R: [MUD-Dev] The Price of Being Male

[Ghilardi Filippo]

According to Rayzam:

> But if it's that simple, would you never play a game where you
> were a female? I'll toss out Tomb Raider, again. If males want to
> play males because they are male, then I would expect Tomb Raider
> to have changed from Lara Croft to Larry Croft.

In Tomb Raider you have no choices (or at least you hadn't).

> How about going to the fighting games like Street Fighter and
> Mortal Kombat series? Multiplayer, guys play the female
> characters. Maybe anonymity is relevant. When the person you're
> playing with knows you're a guy, i.e.  sitting next to you, then
> you can play the female without these factors being relevant. But
> guys have less interest in playing a female online with anonymity,
> because the only gender cues available are part of the avatar.

Also in this kind of games you can choose between male and female,
but every character has a different stats and combat styles. So is
natural to use them all (even females).

Not to mention that there's little identification between player and
the specific character choosen (that often is different between each
game session).

Instead, in MMO games....  First off, you make a character and is
yours. You are this character and you can't change it after
creation. The choice made isn't easy sometime if you think that you
could keep playing the same character for years to come.

In addition, current MMO's let you customize your alter ego in so
many details. This is a good thing as it means variety, on the other
hand you let people to see and judge other players from their look
(and kind of decisions they made).

As the last point, I would throw something new to discuss.  In
english verbs are always the same (if spoken by male or female).  In
other languages (eg. italian) every verb carry on the male of female
part of who is speaking.

In such case, if a female char used by a male start to speak he will
have to speak accordingly too (if he want to keep to be known as
female).

For that reason in the italian (only italian) server of DAOC 99% of
male players have a male char as first and main char.  Opposite sex
char are usually made after the player has already well confirmed
his role in the community and that everyone already know him as
male.

ciao ciao
Filippo
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