (il)logical next step be to bar one from playing as a different race/ethnicity? The justifications given for the sex ban appear to be the same, but how would you determine it? (Picture wouldn't cover it). Also, what percentage of that race/ethnicity would you need to have to qualify?
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
1. Female avatars are generally smaller, this is an advantage in games like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, etc. where people are shooting at you.
2. Most games properly represent women as more agile but not as strong (this is statistically correct). This is an advantage for rouge/mage type characters.
3. Men (playing the game) are more likely to interact and cooperate with Female avatars.
Several posts have mentioned that "I'm playing an Elf from the planet foobar... why can't I play a woman?". I agree. They are fantasy games.
My $0.02 USD (which is apparently worth nothing the past few months)
I'm not terribly into MMORPG, but I usually play female characters in fighting games, simply because I usually prefer the faster characters instead of the hard-hitting character. Why should my gender not allow me to choose the character that I wish, while female players gets to choose from the full gamut?
We should be able to accomplish it with a quick hack or two.
...if the webcam comes with the game? Because the one I have doesn't work under Vista.
That women cannot compete with men as women? Call Gloria Steinem!
Edith Keeler Must Die
If this rule is enforced the virtual female/male ratio will approach the real one in these games. That means maybe 20% of the avatars will be female. So the female population will be getting hit on even more than they are now. This will annoy enough of the women that many will quit, further reducing the fraction of females.
Playerauction: Selling VERIFIED female character account Have all the fun you want cybering the innocent teenager who KNOWS you're a true female sharing his love! Only $1000
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
One time I was playing a female character in the Lineage 2 beta (terrible game, by the way) and partied with some random folk. After a bit of grinding, one of my party members said the following: Him: "Hey, are you single?" Me: "Yeah." Him: "Ohhh! Cool! Cause I need me a gaming wife." Me: "... I'm male." Him: "WHAT? YOU FAG!!" That is my story.
C'mere!!! I need you to sit in front of the computer for a minute...
Seems to me like this is to appease a bunch of losers that petitioned because they're tired of half the people they ask for "ASL" ending up as guys. That crap gets really annoying - I mean, cmon, its a flipping game - play it, not harass other people. If you wanted to pick up girls like that, you should be out at a bar...
The article says it's a Chinese game company.
Obviously they're trying to solve a problem the Commie Mutant Traitor way:
Greetings Citizen, the Computer has gotten complaints about people lying online. Please prove who you are.
Hello Computer, I'm glad to comply. How do I do that?
Please turn on your webcam and show your ID.
I don't have a webcam.
That is not acceptable. All citizens are required to have a webcam.
Err, mine is broken.
Citizen, please report to the nearest disintegration chamber.
Are you being honest to the above question?: Y/N
Really?: Y/N
Do you pee standing up?: Y/N
Toilet seat: Up/Down
Which is better looking?: Brad/Jennifer
Choose: Sigfried/Roy
Drink: Beer/Wine Spritzer
Buttons: Left/Right
Late at night: Out with friends/Mom's basement
Choose: Ginger/Mary Anne
Breakfast: Bite of Toast/HOT GRITS!
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If you spend your time playing a game staring at your character's butt, you're doing it wrong.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
In a country like China, where the sex ratio is so bad (too many men, not enough women);
how much would a list of verified females, complete with address and photograph;
be worth?
I often have thought of paying a premium for a MMORPG that is adult's only. If that were the case then this would be as easy as verifying the information on the player's driver's license. Then the player could role play all that they want, but their profile would reveal their true sex.
Maybe some people would have privacy concerns with this, but I would absolutely love a game where 13 year olds weren't "Pwning."
It's not the weight, but the size of the struggle that matters.
...choose an ugly avatar? And pretty people a pretty avatar? Because, I've noticed there's usually a huge disparity between the two. How about obese for obese? Super-obese for super-obese?
The point is to escape a crappy reality.
Camping on quad since 1996.
I agree with this - I got sick of girl characters begging for gold in games like WoW. Some guys make girl characters because they find the male players will give a "female" character gold more often than a "male" character.
This is just so they can now neglect the female elements in their code lines. Sorry Graphics guy, there just isn't as much work for now there's no need to develope female skins and other stuff. Sorry, times are tough.
It's OK to use a Mac (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) that's pretending to be a PC,
but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Vista?).
Likewise, it's OK to be a woman (a sleek, beautiful machine that's often not taken seriously) pretending to be a man,
but not vice versa (did you not hear about the disasterous attempt called Richard Simmons?).
Uh... I think I see how this all got started. Developer 1: "Man, all these girls I meet online keep turning out to *dudes*!" Developer 2: (from IT): "uh... ugh... whassagirl?" Developer 3: "Hey! We can kill two birds with one stone!" And thus, they managed to A) See more ugly chicks and B) Expose the thousands of ugly dudes who like messing with camera angles on female characters. What's next? Are we going to have to show hairy feet to play hobbits? - kaedajnor http://www.undergroundunrest.com/blog/
Could it be the games you're playing? Everyone knows that 99% of meals contain beef. I've seen in in three different restaurants.
Of course, I forgot to mention that the three restaurants are Harry's House of Beef, Tom's Beef Shack, and International House of Beef.
I tend to play female characters in WoW and know quite a few real women who play the game (I checked), and none of them behaved the way you said. I've no doubt that scamming goes on but it probably depends on the games and the crowd you hang around in.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
My proposal consists that a player's sex (or "gender", if you prefer that word) can be displayed when other players look at your character profile. Since it's a real-world data, faking your real-life sex can make you accountable for cheating (and thus, ban).
This way there won't be disappointment cases where a guy falls in love and his love turns out to be another guy, yadda yadda. At the same time, it allows guys to use female characters (or viceversa) and have fun with them (read-as: Role playing) without any consequences.
I mean, some of those women...
... let's say not too feminine face? I know two. Voice won't do it either, I know a girl who is really cute, but as soon as she talks you think Barry White is back from the dead.
But seriously, what about women who have a
Why does anyone have to cater to the horny teen crowd? If you wanna make out with a girl, try it offline. It's far more rewarding.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lawsuits in three... two... one...
-mcgrew ("On the internet, nobody can tell you're a dog")
I wonder if they just want to shut down this MMO altogether? Jokes about tits or gtfo aside, while webcam verification can be defeated, few are going to bother. The males playing as females will probably just leave the game. And the females playing as females will also just leave the game rather than submit to an insulting and degrading verification scheme. I would guess that this could be a loss on the order of 40% assuming that the in game world is 40% female.
After the initial exodus, the friends of those who left will probably leave too. A certain portion that remain will leave just on principal. If the remaining players have only a very sparsely populated in game world, the game probably won't survive. All of this seems rather obvious to me, so either Aurora is stupid, or somebody really wants to kill off this game. This definitely not a strategy that attracts new business.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
players is women hitting middle age.
Think about that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How does ANYONE go about proving that she(?) is "a women?" Conjoined twins?
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
The first thing I thought of was the Saturday Night Live Skit with "PAT".
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
This is possibly the stupidest thing I've heard.
I play women only in MMORPGs. I prefer to run around for hours a day behind a woman's ass than a man's.
Thanks for playing, 'tards. People who think it's some kind of gay weirdo, I am not even of the same species as you, you intellectually stunted freaks.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Reason? Simple. As soon as it is verified that you ARE a woman when you play a female character, not only the incredibly horny teens will come to you, everyone who ever thought about hitting on a girl in a game but wasn't for the simple reason that they could end up in the embarrassing situation of hitting on a 45 year old guy, will get on your nerves. It is proven that you're a girl. You're fair game. Your ignore-list will grow to incredible sizes, and still, more of those horny bastards will come and try to hit on you. You will never be sure whether someone wants to play with you or whether he just wants to "get to know you better" so he can be a more efficient pest.
Seriously, I'd go. I couldn't keep playing when with every player I meet, and every character I play with, I'd have to ask myself if he really just wants to play the game, or whether he's trying to hit on me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1) Its a chinese Mmorpg, the laws in the US and europe would probably prevent a webcam verfication policy
2) Unless the avatar is using deception to commit fraud, most western mmorpgs care more about the subscription fees.
Okay, so in order to play these games (which I don't, mostly because I have more fun hanging out with my friends face-to-face as opposed to on the computer, and I have too much to do when I'm not hanging out with them), I'd have to buy the game AND a web cam? Does this mean they're going to start bundling webcams with the game? Why wouldn't someone be able to just use a picture taken from a digital camera or scanned?
...for requiring webcam proof of one's gender. I think it's just lonely, horny male sysadmins who want to see boobies on webcam. Think about it: they aren't requesting that people prove they're MEN when playing as male characters.
What's next, having to prove your skills/powers/health/etc on webcam before being able to use them online?
"Sorry dude, you're in a wheelchair from what I see...that means we can't let your character walk in our game".
Of course! They just want males that like looking at male butts to play the game. They don't care what the females like, obviously. :p
I said I have seen people say. I play women and men characters in eve.
Most of the posts here are skewing condemnatory of this goofball policy, and I agree. However, maybe there's a bright side. If the playerbase actually go through this verification process (big if), it would offer a rare opportunity to observe macroscopic differences in how men and women behave in MMOs. Do women tend to tank less and heal more? Do they tend to cluster together in all-female guilds? etc.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I've never heard of this MMORPG before.
I expect to never hear of this MMORPG again.
If by some freak occurance I *do* hear of it again, they have thoughtfully relieved me of the burden of deciding if I want to play it. Not because I insist on playing female characters (generally I play both male and female characters, and my current main toon is male) but because I know I don't want to get involved in a game where the admins are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.
Chris Mattern
Most men who play women are doing it so they can watch a females ass while they are running around.
Hence Laura Crofts fame.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
exelent and more in http://www.cards.com.es/
This is why I hate 3rd person perspective. Most of the "scenery" is your avatar's ass. I like to see the damn game! It espeically pisses me off when your avatar gets in the way of seeing something important. Fixed camera (such as resident evil) is even worse--try and aim at a target in 3d space while viewing on a flat screen...WTF?
What? Isn't he saying that he has heard other people refer to those who play as the opposite gender as "degenerate"? From what I gather, you agree with this "grammatically-challenged, obviously teenage and sexually-challenged writer".
After they get all their free publicity from the controversy, they'll drop this restriction and get a few more headlines saying "they listen to their users".
Nothing will have really changed but a lot more people will have heard of Aurora Technology and King of the World (which I hadn't heard of until now).
Me, cynical? Nahh.
ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
What a fantastic way to make sure I don't even try let alone buy their game.
This sounds more like a ploy from the nerdy admins to see pictures of the chicks that are playing. Pervs!
I can see it now...
"Ok, we're having a problem here."
'What? I thought you said my webcam is working?'
"Yeeeah. The problem is that we still can't tell if you're a woman."
This won't end well.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I'll second that. I play female characters in MMOGs and don't ask for a single thing, nor do I look to entice anyone into any behavior. Usually, I just find the female models more interesting in visual terms (being a guy, that's not hard to understand) and I act exactly the same way I would if I was playing a male toon. In fact, my current MMOG of choice is City of Villains, and one of the coolest things about it is playing dress-up with your character, a procedure I find infinitely more entertaining when applied to a female body than a male one.
I'm fairly certain my preference isn't an indicator of some latent homosexuality (one would think that it would have come up before age 35). It's just a game preference.
Oh yeah, and when someone asks me if I'm really a guy or girl, I always answer honestly. After all, I'm not playing these games to make a love connection.
Hang on a minute..... what if you don't own a webcam? You're a girl who wants to play the game AS A GIRL yet you can't because the money you'd've bought a webcam with instead went on the game. Meh, another way to turn MMORPG's into bigger sausagefests than they are already.
SQL programmer goes to a bar. Walks up to two tables and says 'Excuse me, may I join you?'.
There are quite a few girls who play as male characters. They usually do so to avoid being harassed by annoying 12 year old boys who just found out they were heterosexual. This, however, does not seem to pose anyone a problem.
The reason people don't like men playing female characters is because, in our society, males are expected to clearly identify themselves as such. Otherwise, other males, in pursuit of attractive females, could be brought to face their own insecurities about their sexual orientation. Men are typically in the role of the pursuer, sexually speaking, while women are in the role of the pursued. Hence, there is social pressure to ensure that the ones being pursued will always be female.
If you think about it, in the *real world*, nobody has ever had a problem with short-haired girls wearing loose clothing. Men with long hair, wearing tight clothes, can and will get harassed, however (eg: emo kids).
...where there are no homosexuals :)
So I guess Aurora has now publicly and explicitly endorsed and supported homophobia?
Discrimination against men who want to be women, for whatever reason?
This reminds me of some dumbass channel ops on IRC who were against talking to the channel from behind botnets on the grounds that people should know who they're talking to and anonymity is "subverting" the whole idea behind IRC nicks, which is to let people identify you by name.
This is just as fucking dumb.
Just play that as you outgoing webcam feed sound off. They will do anything you ask just to keep you off the helpdesk line.
/parody
Has my stomach turns
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Do you find, as I do, that it's rare for people to actually ask about gender? In a few years of playing female characters in WoW, the only people who have asked are total strangers. Guild mates generally don't ask, although I do say if they ask.
It's been funny when a total stranger asks "Are you girl in RL?" and when I tell then no, they seem a bit disappointed. Even if I was female, I doubt I would look anything like the character I'm playing anyway.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
In case you haven't heard already, hentai actually arouse people, even though it's animated porn. Guess what, human brains are sophisticated enough to extrapolate meaning from hand-made representations!
I bet you can't understand why people can be sad at animated characters dying at the movies.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yes, that you most certainly are.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I'm a guy and I play Final Fantasy XI as a male character, a Tarutaru paladin who looks absolutely adorable if I do say so myself. Of course, the cuteness factor was a big part of my decision, but in spite of how relatively androgynous Tarutaru tend to appear to the untrained eye, I still picked a male avatar, one of the ones that's more recognizably male.
Am I sexually attracted to my own avatar? No. But what I am sexually attracted to are all the female avatars (and the female players behind them) that are drawn to my male avatar. I'm so cute that I've lost track of the number of times a woman has asked me to stop so she could get a picture taken with me, and if I'm sitting around in a crowded town long enough, at least one random woman (often two or three, as they bring their friends) will come up to me, gush over how cute I am and start to tease and play with me a little.
Granted, being "cute" rather than "butch" means a higher percentage of those female avatars are controlled by female players, but in general, being a male avatar gives me a far greater opportunity to meet, talk to and flirt with women than I would otherwise, something that simply wouldn't happen if I had chosen to play as a hot chixx0rz. And if you're truly a straight guy, isn't that the most important part?
Unless, of course, you get a sexual thrill out of having to disappoint lustful guys...
I'm a female gameplay programmer, and I have played both male and female avatars, on numerous games. I'd have to say that the only "special twist" most games put in for female avatars is the very special power of not looking like a warthog's arse. Yes, game developers would like to attract more female players, but we aren't stupid. We know that a lot of the people playing female avatars are men. Why would we reward people for choosing a more attractive butt to look at while they played? There are much better ways to attract females to a game than that. Honestly.
Though, rest assured, your theory doesn't make me think any less of you. It's perfectly normal for people to imagine all manner of voodoo lurking in the gameplay mechanics of their favorite games. This is due to a combination of magical thinking and the brain's natural response to the sort of variable reward schedules you find in these games. In short, the human brain is exquisitely good at pattern matching, but is particularly prone to false positives, so we occasionally develop intense faith in patterns that just aren't there. Even knowing all this, I find myself doing the same thing, sometimes.
That said, though, your primary point should not be diminished. Demanding that people don't cross-play is every bit as silly as demanding that the players of spellcasters really be able to cast spells. It's a goddamn escapist fantasy world. So, let people escape!
However, even more important than that, the fact that many female avatars are played by men right now is actually protective, in a way. Sexual anonymity curtails a great deal of potential sexual harassment. When the genders are outed, an abusive person's targets are clear. I expect that this change will make the game completely unplayable for their real female players.
I saw maybe one complete fucktard that actually believed that the gender of the avatar relates at all to the gender of the player. What it the big deal with choosing a different gender for your avatar? Let's extend this to other games. If I pick CTs in CS does it mean I have to be a special operations military type in real life as well? What if I choose to play Gal Civ as Yor does that mean I'm belong to a robot species bend on destroying the universe?
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
Would most be interested in going to physical location, being tested and having that transfered to your online character. Perhaps Gold's Gym or something.
My guess is no, many people frequently flee from real life to a wonderful virtual world.
Stand-in for the web-cam? Thank goodness I've got one chained to the wall in the basement right now.
A lot of MMORPG players know that if you are looking at a female character on the screen it is most likely a 40 year old fat guy at the other end of the cable. This is actually a level of protection for the real female gamers who are playing. Less chance of them getting harassed because who wants to mistakenly hit on the 40 year old fat guy? Also if it really is a woman playing she can just say "Dude, I'm a guy." This company is taking away that level of protection from their female players. Most will either leave or role male characters to avoid the harassment.
When they ask, you should say, 'Well, I used to be a girl'. That'll throw them for a loop.
Male until proven female.
The parent company of Aurora Technology is called Shanda Entertainment. 'Shanda' is the Yiddish word for "shame or embarrassment."
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
That guys play female characters in these games, or that it matters so much to other players.
It makes me suspicious what that the motivations of the majority of players really is.
I think they're Doing It Wrong.
...but I'm not a fucking WIZARD either. Which of the two is more disturbing to pretend to be anyway?
Show them a picture of your manboobs.
But your complaint is absurd. If one is unable to resist the feminine wiles of an online-character, then it's his own fault, not fault of the the person playing the female character.
But if I were still into gaming and the very idea of RPGs didn't bore the hell out of me (my real life is far more weird than anybody else's fiction), would it be my fault that you gave her an unfair advantage because you were a sucker for her "feminine wiles"? From my perspective, it doesn't matter if she got the Magic Gizmo by killing the Big Badlie Monster or by suckering you out of it; she still has it and can kick my ass with it.
-mcgrew
I haven't been in a guild for a while (I really like it to happen "naturally" in-game and it just hasn't happened in WoW or CoH/CoV where I've been doing my playing). That said, my experience has been that the question gets posed by either a total stranger or someone with whom I've been adventuring a lot one on one. When it's a total stranger (or a brief teammate), as you say the person seems disappointed and I usually never hear from them again. When it's someone with whom I've been playing a lot, it's just "Oh, cool. So, are you ready to head to Hinterlands?"
A few years ago, in my first City of Heroes stint, it was kind of funny when I joined a Super Group and joined the Ventrilo server. I was expecting some reaction to the fact that mine was a male voice in control of a female character, but no one - including the ladies in the SG and on Ventrilo (there were two!) - cared either way. I was Himalayan, the female stone/ice tanker, and that was that. The voice disparity didn't seem to change a thing.
So...if I play this game, I have to stare at a male butt for the next 120 hours of my life...
Yah, not so interested.
That's the main reason I've chosen to play a female characters in the past. It's purely an aesthetic choice.
In the U.S., the transgender crowd would be all over this. :)
I sincerely doubt that a significant percentage of men-palying-women are doing so with evil or perverted intent. It's a toon; I'm not an orc, or a troll, or a gnome (thank god), either, so I don't see what's different about playing a female character.
For me, the choice of character sex is based on aesthetics. Honestly, I gotta look at this character for hundreds of hours, so it might as well be attractive. That said, I play male characters in WoW and LotRO, while my toons in Guild Wars are all female. My wife plays beefy male warriors in GW... now what does that say about role reversal? :)
All about me
So the grammatically-challenged, obviously teenage and sexually-challenged writer of the summary thinks it's his inalienable, god-given right to hit on anything with pixellated boobies, and finds the very idea of people role-playing in a role-playing game to be degenerate. Perhaps he shouldn't be such a slavering mess of inadequacy that he feels the need to flirt in a role-playing game with any avatar that approximates female and then be disturbed when the controlling player isn't.
Um, bullshit. But it is quite hilarious when feminazis take some perceived slight and then go off on a hypocrisy binge by attacking someone's maturity and sexuality.
http://bash.org/?104383
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Imagine 30% of the players suddenly all look an awful lot like Paris Hilton...
Or Britney Spears.
Or Angelina Jolie.
and 10% look like Agnes Moorehead.
=:-O
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
... suddenly, I'm thinking about how much *more* likely it would be to have the plot of The Crying Game play out in a virtual world than in the physical world.
And, if there's no law preventing a man from dressing up as a woman in real life, why should there be restrictions for them to do so in a virtual world?
For anyone whose thinking, "well in real life, at a real bar, I can tell it's a man dressed up like a woman so I won't ever talk to him -- that's the difference!", I challenge you to go see a cabaret show in Thailand and *then* say that. I saw a few performers that were way hotter than my wife who would have made me not care about the presence of a Y chromosome.
http://images.google.com/images?q=cabaret+show+thailand
The only problem with women on MMOs are the men that hit on them in perverted and repulsive ways. If this were to stop, then men playing as women would not be an issue, because hundreds of homophobic losers would not be horrified to find themselves flirting with men.
I say we need to verify that you're not a horrific loser before creating an MMO character on these sites. That would solve the problem, as well and many other problems. How about a confidential application that searches for porn on your system, and reports if it finds any. If you have porn then you shouldn't be allowed on an MMO. gigs of sick porn is far more offensive (and a far better indicator of your mental problems) than people roleplaying as a different gender.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Captain America - "Did you ever want to be anyone else?"
Hippy - "I'd like to try Porky Pig"
Captain America - "I never wanted to be anyone else"
I don't think its the presence of the Y chromosome that concerns most guys...
Custom, hands-free Linux installs. Instalinux
Hypothetically, what if I was a masculine woman, and it was slightly hard to tell that I was actually female? Would I have to webcam my underside, to prove my 'right' to play a female avatar?
As if playing a male and looking at a male avatar would make you gay or mean that you were gay
Ok time for some lyrical education here. This is how King Missile explains the issue in "Gay not gay", especially see the discussion about pornography:
I saw an episode of the Jerry Springer show and the topic was "Tranvestites and the Men Who Love Them." And the guy who was on with his "girlfriend" was saying "To me, this is a beautiful woman. She's got a perfect body, beautiful blonde hair, everything. I love her, and I love making love to her. Now I ask you, does that make me gay?"
Most of the audience thought so, and so did I, but it got me thinking about what is or isn't gay.
Discussing sex with a guy is gay.
Discussing sex with a woman is straight, even telling a woman "Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to suck a cock" is straight.
Sports are gay, especially contact sports, unless you're the only guy on both teams, in which case it is straight.
Gyms are always gay, because afterwords, in the locker room, you're showering with guys, and that is gay.
Watching pornography alone is neutral, like eating a sandwich. It's neither straight nor gay.
Watching pornos with one or more other guys in the room, no matter how many other women are also in the room, is gay.
Watching porn, even gay porn, with one or more women ONLY is straight.
Here's an interesting one: kissing a gay guy on the cheek, or having him kiss YOU on the cheek is neutral, as long as the guy is out of the closet. Hugging and/or kissing a straight guy . . . is gay.
See, look, I . . . I know I'm homophobic, but not about gay guys. They don't bother me at all. It's straight guys who don't know they're gay.
They fuck my shit right up.
Like a guy calls me up and says "A bunch of us guys are gonna sit around in our underwear and watch a football game and drink beer and eat chips, and, you know, maybe wrestle with each other a little, you know, just us guys! You wanna come over?"
And I'm like "No."
OK, you've got a guy sucking your dick, even if he's dressed like a beautiful woman, even if he's got the best breast implants you've ever seen, even if you're saying "Suck it bitch, I know you like it, you slut, you whore," that's gay.
Adversely, if a woman straps on a dildo and you're dressed like a woman and you're suckin' her cock and she's sayin' "You like it, don't you, you like sucking my dick, you little fucking faggot" and she rolls you over and fucks you in the ass and says "you love it, you little pussy boy, you love getting fucked in the ass, I bet you wish I was a man, I bet you wish this was a cock, you fucking faggot" and you're getting off on this like you've never gotten off before . . .
that's still straight.
But then, when you go off to the bar, and you discuss this, or any other sexual experience with any other guys, that's gay.
Here's the most interesting one:
Sucking a guy's cock, can, under certain rare circumstances, be straight.
Let's say you've gotten into a betting game with a woman, and the bet is whoever loses has to be the other's sex slave for the night, the kind of thing that happens in Penthouse Forum all the time, and you lose, and the woman makes you have sex with another guy, that's not gay.
I don't know exactly why, but it's not.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
What are you, [who don't like the ideal of males playing as females], are afraid of? Afraid you're going to play with a female avatar and think she's cute only to find out she is actually a male will make you homosexual or something? What about all those cute female cartoon characters on TV you've watched? Sometimes they're done by males. It's a role-playing game get over it. Besides the last thing REAL female gamer's needs are a bunch of nerds who now know that there is a higher chance that they are a real female is a those nerds drooling all over them. Are you afraid you might help or give a good item to a female avatar who's asking for stuff? Then DON'T. Or DO, help people regardless of their avatar sex. Anyone who has something against a male playing as a pixilated female cartoon character in a 2D representation of a 3D fiction/fantasy environment in a game that is specifically designed to play out roles that do not exist in real life. - Has some serious emotional and deep seeded self-esteem issues, and should come out of the closet and take a good long look in the mirror.
My contention is that the games makers are gay and want more hot male action in their fantasy world. So what if it sounds homophobic, this is just lame!
I would not be in the least surprised if this were judged to be illegal discrimination. I would not care much, personally, but I can imagine that some people would.
Fixed cameras on Resident Evil are one of the many reasons I can't understand the popularity of the game. There's nothing like standing three feet from a zombie and not being able to see it because the camera angle won't change to help you.
I'm gonna get all ranty now because I really, really am baffled by the original success of RE ten years ago. It never should have survived...I guess it reflects the low standards console gamers had at the time versus PC gamers as adventure games and/or shooters go. What sucked about RE:
-The voice acting. Seriously, worst ever. Okay not EVER, but still horrible.
-It was the most unscary horror game I've ever played.
-Third person oddball camera angles.
-I think I could load and fire a musket faster than the 9mm Beretta in that game.
-The puzzles were repetitive and simple.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
The general rule for the internet is: male until proven female.
Someone mod this up.
You're spot on. Potential sexual harassment really is a major issue that is often ignored. I've played many different games in many different ways. I play characters of both genders, with a slight bias toward females, if only because the inter-personal interactions are so much more interesting. (Read: People talk to you more, even if the reasoning is shallow in many cases)
I have played characters as female, intentionally giving the impression that I'm female in real life (a blatant deception, generally, most people who I tell later that I'm actually a guy tell me that they never would have guessed, so I assume that I 'act like a female' fairly convincingly), and female characters where I insist on being a male IRL. Both methods have lead to a great deal of harassment, though in noticably different ways. However, instances where I'm playing a female character and skirt the issue of real life gender entirely have lead to a noticably lower level of harassment.
I do not like the tone
No one even plays this game.
Media Stunt.
I chose a hot woman for my WoW main, since I knew I'd be staring at that game for 100 days+. For a moment I thought about making him a black dude, since I'd be giving him commands all the time, but I decided that was over the edge :-)
Seriously! That's about the one of the most closed-minded, stupidest ideas around these days. So it's not acceptable for me to jerk off at some piece of animated porn anymore because I'm an adult now. It doesn't fit with the "rules of society".
Please. That's almost as closed-minded as the bastards who despise gay marriages. Let everyone have their sexual preferences, let anyone jerk off at whatever they want. Heck, if you want to jerk off while reading math equations, by all means do so. That doesn't make you any weirder, or any less of a "man" or "person".
I've been thinking about this and it has to be a publicity stunt. This is an MMO that wouldn't make the news on Slashdot or anywhere without controversy. So, they make up some crazy BS and then back off of it next week. Both stories get picked up by blogs and maybe, if enough of a stink is made, national news sites.
The first online sausage party! Classic. Suddenly, all the men playing with women's avatars suddenly turn into men, and all the 12 year old boys flirting with the 14 year old boys turn very red and log out. I could see something like that going over really well in Guild Wars, heh
Hello
Excuse me men are not allowed to play female characters in the game.
'''Wha??? I am a girl you prick!
"If one is unable to resist the feminine wiles of an online-character, then it's his own fault, not fault of the the person playing the female character."
I guess... That's like saying it's your own fault if someone steals stuff from your house because you couldn't secure the building well enough...
Pretty sure no one appreciates being subjected to "feminine wiles", in general.
This reminds me of "good looking" women getting unpopular/desperate guys to do their homework, fix their computer, etc. IMO it's pretty deceptive and/or sneaky. Yeah let's take advantage of peoples' weaknesses and try to get 'free stuff' from them! Cool, that's a trait of a real quality personality!
in at least WoW. I have a ton of characters, and more of them are female than male simply because the females are less boring. (I play more alliance than horde.)
Look at the humans... you have a couple really ugly faces... one normal one... and facial hair/color. Woo woo. Most males look alike in WoW just with a different hair style... and not very different at that.
Call me crazy but I like to accessorize... (And if that make me "teh g4y" as people online like to suggest, whatever) Females? They get things like... ear rings... facial tatoos... wildly different hair styles.... horn styles... more than one face that doesn't look like ass... With males it's more of a "hmm... what kind of beard do I want..." type decision.
I'm not going to throw out the old tried and true "If I have to stare at someone's ass for X hours a day" obligatory response.... The males are simply boring... I have two male characters that I actually like lookswise... and they're both Draenai. *shrug*
What's with the stigma attached to it anyway? Women can play male characters but not the other way around? Why does that make any sense? I have in fact had women ask me before "what's up with the female toon" when they were playing a male O.o It's not like I run around hitting on people with a female character. (Well, ok ok... I do really enjoy /flirt'ing with hunters' cats or bears with my feral druid, but come on, cut a guy some slack...)
I will say though that it can be really annoying playing a female character though. I bring all my alts into our guild just to avoid the insane amount of random invites I get from people. Doesn't avoid all the random group invites though. (Don't get me wrong... I'm not an online hermit, but it's really annoying to have an invite pop up out of no where "who and where the fuck is this guy? And what does he want?") It's more than a little sad :-/
At first I thought this must be their publicity stunt to get their game in the news... but when I noticed they are a Chinese company I understood that the true cause behind this policy is a combination of stupidity and fascism. Communist criminal regimes were known for assuming that everyone (in our case, every player wanting to play as female character) is guilty (in our case, they are male in real life) until they can prove otherwise (in our case, a webcam showing they are truly female). Hitler prohibited a song in Nazi Germany simply because he did not like it, and banning female characters not belonging to true females is not much different. Too bad that after 911 the West is emulating the Soviets (and I just hope we won't fall into emulating the Nazis...), and if this continues we very soon won't be much different than the Chinese. 911 was of course a serious terrorist attack that did call for a decisive answer and a comparable action against associated terrorist groups, but not this kind of security-mania and erosion of civil rights and free trade we see now, with passengers having to remove shoes and belts in order to fly to a business meeting and other ridiculous demands - just because a stupid terrorist decided he could hide a bomb into his shoes doesn't mean that millions of travellers who are often in a hurry have to lose valuable time, ie money, to remove them before flying to prove they don't hide a bomb in there. Everyone is male until proven otherwise; everyone is a terrist until proven otherwise; Everyone is... until no free person is left anymore under the Sun.
How come the official Shanda site doesn't mention this King game?
Obviously those stiff backed ex-cultural revolution dweebs are getting off demanding to peep at women's privates over a video connection. Just how good (or miserable) can a MMO be if it was developed and run in Communist China, for cripe sake. I mean, how much time can you spend using a joystick to slog through a rice paddy behind a musk ox. Puhleeze.
I've see lots of women that look like guys and lots of guys that look like women. It's none of their business what people play online. Who died and made them the gender police? I see a massive lawsuit brewing over this.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Really, how many dudes playing MMOs for an entire day will be able to convince a girl to verify his identity so he can walk around in a bikini? 10%? 5%? 10????
That's a fantastic point.
--
RumorsDaily
Because as we all know MMORPG stands for "Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls".
Slashdot is kind of like Playboy; we aren't here to read the articles.
Men are no longer allowed to play Tomb Raider.
I always play as female characters with any game, you think i want to stare at some guys butt in third person, for 10 hours?
Do not anger the Karma Whores, for they don't bathe often, and might decide to come visit you in person. -Ryan Amos
It started bothering me so much that I switched to a male character. This however has one drawback: Hardly any avatar is interested in a long conversation with my avatar. It is much harder to make friends. So I figured to many people SL is neither a MMORPG nor a simulation for social interaction - It's an online dating game.
stupid mod system and the double clicking mouse! undoing mod.
What are the odds that some idiot will name his mutex ether-rot-mutex!
We all know their admins just want to get the occasional peek when someone forgets where their webcam is pointing.
They've also decided to ban fat chicks since the added polygon of the mandatory fat avatars count slows down the servers. A ban on fat guys was discussed but deemed economically unfeasible.
If you see a rock violating the law of gravity, then the law is wrong, not the rock!
The vendor trash MIGHT be just his way of getting rid of inventory while giving some free cash to another player.
Ages ago in SWG I played a fat wookie, very fat, very male, very wookie. I was relativly new and was spotted by a high level on tantooine hunting rats. He basically gave me a starter package to get going, money, some resources, some weapons, a speeder bike. The works, it really helped and managed to get me to the planet where all the action was and get going.
That helper package was pretty standard, it cost a experienced player almost nothing but really helped new players.
I myself helped new SWG players that way several times, but even the nicest player will want to pick people who he thinks are nice as well. A decent name is one of the first choices. Someone with an intresting bio I read while I was bored. A player who does not INSTANTLY ask me for more money the moment I come close.
Is it possible that you were just the first character he spotted when he needed to get rid of some loot and that was all?
Women to often assume that X happens because they are female.
Sometimes men treat you as stupid, because, well you are.
Sometimes men don't listen to you, because they are not intrested in what you are saying.
Sometimes men stare at your tits, because ... oh okay sometimes it is because you are female.
The guy didn't cyber you, didn't ask for anything in return, why make more off it? Typical female, always over-analyzing stuff.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Correct. A few people with a Y chromosome might be almost straight-friendly, if don't mind certain symptoms like infertility.
Oh, wait, you were making a joke? *catches joke before it whooshes past*
- Francis Ocoma
Please wait while Sig Request is being processed...
Those spouting the psychobabble bullshit points about playing a transgendered character in a game, please keep your own biases/insecurites to yourself. People play whatever they want to play because that seems more fun to them for N number of reasons. Heck, you don't even have to go the RPG route with a fully dolled up female character.
:)
I remember back in college when 'Quake 3 Arena' was the most popular thing on the LAN and the gf of one of the players was trying to learn the game just to spend some time with her bf and generally have fun. I was one of the better players in the college and it was a hassle to get into a game where rest of the top tier ones were not present because either the server won't start because the teams were considered imbalanced, or they will simply kick me out because well no one likes getting killed 15 times in 5 min just because the other one has even less life than him. Anyway, I got to know about this girl and started using her name to play in general servers. I started all clueless (standing still and shooting totally off the mark) and most of the other players just used to blast a rocket in my direction from time to time, dance around me and tried to chat me up(after the usual "lol j00 will get killed if you stand like that"). They even started giving me tutorials on how to play better and stuff.
The fun part came when 'the poor clueless chick' suddenly started connecting more shots than they expected. First they laughed it off ("nice!"), then got a bit uneasy ("You still there or is someone else playing?"), and finally plain angry and bitter ("Wtf! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU! I BET YOU ARE NOT <insert name>! How the fuck did you rail me 10 times in a row? When did you learnt to do strafe jump? I DID NOT TEACH YOU THAT!") but it was still damn funny because you could still tell them to mind their language and they had to just stfu because there was still the possibility that I was actually the real girl and calling me names will really not go well.
Did this for a month before I got bored. Fun times!
Politicians and Pedophiles: Two groups of exploitive bastards who are most dangerous when they're thinking of children.
Could you imagine these idiots being in charge of the Tomb Raider franchise??! lol
Here's a thought: If the game includes a Charisma or Appearance stat, like Vampire: Bloodlines or DDO, then you have to have a high CHR stat to have a good looking avatar. If you are a min/maxing weenie who wants to play the MMORPG equivalent to Red Sonja, you have to spend build points on CHR to have her be hot. So if you want to play the hot elf babe, you'd have sacrifice STR or CON or something else. That would force players to prioritize. Then have all NPC reactions based on CHR, if people play ugly characters (as a result of min/maxing), they will find that NPC won't want to help them. Just like real life.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
No, the really interesting thing (and your post made me notice this after reading all the replies here), is that as long as the gender mix in a MMOG resembles real life in an approximate 50:50 gender mix seen on the screen, enough people respond to an arbitrary gender choice that it affects the game play experience. It's not magical thinking that playing a female avatar incurs an advantage but it's because of the conditioning and stereotypes people use to navigate real life, not actual programming choices. Seeing a 50:50 gender mix on the screen seems to make the brain (subconsciously perhaps) revert into normal navigation mode for real life social topography, which puts all the stereotypes about men and women into play and affects actual game play decisions.
That still doesn't explain why people give stuff to women they don't know. Or make rude remarks and just stare. That is only explained by the anonymity that the virtual environment provides the remarker/starer, and the giver realising the stuff he gives away isn't real anyway.
This single post will keep you from ever holding public office. Well, U.S. Senate might still be an option.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
Wtf, CmdrTaco.. you're an editor.. do some editing. As submitted, this story is illegible.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
I wonder how Blizzard would have coped with the Tomb Raider franchise??!
If discussing sex with men is gay, then you just admitted you're gay by posting about sex to a forum filled with 90% males. Not that there's anything wrong with that, other than the fact that you're in denial about it...
Oh come on. That's not a fair question. Aniston is unattractive to a lot of men, myself included. And while I'm not attracted to Brad in the slightest, it's clear that he's the better looking of the two. There's no competition.
To make it fair, pick someone like Keira Knightley, Rachel McAdams (the hot girl from Wedding Crashers), Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly), or Christina Hendricks (Saffron/Mrs. Reynolds from Firefly).
Reality is for people that can't handle drugs. So do your part, just say no to reality!
Or make rude remarks and just stare.
How do you stare in a MMO? Quite often when I have to go AFK I'll go to a safe area let my character stand there. I don't pay any attention to who else might be there, and particularly with 3rd party perspective, I'm not seeing through my avatar's eyes.
I always find it amusing the rare occasions when I see to toons face to face having a conversation, because other than dealing with NPCs, no one I know feels the need to face the person they are talking to. Often we aren't even in the same zone.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
Well, I can't speak about MMORPGs because I consider them some sort of drug and should be regulated or banned. I have seen people losing their lives because of that garbage reduced to point and click, with no more ability required than Minesweeper and that rewards the one that grinds levels rather than actual skill.
But, in normal games, I have no problem in choosing female characters to play. Why? Because I find them more visually attractive than your hulking, macho character. I generally go like this until gameplay proves me the male character kicks more ass.
I really prefer to pick the girl in games like Pokemon, I am really good with May in Guilty Gear, and few persons can beat my Zelda in Super Smash Brosh Melee. Why should I be denied of that?
After all, I don't pick them because I feel "identified" with the character. I pick them because I prefer having something nice to look at in the screen.
But, then again, I don't know the intent or behavior of MMORPGers....and I prefer to not know any more of them, ever.
Is the company going to supply free webcams to all its players?
Okay, in addition to all the other obvious reasons this an unfair, terrible idea -- what about the female players who don't own webcams? Will they be forced to go out and buy one just to keep playing? Sure, you can get a cheap one, but still. Also, I thought it was pretty much understood that MMORPG = Many Men Online Role Playing Women. I thought people just came to expect it these days.
They "stare" by running up to you, turning away (so the avatar isn't looking at you), then swing the camera around so you're right front and center to them (cameras can rotate 360 around the character, regardless of which way he's pointed.)
Of course, some idiots just blatently walk up and stand there looking in your face.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I got really curious about this "King of the World MMORPG" and attempted to search it with good ol' Google. To my surprise, I could not find the site nor the game, other than the links to the main topic. However, I did run into this article http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070927-chinese-mmorpg-banning-cross-gender-roleplayers.html which I found interesting.
Gotta love the catoys (however you spell it)(thai cross dressing hooker). Most of them would make supermodels look like a homely bull dike. Its really scarey just how much they can pull of looking like a woman. There was really only one way I could tell the difference...if the chick was taller than 5'5" there was a good chance that was because she wasn't a chick.
This is Slashdot! Give me the latest gadget, bug, or OS project! This ain't english class so don't confuse the two!
Yo, she-bitch, lets go.
Feminism was never about equality, it was only ever about improving things for women. Case in point: dig into your shitflick collection and dig out your copy of Iron Jawed Angels, and try to find the part of the movie where these these brave suffragists stood up and demanded the right to be drafted into WWI. Or WWII. Or Korea. Or Vietnam.
Women live longer than men and yet improving health care for women is a much higher priority than improving it for men. Prostate cancer kills about as many men as breast cancer kills women, yet 3x is spent on breast cancer research. There's a plethora of Offices of Women's health throughout the country, yet only one Office of Men's Health exists, in New Hampshire, and it started with zero funding.
Why are there Violence Against Women laws when the vast majority of the victims of assaults and murders are men.
Or the rights of an individual in the event of unwanted pregnancy:
Women:
- Abort the fetus without the father consent or knowledge.
- Give the baby up for adoption without the father's consent or knowledge.
- Keep the baby and raise it in secret without the fathers consent or knowledge.
- Do #3 and then hit the father up years later for child support.
Men: