Guild Wars 2

Please explain this to me, why almost half of the playerbase are playing Human Females, I might buy Heart of Thorns if you give me the reasons…

Human female are the strongest in Fashion Wars meta.

Human: most easy to relate to, considering I’m sure almost all of us are human in real life

Female: because a large portion of the player base is straight and male, and there’s a thing where guys prefer to play as females. I’m not entirely sure why (apart from feeling more comfortable with staring at the opposite sex), but I am sure that there are a ton of articles online writing about it.

I think that the human race is a go-to first character in most games, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the lore. Humans are usually portrayed in the same way across games. If you’re a new player, you might not want to pick an unfamiliar race for the chance of giving it a name and identity that is totally non-cannon.

Most RPG/MMO regulars will know that almost always, females have better armour design and variety.

Tl;dr: It’s a safe option. There’s not much to go wrong with a human female.

I have 8 characters, and only one of these is a human female, actually! It is true, the female humans tend to have the best outfits given to them, but I’ve got a Norn female, three male humans, a male and female Asura, and a female Charr. Next time I get a character slot I’m getting a female Sylvari.

Every race is beautiful if you get makeover kits and put a little effort into tweaking them. I tend to like making my characters look pretty and attractive and fashionable. LOL I play to farm gold to buy stuff off the gem store to further the Fashion Wars! If you only play human females it gets a little boring, especially if you ARE a human female, yourself.

Several reasons. Most people don’t like to play something that’s far from what they are in real life or is ugly. That means most people pick human, because that closest to real life, then pick female because women are considered prettier/sexier than men. Men choose women chars because they like to look at women (the old remarks about not wanting to be staring at a mans butt for hours when playing comes to mind). Women’s armor is also sexier than male armor. More skin shows or it has cleavage/is form fitting.

Basically it boils down to, sex sells.

Basically because I like the human female armors most.

Edit: My post went through twice! Sorry!

Oh yes, I forgot to add… the most popular race for your first character is human. I also think that many people main their first character they make (as they often have a special place in their heart).

Just another factor to add in favour of the human female zerg.

I have a Human female Ele but I play way more with my Charr Guardian (Main) and Sylvari Thief, the issue I have with the female humans is basically the voice, it doesn’t fit some faces in my oppinion.

It’s easy to explain i guess, most people here a males.
Most males are surrounded by other males at work most of their life.
So i guess they want to change a bit in their fantasy world.
I guess it’s a natural outcome.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Human: most easy to relate to, considering I’m sure almost all of us are human in real life

Female: because a large portion of the player base is straight and male, and there’s a thing where guys prefer to play as females. I’m not entirely sure why (apart from feeling more comfortable with staring at the opposite sex), but I am sure that there are a ton of articles online writing about it.

I think that the human race is a go-to first character in most games, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the lore. Humans are usually portrayed in the same way across games. If you’re a new player, you might not want to pick an unfamiliar race for the chance of giving it a name and identity that is totally non-cannon.

Most RPG/MMO regulars will know that almost always, females have better armour design and variety.

Tl;dr: It’s a safe option. There’s not much to go wrong with a human female.

Solid answer really. I’d also like to add, most players will start the game with a human character for their first play through, by default (especially players new to the series with no knowledge of the lore as implied above). This will become the toon they will learn the game with and be most familiar with, and thus become their ‘main’. They will also feel attached to this character due to the time and gold they’ve invested into it.

Also, most armors in the game are based on the human model conceptually. This is partly because they see the most play according to metrics, but I sense there’s a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy going on here for that very reason.

Females tend to look more ‘appropriate’ in the bright colors and flashy effects associated with fantasy genres imo. Even among humans, look at a male Ele in Seafoam Green and Teal T3 armor with a Glittering Staff skin and then look at a female version of the same character.

I only have a human female to try out different armor, outfit, and dye combinations. If only they’d improve camera zoom so it isn’t as extreme when flipping the mousewheel back and forward. If you want a good face shot you’ll need creative working with a pillar, since if you flip the tiniest amount you’ll go from too far to first person mode.

Even then I intend to make my sole female human a male eventually.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Tl;dr: It’s a safe option. There’s not much to go wrong with a human female.

Apparently they have twitchy left arms now. A guy was complaining about it the other day.

Amineo.8951:

Please explain this to me, why almost half of the playerbase are playing Human Females, I might buy Heart of Thorns if you give me the reasons…

Cuz of underboob. Main reason.

Kirschsahne.2081:

It’s easy to explain i guess, most people here a males.
Most males are surrounded by other males at work most of their life.
So i guess they want to change a bit in their fantasy world.
I guess it’s a natural outcome.

Or they wish they were female, or like to play with toy barbies.

My female human, norn, charr, and asura would like to introduce you to a new point of view, Malediktus

Malediktus.9250:

I have 0 female characters, see no point to females on a battlefield

Since the female avatars in this game don’t have female sex organs, technically speaking they are not female but neuters. Just like the male avatars. ^^

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Malediktus.9250:

I have 0 female characters, see no point to females on a battlefield

Since the female avatars in this game don’t have female sex organs, technically speaking they are not female but neuters. Just like the male avatars. ^^

I guess that is to keep the age rating :P

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Malediktus.9250:

I have 0 female characters, see no point to females on a battlefield

Since the female avatars in this game don’t have female sex organs, technically speaking they are not female but neuters. Just like the male avatars. ^^

Everything has sex organs if you use your imagination.

I think the question has already been answered here, and pretty much everywhere else. Guys find women aesthetically pleasing to look at, so they’re drawn to making female characters. No matter how far people try to look into it, that’s basically the answer.

However, out of the 5 characters I have, 2 are female, I don’t really play the female characters. I mainly play as my Necro, Ranger and Ele (they’re my male characters). I prefer to play the game as a male character, as I’m a guy.

Underboob armor and puberty are a perfect match.

Though, real reason is that more people find female characters/armor more aesthetically pleasing. How much of that can be attributed to “lizard-brains”/“puberty” or the like is unknown, but probably definitely there.

Personally, I play male characters, though the couple of times I did have female characters I have ran into weird awkward (and “fun”) times of guys trying to flirt with me. Since then, that has become another reason of rolling a male character.

I usually don’t like to play with humans if there are other nice options available. but in GW2 none of the races really appeal to me. Many of them are pretty cool, but I don’t like how they look. The lore behind Norns and Sylvari is awesome. But I only play males and norn males have completely out of whack body proportions. and Sylvari, while really elegant and nice are ultimately made of plants and I guess I prefer my characters made of flesh. XD
Charr are TOO animal like for me, If they had more humanoid bodies I would like them but they look like lions on 2 feet and asura are just… no thanks.
I usually play elf or demon characters in other MMOs but here there are none

coso.9173:

I usually don’t like to play with humans if there are other nice options available. but in GW2 none of the races really appeal to me. Many of them are pretty cool, but I don’t like how they look. The lore behind Norns and Sylvari is awesome. But I only play males and norn males have completely out of whack body proportions. and Sylvari, while really elegant and nice are ultimately made of plants and I guess I prefer my characters made of flesh. XD
Charr are TOO animal like for me, If they had more humanoid bodies I would like them but they look like lions on 2 feet and asura are just… no thanks.
I usually play elf or demon characters in other MMOs but here there are none

I personally like the charr and asura very much. Charr are legitimately beastly and not humans with cat ears whereas asura work as medieval styled aliens. Only race I don’t care for is sylvari because they’re almost human but not quite, I’d rather go all the way with an actual human or norn or not human period.

If male norns had more normal body proportions I would really really enjoy them, love their lore, love their general aestethic and everything, but why would they decide to have them as a tiny head over a massive upper body with short stumpy legs… but how do their women look? oh, you know, a sexy voluptuous tall woman. I swear to god why do we males always get the ugly stick in races? some of us actually like to play males but it doen’t help that they make them ugly in purpose…

coso.9173:

If male norns had more normal body proportions I would really really enjoy them, love their lore, love their general aestethic and everything, but why would they decide to have them as a tiny head over a massive upper body with short stumpy legs… but how do their women look? oh, you know, a sexy voluptuous tall woman. I swear to god why do we males always get the ugly stick in races? some of us actually like to play males but it doen’t help that they make them ugly in purpose…

Norn make me sad cuz Braham looks amazing in the artwork. He’s proportionate, ripped with muscle, looks bada** and etc. But in-game the Norn males look fat and deformed. :[ Females character models always seem to get more attention in most games though. It’s tough being a male in the virtual world.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Into_the_Labyrinth_loading_screen.jpg

I made a male Norn Guardian during release cuz I like Werewolvez and such (also wanted one of each race) but ended up disliking the way he looked and made it a female instead since she didn’t look deformed. Eventually deleted her though after finishing Norn achievements and made it a Male Sylvari instead and don’t have any Norn characters anymoar.

These guys playing as females is the same as these guys playing with dolls

Doggie.3184:

coso.9173:

If male norns had more normal body proportions I would really really enjoy them, love their lore, love their general aestethic and everything, but why would they decide to have them as a tiny head over a massive upper body with short stumpy legs… but how do their women look? oh, you know, a sexy voluptuous tall woman. I swear to god why do we males always get the ugly stick in races? some of us actually like to play males but it doen’t help that they make them ugly in purpose…

Norm make me sad cuz Braham looks amazing in the artwork. He’s proportionate, ripped with muscle, looks bada** and etc. But in-game the Norn males look fat and deformed. :[ Females character models always seem to get more attention in most games though. It’s tough being a male in the virtual world.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Into_the_Labyrinth_loading_screen.jpg

I made a male Norn Guardian during release cuz I like Werewolvez and such (also wanted one of each race) but ended up disliking the way he looked and made it a female instead since she didn’t look deformed. Eventually deleted her though after finishing Norn achievements and made it a Male Sylvari instead and don’t have any Norn characters anymoar.

I’m a BIG BIG fan of werewolves too, and this was one of the reasons I made one too. but I didn’t even get to lv 10. the way they look was just too much for me
and you’re right, Braham looks wwicked awesome in that drawing, why can’t Norns look like that?? ripped, defined muscles but still human looking, with a smaller waist and a normal sized head.

Playing female characters is the safest way of expressing the woman hidden in every man…

I am a human male so my characters are mostly human males, excluding a pair of charr males. because cats.

Of 3 races I play, and I always play females for immersion, humans just seem to get more time from the devs. I also like Sylvari and Norns. Sylvari have no hairstyles that interest me and questionable body shapes, as well as a lot of misfitting armor. Norns have that awful voice and also suffer from misfitting armor, like sometimes their shoes are just huge for no reason. Humans are just so much better designed, all armor fits, lots of nice hairstyles and faces and lots still being added.

Bottom line, this game has not much endgame except appearance and skins.

I have 14 characters (2 char, 2 human, 1 Norn, 1 Asuran, the rest Sylvari) and only one is male.

Human males are baby faced metrosexuals. Norn males are… ugh, just weird looking. Charr males are ok, but I prefer the sleeker lioness look of the females. Sylvari males are ok, but one thing that bugs me about them is, to put it delicately, they run like they have a stick firmly inserted up inside them. It’s a very rigid, and to my eye, unnatural running animation that once I saw it, I can’t unsee it.

If they made human males that looked more like older men and not so pretty boy, and toned down the Nornishness of the male Norns I might make males, but until then it’s females for me.

sure, but have they have females like old females then instead of pretty ladies and see hell blow all up over the game XD

To me, they have better outfits and animations to me.

That being said i dont have a single one, got 8 charrs though.

Too much PC culture, only reason I play girls is because 1) they look better in this game and 2) come on, seriously? boobs and booty.

human female animations are crap

It is mmo culture
But me I play male, I always play male because of beard, now if only charr and asura have beard…

Personally, I find all these players with human females to be disturbing. I like my women Norn.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally, I find all these players with human females to be disturbing. I like my women Norn.

amen

You do know that everyone (paid accounts) can have five characters before they even buy more slots? Yes, I have a human female. Three of them, in fact. One made for fashion (though she became one of my strongest RP’d alts). One to re-make a beta alt to be my street rat warrior. And one made when my guild demanded I actually play Donari’s sister instead of leaving her in vignettes when there was a Bachelor game RP.

I also have 3 human males (none baby faced), 2 sylvari males, 2 sylvari females, 1 norn male, 2 norn females, 1 male asura, 1 female asura, and 1 female charr. I really don’t know what my revenant will be yet. Every single one has an RP name and their own style and personality (ok, the female norn never did get much beyond a sketchy backstory, but Ranger isn’t a fun profession for me. She may bloom as a Druid).

If it matters, I’m RL female. That doesn’t mean that’s all I play.

So why am I playing human females? I have stories to tell with them. The noblewoman dreaming of adventure who always finds it much more harrowing than she imagined. The commoner who helps her parents run a shop while she practices sewing and studies Grenth, always with good practical sense and an excellent sense of humor layered over a philosophical mind. The cast out child of a too-large-too-poor family with severe anger issues and the ability to pick up anything as a weapon because while she won’t start a fight, she’ll always finish it.

That doesn’t mean I won’t also play the stalwart sylvari guardian with thoughts too complex for the simplistic vocabulary she commands, the sylvari version of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the norn architect who intends his legend to live through the building of an arcology vaster than Hoelbrak, the asura necromancer — ahem — Master Animatronicamater — who pretends to greater age than he possesses (not very well) to try to add gravitas and import to his presentations, and so on. I intend to get each and every one of them the elite unlock.

So why are so many people playing human females? Maybe because they’re also playing other races, but there’s only so many race/gender combinations available and human female is one of them.

http://guildwars2viz.com/

Is it a trick question due to being based off a false premise?

Human males and females combined are less than half the population
Females of all races combined are less than half the population.

Don’t know why guys won’t just admit they’re a pervert, or sugar coat it and turn it into a homophobia thing (if you look online you’ll know what I mean).

Why? Cause breast and gluteus maximus.

mfw I see viper skirts on female characters:

Leohart.4610:

Don’t know why guys won’t just admit they’re a pervert, or sugar coat it and turn it into a homophobia thing (if you look online you’ll know what I mean).

Why? Cause breast and gluteus maximus.

mfw I see viper skirts on female characters:

Don’t know why players won’t just admit that you can play either gender without your RL sexual preferences having anything to do with it or having any romantic inclinations towards a game avatar, the same way authors can write characters that aren’t exactly like themselves. (In fact, when you write a character just like yourself and inject them into heroic roles, you’re quite likely making a Mary Sue).

Donari.5237:

Leohart.4610:

Don’t know why guys won’t just admit they’re a pervert, or sugar coat it and turn it into a homophobia thing (if you look online you’ll know what I mean).

Why? Cause breast and gluteus maximus.

mfw I see viper skirts on female characters:

Don’t know why players won’t just admit that you can play either gender without your RL sexual preferences having anything to do with it or having any romantic inclinations towards a game avatar, the same way authors can write characters that aren’t exactly like themselves. (In fact, when you write a character just like yourself and inject them into heroic roles, you’re quite likely making a Mary Sue).

Good points. I should’ve added that too.

you’re all hypocritic sex shamers

I rerolled two charr males to human females, one warrior and one necro. I think armor looks better on human females, especially helmets, and since I refuse to give ANet money they don’t deserve for skins that aren’t on the TP anymore anyway, I have to use what I already have, and those skins work better on human females. They’re far more versatile when it comes to armor. Also, I prefer the sleeker animations, especially the passive/idle animations.

I wanted to roll a human male, but the lack of good beard/hair selection is just off-putting, and born males are awkwardly proportioned and I can’t get past how their running animation feels so sluggish.

I see this thread as being troll-bait, but I’ll post anyways.

I play both. My characters are characters ported from various Dungeons and Dragons campaigns I’ve played in over the years. While I’m not big into e-Roleplaying at all, I’m fond of the tabletop kind, and making the same human male with the same aesthetic nine times over is pretty boring. It’s really cool watching a character you “made human” through deep role-playing and explicitly working through the actions of playing in a truly open-game setting in another universe be realized and get the visual aesthetic in a video game; it’s a big appeal for me for MMO’s in general aside from the PvP.

I envision my characters not as myself or the “I’d rather look at a girl’s butt” mentality, but as separate entities living and fighting in Tyria. I use the chat features for personal use as a tool. My first-ever character in D&D, a rogue, who has a similar personality to myself, is not an engineer/artificer. He’s not a warrior/barbarian. He’s not a paladin/guardian. He’s also not his own girlfriend, or his life-long best friend, who had their own campaigns which occurred within the time-frame of the initial one.

I make multiple characters under the same name with different professions due to multiclassing in traditional tabletops to reflect their combat styles. It’s not uncommon to find me having duplicates of the same class under different character names… which are also shared out to other, differing classes.

But that’s just my own reason. It doesn’t mean there is one, and there are definitely many. Actually, there’s probably one per player. Everyone has their own thoughts that lead to character creation; whether or not we can generalize is a bigger question in it of itself, though.

Yea, there’s definitely perversion, hormones, or whatever other taboo, quickly-dismissed-and-despicable-subject-you-want-to-declare-it-as desire to be playing a female for a bunch of people. Some people are pretty open about that. And it isn’t restricted to just men, though. I have a lesbian friend (yes, in real life) who makes the most… “ridiculous” characters in video games she plays because she likes to look at female bodices. She has more fun this way, just like the pervy teenage boy. Is she more entitled to do so? Does her being a woman despite having the same intent make it any more okay? Before we go labeling people, these are the kinds of questions we need to ask ourselves. Do you really know the guy behind the screen playing the female character? Is he in the wrong to have the options to dress her as he pleases? Should we value the opinions of other women in this regard? If so, who? Are different demographics of women more or less okay with his decisions? If offending a few over many takes precedent, or listening to a particular demographic over another does, are we not discriminating against a subsection? Who is to blame for this kid’s decisions? The kid? His home life? Our culture? The influences upon that culture?

Okay, new facts about the so-called “pervy teenage boy”:

He’s playing a female character. He doesn’t have a lot of friends in real life. He poses as a female online as well to hopefully experiment with what it’s like to be a woman for a little while in a virtual world behind a mask. He finds he enjoys it a lot, makes a lot of friends, who are both male and female in real life. He’s pretty believable and is really enjoys it. Sometimes he dresses his character up skimpy when he’s “in the mood”.

You’re immediately thinking he’s a creepy perv. Now I’ll let on some more new facts.

“Pervy teenage boy” has been battling depression for the past eight years, as long as he started understanding puberty and the distinction of male and female we don’t see kids recognize until early middle school. He doesn’t know why. He just really doesn’t feel right. He’s got really low confidence, and he knows it’s why he doesn’t have a lot of friends; he just never felt right.

He turned to online games for a bit of an escape and to make friends and socialize without needing to be seen for what he is. He feels comfortable playing as a digital model, and has played some male characters in other games in the past as himself. He just recently tried a female one, considering posing as a girl. He’s enjoying himself. A lot. Over time, he realizes something; he actually prefers to be a female. He talks to his psychologist, and some test are performed, and many questions are asked. Later he realizes he has a gender identity disorder and it’s been causing his depression for all those years. He undergoes some physical and chemical changes and becomes a women for real. He’s then very happy with his life thereafter, living as a successful and happy woman with a job and family.

Now how perverted is “pervy teenage boy”? How justified were her decisions? Is her opinion of the subject to be treated with less value than that of other women? I’m not saying every male who plays a female character is flirting with the notion of getting a sex change, just that we can’t gloss over this subject and assume “all men playing female characters are wrong because I said so”.

I bring this story up because this quite literally happened to what was a suite-mate of mine some time ago in college. People are different, and because of that, trying to appease absolutely everyone at all times is literally impossible.

The only time people should really get offended is it something is done with malicious or degrading intent. Otherwise we should be able to discuss these matters civilly and reach mutual understandings on the subject.

On the other hand, I know a few players who literally just spin the wheel on character creation and skip everything, taking whatever random or default settings are provided, and pick a random word or words from the dictionary or arbitrary name (not spam as it raises bot flags) for their characters, because they just see them as tools to beat the challenge of a game with; you don’t name and stylize chess pieces before each game, no? Their reason for playing female characters is “it got me through creation faster”. Everyone has different approaches and reasons in regards to this subject.

TL;DR: Don’t make assumptions about people and their reasons for making their own decisions on what and how they play the game.

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

Have you wrote any books? I’d read it.

Edit: Good points. I usually respond open mindedly to these controversial topics but meh.

Edit #2: i cri evrytiem :(

Honestly I just like looking at chicks. It is a hobby of mine. Well, was, until I got arrested that one time. But hey, do in virtual what you can’t do in actual.

Seriously though, I’ve got one of those aspergers-y minds, so I’m disturbed whenever things aren’t equal. Currently I have two humans both male and female, two norn both male and female, two sylvari both man-shaped fruit and woman-shaped fruit, and one female asura. I’m at a wall there, since there is neither a class left that I want to play, or a character that I want to make. Don’t much like the charr or male asura.

Mostly, because women, who play games, tend to like to play female characters, so it feels like they are in the game themselves, so will tend to choose a female human, or Norn.

…and some men, who play games, either like to look at females, or (less frequently) identify more with females.

Having read the thread, I think there are actually a myriad of possible reasons, but these are probably the most common ones.

I have 8 characters, 3 males, 5 females. 4 of which are human females. (Quadruplets with different colour schemes.)
I am a straight male.

So here’s how I look at it.

It all depends on how you actually PLAY Guild Wars 2.

When you play your character, do you feel as though you ARE that character in the world, or do you feel like you are watching a story of your character?

Personally, the Third-Person shooter aspect of the game makes experience the game though a third person perspective.

It means I look at my character as her own person, instead of thinking that that character is me. My character in guild wars 2 have their own personalities (despite the failed personality system in gw2)
Strict, commanding, dependable (told from cut-scenes). I do not feel as though the character is ME, rather I feel like I’m looking at the Commander of the Pact.
When I refer to my character, I say ‘MY Thief, or MY Warrior’, not ‘AS A Thief, I…’ ‘AS A Warrior, I…’ for example.

It’s akin to playing Tomb Raider, for example. You don’t feel that you ARE Lara Croft do you? (maybe you do, who knows) For me, I feel like I’m watching story of Lara Croft, instead of ME being Lara Croft. Similarly to Metal Gear, are YOU Solid Snake, or are you PLAYING AS Solid Snake?

This is unlike playing, say, Fallout and Skyrim, where i feel as if I AM the Dovahkiin, I AM the Lone Wanderer. I get to make moral choices, further developing my character, making me feel as though growing alongside my character as I play the game.

With that being said, despite having a Towering Bad ‘kitten ’ Male Norn character which i do play occasionally to look at his Bad ‘assery’…
If I’m going to stare at a person’s ‘kittenss’, I rather look at a cute girl’s ‘kittenss’ if I’m playing a game for hundreds of hours, as opposed to looking at a kitten guy’s ‘kittens’ *wink, wink, nudge, nudge,.

Better hairstyles, better armors and because you play human male in 90% of other games.