[MUD-Dev] Long Day's Journey Into Tights

[J C Lawrence]

http://www.wired.com/news_drop/palmpilot/story/0%2C1325%2C41176%2C00.html

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Long Day's Journey Into Tights
by Andy Patrizio
2:00 a.m. Jan. 23, 2001 PST

EverQuest may be the most successful online game so far, drawing
300,000 players, 70,000 of whom are logged into the fantasy world at
any time.

Although I've learned a lot about people during my countless hours
on EQ, fighting in dungeons or making clothes from animal skins, I
received a most valuable lesson when I decided to walk a few virtual
miles in slightly smaller shoes.

In the eight months since I began playing EverQuest , all of my
characters have been males. Although EQ's wizards, gnomes, ogres,
and trolls have different capabilities for intelligence and
strength, gender doesn't seem to affect player skills: Men and women
of each race are more or less equal. So until recently I had never
felt the urge to have an online sex change.

Changing your gender when you enter the EQ realm isn't all that
unique. Experience had taught me that at least half of the female
characters are actually males, and a lot of women take on male
personas so the men don't harass them. I can usually tell the
real-life gender of a player by their behavior: things like choice
of words, attitude and other behaviors usually give them away after
20 seconds or so of interaction.

Still, I'd noticed people just plain react differently to female
characters, even if they don't know who's on the other end.

So after several months of playing a male High Elf Mage, I decided
to see how the other half lives, and created a female Wood Elf
Bard. The female Wood Elf is easily the prettiest of female races in
the game, and sans armor, the character is half-naked.

I was quickly reminded that Wood Elves attract a lot of
attention. Some time back, I escorted an unarmored female Wood Elf,
played by a male, into unknown territory. We stopped to chat with a
trio of Dwarf characters, and all three players whistled at "her." I
asked the guy using the female character how he felt, and well, he
didn't like it. Hopefully he'll remember that in real life.

In creating the Wood Elf Bard, whose magic comes from songs, I got
to experience first hand just how popular a woman -- especially an
attractive one -- is in EverQuest. The contrast in peoples' response
to me as a female instead of a male character was nothing short of
remarkable.

First, whenever I was in a fight with one of the EQ monsters, other
players who were observing would always offer their assistance if
needed. This almost never happened with my male character. More than
once the Mage would be in big trouble and I'd be screaming at people
nearby to help, and they just stood there and watched me die.

Not so as the curvaceous Bard. In a few cases, I had three or four
men offering their assistance as reinforcements.

Krista Cope, an actual female who also plays one in EverQuest, found
that players often change their behavior toward her when they
realize she's a real-life woman and not just a character, but
usually in a good way.

"Most are happy to find a female gamer, and are fairly friendly,"
she said. "Several of my guild mates tend to be like protective
older brothers. But I enjoy that. It's like that with other RPG
games, too. If you are a female playing a female character, the guys
tend to treat you better. They seem genuinely excited to see a few
real woman players."

Plus, everyone wants you in their group. During a visit to a monster
camp in a zone far from the safety of home, a group of male
characters all pestered me repeatedly to join them. No, I told them,
I'm too low level, I'll get killed. Oh that's OK, they said, we'll
protect you. They really wanted me around, and why not? Compared to
the troll characters in the group I'd be a welcome change.

Conversely, my Mage hasn't been invited to join a group in nearly
two months. I always have to ask for an invite; although, in
fairness, mages aren't that popular, so it's hard to get in a group
just because of my class.

Even better is the generosity of the male players when bartering
with a female. When selling used items and components for spells,
like bat wings, my female character was frequently paid more than
the going rate. Bat wings, used in levitation spells, usually sell
for two platinum pieces per stack of 20. I was being paid as much as
10 platinum; I never saw that kind of generosity with the male
character.

As most women may guess, there are a few drawbacks. All that
attention can be a little discomforting, for starters -- EQ players
can behave like construction workers at times, feeling the need to
flex their virtual muscles to show how strong they are. I've been
whistled at more in this game than in my entire real life.

And more than once, people felt the need to jump into my fights. I
don't know if it's because players feel a need to help/save me
because I'm a "weak" woman -- or if they think it's easier to steal
the kill from a female.

Jumping in on someone's fight and taking the kill -- thus the
experience points and the loot -- is known in EQ parlance as a "kill
steal." Krista hasn't seen it happen much, but she plays a cleric, a
vital lifesaving character in the game, and said no one wants to be
on her bad side.

My masquerade must have been pretty effective -- none of the male
characters I interacted with asked if I was really a man. Either
they couldn't tell, or they didn't care and were happy enough with
the fantasy.

Real-life male and female players plan to get together in Baltimore
Feb. 2 and 3 for the first East Coast EQ Fan Faire in the Baltimore
Airport Marriott.

While that's going on, some of their partners will no doubt be
visiting EQ-Widows, a support group for women whose husbands spend
too much time in the virtual world.
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--
J C Lawrence                                       claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                          http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--
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