So, tell me

[Doctor Hide.6345]

6 minutes ago, Zaviamoon.4569 said:

I see nothing wrong with playing a female character if you are male in rl or playing a male character when you are female in rl so long as you are honest and open with people and tell the truth. I once new a guy in a game he played female characters  and told me about this one guy he new that thought he was a rl female behind the female toon and he let the poor guy believe that for years and after they had played togather for years the male friend started having rl feelings for the person behind the female character who he thought was female but was actually male and when he found out the truth it really messed with him.  I think doing that to a person is horrible so if you want to play a character opposite of your rl sex then be honest about it. I personally am female in rl and have made male characters  but alway end up deleting them because to me it just feels weird but thats just me.

 

Here is the thing. A lot of times it is none of their business for the person to know or not. Now, if that person was intentionally leading them and trying to get free stuff etc... Then yeah, I agree that is bad kind of. But only like 5 of friends know my real life gender in the MMOs I play. All the rest think I am a female because that is how I choose it.  It is not my or the other persons responsibility telling others what we are behind the screen. That is more a personal choice and how comfortable they are with it. I always view the people I see in game as their characters gender. It doesn't matter to me what gender you are on the other end. And I also prefer people refer to me as my characters gender as well.

[Zaviamoon.4569]

💭

Edited September 20, 2022 by Zaviamoon.4569

[Doctor Hide.6345]

4 minutes ago, Zaviamoon.4569 said:

Well Doctor Hide all I can say to what you said is ... You and my EX friend would have got along well lol.  I think my ex friend was gay and he just did not want to admit it and that is why he let another guy believe he was female but who knows.  He was a horrible friend who I put up with for years but after dealing with him for years I had enough and I disappeared  and left the game I was in with him which is how I came to GW2 been here ever since. 

 

Well, people like me do use MMOs to express ourselves because we can't irl, so there is that possibility for him being that way. But I am nice to my friends though, so I am not sure with getting a long part there. lolz I just don't give off flirty vibes to make them even think I am interested in them that way. I also only have female character friends in games because I don't care for male characters at all. Only interested in females, so there is that. /shrug

[trunks.5249]

sorry thats happened to you. kind of surprised. i have been playing since the game came out and that hasnt ever happened. if anything i bump into people doing the same thing i am its fashion  wars after all and some costumes look better on female toons and others look better on male toons

Edited September 20, 2022 by trunks.5249

[Eraser.9860]

It's just weird in my honest opinion. ArenaNet and other company's need to make it where the person playing needs to submit their Social Security and Birth Certificate which would gender lock their character to what they are in real life. That would be amazing. It would stop all the weird Catfishing....

Edited September 20, 2022 by Eraser.9860

[fatihso.7258]

18 hours ago, Sylvia.4870 said:

        By the six! It is  already 2022 and  almost 2023.  I can't believe there are still some people  who love to look down on anyone who plays  an opposite gender character in the game -  a woman plays  as  a male character and  a man plays  as  a female one. What is wrong with the case much , especially the second one? Since when did it trouble you , harass  your life? Since when did it matter so much? If I prefer creating  the  female characters  to the male ones  and see some outfits  are fitting to them, is that strange much? If you think I created the female ones in order to just look at their arses, act like a woman, be my guest. After all, I can't convince you nor control your thoughts. 

   

 

 

If you are the player I think, your human females are beautifully done. Saw you the other day in LA crafting area so I assume incident took place by that time maybe. Nonetheless, don't worry about it. You should live the way you like as Simone says.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Teoman.9713

[ArchonWing.9480]

I've never really been able to grasp the idea of character = person. I'm sure nobody thinks we have any giant cats or vegetables playing this game.

Even if I play a male character as a male, I don't believe he's me. Maybe this is because i started in the 8-bit era and I'm pretty sure I wasn't a sprite, Pac-man, or Mario, or whatever.  And even in those games where the game specifically tells you to put your name in, I never would see myself as say Cloud Strife (and thank God).

I get that people want to self-insert and that's cool and all, but not everyone is like that. A lot of us are here to clobber baddies and don't really care too much about how we look like, at least not as a primary concerns.

Also, female characters just have more options I think.

In any case, anyone that should project their idea of how to play and think that avatar of yours is real life, and make the effort to harass you then they're just detached from reality and either need to step away from the computer and/or go outside and reeducate themselves on how real people look like.

Their opinion isn't worth considering and yea just report and block xD.

It's better to see someone as writer and director of their character. Do writers only write characters that resemble themselves? Well, not if they're any good typically. That would be horrifically unimaginative.

Edited September 20, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[Doctor Hide.6345]

1 hour ago, Eraser.9860 said:

It's just weird in my honest opinion. ArenaNet and other company's need to make it where the person playing needs to submit their Social Security and Birth Certificate which would gender lock their character to what they are in real life. That would be amazing. It would stop all the weird Catfishing....

 

Might as well get a social credit system too and tons of cameras everywhere while we are at it. Can't forget removing freedom as well and putting in lots of conformity since that has NEVER hurt anyone or caused serious mental harm to individuals at all in history. 🙂

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Traditionally girls play male characters in games due to avoid sexual harassment, and guys play female characters in games to either look sexy or to be treated nicer. Its kind of sad that either of these things are necessary but its just how its always been in online games for most of the last two decades.

 

Luckily, I've never had this experience in Guild Wars because it has non-Human races. Once you dip into Asura or Charr, you get hit on alot less even playing a female character. Most players just say I'm cute and move on, which is super refreshing and one of the reasons I stuck with the game so long.

 

I don't mind being treated nicely for being a girl, but I do mind when people get creepy about it.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Ashen.2907]

35 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I've never really been able to grasp the idea of character = person. I'm sure nobody thinks we have any giant cats or vegetables playing this game.

Even if I play a male character as a male, I don't believe he's me. Maybe this is because i started in the 8-bit era and I'm pretty sure I wasn't a sprite, Pac-man, or Mario, or whatever.  And even in those games where the game specifically tells you to put your name in, I never would see myself as say Cloud Strife (and thank God).

I get that people want to self-insert and that's cool and all, but not everyone is like that. A lot of us are here to clobber baddies and don't really care too much about how we look like, at least not as a primary concerns.

Also, female characters just have more options I think.

In any case, anyone that should project their idea of how to play and think that avatar of yours is real life, and make the effort to harass you then they're just detached from reality and either need to step away from the computer and/or go outside and reeducate themselves on how real people look like.

Their opinion isn't worth considering and yea just report and block xD.

It's better to see someone as writer and director of their character. Do writers only write characters that resemble themselves? Well, not if they're any good typically. That would be horrifically unimaginative.

To be fair, I do know a player who is short, bald, big ears, snaggly teeth, Marty Feldman eyes, and an unhealthy skin tone....

[Dunroy.1058]

I think the topic of gender in a game reflecting on the individual irl is just ridiculous. I'm male irl and also play almost exclusively male characters in RPGs. I will sometimes roll a female in games like GW2 where I've racked up thousands of hours so want a character who can have different fashion options to what I'm typically using, but at the end of the day my entire avatar is just that. A fashion statement. 

 

I pick my character based on what I personally think looks good. I play males because I personally think a male in a full suit of heavy armor looks cool. I also totally understand that there are people who like playing a female in heavy armor, in skimpy armor, a male in skimpy armor. What the hell does it matter to anyone else?

 

Play the game the way you enjoy and 99.9% of the world will let you. That 0.1% who actively want to make you upset about your choices are a bunch of degenerates anyway, so who gives af what they think?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

1 hour ago, Eraser.9860 said:

It's just weird in my honest opinion. ArenaNet and other company's need to make it where the person playing needs to submit their Social Security and Birth Certificate which would gender lock their character to what they are in real life. That would be amazing. It would stop all the weird Catfishing....

The weird obsession with surveillance aside, you do realise other countries exist in the world, and that the majority of players in this game are from Europe, even on the NA servers?

Edited September 20, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[lezbefriends.7516]

Douchebros have taken over gaming, you have to act guyish or you're out.

[Kaleban.9834]

Honestly how anyone makes out the gender of a character in the first place with all the graphical effects and making sure to tag each mob in a meta train for the loot is beyond me.

Not to mention the pace of gameplay, especially in WvW zerging or PvP makes the character model irrelevant.

You'd almost have to go around announcing you're a girl/guy playing opposite gender to try and stir up controversy to make it an issue, but that couldn't possibly be the case here right? I mean no one would go around broadcasting it in chat and then feign being offended to farm forum salt.

Here's an idea if none of that applies to you: don't tell people what you are IRL. A, it's none of their business and B, there's no reason to go around telling people in an online game. 

If you login to an MMO and immediately broadcast to everyone that you're a bro-dude playing scantily clad femme fatales for the booty angle you're going to get just as much grief (probably more nowadays) than if you announced you were non-gender binary playing cis-Asura with cat ears.

To reiterate, your gender/sexuality doesn't inform your gameplay or character choices to anyone in-game, and no one is going to know or poke fun if you don't intentionally volunteer it. It's sort of like how the number one rule to avoid getting mugged is to avoid walking alone at night down a dark alleyway. Don't put yourself in a situation you dislike if you can avoid it in the first place.

[Silent.6137]

3 hours ago, Eraser.9860 said:

It's just weird in my honest opinion. ArenaNet and other company's need to make it where the person playing needs to submit their Social Security and Birth Certificate which would gender lock their character to what they are in real life. That would be amazing. It would stop all the weird Catfishing....

Yes, they should demand proof of age, gender, race, nationality, religion (what else am I missing?) to make the game very safe. Oops, I forgot annual income.

Are you truly serious because that is totally absurd. 

-------

Although we'd like to think everyone is smart enough to know it's just game characters, there are many who are guillible. And craves relationships they don't have irl.

[casualkenny.9817]

Hmm. I'm a bro-dude playing variously-clad female chars for the booty angle equivalent.

 

 

Spoiler

(I am firmly in the toons camp. I personally think tasteless scantiness is very sad. Most of my chars are actually quite covered. I do have male charr not for any angle. I also have asura who are like precocious children.) 

 

 

I really don't see this happening much in gw2 though. The  avg player age range that I meet in-game tends to be older than the norm in other mmos....? I've entertained the idle speculation that gw2 is like the retirement home for some people who used to play games back when they were looking forward to no more homework and exams and parental restrictions and to freedom to do whatever they want with their time and money. Now they settle into a (no gear grind, no increasing level caps, do whatever you want, enjoy whatever you want, at your own pace, decorating whatevers, watering veggies, feeding furballs, raising little goblins etc) after coming home from a crappy day at work and handling the daily chores and all that. 

 

I do also wonder if the identification pov might occur more at the age where teens are still trying to discover and establish that identity thingy.

 

You can also tell I've no psych background whatsoever and I'm just wiling away the remainder of my lunch break and procrastinating. Ok. Back to work now.

 

 

 

[Cronospere.8143]

Look at gw2effeciency. 

The top 10 race, gender and profession that has the highest percentage created on all accounts. 

Are all the female human profesions and charr male warrior. Those are chosen the most. 

I had a good laugh at that one. But who cares whatever reason someone has. 

I myself have exactly 1 male and 1 female in every race. Why? I dunno, i like it balanced. (And it bothers me that i have 1 double profession xd)

 

[Freya.9075]

58 minutes ago, Kaleban.9834 said:

You'd almost have to go around announcing you're a girl/guy playing opposite gender to try and stir up controversy to make it an issue, but that couldn't possibly be the case here right? I mean no one would go around broadcasting it in chat and then feign being offended to farm forum salt.

Voice chatting with friends and guilds are a thing though. I have a very female voice and it's not something I can control. I've come across some nasty male players that way before. That may be more of a female player issue though. (and I want to say it has been a long time since this happened. And not in gw2) If that happened to op or not I don't know as I'm sure some players also do what you're saying. Which I agree is stupid to do. I'm just pointing out it can happen without you announcing your gender.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

one of the guilds i'm in uses Discord for voice comms while zerging in WvW. you'd be surprised how many males and females (and everyone in between) talk in chat. (I said it like that to quote a line from Doctor Who, 10th Doctor series) Enough to realize that you can't distinguish real life gender by the characters they play in-game.

 

but i guess that the 80s high school trope of bigot jocks and nerdy band players constantly  dealing with foolish popularity contests and the ridicule involved, hasn't really disappeared, as this whole topic proves. there are still people who just don't mature enough to accept others as they are.

 

Approval is not required, but acceptance is. i can accept you as you are without endorsing everything that you endorse. you might like sports, while i prefer books. doesn't mean we can't play together.  we don't need to bicker over childish things.

[JayHog.3280]

16 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well it is because they can be misstaken as children I would guess.

Edit

And some guys like to play females since thirsty guys give them stuff for thinking they are females.

Sad I know.

It's why I'm adamant to play FF14, I know a gal that plays the game saying that place is covered in catgirls, especially around big cities.

[Andur.9275]

When GW1 was released, my first character was Andur, a male warrior (btw a real cliché Wa/Mo back then 😅), because GW1 was my first (serious) approach to online gaming and I had the feeling that my toon should be a representation of my real gender.

A few days later I created Lelina, a female monk, which a couple month later turned out to be way more fun then the warrior (= damage dealer), so the monk (= prot-healer) became my main character.

It happened a every now and then, that I was asked if I was female in IRL, but I didn't mind and I luckily never experienced any harassment when people got to know, that I am male. Nonetheless I planned to switch my main character back to Andur when GW2 came out, so I switched him to be the supporter and her to be the damage dealer. But what should I say? It turned out, that I didn't like the supporter role in GW2 that much, so Lelina became my main character again and I am pretty happy with it, nowadays.

Long story short: I think everyone should roll the character they like. And if its just for the preferred looks, so be it.

For me a personal limit is crossed when people roll a female toon to pull off a girlie hack (if that's still a thing) or develop too much affection for their character, though.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 minutes ago, JayHog.3280 said:

It's why I'm adamant to play FF14, I know a gal that plays the game saying that place is covered in catgirls, especially around big cities.

This game has literal furries, I mean full on 100% in-game furries. That happens in about 1 out of every 100 games on the market, and very rarely in an MMO (most stop at just "catgirls").

 

So we're not in a position to judge others, not really.

Edited September 20, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Danikat.8537]

7 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I've never really been able to grasp the idea of character = person. I'm sure nobody thinks we have any giant cats or vegetables playing this game.

Even if I play a male character as a male, I don't believe he's me. Maybe this is because i started in the 8-bit era and I'm pretty sure I wasn't a sprite, Pac-man, or Mario, or whatever.  And even in those games where the game specifically tells you to put your name in, I never would see myself as say Cloud Strife (and thank God).

I've thought the same thing - for a long time I didn't have the option to make characters who looked like me so by the time I did it seemed weird to do that. But one of my first RPGs was purely text based and your character wasn't described at all, but I still imagined someone who didn't look like me. I'd role-play in my head while playing games which didn't have a player character at all (mostly strategy games, but some puzzle games too) and none of those characters were me either. One of my Warcraft ones was a horrible mary-sue but even then she wasn't supposed to be a self-insert. So I'm not sure I'd have made a character that looked like me even if I had that option when I first started gaming.

And yeah, same with the name. The first time I ever played Link's Awakening I put my name in because that's what my friend told me you're supposed to do (and it really didn't matter that the little grey blob in the middle of the screen was supposed to be a boy). I got as far as "make your way across this monster infested beach to retrieve a sword, then use it to fight your way back" and went "nope, that's not me". Restarted with the name Link and did that in every one since, to the point where I didn't even notice at first that Breath of the Wild didn't give you a choice. If the character doesn't have a canon name I'll make one up, but it's never me.
 

6 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Traditionally girls play male characters in games due to avoid sexual harassment, and guys play female characters in games to either look sexy or to be treated nicer. Its kind of sad that either of these things are necessary but its just how its always been in online games for most of the last two decades.

 

Luckily, I've never had this experience in Guild Wars because it has non-Human races. Once you dip into Asura or Charr, you get hit on alot less even playing a female character. Most players just say I'm cute and move on, which is super refreshing and one of the reasons I stuck with the game so long.

 

I don't mind being treated nicely for being a girl, but I do mind when people get creepy about it.

I guess I've always been non-traditional. My main character in Ultima Online back in the late 90's was female, and this was back when "A/S/L?" was the internet equivalent of "Hello" but I got more comments on being in Europe but playing on a US server than being a girl. My sister did get a lot of...interesting requests, but she would specifically seek those guys out because she was scamming them, until my brother and I put a stop to it because we were sharing an account and didn't want to get banned.

In GW2 my main character is a female human (only because I wanted her to be descended from my GW1 characters) and I can't remember ever getting hit on. I've had comments on what she's wearing (and she's the one who doesn't wear anything remotely revealing) but no different to my male characters get.

[nas.5249]

Given that most male character's outfits in gw2 look like skirts, I don't see much difference.

Edited September 20, 2022 by dicemaster.1432

[Yttris.2945]

On 9/19/2022 at 1:59 AM, Sylvia.4870 said:

        By the six! It is  already 2022 and  almost 2023.  I can't believe there are still some people  who love to look down on anyone who plays  an opposite gender character in the game -  a woman plays  as  a male character and  a man plays  as  a female one. What is wrong with the case much , especially the second one? Since when did it trouble you , harass  your life? Since when did it matter so much? If I prefer creating  the  female characters  to the male ones  and see some outfits  are fitting to them, is that strange much? If you think I created the female ones in order to just look at their arses, act like a woman, be my guest. After all, I can't convince you nor control your thoughts. 

   

 

"Everyone else's bias is wrong cuz they aren't me. But my bias is right because I'm me."

Okay then.

goes back to staring at female character's bustier armour

Edited September 20, 2022 by Yttris.2945