WoW Gender-Bending

[Leilen]

I found a very interesting topic while browsing the net.

A discussion of Males playing Female characters (and vise versa) as well as the effects it may have on you and those around you, very interesting, check it out.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001369.php

I recently added my two cents...

I am a medium - heavy Roleplayer, and play both genders of any race, having said that; I enjoy playing Female characters more even though I'm a Male IRL, I feel that attempting to connect with a feminine psychology is so much more enjoyable and interesting - incidentally, almost everyone that I've talked to about the matter told me that they really thought I was a female in real life - this response is exactly what I'm after; it simply means I role-played well.

When choosing a character, I don't immediately go for class or race or even gender first - I make the name, then the backstory for the character, and from that, visualise an appearance that I believe reflects the attitude of the name and course of events that they've been through (backstory), sometimes I cannot choose on a particular thing, in which case I roll a dice, but most of the time it just comes to me.

My 'lock on the Emerald Dream (US, RP-PvP) Server for example, is a Female Bloodelf; though I'm a Male in real life I didn't feel that "Leilen" suited an Undead or Dwarf; it's sounds more majestic than that.

In my opinion, a name is the most important thing in the life of your character; in Wrath of the Lich King we'll have the option to change certain aspects to a character like hair colour and whatnot, but changing your name becomes problematic, and if your that desperate to pay the $20 (or so) the real struggle is trying to change your Roleplay around that, just pretending it was always "Char name 2" from the start just doesn't seem right - there's alot of feeling in a name and "Char name 1" went through all the series of events, not the new one.

The criticism I get for playing a Female character is far beyond the truth, claiming I'm a pervert or just plain weird for doing so, no... it goes much deeper than that and sadly, most players I talk to about it don't seem to be able to grasp my viewpoint on playing a gender than isn't your own... shame, really.

It may surprise you to know that I am 15 years of age... yes, you heard me. A 15 year old role player, I simply enjoy what I do.

An interesting topic to think about, If I don't say so myself.

[Lynden]

Thank you for posting this.
Interesting. Yeah I'm a girl who has a guy main, and I can give you some reasons for this:

- Zyro's blood elf he had just made was a girl, so I thought it would be appropriate to make a guy.

- I thought a male blood elf would look way cooler in end game plate than a girl one would.

- Zyro complained about how Windham was really little and kind of hard to see, and told me a guy is easier to see

- Couldn't find any girl names I wanted.

- Don't like the female blood elf voice.

But most importantly:

I really don't like how people treat you as a girl in game. When I play a male bloodelf, people don't suspect I'm a girl and I am not subject to the harassment or anything that comes along with it. As some of you might know, I had a female tauren, Winooski, before I created Lynden. once in a while, people would ask if i was actually a chick, once I told them, they would want to be my friend, quest with me, etc. Once in a while I'll tell people I feel like I confide in that I am a girl and they treat me completely differently. Instead of calling me "bro" I start getting called "sister" which is a bit weird to me. I don't like how once someone knows you are a girl they are more forgiving, as if it made a huge difference. I don't know if anyone else feels the same way, but I don't like the advantages you can get playing the "I'm a girl card" and I don't want to be treated any differently.

I think it's way harder role playing as Lynden than role-playing as a girl would be. I have an undead female warlock and I feel like I'd be able to master her personality far more easily than it is for me to figure out Lynden. . .

Lol totally was not my intention to make this sound so much like a rant, but yeah! :P That was pretty interesting.

[Aitana]

Lindan, welcome to my real life, but I can't hide behind a male persona. In the game and in real life I run into all the things you describe, and I feel much the same as you described. I think women that use their sexuality to manipulate men to get special favors ultimately make it harder for those of us who want to be on equal footing with men. I want to be treated according to how I play, not get special treatment, either better or worse for being female. I deal with a very male-dominated environment as part of my daily real life and have since childhood, it isn't a change to deal with it in the game. It would be harder for me to roleplay a male than a female, so my characters are female.

[Baelspar]

It amuses me that Gwynneth, my blood-elf priest, gets asked whether or not I'm really a girl (I'm a guy, by the way). I usually respond that I'm either a dog, as in canine; or a collective of 30 research students working on a thesis of the sociological impact of WoW on the overall global world outlook. With that one, I ask if they wouldn't mind answering a few questions.

When cross-rp'ing though, I tend not to get caught on gender at all. To be honest, I feel that Bael'spar is likely more "girlish" (I can't think of a better word that fits at the moment) than Gwynneth. Yaen'gohl is more meek. Grellix is a whole other matter.

[Gorehorn]

I have a pair of female characters but tend to play more bombastic male charcters. No offense ladies but all my heroes growing up were men. So Gorehorn is my grizzled and disenchanted warrior, Gohjira my reformed alchoholic priest who fancies himself a master of shadows (but is afraid of the dark). On the otherhand, like Leilen, I really focus on the RP of the character more than the gender except how it relates to the personality of the 'person'.

Pathwinder, my female orc hunter, is the proverbial 'raised by the wild' child that wanders in and out of the world of civilization. She doesn't like nor understand the idea of living in cities or even cultured woods. I am often mistaken for a r/l fem playing her becazuse she is all wonder and always courteous.

My female orc shaman, Stormwytch, however is entirely different. She sees humanoids as a pesky distraction from her desire of mastering the elements. She seeks less to understand and learn from them than to dominate them. She should have been a warlock with her mentality, but has no patience for back-talking demons (or anyone else for that matter). She is often renamed by strangers as Storm-b/@tch after short conversations with the addle-minded (or anyone in the Barrens).

[Voltaere]

Another great topic! Thanks for posting : )

Let me identify myself as a long time RPGer (20+ yrs...yes I am that old). In WoW, I am male and I play male toons, my wife is female and she plays female toons. For me personally, I have trouble slipping into the female mindset, thus I play mosly males in WoW and other RPGs. I can totally appreciate those who want to explore the differences in RP. I tend to play quirky disfunctional characters - Voltulio might be one of my most 'normal' characters that way. I asked my wife if she would play a male toon, she said, 'why the would I want to do that?' - lol

The argument I make to myself for making a female toon is pretty poor - I have thought to myself, if i am going to watch someone from behind for hours, it should be something I enjoy, but then it would be for the wrong reason and have no RP value.

Ok...I am going to speak in generalities here, so please dont shoot me, its just interesting general observations: By percentages, women play healers more often then men. In every guild I have ever been in this has been true. My wife and I talked about it and decided it was somewhat a natural response for men to want to be rough (DPS) things and women to heal & nurture. Thoughts?

[Aitana]

Ok...I am going to speak in generalities here, so please dont shoot me, its just interesting general observations: By percentages, women play healers more often then men. In every guild I have ever been in this has been true. My wife and I talked about it and decided it was somewhat a natural response for men to want to be rough (DPS) things and women to heal & nurture. Thoughts?

I would agree with this in general. The Daedalus Project has data that supports this observation. As to why it might be true, that could be much more controversial. Taken from that site:

I wanted to add briefly how complicated these gender findings can be, and how they might be a reflection of other variables. For example, we also know that female players are more likely to be playing with their romantic partners. And it makes sense that a player's preferences might be shaped by their game-play history. Is it possible that men "encourage" their romantic partners to play healing/support classes to help their own playing styles? Or for example, women are more likely to be playing in the same room with someone else playing. Might this contextual difference lend itself to preferring more social modes of play? So I would caution against interpreting the graphs in this article as being purely driven by gender (i.e., women are biologically hard-wired to prefer passive, supporting roles), but rather, as the complicated outcome of gender, cultural, and contextual differences.

In looking at the same site, I thought this was interesting. In my age bracket (over 35), there are almost twice as many women as men. Also the probability that a player will quit is affected by age and gender: http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001557.php

One stable finding we’ve seen before is that female players are less likely to quit an MMO. In the question below, players were asked to rate the likelihood that they would quit in the next 3 months on a 5-point scale (1 = Very Unlikely, 5 = Very Likely). The graph also shows an age trend. Older players are less likely to quit compared with younger players. Or more accurately, male players are less likely to quit as they get older. Female players across all age groups are just as likely to quit. Once past the age of 35, male and female players seem to have converged on the same likelihood of quitting.

[Voltaere]

Thats very interesting too, Aitana - i have to go check that site now : )

[Zyro]

This is all very interesting to think about.

I too am a long-time RPG'r. I've played through Chrono Trigger, All the Zelda's, Every Final Fantasy up to 12 at least once-through, maybe 3 times even. Breath of Fire, Xenogears, Secret of Mana, a Children-oriented game that came in two different colored cartridges at a time that I don't care to name, etc. The list goes on and on. But one thing never changed. The main character was always male(there are a few exceptions).

I don't believe this has effected my decision to make a couple female characters in WoW(I have 3 now, although I only created two of them, I'd actually prefer if my druid was male.)

My first character was Zyro. I made him when I first started.. i was confused at the creation screen, because there were so many options. But the concept of the warrior sounded better to me, because I wanted something that could take a lot of damage and not die and be frustrated by over and over. Not too much thought went into it, and i guess at the time the choice of sex wasn't considered by me.

Windham was created because I think the high-level priest cloth is absolutely gorgeous. I made her with pale skin and long glowing hair because i wanted something that embodied the idea of a Holy Healer. Now to get her into that awesome T3 set.. *sigh*

I'd always wanted a priest, in fact, i levelled 3 others to about level 15, but could never be happy with playing them. When I made Windham, I told myself I would only heal instances, rather than questing, which as a priest had always been painful to me, making me not want to play them. This is why i waited til' 40 to go shadow. She was the only female priest i've made, and i think that effected me decision to stick with her. I think she is much more RP'able than Zyro for me. I made Zyro long before i got into RP, and I don't especially like him from a persona/character point of view.

On that note: Why are there no female tauren warriors? I never see them. I think females are more likely to make a female tauren as their first character, judging by all the people I know personally and in-game. Why? Is it because they're cute?

Now here's the interesting part. Lynden first made a druid. My friend Ashley from college also had first made a female tauren druid. And Aitana, i believe Aitana is your first character?
Perhaps the druid is more likely to be chosen by a female player because of their connection with nature and their ability to heal? *shrug* any more thoughts on this?

Sorry for the long post... procrastinating at work

[Aitana]

Now here's the interesting part. Lynden first made a druid. My friend Ashley from college also had first made a female tauren druid. And Aitana, i believe Aitana is your first character?
Perhaps the druid is more likely to be chosen by a female player because of their connection with nature and their ability to heal? *shrug* any more thoughts on this?

I started playing because some people I met through anime forums talked me into it. I hadn't played any computer games for many years prior to that. We decided to make players from different races. I picked Tauren because one already had an orc and the other already had a troll. I picked a druid because I liked the variety of ways the character could be played and I wanted to be able to heal. I liked the idea of being able to shape-shift.