Guild Wars 2

EATtheDEAD.4768:

Norn males are awesome because they can crush peoples heads with an arm pump

I’d rather make a nice tall blonde female. Much more pleasing to look at in the middle of my screen as I’m stabbing things.

Xenite.7418:

I’ve always thought it was a bit off to play female characters. Your avatars are an extension of the player, so to play only women when you are a man…. meh.

And it’s a male issue, women are not running around as male toons.

Freud would have something to say about it.

you assume too much my friend. I’ve been guilded with many a female who play male toons, some out of a taste for male toons over females and some to avoid actually having to admit to being female to the everyday annoying male gamer.

looks.

and, i like to make my melee characters male and my support/ranged female. idk why. sometimes, i’ll differentiate, but, that’s usually how like to play them.

Epidemic is the wrong word, and is almost insulting. You could have at least said “proliferation,” lol. I’m just messin’ with you, OP – but personally, in this game I play only male Asura, and that’s because I like the way they look, move, cast… in short I like their persona. In WoW, I only use Human female characters because, like the Asura of Guild Wars II, I like the way they look move, and cast.

Since in the end I am a guy who will play a female, I’ll offer a bit of input about playing girls: When I get questioned about my choice to play females I often harken to the tradition of males wearing female masks in some West African societies. In these societies wearing such a mask isn’t in any way unmanly or gay. For some of these societies, first and foremost the mask represented feminine beauty or fertility – not one’s lust or sexual orientation. It’s all part of getting out of the mental prison of cultural hegemony and tasting other cultures. So consider my beautiful, dark-skinned female toon a digital Punu mask*. I appreciate such a depiction as one could any other form of fine art, and fine art is what these game artists are producing. If that makes me a pervert, gay, weird, lame or something similar then whatever.

*easy read: “Punu masks represent the idealized beauty of Punu women, and should only be carved by Punu men….” http://artyfactory.com/africanmasks/masks/punu.htm

Was having a conversation with my guild earlier today something along these lines. We have a higher then average number of women in our guild (for that matter, GW2 seems to have a higher then average number compared to most other mmo’s too), and they informed me of something that I had not noticed.

That is the male characters of GW2 are sexualized more then they are in other games (*ahem*Logan Rule 34*cough*). This is not necessarily a bad thing- I like my fanservice to a point (as long as it’s respectful), and have no problem when it’s on the other side of the mirror. In fact, it’s rather refreshing and adds a dose of fairness to the whole thing. But it may also be pushing a larger number of people actual males away from male characters. Let’s face it, how men see their fantasy selves and how women see their fantasy men are not the same.

Also, I think that MMO’s have been around long enough that most people are just used to separating avatar/self now and gender bend for the fanservice without a second thought.

I disagree that avatars are an extension of the player. It’s more like cosplay.

It’s really not. I come from a tabletop RP background, so I tend to refer to my characters by their name, or as e.g. “My Elementalist”, not as “Me.” I think of them in the third person, and I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s just the way it is, and whenever someone says to my character in all seriousness “You’re hot” I get genuinely confused. (note: this is much rare these days then in the early MMO’s; people have learned since then) The avatar is how you choose to interact with the world- when the world is imaginary, so is the avatar.

Some of these replies have me literally rolling. Personally, the human female short hair was the best imo so I made my thief with one, which is my main. I was originally going to go norn. I had been set on that race for years before the game shipped but unfortunately I am not a fan of their hair.

And, I’ll admit I love to play dressup and make hot avatars. umad? or jelly of my T3 cultural?

For me it is whoever looks good in the type of armor set they use. IMO heavy armor wearers always look better on Male, so my warrior and guardian would be male. Leather and cloth looks better on female, so naturally my elementalists, thief etc would be female.

So… I’m guessing that those people who think its “strange” for a male to play a female character or vice versa only have human characters, right?

Never try to roll for an Asura or a Charr, unless that’s your real life race. :P

MMORPG… the hint is in the fourth letter.

Anet did an awesome job of making human and norn female characters look extremely hot. Armor and all. Somebody needs to cosplay them now!

I want all people that ask that question ( Why are you males playing female chars) to imagine what would happen ingame if everyone played exclusively chars of their own gender. You couldn’t be a female without getting hit on by creeps every 5 minutes

As a side note, I guess I play a female char because I do not relate myself at all to my char. It’s just a way to have an easy access to all the skimpy clothing options. If I bought a magazine to watch models, I’d buy one with female models, not male.

Different strokes for different folks. Personally I like playing male characters – generally larger, looks stronger, more fierce. I have a Norn Warrior and end up running dungeons while having all these little ladies running around. :P

I find it interesting that every so often someone will come into this topic, cherry-pick certain replies and declare that they apply to everyone, inspite of all the other opinions on offer.

Honestly I think the simplest explaination is that there are many factors which can go into character creation and many different reasons for any given choice. If you really want to know why a particular person made the choice they did you’ll have to ask them, and remember that their response applies to no one but themselves.

(Also when looking at the number of female characters remember that GW2 has a higher than average number of female players, so you can’t assume the character is being played by a man.)

So I can pretend to be a girl and trick not so smart guys into giving me all sorts of goodies and gold!

I didnt bothered to read all posts, but I think some reasons got already coverd in them.
I once read a nice article on this specific topic with I think 15 reasons for males to play female chars. Sadly I cant recall all of them anymore, nor do I remember the site, but I try to recall some of them.

1. Appealing Look
This is one of the biggest reasons. Most males find a female character to look at more appealing as a male character.

2. Seeing how the grass on the other side of the fence is
Some guys like to see how it is to “be” a woman. Most male players will react different to female characters as to male ones. If you now play a female and maybe even try to act as one, then you can see how the grass is on the other side.
Furthermore female characters tend to get helped more often as males try to take care of them. Free gifts, organizing help for a instance run/whatever, more sympathy for mistakes and less claims that you are a “noob”.

2.b
Trying to get much more help and easier gaming as you would get with a male character.

3. Playing with a dress-up-doll
Other males like to have a little “doll” to play with, dressing her in different outfits and colors.

4. Less identification with that Character
Ever got your kitten seriously handed in PvP or PvE? Ever did RP and noticed how different scenes even affected you behind the screen, even when it wasnt even aimed at you specific?
Persons often identify themself with their characters and due to that acts against your characters can be taken personally. Its often harder to identify yourself with a character which hardly is like you…. in that case males often dont identify themself with a female character as they would with a male.

At least that are some of the reasons which I remember still… hope that I find the article I read once again, in the near future.

I’m a fat, male, black Sylvari with the mushroom head. I’m pretty sure I’m one of a kind. I’m also a Mesmer, which makes me a double rare breed on my server, Eredon Terrace.

And the best part? When we win a big fight, I /kneel, and let people /e lick my head to celebrate with a good round of..err…very legal substance.

I’ve yet to understand the concept behind such posts and the issues related with guys playing female characters. If such a thing actually manages to bother someone than do they also oppose games using female characters as lead roles? How many posts complain about Lara Croft being a girl and that they are forced, as a guy, to play a girl? What about Samus from the Metroid games or Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield from Resident Evil even Bayonetta or Heavenly Sword? What about people choosing to use a Female Shepard in Mass Effect? The question shouldn’t be why are guys playing girl characters but why this bothers people in general.

The problem quite simply is that a lot of people have their own logic when creating a character, and refuse to open their mind to anyone else’s logic, hence why often people get so defensive about their character and accusing others of being somehow ‘wrong’ for making their character different to their’s. Quite frankly the whole point of character creation is to make who you want, a guy playing a guy, a girl playing a girl, a guy playing a girl, a girl playing a guy, a human playing an asura, and asura playing a charr (Okay so that last one is unlikely to come up too often), it doesn’t matter and it’s quite frankly none of their business.

It’s down to personal choice anyhow, some people want to look at something attractive, some people want to play as someone more relatable, some people want to escape from reality and play something completely different, that’s pretty much it.

" What is the allure of female humans characters and why are there so many males playing them?"

Answered your own question there.
I’m sure many male players would prefer the hours of looking at a character’s bum – for that bum to be a nice pert female one.

The real problem is that people tend to make virtual dating games out of MMORPGs.

I play mostly female characters… and like many others, because if I have to look for hours at something, the prettier it is the better.

One of my favorite races in a MMO has no gender at all because they are essentially robots: The warforged from DDO. Then again I really like robots and see them as the next evolutionary step for man kind.

If i have to choose between dual pistol wielding female or male i would always go with female. Why? because it is kitten sexy and hot.

I guess you guys must also feel weird for playing Lara Croft’s games?

“And it’s a male issue, women are not running around as male toons.”

Except all the females that run around with male avatars to avoid creepers hitting on them 24/7.

I like looking on my female character, she has a nicer body.
Although my main is an Asura i made female human alts.
It also makes it more fun making her look as good as possible whereas on a male character i dont really care how he looks.

These topics always make me laugh a bit.
A few things to add just for fun:

Back in EQ I had a female Dark Elf. Some random guy started flirting with me. No “hi” or anything. Not one to “hide” I said “Thanks, but not a chick” – he replied “Even better.” – I got a good laugh from that as I was so not expecting it.

In LoTRO I had this burly looking (well, as burly looking as I could make) male human. Some random male elf walked up and started flirting. I said politely “No thanks, not interested” and he/she replied “What if I logged on my female elf.” – O.o

Someone once asked me if I was secretly gay for making a female character. I laughed and told them “Boy, would my wife of 20 years be surprised. Besides, are you just looking for more male eye candy?” He answered “Yes”.

So, when I see these topics; the only thing that makes any sense to me as to why they would care would be to flirt or treat the game as some kind of weird place to hook up. Maybe it could just be me, but that happens quite a bit. Not so much in GW2; but in other games ALL the time. – Anyway, good fun. Gotta love people sometimes.

I thought dressup was normal. Ummmm I thought that was what vanity gear was for.

I tried making a male thief but I was annoyed at how ugly- YES I KNOW PEOPLE HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE.

I cant help it if GW2 human females look so awesome in so many armor sets. Its like a moth to a flame. Just like the Rascal set made me make a male. I also have 2 asuras because they are too adorable. I dont think I have some sort of complex regarding little hyperintelligent creatures just because of that though.

How can people get worked up over this anyway. I can understand if its a petition to create more body types, more hairstyles, etc but from a pure ‘choosing your gender’ standpoint I dont see how it concerns other people what gender I choose nor do I see anything wrong with choosing another race or gender.

I’ll stop here before I start ranting…

I honestly don’t see how this is a “problem”. The game is designed to give you the freedom to create you character however you want, there are 5 different races and two distinct genders for each. This is an mmo-ROLE PLAYING GAME, meaning you chose to play as what YOU want, not what others chose for you. If your to close minded to see that some people want something different out of their character from you then I have no words to change your mind because your obviously stuck in your way of thinking. ROLE PLAYING GAMES are all about choices, if you chose to make your character a girl as a guy, good for you. If you chose to make your character a guy as a girl, good for you. It goes both ways, and you can chose to play whatever you want.
That being said I understand some people lack the imagination to play from a different perspective, that is perfectly fine, just don’t hate on people that feel they want to be creative with their characters.

I personally have multiple female characters and also a few male characters, does it mean I secretly want to be a woman? no. Does it mean I have never done “it”? (since the forum chat filter keeps giving me kittens /sigh) no. I personally enjoy playing as both and see no problem with other people doing so as well. I don’t see how some people can be so surprised by this.

TL DR; pixels are pixels and you shouldn’t judge people because of them.

I play most my characters female human because I think they look good and they are quite small in size which wont get in my way during jumping puzzles. Prior to that I made a male asura which really pissed me off since I barely could see the armor.

Reason to making female over male is just because I prefer the look of females, I don’t really identify myself with my character in games anyway so why would I pick a male?

Panacea.4927:

2. Seeing how the grass on the other side of the fence is
Some guys like to see how it is to “be” a woman. Most male players will react different to female characters as to male ones. If you now play a female and maybe even try to act as one, then you can see how the grass is on the other side.
Furthermore female characters tend to get helped more often as males try to take care of them. Free gifts, organizing help for a instance run/whatever, more sympathy for mistakes and less claims that you are a “noob”.

2.b
Trying to get much more help and easier gaming as you would get with a male character.

I’ve got to say, as someone who has played both male and female characters in both GW and GW2 I’ve never noticed female characters getting more help or more free stuff.

It is probably better to conclude that all the reasonings mentioned in the thread could/would influence someone in picking a certain sex. I rolled a female Norn on the lines that she looked respectable and not too sexual and any way. In the past I have rolled a male character on the bases that they just looked cooler in armour and chances of being hassled by other players may be lower.

Either way, it shouldn’t matter what race/sex/size/ someone picks as long as they are happy with what they’ve got. This is a fantasy mmo game. Some people prefer to roll something more relatable like a human while some prefer not to. It comes down to taste and what they want their character to be. None of us can take that away.

Only had one female character in GW1, but it was because I modeled her after one of my favorite Suikoden characters. Didn’t feel like making her in 2 though because I wanted an Asura ele instead. >.>

Females look much much better in light armor than males so I made my Elementalist female. My other toons are all male though.

My main character is a female Human Necromancer, who I played as in GW1. I always see her as a noble, intelligent, powerful character. On the other hand I have a male Sylvari Ranger and male Asura Warrior, as well as a female Sylvari Elementalist. Even though I don’t see myself in my characters, nor do I Role-play, but I still like to imagine them with a personality, because I feel more invested in the game world. So, for me, I guess gender is a design choice. I design the appearance to suit the personality I want the character to have; gender is just one facet of the overall design.

I play a bit of both.

Males in most MMOs are designed more like walking gorillas than people, while the women are more or less proportionate. That’s why many players feel that the women look better.

That being said, the male humans in this game are the best I’ve seen. The human females all look like barbie dolls to me.

Personally, I’ve never seen any type of caster/mage class as male in my mind. All of my favorite characters that have been spellcasting types have been female. I prefer for my male characters to be Gruff warrior types, while my female characters are generally my spellcasters. It’s just how I see it.

Everyone has their own reasons. As someone said earlier, I find it odd when people think they know why other people do a certain thing. And to the person who said there are no women running about with male avatars? Read peoples’ responses in this thread and find yourself obviously wrong.

And those saying that ‘men think about sex all the time’ are subtly implying (or not so subtly in the case of some people) that women have zero or hidden sex drive. Which is not true, almost all humans (unless asexual) tend to have some kind of sex drive.

But honestly folks, you’re coming up with reasons why other people do things as though you’re an expert on them. The only person you can actually speak for is yourself, so please don’t insult others by explaining why men or women do something. Like the folks saying “Oh yes, females seem to make characters that resemble themselves because they’re more vain” is incredibly sexist and assumes so much.

Half of my characters are female and the other half are male. I love them all equally. I created them as characters, not as representations of myself. As a fiction writer it never really occurred to me to create a version of me inside a video game, my personal opinion on that is that it’s a little creepy.

Now kindly stop pretending to be an expert on people you don’t know and speak for yourself instead of others. (Aimed at, of course, the people in this thread who are acting like this, not those who are speaking for themselves.)

I have one female character. It’s a warrior. The only reason I prefer females over males is because of their animations. Their running animation/attacks etc are all more smooth and just look a lot nicer than the males. imo of course.

The character is not a representation of me in game (which would be particularly difficult as personality, voice and story direction are decided for you). I do not “live” the game through my characters. Characters are a mechanic in which to experience content and game play.

Once that is understood, choosing a character comes down to a single factor: preference in aesthetics.

This discussion has evolved from one of gender to one of perspective, the latter of which I think quite interesting. It’s made me stop to think for a second. Looking back I find that when I was 15 years “newer” to RPGs, I usually played same gendered toons that I saw my self as. However, that perspective and the mystique that came with it, seem to have subsided a great deal. Nowadays I play a wide spectrum of character races and genders, and now I see myself more as the puppeteer rather than the puppet itself.

The interesting thing to note, for me at least, is that in my previous perspective, where I was the character rather than the puppeteer, my gaming experience was far more immersive and fantastical.

Some might say that my change in perspective is a loss to me, and I might have to agree with them.

Why does it matter what a person plays? As long as they are polite and capable of learning, I will play with them.

I prefer the way the female human looks over the male. Simple as that. I dont like the way female charr look so i will only make a male charr. Same with the Asura. ect.

It’s a high-fantasy role-playing game, it shouldn’t be about playing what you ARE, it should be about playing what you LIKE. You get this large and detailed fantasy world to explore, it would be a shame to limit yourself to what you look or would like to look in real life. In a MMO, your main character is the closest thing to have to an online identity and you’re going to be interacting with the game world and other players through that character, so it’s important to pick something you’ll want to play as hours upon hours and feel comfortable being identified to by other players.

Personally, my main character is a woman because quite frankly it’s what I want to identify myself with. Ever since I was a boy I always preferred heroines in fiction, and it kind of stayed that way in games. I absolutely love the idea of a strong, heroic and beautiful knight woman protecting the weak with her shield, it’s a really cool figure that I find it exciting to play as one.

I couldn’t care less that my character’s gender doesn’t match mine, I care that I find her very cool and of all the Tyria heroes people can pick, she’s really the one I want to incarnate when I log in. I have absolutely no issues if other players refer to me with a female character, I’m not less a woman in shiny armor then they are male humans who summon meteor showers or command the undead, we’re just playing fantasy heroes we love and feel comfortable being.

I tried making male main characters in RPGs and MMOs including Guild Wars 2 at release, but I just didn’t care about the character and could never relate to them. Make my warrior male and all I’ll see is your typical short-tempered brute and I won’t like him that much. I do play male characters, in fact all my alts are male, but my main character needs to be one I can naturally create bonds with, and it’s just not happening for me if the character is not female. Weird as it may be. =/

My main is a female sylari guardian though I rolled a human female mesmer as well simply because of the backstory options for humans combined with the fact I do not care for the male human voices. I honestly no longer care about how “appealing” my character looks, I just choose what I think works best. My next character will most like be a male charr engi or a non human male necro.

I find the male humanoid characters to be far too androgynous for my liking – if I am going to have to choose an effeminate avatar I may as well go all the wall.

Norns are the exception of course, but I gave up on my Norn necro because his large height coupled with having the same run speed as other races always makes getting anywhere feel soooo slooow, and also makes the environment feel unrealistic and somehow cartoony in its scale.

When I get round to creating a Charr or Asura character I will almost certainly choose male characters as they just seem to fit better with their race’s styles.

It’s kind of sad that folks are so hung up on conforming to arbitrary gender standards in a video game.

If you’re bugged by playing cross-gender, or by your faces not being “masculine” enough, maybe you should think about why you feel that way, instead of why others disagree?

Personally, I think we should have lots more options for faces, bodytypes, etc. than we do now. Then I could get my chubbier female avatars and you could get your masculine (what does that mean anyway?) male ones!

Why do people care what sex people are playing in a video game.

I play guy and girl toons and it always based on what I think looks cool.

There is 0 difference in how I interact with anyone whether I am playing a guy or girl.

have been reading the post’s . fun stuff. my fem. is a Sylvarie . and in other topics they were suggesting Sylvarie were androgynous. far from the case. sylvari are very special creatures . they can exude the sapsscents from entire groves of many different spices. and her skin is not barky. but like a rose petal. And she can vanquish with such aplomb. A dream.

Human females are fantastic and wonderful people. The world could use more of them.

I’m a prime example of this, my main is a female human ranger and im a average 20 year old bro. The reason why I chose this character for my main is simple; I simply would rather spend hour and hours staring at a female kitten then a male one. Idgaf what other people think of me on my character when I’m the one spending time on it.