[MUD-Dev] selling Godhoods

[Ananda Dawnsinger]

----------
>From: "Raph Koster" <rkoster at austin.rr.com>

>I can't think of any off the top of my head... I know that of the big three
>MMORPGs, Asheron's Call is the one with the highest proportion of female
>players--I think Toby Ragaini cited 30% at GDC. He also stated that this was
>similar to the percentage of females on their development team, which I
>found interesting.

My guesstimate would have been a little bit lower -- 20-25% -- but I'm not
overly surprised.  There do seem to be a fair number of female characters
about who, though not necessarily female, at least don't set off my
"guydar."

I don't know why, exactly, Asheron's Call would be so female-friendly. 
Granted, it's safer and less hard-core than UO, but why does it beat EQ?  Is
it the allegiance structure?  Are women friendlier toward non-traditional
fantasy (perhaps because they have less invested in the D&D cliches)?  Do
women simply prefer wearing clothes every once in a while? ::insert
winky-faced emoticon here::

(In my personal case, it's about 5% reason 1, 80% reason 2, and 15% reason
3... but I doubt I'm a representative specimen.)

What surprises me is that 30% can't be that far off from the percentage of
female Simutronics players, and Simu games have a much more female-dominated
feel.  My hypothesis is that in games with a significant social or RP
element, female players tend to disproportionately rise to prominence. 
Women who play online games are, almost by definition, unusual folks --
they're doing something socially unexpected -- so a higher percentage of
them are going to be "interesting" enough to become important people.

AC is pretty purely GoP, so there wouldn't be the same process of "cream
rising to the top."

Of course, I could be thoroughly off-base here.

   -- Sharon



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