Originally posted by Robokapp

i play a male character because....i'm a male...?  that's like asking me why i wear mens clothes.  why the hell wouldn't i?

 

that's great for you but for others this reason isn't enough.

I was hoping it wouldn't be me saying this but...have you ever wondered "what if I was a girl?".

Huh. sounds like something you can answer in a fantasy setting much easier than in real life.

Not really. My female characters kill monsters and take their stuff, pretty much the same things my male characters do. When I roleplay, her gender rarely enters into it (our settings tend to be utopian, with gender equality and little gender-role prejudice). If you want to know what it's like to be a woman, talk to a woman. I know for some of you that's not an easy thing to do, but you'll get better results.

Why do people like big shoulder pads or impressive looking weapons or nice looking landscape or.....

it's an mmoRPG, Role Playing Game, and I don't roleplay the opposite gender very well....

edit: and besides, I wouldn't want a bunch of guys hitting on me for playing a female...

When I was a teenager, I played all females.  In Diablo I was that female Amazon.  In RPG games I always played a female magician of some sort.

But then I grew up, I no longer need to stare at pixelated boobies & behinds.  The real things are much much better.  Dunno I haven't played a female character since 20 I think.  So eh, just a personal preference.

Originally posted by Mardy

When I was a teenager, I played all females.  In Diablo I was that female Amazon.  In RPG games I always played a female magician of some sort.

 

But then I grew up, I no longer need to stare at pixelated boobies & behinds.  The real things are much much better.  Dunno I haven't played a female character since 20 I think.  So eh, just a personal preference.

That's actually really strange.  Do that many people see video game characters as sexual?  My characters are just characters to me, similar to a character in a story. Can you imagine an author saying "I used to write about female characters, because I like writing about boobies, but I don't need that anymore so now I only write stories with all-male casts"?

Does the gender of your character always have a sexual meaning to you? Can't they just be a character?

Originally posted by Explorium

Someone told me I was gay for playing a female character.

 

I retorted with: At least I don't like looking at a male's backside the whole game!

 

So, people (some people anyway), seem to not get why males play female characters. The reason for me is not to get free l33t, but its because I'm not into looking at male a** all the time. I prefer females, not men...but thats just me.

 

Seems some people are always confused about males playing females, but to me, its more confusing a male playing another male and looking at his backside the whole time (unless he is into that, then I guess whatever, I don't care).

 

Kind of tired of getting complaints that I should play a male when I am a male...no thanks..got kicked out of my WoW guild because of it, one of the reasons I posted this here.

So does your entire ex-guild only play humans as well? Or is it possible that some of them are elves, dwarfs, orcs, undead, trols, in real life?

This entire problem stems not from anything to do with a video game but apperently from some of your guild mates juvenile sexual insecurities. And your and many other peoples answer of "I'd rather stare at a female character's backside" is just as juvenile and insecure.

Since no (at least none I've played) MMOs have characters of either sex with acutal genitals, does that mean that every person who plays these games has a castration fixation?

If people are so concered about how their charcaters gender relects their real life sexuality, does slaughtering all those imaginary people and animals all day long make them homicidal maniacs that should be locked up?

Its a pretty sad day when people start to carry their real life petty and moronic mental baggage into the realm of escapist fiction.

Originally posted by Explorium

Someone told me I was gay for playing a female character.

 

I retorted with: At least I don't like looking at a male's backside the whole game!

 

So, people (some people anyway), seem to not get why males play female characters. The reason for me is not to get free l33t, but its because I'm not into looking at male a** all the time. I prefer females, not men...but thats just me.

 

Seems some people are always confused about males playing females, but to me, its more confusing a male playing another male and looking at his backside the whole time (unless he is into that, then I guess whatever, I don't care).

 

Kind of tired of getting complaints that I should play a male when I am a male...no thanks..got kicked out of my WoW guild because of it, one of the reasons I posted this here.

I am on the same boat. Usually guys looks stupid in MMORPGs imo but girls usually look hot! I rolled a girl at first in Darkfall though and since there is only one character and everyone uses ventrillo, it felt wierd and people kept mistaking me for a girl until getting in vent . .... I rerolled. But yeah, I usually play some hottie and nothing wrong with that, especially in most pug games.

; )

Really? I usually find that female avatars have an awkwardness in their animations so stick with male ones.

I mostly play males because females are so over sexualized in most MMO's. I don't play games to look at virtual girls backsides clothed in a thong. Frankly it just feels awkward.

I think it fine playing males because thier not sexualized normally, so you don't think about that and it's not "gay."

I think if girls actually had armor and not bikinis more men could play them and not feel weird.

I play males because I'm male. I know it sounds old fashioned but thats the only reason why.

Just having read the first 20 replies, I don't know if its been covered or not....

Personally, a large portion of my enjoyment in an MMO has always revolved around the aesthetics of it all.  Specifically, I'm always very particular about my characters' looks.  I find that if that new piece of gear looks awesome on top of being superior to a former piece, I get all the more thrill out of it.  It's difficult to get excited about an upgrade if/when it looks like crap.  That said, I'm a male who predominantly plays female characters short of that option being the less attractive (e.g. female tauren in WoW - my horde druid years ago was male tauren).  I simply enjoy toying with my female characters' looks more than their male counterparts and find it far less odd taking pleasure in a female character's looks while doing so.  I don't really feel that it has much to do with sexuality except that I am only attracted to females.  When playing one, I'm always very clear which sex I am and I choose my avatar less as a representation of who I am and more as a "thing" that I control and own, often referring to my characters as "she" or "he" as if in third person.  I'm not that into role-playing in the sense of acting out a character as if it's who I am, and really; as important as the overall looks of a game are to me, I couldn't care less if someone finds it odd that the character I'm playing is a female because I'm not playing as a female.

All of that aside, I don't find anyone playing their sex or the opposite sex odd at all and I never have in over a decade of online gaming.  I'm really not sure why these threads manage to surface every so often except that it confuses some due to the ambiguity of it all.  Even then, it'd take some sexual insecurity to be bothered by such a thing.

I'll restate my opinion. Is it completely fine and nobody's business if a guy enters a chatroom as... Sara? I don't think so. Giving out a false impression of yourself is a form of lying too, but this isn't such a huge deal though. I'm just explaining why I'll never play as the other gender. I just don't want to deceive anyone.

Why do females play female characters?

Originally posted by Explorium

Someone told me I was gay for playing a female character.

 

I retorted with: At least I don't like looking at a male's backside the whole game!

 

So, people (some people anyway), seem to not get why males play female characters. The reason for me is not to get free l33t, but its because I'm not into looking at male a** all the time. I prefer females, not men...but thats just me.

 

Seems some people are always confused about males playing females, but to me, its more confusing a male playing another male and looking at his backside the whole time (unless he is into that, then I guess whatever, I don't care).

 

Kind of tired of getting complaints that I should play a male when I am a male...no thanks..got kicked out of my WoW guild because of it, one of the reasons I posted this here.

Some people identify themselves with their character, some others don't.

About your guild, you are far better without them, there are a lot of guilds that doesnt care about your gender at all.

I think when I create a male avatar, I'm usually trying to create myself in the game, or a character that closely approximates what I look like.  If that's not possible, I might try creating what I wished I looked like or what I think looks cool.  I usually look at that character as an extension of myself as I haven't done much role playing lately.

When I make a female character, it's often because i thought the male characters didn't look good, or for whatever reason i couldn't relate to them.  For females, I tend to create avatars I find attractive.  I don't lust after them though, I just like having a pretty avatar. I like taking scenic screenshots and if I can't have me in them I can atleast have an attractive looking female in them.

Originally posted by GTwander

I said it before, I'll say it again;

Males playing males do so out of homophobia, and they do not see the disconnect between the player and the player-character that others do. They strive to make their character look as much as themselves as possible, and use it as a conduit to express themselves online.

Males playing females do so out of simple perversion, they just need to get laid or something (admittedly, I am in this demographic), but it's not likely to change this habit if they were even getting tons of casual sex. They *do not* see the player-character as an extension of themselves, and simply want eye-candy.

 

Neither of them is gay, but the former route is more akin to role-playing a character, which imo, is pretty gay. *IF* a male player role-played as his female player-character, then I'd be worried, but they don't. In fact, more often than not they have to inform the people from 'group A'  that they are actually a dude behidn the scenes, which then riles them up and gets people butthurt. So I don't know what is worse, dudes playing chicks, or dudes that get all sour about dudes playing chicks because they intended to flirt online. Both have issues, but imo, the homophobic closet-culture of dudes that play dudes so that they don't seem gay have it worse off.

 

 

Yea we get it you are  unsecure about ur sexuallatiy and u would like to be a cross dresser or some bullshit. fine but keep your dumb explanations for u.