Guild Wars 2

Yeah, the whole special treatment thing doesn’t really happen (at least not to most of the female players I know, including myself).

And the only time I’ve really been hit on in-game (in any game) was when this one person started talking to me at the dragon world bosses (back before there was a world boss schedule and the guaranteed rare chests). They pretended to be a girl for a while and started to get more and more . . . “friendly” (in a weird way). Then one day they whispered me and told me about how they’re kind of a sloot and that my husband would probably like it if I talked dirty with “her”. It was then that I knew for sure that this was a guy, and I just told them “Nah, no thanks”. A couple of days later, he told me “You might not know this, but I’m really a guy; someone in my guild found out I’m a guy, and they kicked me out”. Thankfully, he stopped talking to me soon after that.

When my husband and I started playing GW1, he originally made all male characters and in other rpg games his characters are typically male. However, eventually, he started making some of his characters female in GW1, mainly because I asked him to (because I wanted to be able to sync dance together at the festivals).

Now though, it’s pretty much 1) female armor is nicer and 2) if he’s going to stare at his character’s rear end for ‘x’ number of hours while he plays, he’d prefer it to be a female

RoseofGilead.8907:

Yeah, the whole special treatment thing doesn’t really happen (at least not to most of the female players I know, including myself).

And the only time I’ve really been hit on in-game

Yup doesnt really happen! Thank goodness! I get tired of people saying girls dont exist on the internet..but oh well!

Only time ive been hit on was in GW1, it was very very…odd..to say the least.

sarasvatri.6871:

This catches my attention. Playing opposite gendered characters isn’t something that should have to be justified any more than choosing chocolate over skittles. There are reasons- sure, there are reasons for anything- but justification implies some kind of transgression.

The fact that people find this transgressive illustrates our culture’s gender insecurities- someone asked upthread why this conversation has gone on so long, and this is why, for me. It’s fascinating.

Note to reader: I’m not saying you’re insecure, of course your motivations are completely rational and free from neurosis…

I was playing a little devil’s advocate I must admit. The gist of his comment was “I’m straight, so I like to look at girls from behind, duh”, implying that any normal heterosexual male would clearly want to choose a girl character, which indirectly implies that not wanting to make a female character as a hetero male is eyebrow raising. (reaching I know, but it’s there in the subtext).

So I was attempting to say he’s basically playing with Barbie dolls. You know, cause Internet…

I’m a happily married man haha

Why not? You might as well ask why we play a charr, sylvari, asura or norn since we’re human (sorry if there are any AIs reading – you’re exempt).

I have characters of both genders in all of the races because they each have unique art and animations and it’s just fun to have a huge variety of characters to play.

TooBz.3065:

Draknar.5748:

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

I’m a straight guy. I have all human female characters and a female norn. The real question is, how could you not play as a female character?

Also a straight guy, I played with GI Joes growing up so when I play with virtual dolls (which is basically what MMO characters are) I gravitate toward the more masculine “toys”.

Otherwise I’m really just dressing up a Barbie doll and trying to justify it by saying that Barbie dolls are sexier.

I’d rather play with my GI Joe and use the Internet for my other……..needs.

I don’t think that the toys you chose to play with as a child are relevant. When I played with GI Joe I thought girls where icky, now I don’t. <shrug>.

I see that people play games in two different ways. For some people, they project themselves into their avatar. And therefore would only choose characters that fit into their self-image.

For other people, the avatar is more of a puppet that gets moved. These people don’t project themselves into the avatar, and therefore may choose an avatar for entirely different reasons (aesthetic appeal for example).

IMO either is perfectly logical and fine. It’s just that some people can’t accept someone else having a different viewpoint.

This. Questioning someone’s choice to play as a character of the opposite sex seems to be an issue of insecurity. I enjoy plenty if dudebro games like COD, Titanfall, and Destiny. This isn’t one of those games for me, and I enjoy it in an entirely different way than running around with a virtual gun in my hand.

Can we stop giving the reason that it is because some people like virtually eye-gawking their characters? I mean I know some of you do, and I get that. But it is literally 90% of this thread now, I’d rather it was a given at this point and let people with more interesting reasons share them with us.

Norn male model isnt that good looking when playing, also when jumping i get the same feeling of a golem underwater >_>

Female models > male models being in looks or skill animations

There was a study on this I read once. It has to do with how someone relates to their character in game.

Some people make characters as a version of themselves. Others don’t equate their characters to “me in the game.”

Have you ever watched a movie with a female protagonist and enjoyed it? To a lot of people playing an rpg as a version of a similar female is not weird to them at all.

No idea. But I can tell you my daughter plays a man toon so she can avoid all the whispers from desperate dudes . . . if that tells you anything.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

I’m a straight guy. I have all human female characters and a female norn. The real question is, how could you not play as a female character?

Humans, in general, are boring.

Besides, if any of these female human characters were even privy of your presence, you wouldn’t stand a chance with any of them. They see hulking muscle-bound Norn, brave battle-hardened Charr, super-intellectual Asura and charming (i.e. Britt) Sylvari and Humans on a minute by minute basis. You don’t even know how to use magic! They’d have far more interesting people to care about lol

Female norns. Dat @ss!

Ardenwolfe.8590:

No idea. But I can tell you my daughter plays a man toon so she can avoid all the whispers from desperate dudes . . . if that tells you anything.

As a woman, who plays only female characters.

“whispers from desperate dudes”
really isn’t that common, here anyway, in fact, I’ve not gotten single flirty whisper in GW2

more likely to get this
“you a girl? really? nah really? you telling the truth?”

Everyone is secretly transgender!

There’s a few reasons really, mostly aesthetic like female animations and armours usually being, subjectively, better. Big one for me though is that I enjoy the idea of a strong female character kicking kitten and taking names. I enjoy the narrative more because in my head a male in the same situation is just ‘Generic muscle Dude McGuy beats things because he’s just that awesome.’ which just bores me to tears. I think probably because that is the scenario I’ve grown up with through the late 80s and 90s. I loved Lucy Lawless as Xena way more than Kevin Sorbo as Hercules for the same reason.

Picard is still >> than Janeway though. Sorry, not sorry.

36 characters

like

um

….

wow

errrr

but to actually answer the thread, because they have better armours, hairstyles, faces, voice, etc. etc. so basically female characters are just more aesthetically pleasing.

Taygus.4571:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

No idea. But I can tell you my daughter plays a man toon so she can avoid all the whispers from desperate dudes . . . if that tells you anything.

As a woman, who plays only female characters.

“whispers from desperate dudes”
really isn’t that common, here anyway, in fact, I’ve not gotten single flirty whisper in GW2

more likely to get this
“you a girl? really? nah really? you telling the truth?”

That is all about to change. :^)

GW2 has no capes.

If I’m going to look at someone’s butt for over 5000 hours, I’d rather look at a female butt.

I’m confused by the people saying they play male characters to avoid harassment for being female, or play female characters to get free stuff and special treatment.

I play both male and female characters in GW1, GW2, ESO and used to play them in UO and I’ve never noticed any difference in how people treat me based on the gender of my character, except that people are more likely to assume I’m male when I play a male character and vice versa.

Actually, there was once in GW1 some guy gave me a red iris flower and said my character was “cute” but that’s the only time I can remember anything like that happening.

sarasvatri.6871:

Draknar.5748:

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

I’m a straight guy. I have all human female characters and a female norn. The real question is, how could you not play as a female character?

Also a straight guy, I played with GI Joes growing up so when I play with virtual dolls (which is basically what MMO characters are) I gravitate toward the more masculine “toys”.

Otherwise I’m really just dressing up a Barbie doll and trying to justify it by saying that Barbie dolls are sexier.

I’d rather play with my GI Joe and use the Internet for my other……..needs.

This catches my attention. Playing opposite gendered characters isn’t something that should have to be justified any more than choosing chocolate over skittles. There are reasons- sure, there are reasons for anything- but justification implies some kind of transgression.

The fact that people find this transgressive illustrates our culture’s gender insecurities- someone asked upthread why this conversation has gone on so long, and this is why, for me. It’s fascinating.

Note to reader: I’m not saying you’re insecure, of course your motivations are completely rational and free from neurosis…

It’s the internet, people will argue about and over-analyse anything. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’d get locked for being off topic I guarantee you we could get an argument going over whether chocolate was better than skittles and after 2 pages it wouldn’t be a matter of opinion, it’d be a fact that would be obvious if everyone would just read the 15 pages of linked sources.

Source: A Nintendo Magazine forum I used to post on once had a massive argument over whether a small round piece of bread is called a roll, bun, bap, cob or some other name. It even got mentioned in the magazine. And that’s fairly normal compared to what happens on music forums.

Pretty simple my heavies are male light/leather female. Because that’s the way the gear doesn’t look terrible.

With 20/45 characters in game at the moment, 0 of them are female. The only reason for that however is that my GF has covered that part of the game and we usually play together so I get to see how various skins look on females and my chars showcase the male version for her. Nothing wrong with playing either gender, especially if it suits a char concept better.

That said, I do agree norn women are very nice to look at… for scientific purposes of course.

Because i am a fabulous drag queen on the inside <3

TheDuck.4526:

Because I like looking at girls.

I know it’s a sexist answer but add, “….in skimpy outfits.”, to the above and that’s honestly why. Yeah, it’s a bit twisted to enjoy the animated female form, but I do.

Who wouldn’t want to see this every day as you play? I really like the style of how the faces are done and such, especially for my canthan females.