Guild Wars 2

One reason I prefer to make female characters is, as mentioned before, they get better clothing. I have a male Necromancer on an alt account and going through the wardrobe searching for something nice for him was depressing. It’s so…… samey. I ended up putting the free heavy outfit we got last year on him. My Asuran male ranger wears an outfit for the same reason. I couldn’t find anything I liked out of all the armor in my wardrobe. At least the cultural armor for my male Sylvari looks good. Although he’s wearing an outfit right now too. lol. ANet should put more effort into male armor because females get all the good stuff.

All 30 of my characters are female, and I am female. I grew up with games and the main character 99.99% of the time was male. It was not until the early 90’s that female leads in games started showing up. Back then females in games were almost unheard of. Even in voice chat, guys thought the woman talking was the player’s girlfriend.

Now, as the gaming community has grown leaps and bounds, and mmo’s are catering to many playing styles, Gw/Gw2 would be a 50/50 split, WOW probably 60/40, and many others. Some games there is even a 60/40 split in the female players being the higher percent. That, “oh girls don’t play”, cliche has gone the way of the dodo.

Zynt.5769:

Doggie.3184:

All my characters are male because I’m too manly to play with virtual barbies /flex

HazyDaisy.4107:

Even if you are actually female no one believes it when you say so, not even other females.

I wonder ~ do the RL females dress their human female chars differently than the RL males or do they run around with T3 racial/duelist/stripper armor too? Maybe that helps determine it a little if there’s a difference? ;o

But I have a hetero male friend who plays female characters in MMOs for the sole reason that he likes to pretend to be a female because it gets him help and free stuff easier. .-.

Do people really still fall for the “guy pretending to be girl in MMO to get free stuff” trick? I thought that’s why everyone just assumes every other player to be a guy in online games, because of the amount of guys that play female characters and pretend to be girls.

In some of the games I played, there was a running joke: G.I.R.L. Guy(s) In Real Life.

That being said: I am female, and I’ve been playing online games for a long time. The climate really is different now. Used to be that announcing anywhere you were female and proved it ( voice chat, pictures, etc ) would end in harassment, stalking, insults, and overly chivalrous endeavors from people you squadded with. And if you played ego shooters like CS…winning over someone as a female tended to be the opening of the floodgates of hell. I’ve witnessed male players congratulating another male player for beating them in a hey bro, good shot way, and then turning around 15 minutes later and unloading a torrent of insults on a female player who beat them.

Personally, I’ve always played a mix of male/female toons, if the game allowed it. Here on this game, I currently have 2 Human Females + 2 Human Males ( all siblings, with a full story behind them ), and I will be making an Asura soon. Haven’t decided yet if male or female. And as someone else already said, I’d love to make a Charr ( gender dependant on mood/temperature on the day I create it ), but their loping run really does make me seasick.

Annonrae.3681:

Zynt.5769:

Doggie.3184:

All my characters are male because I’m too manly to play with virtual barbies /flex

HazyDaisy.4107:

Even if you are actually female no one believes it when you say so, not even other females.

I wonder ~ do the RL females dress their human female chars differently than the RL males or do they run around with T3 racial/duelist/stripper armor too? Maybe that helps determine it a little if there’s a difference? ;o

But I have a hetero male friend who plays female characters in MMOs for the sole reason that he likes to pretend to be a female because it gets him help and free stuff easier. .-.

Do people really still fall for the “guy pretending to be girl in MMO to get free stuff” trick? I thought that’s why everyone just assumes every other player to be a guy in online games, because of the amount of guys that play female characters and pretend to be girls.

In some of the games I played, there was a running joke: G.I.R.L. Guy(s) In Real Life.

That being said: I am female, and I’ve been playing online games for a long time. The climate really is different now. Used to be that announcing anywhere you were female and proved it ( voice chat, pictures, etc ) would end in harassment, stalking, insults, and overly chivalrous endeavors from people you squadded with. And if you played ego shooters like CS…winning over someone as a female tended to be the opening of the floodgates of hell. I’ve witnessed male players congratulating another male player for beating them in a hey bro, good shot way, and then turning around 15 minutes later and unloading a torrent of insults on a female player who beat them.

Personally, I’ve always played a mix of male/female toons, if the game allowed it. Here on this game, I currently have 2 Human Females + 2 Human Males ( all siblings, with a full story behind them ), and I will be making an Asura soon. Haven’t decided yet if male or female. And as someone else already said, I’d love to make a Charr ( gender dependant on mood/temperature on the day I create it ), but their loping run really does make me seasick.

Another one is “MMORPG”. Many Men Online Role Playing Girls =P

I can vouch for male Asura, they’re brilliant. My Asura is one of my favourite characters.

Dunno, I find there are more females playing GW2 than you’d think. Not nice to dismiss us so easily…

All of the ones I play are female Asura, for the pure fact that I adore the voice actress. I love the Asura personal storyline and even on a shouty Tempest, the voice doesn’t grate my nerves like the female Human/Sylvari/Norn/Charr do. I do have a set of ‘pretties’, female Humans for when I want to look at the pretty Human armors but the voice will irritate me after a while. Also, the Asura animations are so much fun to watch on all the professions.

I figured I might as well add another female gamer to the list.

Of the 32 characters I have 3 are male, 2 charr and 1 human. One of the charr was created not long after my old Ragdoll cat died and was done in memory of him and a great deal of time was spent with the makeover kit to get the best look possible, my only regret was the tail, I really wanted the female fluffy tail for him.

My human male is carefully designed blond, athletic, bronzed warrior dressed in the skimpiest heavy armor I had for him. We women can be just as bad as the men when it comes to inappropriately dressing characters.

Of the 29 females I have representatives of all races and I think every armor weight available to each race. Some are scantily clad, others are very sensibly dressed, all have their own character.

One reason I don’t play a lot of males is I dislike the general appearance and animations for them. The Norn males are just lumbering hulks I have tried them and I just can’t stomach the way they move.

One very controversial thought I have had on several occasions is do the devs, even unintentionally, put more effort into creating the female toons which is why they seem to look and move better. I don’t know the ratio of female to male devs but as far as computer programming goes the number of males I know in the profession is far greater than the number of females. If this ratio is biased, then men in general are aware of what they appreciate in the female figure, but seem to be far less aware of what a female finds attractive in a male figure hence all the over muscled, badly proportioned hulks seen in most games (I don’t know if men find these attractive or not).

I will also add my husband mains a female human engineer, he just wasn’t keen on the way the males look and move either.

Oenanthe.6549:

I figured I might as well add another female gamer to the list.

My human male is carefully designed blond, athletic, bronzed warrior dressed in the skimpiest heavy armor I had for him. We women can be just as bad as the men when it comes to inappropriately dressing characters.

One reason I don’t play a lot of males is I dislike the general appearance and animations for them. The Norn males are just lumbering hulks I have tried them and I just can’t stomach the way they move.

I don’t have many but all my characters are female. While I am female irl I have tried a few males but like you (and others) have said they just don’t move or look right. Now that you given me the idea I may need to try again and make myself a man candy character though. :-D

The game had a much better diversity of player characters at launch, and by some pre-launch census humans wouldn’t even be the favored race. People were excited about sylvaris when it was revealed that they glow at night and they were pretty popular. As per usual, people willing to play “tough” classes were all about charrs, norns and human males. As a human female warrior I almost never saw another one like me at launch, the human females players at the time were almost all playing “soft” classes like mages and thieves. Norns of either gender were strangely the least popular race, which surprised me, only good at making warriors and rangers.

Thing is, this game makes a big deal about rewarding with bragging right cosmetics instead of power creep, and it just happens that all those skins are (seemingly at least) much more carefully crafted and elaborate on female humans, norns and sylvaris than on their male counterparts, and charrs and asuras of both genders get the short end of the stick. The only exception I can think of is the Phalanx set, but that’s only because the female version is a completely different set and the male version happens to look better and would probably still look at least as good on females if they could use it. That pushes players that wouldn’t normally play a female character to do it in this game.

This problem is really unique to GW2, other MMOs (at least those that don’t oversexualize females…) get much closer gender equality in their player character population.

Bearhugger.4326:

The game had a much better diversity of player characters at launch, and by some pre-launch census humans wouldn’t even be the favored race. People were excited about sylvaris when it was revealed that they glow at night and they were pretty popular. As per usual, people willing to play “tough” classes were all about charrs, norns and human males. As a human female warrior I almost never saw another one like me at launch, the human females players at the time were almost all playing “soft” classes like mages and thieves. Norns of either gender were strangely the least popular race, which surprised me, only good at making warriors and rangers.

Thing is, this game makes a big deal about rewarding with bragging right cosmetics instead of power creep, and it just happens that all those skins are (seemingly at least) much more carefully crafted and elaborate on female humans, norns and sylvaris than on their male counterparts, and charrs and asuras of both genders get the short end of the stick. The only exception I can think of is the Phalanx set, but that’s only because the female version is a completely different set and the male version happens to look better and would probably still look at least as good on females if they could use it. That pushes players that wouldn’t normally play a female character to do it in this game.

This problem is really unique to GW2, other MMOs (at least those that don’t oversexualize females…) get much closer gender equality in their player character population.

At least I know I’m not crazy since everyone else seems to agree that more effort seems to go into the female customization than the male :P

Excelsior.

Zedekk, long-eared male Asura with Noble Armor and (Ringmaker’s) tophat, rich light brown hair and Gentleman. As Engineer, he spends 50% his time in the workshop to build and enhance his weapons and gadgets, restock grenades and recharge the batteries; the other 50% on the field, trying out his, uh, toys. Works very well.

Zedexx, long-eared male Asura with a slim-but-fit body stature either wearing his “Thief@Nightshift” pitch-black clothes and Anonymity Mask, wielding pistols and daggers, leaving only his bright, red eyes and huge and pointy ears to be seen or, when not on, let’s call it duty, showing his styled snow-white hair and wearing aviator shades.

Both of this would NOT work as well on a female character as it does for males to me. So I am one of the “lucky” guys which have male characters that suit their (real life) character and preferences.

I think this “Because I do not want to stare at a male’s butt all day long” is just a cheap cop-out. I can’t grasp that really. But then I have my hormones under control and don’t think my (male) body in real life is something I hate so much that I got to escape from in a virtual world. /shrugs

If you play female characters for other reasons, why are you so afraid of stating so? I enjoy playing Maya in Borderlands 2 the most because I think her class just works well with her gender (a male Siren that uses magic would be off in many aspects, mostly because the male equivalent would have been designed as old, grumpy guy like “The Witcher” main character).

Apart from that I am an Asuracist, only playing Asura, favouring for them, their lore etc. (Just like in every game with a diminutive race, e.g. Lalafell or Yordles).

And both Asura genders have their own cute and interesting details and a superb (German) voice acting (of which the female Asura one is incredibly mean compared to the formal male Asura) so that there is no “disadvantage” to any gender as it may appear to other races.

That happens/ed also in FF14 by the way; “Femroes” (female Hulks) are still incredibly rare, because females are cats (Mi’Quote) in that game. It’s also 98% stereotyping.

Now a very personal statement:
From an esthetically viewpoint I personally need a match as well. A norn thief is not a thief, it’s a bandit if at all. An Asura is small, swift and sneaky. That works better. Male and female does not matter in the case of Asura (female thieves work well as well), but Asura female tanks for example are already at the very border immersion-wise.. ;-)

OP such a troll lol. i’m a guy playing male sylvari necromancer and male asura dragonhunter. and there is way more than 3% female players.

Why does it even matter?

Zedek.8932:

Now a very personal statement:
From an esthetically viewpoint I personally need a match as well. A norn thief is not a thief, it’s a bandit if at all. An Asura is small, swift and sneaky. That works better. Male and female does not matter in the case of Asura (female thieves work well as well), but Asura female tanks for example are already at the very border immersion-wise.. ;-)

I used to main a tiny hobbit tank back when I was still actively playing and raiding in LotRO. I fondly remember raids with giant bosses that were so tall I hardly reached above their ankles . Still I could keep their attention all day from all the big guys in shiny armor standing behind them .

Aside from that, my norn (female) thief, a very slim and elegant young lady, would like to disagree with your stereotyping, too .

goes off to switch languages on her game client to check out the german voices she hasn’t hear in years while primarily playing asura

9 male humans, one of each profession
2 male norn, warrior/ranger
2 male charrs, engineer/guardian
5 male asura, warr/guard/ele/mes/necro
1 male sylvari, necro
2 female humans, thief/rev

Look how non-conformist I am kek.

Imo, everything depends on the cast animations of weapons/abilities/fashion.
I can’t stand female fashion, it’s such an obvious boob/ass show.
That said the only things I dislike about male humans and norns is the way they walk with greatswords, everything else is 10/10.
Something could be done about the male sylvari flaming flamingo walk but to each their own.

Me: Female
Total # of Characters: 20
Female: 19
Male: 1
Human: 9
Norn: 2
Charr: 3
Asura: 3
Sylvari: 3

Husband: Male
Total # of Characters: 17
Female: 9
Male: 8
Human: 6
Norn: 3
Charr: 3
Asura: 3
Sylvari: 2

duster.7013:

I am gonna guess that 97% of the gw2 community is male.

I‘m quite sure there are much more female gw2 player than you think.

Why is this kitten post still up? kitten mods need to step up their game.

*: Asura

(15 Asurans)

duster.7013:

I am gonna guess that 97% of the gw2 community is male. Now, let’s talk about the most common races for each class.

warrior : human female

guardian : human female

rev : human female

theif : human female

engineer : human female

ranger : human female

mes : human female

ele : human female

necro : human female

That’s quite the bold claim. Just using my guild as a reference, which has roughly 150 active members, I’d estimate a solid 40% of them are female players. Not just supposed female players, but real female players, who get on voice chat and everything.

Ironically a good % of them play male characters. So I don’t even know what to believe anymore.

Just speaking for myself (as a male IRL), I have 9 characters, one of each race/gender combo other than Asuran female (though my beta character was Asuran female). I like having the variety in backstory and looks. If Anet introduces a tenth profession, then you can guess what that character will be. Unless they introduce a new race at the same time…

Yeah I had friends that did this in CoH, Age of Conan, Diablo, WoW etc.

People will always do it when they can hide their real sex behind a virtual avatar.

Personally I match the sex that I am to my Avatar, unless the class I want to play as is gender locked. Which I’m glad they don’t do in GW2 unlike some other MMO’s.

duster.7013:

I am gonna guess that 97% of the gw2 community is male. Now, let’s talk about the most common races for each class.

warrior : human female

guardian : human female

rev : human female

theif : human female

engineer : human female

ranger : human female

mes : human female

ele : human female

necro : human female

OMFG this is some troll comment and it has 2 pages already.

1. in case this is not a troll, your guess is most likely WRONG for toons and RL.
2. I match the class with the sex that i prefer, what looks the best!, any names that work better for the class with a different sex? Unless you are a 10yr old that is playing an online game for the first time you might assume everyone is male. But its 2016 and that kind of thinking for massive online gaming that has been going on for 2 decades now is outdated.

I am male and I do have 12 characters of which 12 are male. I know, many male players like those kinky looking overly underdressed female characters… I dont.

Also… 97% male players is a very bad guess especially in gw2, which is a more casual game

faunabay.9320:

This doesn’t make sense to me because from what you’ve posted I’d see human females more than any other and that’s not the case.
I’m also female who plays female characters and there are quite a few females in my guild. Actually the leader of the guild is female. I think there are more females playing than the numbers show.

Lol that’s not statistics work

In order for the more played race/sex to be the majority, there’d only have to be 2 total combinations. Something with a 30% pickrate could be the most common combination.

duster.7013:

faunabay.9320:

This doesn’t make sense to me because from what you’ve posted I’d see human females more than any other and that’s not the case.
I’m also female who plays female characters and there are quite a few females in my guild. Actually the leader of the guild is female. I think there are more females playing than the numbers show.

Lol that’s not statistics work

In order for the more played race/sex to be the majority, there’d only have to be 2 total combinations. Something with a 30% pickrate could be the most common combination.

“Lol that’s not statistics work” said the person who pulled numbers out of nowhere and claimed race by class by the same method,

Norn female —→ guardian looks awesome
Charr female-—> engineer i love the voice of charr female

Yeah I only play this game to dress up my qt white girls with cute new outfits. I’m a man of course.

most male characters few female characters. why i made females? there were too many males so i decided to change it a bit. 1 of my mains is a females sylvari the other is a male charr who was the first character i made. only class i don’t have still is ele. also i’m a guy.

Ardid.7203:

5 males, 5 females. 1 robot. My main is a girl asura engie. I like her voice.

I forgot to add that only 2 of those are human: 1 girl, and the robot.

I made my guardian a Human, because I felt that the T3 human cultural armor was very Guardian-esque (Logan Thackeray and whatnot). I made my Elementalist a Sylvari because it’d be ironic for a plant to control fire. I made my Necromancer an Asura because I felt that Necromancy would be shunned due to their preference of golemancy.

If I made an Engineer, I think it would be a Charr because of their expertise of machinery. If I made a Ranger, it would be a Sylvari for that “one with nature” vibe.

As for gender, all of my characters are male, as am I.