Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Female gamers pretty much like what male gamers like in MMO's, but also have a tendency to play in more social oriented games, yet also you do find that tomboy female type too.

 I agree with this. All the girls I know who play MMOs are more, even if only slightly, into the social aspects than it seems to me the average male. Other than that, I haven't noticed too much difference, in my current guild we have female PvPers, crafters, and PvErs.

Then there is the fact that games, MMOs, just haven't attracted as many females and I'm sure we don't know the reason(s). If someone did, they would have capitalized on it by now.

Having read several books on evolutionary biology, there seems to have been a tendency even pre-historically for men to engage in warfare and hunting and women to perform other survival skills. Still, the aptitude testing on modern humans show very tiny differences that might be related to the natural or sexual selection processes involved there. Cross-culturally, spatial-relations (kinda like applied geometry or the ability to perceive size, weight, distance) tends to be higher in males. Language proficiency tends to be higher in females.  Though again, only slightly statistically significantly, meaning that the differences in aptitude are so small that you can expect them to have almost no value in predicting whether male A or female B would be better at language or object recognition.

That is the nature part.

The nurture part is probably stronger. We have all sorts of cultural teaching that runs so deep. Take an infant out wearing blue some time and people will say "oh he's so strong" dress him in pink and they will say "she's so pretty." Yes we start indoctrinating that early.

So maybe, we train boys to think about fighting, and most MMOs are 90% about fighting and we have 90% of people playing them men. With a game that is 90% about not-fighting (farmville? i dk really) what is the precentage of males v females? I don't know since I've not played, but the only people I know that play this are gals.

Im fairly sure that the World of Darkness MMO will draw  female players

its a glorified catwalk

I work with a number of females of the opposite sex that enjoy World of Warcraft. They enjoy the raiding, crafting, and are mostly mages and clerics. 

I guess it is hard to generalize as not all men like the same type of games just as not all women do.  But for me personally, community is one of the biggest factors.  No matter how good a game is, if it's full of a lot of rude people, I just move on.  I also like having something more to do besides combat.  I also love great in-game music.

Games I've most enjoyed:

EQ2 - Although I never particularly liked the combat and classes, I liked the crafting, harvesting, housing, monthly events, etc.  Our guild was about 60% female.

SWG - Had a musician as well as a tailor who ran a costume shop.  Loved the player owned towns and shops and hanging out in the cantinas.

DAOC - Loved the open world and dungeons, that home town feeling and pride, the housing villages.

LotRO - Love the "world is alive" feeling you see in the towns and villages. So many beautiful zones with areas that serve no purpose other than to explore them.  And the music system has created so many community opportunities.

Although I've tried everything, these are the mmo's that stand out to me and why I played them.

Yay lets get some more female gamers that can tell us not to curse in guild chat!. They are always the ones slapping a pg-11 on any guild I have been in. Nooo thanks. I'm quite fond of the male female ratio as it is now

As for what MMOs that draw the most females. F2P ones. My gut tells me they are less likely to pay a monthly sub but more inclined to spend 200 on fluff in F2P games. Browser games included

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Female gamers pretty much like what male gamers like in MMO's, but also have a tendency to play in more social oriented games, yet also you do find that tomboy female type too.

I remember couple years back a company tried to cater to female gamers but didn't quite hit it off with games lots of females liked. Hard to pinpoint what female gamers want beyond the social aspect of MMO's, everyone has their differences.

Bingo.  You always know when a female toon is actually being played by a female when she complains about no one talking in a group.  Women are all about socializing.  Designing content that requires more communication between players might be a way to draw in more women.

I'm also willing to risk being run out on a rail and say women are more inclined to get into crafting--cooking especially.(DON'T HIT ME I BRUISE EASILY)

However I'm not willing to say that women usually want to play pure support characters.  But I do think women are more inclined to help others and enjoy playing classes that can cast buffs.  As long as they aren't mad at you. :D

Thank you for the responses.  Seems like the female responses were similar to my own tastes including many things I left off my own likes. Hopefully some developer out there will take note.

Having played WoW off and on since it's release, I know WoW has an enormous female playerbase.  In fact I'd wager on the RP realms the females equal the males in population.  I'm sure WoW has been introducing alot of female players to this game genre much like Everquest did years ago.

But I leave WoW off  my list of what I like about a game (other than it's smooth gameplay/response) because there are far too many things about the game that I cannot stomach for very long.  One being that it offers the most boring and restrained classes of any MMO on the market and two having a problem with consistency and direction.  Blizzard plays shell game to which type of gamer it is going to make happy that month, and it becomes maddening to watch the ever nerfing of it's content and classes.

Puzzled: I thought I'd see 'Player Customization' listed the most times but I didn't.

Originally posted by Thillian

 Surely not mutually exclusive. But the budget is always limited. If you spend your man hours too much for the fluff like character appearance, and noncombat hobbies or whatever, there's less actual content. Simple as that.

Err, you should probably listen to your own motto and do a reality check.

Character design, non-combat content etc is what MMORPGs need anyway, if they are going to do what MMOs are expected to do - that means, keep players for years.

So yeah, that is definitely not wasted time.

Originally posted by Explorium

I meet almost as many females in WoW as I do males. No singles though, I've asked, its always their boyfriends or husbands that get them into the game.

 

A few females in EVE, but they seem to be rarer. Or harder to find.

 

I haven't had much luck with finding any single females, sadly. I ask and ask and ask, but nope. Just because I'm fat and sweaty in all my pictures doesn't mean I'm not a good guy! Personality is more important than looks.

 

Sorry started ranting there...

 

but no, MMOs have a lot of females. The real question is...how many of those females are single? And thats very few.

I don't know if you are creepy when you ask females if they are single, but I'm positive the amount of single women playing MMO's is proportional to the amount of single males that play MMO's, but I bet females are more likely to say they are in a relationship because they don't want to be flirted with. Someone asked me if I was single once, I was, but I told them I had a boyfriend.

I mean really, how often do you ask males if they are single?

I'm not seeing any input by females which hasn't been presented by thousands of males before.

I don't see what devs could do to aggressively target female players without dipping into gender bias like cute pink ponies and Barbie Dolls.  

Originally posted by Chieftan

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Female gamers pretty much like what male gamers like in MMO's, but also have a tendency to play in more social oriented games, yet also you do find that tomboy female type too.

I remember couple years back a company tried to cater to female gamers but didn't quite hit it off with games lots of females liked. Hard to pinpoint what female gamers want beyond the social aspect of MMO's, everyone has their differences.

Bingo.  You always know when a female toon is actually being played by a female when she complains about no one talking in a group.  Women are all about socializing.  Designing content that requires more communication between players might be a way to draw in more women.

I'm also willing to risk being run out on a rail and say women are more inclined to get into crafting--cooking especially.(DON'T HIT ME I BRUISE EASILY)

However I'm not willing to say that women usually want to play pure support characters.  But I do think women are more inclined to help others and enjoy playing classes that can cast buffs.  As long as they aren't mad at you. :D

 ROFL - I make my husband be the cook in game - cause I do most of it in Real Life :)

Originally posted by Chieftan

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Female gamers pretty much like what male gamers like in MMO's, but also have a tendency to play in more social oriented games, yet also you do find that tomboy female type too.

I remember couple years back a company tried to cater to female gamers but didn't quite hit it off with games lots of females liked. Hard to pinpoint what female gamers want beyond the social aspect of MMO's, everyone has their differences.

Bingo.  You always know when a female toon is actually being played by a female when she complains about no one talking in a group.  Women are all about socializing.  Designing content that requires more communication between players might be a way to draw in more women.

I'm also willing to risk being run out on a rail and say women are more inclined to get into crafting--cooking especially.(DON'T HIT ME I BRUISE EASILY)

However I'm not willing to say that women usually want to play pure support characters.  But I do think women are more inclined to help others and enjoy playing classes that can cast buffs.  As long as they aren't mad at you. :D

I found this funny because back in EQ1 i played a female dwarf so many people assumed i was a man until i was in the group. They said it was not only that i chatted but what I typed that singled me out as a woman.

Personally I have been gaming since I was a kid so i find a I like a lot of things, but usually I hate the shallow pink games that companies try to push out as a "woman's" game. I play shooters, along with sims games, just make a decent game and I think it appeals to both genders (though the option to play a man or woman would be nice in every game!).

For MMOs my tastes have changed as games have changed. I love customization, it was not really an option before but now a decent level of customization is a requirement for me. I love crafting in the newer games, hated it in the old ones (it was boring to me).  I also like a dungeon crawling and a nice raid.

I basically like variety, grouping when i want, raiding when i want, and crafting when i just want to just relax a bit and make something interesting.

MMOs I like/liked: EQ1, COH/COV, EQ2, LOTRO, Vanguard, Uncharted Waters Online

MMOs I did not like: STO, Champions, (These were overall game issues not a "not catering to women" issues.

Originally posted by Delvie

Originally posted by Chieftan

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Female gamers pretty much like what male gamers like in MMO's, but also have a tendency to play in more social oriented games, yet also you do find that tomboy female type too.

I remember couple years back a company tried to cater to female gamers but didn't quite hit it off with games lots of females liked. Hard to pinpoint what female gamers want beyond the social aspect of MMO's, everyone has their differences.

Bingo.  You always know when a female toon is actually being played by a female when she complains about no one talking in a group.  Women are all about socializing.  Designing content that requires more communication between players might be a way to draw in more women.

I'm also willing to risk being run out on a rail and say women are more inclined to get into crafting--cooking especially.(DON'T HIT ME I BRUISE EASILY)

However I'm not willing to say that women usually want to play pure support characters.  But I do think women are more inclined to help others and enjoy playing classes that can cast buffs.  As long as they aren't mad at you. :D

 ROFL - I make my husband be the cook in game - cause I do most of it in Real Life :)

Personally, I'd have to disagree about the socializing thing. I'm the last one to volunteer going onto Vent and I usually keep chatting to the bare minimum. But I'm also like that in RL as well, but I can't be the only shy female gamer!! lol I like having the option to solo in an MMO, because people can sometimes be extremely irritating in group situations.

I'd like crafting, but in almost all of the MMOs I've played it's little more then watching task-bars (BOOORRRRINNNGG).

I very much agree with this:

"But I do think women are more inclined to help others and enjoy playing classes that can cast buffs.  As long as they aren't mad at you. :D"

You make me mad, you ain't getting ANY HEALS! 

But I forgive easily! :P

Originally posted by ArmaniDevil

I'm not seeing any input by females which hasn't been presented by thousands of males before.

I don't see what devs could do to aggressively target female players without dipping into gender bias like cute pink ponies and Barbie Dolls.  

What devs could do? For example developing a MMORPG for a change, not a railroaded themepark or a combat heavy shallow PvP game.

Honestly, I believe we had more female players (qua percentage of players) in EQ, SWG, DAoC than we have these days. But it might well be that the developers (or rather the companies behind them) are confident that it's better for the revenue to develop games for male players (in the usual 15-25 age bracket) than to target female players and those male players that cannot stand the current crop of games.
:)

Yeah, I am not big on Vent either, but I have always chalked that up to something that was not common when i started playing MMOs. I usually just chat until I get to know people. If i am in Vent i do not say much.

I like to play a game with a variety of options available. I hate playing games where we all look the same or have to play the same race/class to join up with friends. I am not a big fan of PvP (some women are). I hate only being allowed to play characters that look like glorified hookers with swords. I love detail rich worlds and models. I enjoy crafting. It's hard to say how much of that has to do with me being a woman and me just loving games as a gamer. I mean I prefer to play female characters but my favorite character in the Left 4 Dead series is Francis whom I also play. Oh, and I despite games that only have one "right" build.

I like:

good character creator

appearance tab

ability to fiddle with my appearance whenever I want

lots of hair, clothes and armor options

exploration

deep crafting system, ala precu SWG

socializing....chat bubbles are awesome

music, dancing system in particular but any non combat professions are interesting

lots of emotes

Diplomacy ala Vanguard (it was awesome) or maybe similar to influence ala Oblivion

housing ala precu swg....i hate furniture hooks as I find them too limiiting

ability to make custom items

vehicles for solo or multipassenger

i also like some pvp...item decay or time as penalty is good enough...i don't like heavy death penalties

That's it.  I think many of these are similar to what girls like and I am a guy.