[MUD-Dev] The Price of Being Male

[Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes]

Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 08:45:11PM -0700 in
<005801c3404c$57878fe0$6425a8c0 at gambit>, Rayzam
<rayzam at travellingbard.com> spake:
> From: "Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes" <kamikaze at kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu>

>> But as you note, those aren't multiplayer, and they're not
>> roleplaying games.  There's no identification with the character,
>> and they're not representing you in a social situation.  If you
>> had a Tomb Raider MMORPG, far fewer guys would be playing
>> scantily-clad well-endowed archaeologist/assassins like Lara.

> 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.

I've played quite a few fighting games, and I often use female
fighters because they're faster than the males, and I like that
style of combat; wham-wham-dodge-wham rather than
wham-wait-wait-wham.  That design is based very loosely on the
real-world performance of women in martial arts, but I choose based
solely on the stats, and the other player still refers to me as
"Mark", not "Chun-Li".

You're right that it's a different situation than playing online.

--
 <a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev