Now let me say ahead, I always respect everyone's decision what to play in a MMO. It is just a feeling. Let me explain. Now sure, as gay guy, I do not have the appeal to "see a girl's bum" while I play. But here is the thing. When I create MMO characters, I NEVER make "my idea man". And boy, I tried. Several times in MMOs I create a male character that looked as my "ideal looking man", and it SPOOKED THE HELL OUTTA ME. I can't even say why. But the idea to play a char that looks like my ideal man, was... wrong. It was something so outside anything I could identify or accpet. I always felt it was just wrong and spooky, to have some "cute puppet", some "love doll" or whatever. It felt just freaky. And that is why I shudder at the thought, no matter if you play same gender or opposite gender: this idea to create a character as "your ideal looking girl/guy" is what just feels so spooking me off.

For me, a character I play must represent something of *me*, some part of myself externalized. (Is that a word?) For instance, I loved my EQ2 Sarnath and my Fae Ranger. Both represented character traits of me. Both where a part of me, in a way I could not describe. Or my dark skinned characters I make in most MMOs as main. He is me, for reasons I can not explain. But he is FAR from the type of guy I want. I mean, I know some people would even play any random char because they don't care at all. But when you play a char so many hours as you do in a MMO, does it not evoke *some* feeling within you?

And that is what I don't get, how can you play a char months or even years which is your "love interest"? That sounds just so... bizarre. So it gives me more than a little doubt in players who do this. I know from experience with female gamers who talked to me, that female chars are usually treated better. If they enter older MMOs, they are WAY more likely to get help, money and other stuff. And that, shall we say, ulterior motive is what I also kind of suspect. Like they know, ok with a girl char people will be more helpful and nice. Which is the case. Female chars DO get more help.

So what do you think about it? And to you guys who play girls, how do you feel doing that? I wonder.

here we go again

Expect:

"IF I NEED TO SEE AN ASS FOR HOURS AND HOURS...." cliche

i don't know how a guy playing a girl is any different than playing a hulky sword weilding handsome tough warrior? neither reflects who you are in real life. 

As far as i am concerned i always start with male chracters but more often i have noticed that female characters in lots of MMO get better armor both from visual and asthetic side. So if i see females are getting better armor and weapon designs i go with that.

Also sometimes it just makes sense to play a female character as it suits better the class. For example in GW2 my Thief would be a female. A dual weilding Lara Croft style character makes more sense to me not saying that male thiefs would look odd.

I guess most of us dont make a character so we can fantasize about boning them. Maybe we just want a good looking character. For alot of straight guys, a good looking character is a woman.

I agree with most of this, the only female character I have made for myself was back in early WoW:Cata I made a worgen female mainly because the worgan males look butt ugly lol. Didnt wanna spend 1 - 85 looking at his ugly ass so I made a girl XD.

Im happy with making male characters as long as they dont look stupid, I like a bit of beauty in the characters I create I admit :)

I think you are assumming that a male with a female avatar is playing a "love interest".

For me, I primarily play males if they look good as I feel a closer kinship toward a male character as it feels  more of a representatoin of "me" in the game.

If I like what the female characters look like and if I think they are better than the male characters, I'll play a female. However, for me, since I don't feel the connection the same way, it is more like actually watching a separate character or person.

Because it's a role playing game, I imagine what a female character might do differently from a male character, how they would be perceived depending on the class, etc.

For me, a female character is like watching someone else's journey, maybe even the affinity of what one might have for a daughter or more aptly a sister or female cousin. Or just a woman in the world, so to speak.

When I see threads like this I usually think that the op is taking his/her own conceptions and believing that they are universal. It really is a personal thing and I don't really judge another for playing a character no matter what their reasons.

It boils down to this.

1) Your character is an extension of you and your personality. Wether the avatar be male or female the player is the same, for me the gender does not matter.. the player does.

2) You are roleplaying your character. In other words your character and yourself are seperate entities. This is in direct opposition to point 1 above. Gender does matter but the roleplaying that is being done does not need to be tied to your RL gender or even the traits your personality has which is usually a tell tale sign of someone's gender IRL. A male can roleplay a female persona just as well as a female can roleplay a male persona etc.

Some people prefer one or the other. Some people chop and change between both depending on the game. If I'm roleplaying I'll stick with 2 and keep myself and my characters personality and gender totally seperate from each other. If I am not roleplaying then I will pick whatever I feel like and go with it. When I play games I am the player, wether the name or avatar is female is irrelevant to me.

Firstly, I'm a female player. I have never received free items or extra help because of that. Then again, I rarely ask for help and I would never bat my eyelashes and appear helpless just to get a freebie or help with something I could easily do myself though I know women like that irl. I have only EVER been spooked (though that is even too strong a word) by guys playing girls when it comes to people I know. In my game, my character has pals who she hangs out with. Most of my friends and family create girl characters also and it is sometimes a sharp wakeup call when you shout out something in real life to your pal in the other room and a deep voice answers you or your mate phones you to talk through what's about to happen in game. Suddenly I'm reminded my ingame gal pals are hairy man creatures in real life. Not spooked but it is funny that I sometimes get involved in game and forget to seperate my ingame pal from my real life friend/family member if only for a small moment. I understand why they do it though. I agree with their arguement that many companies spend way more time on creating the female character and how they look in their armour and often they just look "better". Many ingame male characters look absolutely beyond silly.

Its an RPG, and people decide for themself do they wanna go with cruel/epic/scarry or cute/funny/pretty avatar. Its shame that males fall in 1st cayegory and female 2nd, but anyway, who would play only male every game? - noone

LOL, in the Tera beta this past weekend I created 3 new characters, and yes, they were all female. (cmon, have you seen the artwork in that game, you just had to look, especially since they were toss-aways)

See the thing is, long ago MMORPG's became more games than worlds to me, therefore I don't identify with my avatars like I used to back in the early days.  (where I would only play males).

Now they are just figurines that I manipulate on the playing field, not personifications of me in any way.  In fact, I interact so seldom with players in MMO's anymore no one even knows what my avatar is or whether I'm actually a female or not.

Take SWTOR for example, if they didn't hear me on vent they'd never know what my gender was.  And on vent I go by a more standard male name whereas I can have 3 alts, some male, some female.  In game, except for random drive by's only a handful of people have actually seen my avatar in game. (Remember the old days when guilds would actually all gather in the same place in the game world for a guild meeting?, Now it's all just vent chats and the like)

Also, while the female avatars I create will of course have femine features which I find pleasing, again, I'm not looking to try these fashions out on myself or replace my wife with one of them.  (no, she didn't make me say that)

So I'll continue to play both male and female avatars (generally speaking in any new MMO I make a male character first, as I did in SWTOR) as the mood and artwork suit me.

One note, I find the "female child like" avatars in games like Tera creepy, and no, I won't be rolling an avatar of that race any time soon.

Originally posted by Dragonantis

I agree with most of this, the only female character I have made for myself was back in early WoW:Cata I made a worgen female mainly because the worgan males look butt ugly lol. Didnt wanna spend 1 - 85 looking at his ugly ass so I made a girl XD.

Im happy with making male characters as long as they dont look stupid, I like a bit of beauty in the characters I create I admit :)

 

this pretty much.  sometimes the female animations look better and are more fluid.  i know  i will not be making a male norn in gw2.  the last thing i need is some big bulky avatar taking up half my screen. so if i ever want to make a norn it will most likely be a female.

I like looking at my ships ass in EVE.

Well I've played in past both male and female characters in mmorpg's (or crpg's for that matter as well).

When I play female character I never try to create my "ideal type of girl".  I follow similar patterns for both genders - I just try to make my character interesting looking. Sometimes that mean attracive ,but not necesarilly.

Well I get attached of course to character I play in mmorpg and not surprisingly in I play female character they are usually not so very girly in behaviour lol , also I never try to make an impresssion that I am girl in RL (I am not obviously) and I never try to use it to get 'help' in mmorpg's as usually I am preety resourceful in mmorpg's and actually I am usually on 'giving' end of help rather than on 'receiving' end.

For those people that I group with if someone asks or for example try to hit on me (cause he thinks I am woman in RL) I just tell that I am not lol  (well sometimes I do tease him for a short while making bit of small fun out of situation ,but that's very rare and never take long lol).

Hope that answer your question.

I suppose there are two reasonS why I personally choose to play female characters over male ones. The first reason for this would be that i want to play a character that is as different from me as they possibly could be, and in many games only human-like races are offered so I immediately lean towards playing as a girl. However if there are none-human races, I would perhaps choose them over playing as a female, i'll be playing an Asura in guild wars 2 for example.

Secondly,  I'm a big fan of J-RPGs. And as is typical of a lot of Asian games, the male character builds are damn ugly or ridiculously feminine, where as the female builds are well designed and typically have a much greater level of customisation. 

Originally posted by Elikal

 And to you guys who play girls, how do you feel doing that?

I like to tuck it back and tell random Players "it puts the lotion on it's skin".

Most of the time I play female models because the artists spend way more time on them.  If artists spent time making the male models look decent I would play them.

I didn't mind playing male models in Tera or Aion, because the male models in those games clearly received the same attention the female ones did.

Well, one has to point out the "RPG" part of mmorpg, in contrast of a "virtual world" that is Second Life for example, everyone kinda IS expected to ROLE-PLAY as a "character", when you make a choice to select a character close to yourself, it is just your choice, not something anyone is expected to do, its not Facebook, but a game where you can be a dwarf, lizardman, or a fairy , hehehe, im funny today :)

And ASS :)

Flame on!

:)

Personally I still RP. So I play characters of both sexes. I tend to play "concept" characters thet most often only "feel" right when they are  certin sex.

Sometimes my daughter likes to watch me play, so I will play a "cutesy" character for her. If I let her do all my toon creation I'd always have pink hair and what not lol.

I see my character as "me" in the game, so being a male and playing a female character feels weird :)

Originally posted by dinams

here we go again

Expect:

"IF I NEED TO SEE AN ASS FOR HOURS AND HOURS...." cliche

How about this:

I'm sick of male characters that look like steroid abusing neanderthals.