What gender do you play the most?

[Obfuscate.6430]

The poll needs the option of "both".I have an equal amount of male and female characters which I oscillate between depending on what class I feel like playing.I...guess truthfully I spend MORE time on male characters because they have more options when it comes to armor, the fact of which is disappointing.I mean, there aren't as many "sexy" options for males as I would like, but there aren't many "bad ass" options for women (subjectively. It's just very hard not to make them pretty or sexy instead of "she's built like a brick house but looks like a Ferrari" - Arenanet can we have some people who think outside of stereotypes to work on female armor please.)

[Daria Morgendorffer.7049]

@Hyrai.8720 said:

@"Daria Morgendorffer.7049" said:I've never made a human female character because all the faces look identical, like Snapchat Filter Model Barbie. There are no old women in Tyria? No women who don't wear heavy makeup? Everyone has to only look one way? Only "pretty" like a doll?

i do get your point, however i dont agree entirely.taking a swift look at the wiki collage kind of creates a "cheerleader-effect".if you look closer, you'll notice a couple of faces that stand out as unusal/striking or just average.

"old"? 3rd row on the left (more like middle-aged tbh)"(heavy) makeup"? 2nd row, 2nd from the left and 2nd from the right, or last row on the right"average"? 2nd row on the right"cheeky"? 3rd row on the right

also, keep in mind that those are just the default faces. you can influence the outcome a lot with the sliders for details, hairstyles, skin color etc.and if youre still not happy with what gw2 offers you for human female faces try a small female norn. thats what i did for my amazone queen warrior ;)

Thanks for responding so thoughtfully - I was expecting more disagreement, honestly. That said, I don't think it's that image that creates the "cheerleader effect," but the actual face options. The nonhuman races don't come off that way at all.

Totally true about the ONE face that looks older than 20, and the "average" and "cheeky" interpretations. I just gave those as examples to describe the unique ways real human people look, and the way great characters can look in games and movies, because what's available is so limiting. But the makeup ...

I hate to break it to you, but ALL those faces are wearing heavy foundation, mascara, eyeliner, blush, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, and probably ley-line-infused setting spray. Some of those MIGHT have one face that's an exception. Most have eyeshadow, as well. I'm not gonna go into contouring because I think that's different with digital faces. Someone who actually wears makeup might know more than me lol.

You're right about the sliders, and good idea about the Norn! I chose not to look into Norn faces in my post just for simplicity.

Just to add, I have friends who I couldn't convince to play GW2 with me because of the women's outfits and appearance. Maybe their loss, but mine, too!

[BlackBullWings.2734]

Female asuras bc they're cute,then male humans to make badasses,then female sylvari bc they're pretty,then male charr to make badasses.the rest is meh

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

I just want to say thank you everyone for participating. I love reading all your comments <3

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

My own! Have tried a few times to play male, but it felt so uncomfortable... No way! :p

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Mahou.3924 said:

@"Gundahar.2765" said:Male because I am male and not a simp.

Being a simp (for simpleton?) has probably nothing to do with the reason as to why males play female characters and vice versa. Sounds more like a quick fix of self-assurance that you are different than the "weird" rest.

It's internet slang. Simp is an acronym for Sucker Idolizing Mediocre Kitten. It is used to describe somebody who spends an inordinate amount of time and/or money in futile attempts to earn the attention/praise/affection of somebody who doesn't deserve that much effort. Usually it references teenage boys who idolize e-girls, but the sexes can be reversed. It is considered an insult, usually because it means that said person is inadequate in sexual prowess and wherewithal. It is both a noun and a verb.

Though here it doesn't fit. You can't simp for a toon. A more accurate insult would be a kittenbrain, which is a person who spends so much time focused on self-gratification that they begin to make crass and poorly thought-out life decisions for the sake of this gratification. I.E. the kind of people who walk around with inappropriate full-body pillows in public. This would make sense for an insult, because many people will make female toons just to ogle them. There is some overlap here: aside from being very much 'weird,' a kittenbrain is frequently a simp, and vice-versa. As with all vices, there are degrees of severity. But, it is hard to deny the vice-like nature of it all.

[Danikat.8537]

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Something I always wonder about when these topics come up: for people who only want to play one gender (either their own so they can identify with the character more easily or the other because they prefer to look at them), how does that work in games where you don't get to choose?

Do you avoid those kinds of games? Do you only play them if your preferred gender is available? Is it as important when the character isn't human/humanoid? (e.g. playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game is fine even if you'd never want to play a human male.)

As I said earlier in the topic it's not something that would have ever occurred to me if I hadn't read it so many times in topics like this, so I'm not sure I really understand the idea but outside of RPGs it seems like it would be incredibly limiting. Especially if you only want to play characters who look like you.

Gender-locked games usually designate magic classes as female, so I usually have a pretty good time. In BDO for example, I was a Witch.

I was thinking of single-player games where you have to play a specific character. Would you refuse to play something like Red Dead Redemption or most Assassin's Creed games because your character has to be a man?

[Eramonster.2718]

@Danikat.8537 said:Something I always wonder about when these topics come up: for people who only want to play one gender (either their own so they can identify with the character more easily or the other because they prefer to look at them), how does that work in games where you don't get to choose?

Do you avoid those kinds of games? Do you only play them if your preferred gender is available? Is it as important when the character isn't human/humanoid? (e.g. playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game is fine even if you'd never want to play a human male.)

As I said earlier in the topic it's not something that would have ever occurred to me if I hadn't read it so many times in topics like this, so I'm not sure I really understand the idea but outside of RPGs it seems like it would be incredibly limiting. Especially if you only want to play characters who look like you.

Depends on how its perceived imo. For example :smile: I view my characters as avantars. Tokens in a way, doesn't represent myself, perceiving from a third person view. Which can be different from what others perceived in theirs. The game Sonic is no different from Tomb Raider.

Random example. Player A only creates Male characters because he's a male and all. But if we apply Player B's reason/perception on Player A, it will make him a gay, which might not be the true nor fair :smile:.

Though not sure what's the answer OP is searching for from this, we do get to see many different replies and views here.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Something I always wonder about when these topics come up: for people who only want to play one gender (either their own so they can identify with the character more easily or the other because they prefer to look at them), how does that work in games where you don't get to choose?

Do you avoid those kinds of games? Do you only play them if your preferred gender is available? Is it as important when the character isn't human/humanoid? (e.g. playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game is fine even if you'd never want to play a human male.)

As I said earlier in the topic it's not something that would have ever occurred to me if I hadn't read it so many times in topics like this, so I'm not sure I really understand the idea but outside of RPGs it seems like it would be incredibly limiting. Especially if you only want to play characters who look like you.

Gender-locked games usually designate magic classes as female, so I usually have a pretty good time. In BDO for example, I was a Witch.

I was thinking of single-player games where you have to play a specific character. Would you refuse to play something like Red Dead Redemption or most Assassin's Creed games because your character has to be a man?

Like, men cant play tomb raider ?

[Craine.8162]

option A: a man who plays tomb raider only plays it to stare at lara croft's body, so he is a pervoption B: a man who plays tomb raider is gay/trans/qu.eer (why does this get censored?!) because he identifies as a womanoption C: a man who plays tomb raider is a self-reflected adult who realizes that playing a fictional, virtual character does not influence his reallife sexuality

according to a big part of the online community option C is invalid.

[Dragon Priestess.9760]

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:

@Dragon Priestess.9760 said:

@Danikat.8537 said:Something I always wonder about when these topics come up: for people who only want to play one gender (either their own so they can identify with the character more easily or the other because they prefer to look at them), how does that work in games where you don't get to choose?

Do you avoid those kinds of games? Do you only play them if your preferred gender is available? Is it as important when the character isn't human/humanoid? (e.g. playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game is fine even if you'd never want to play a human male.)

As I said earlier in the topic it's not something that would have ever occurred to me if I hadn't read it so many times in topics like this, so I'm not sure I really understand the idea but outside of RPGs it seems like it would be incredibly limiting. Especially if you only want to play characters who look like you.

Gender-locked games usually designate magic classes as female, so I usually have a pretty good time. In BDO for example, I was a Witch.

I was thinking of single-player games where you have to play a specific character. Would you refuse to play something like Red Dead Redemption or most Assassin's Creed games because your character has to be a man?

Like, men cant play tomb raider ?

Oh. I have no issue with that. The Witcher 3 is one of my favourite single player games ever, after all.

[getskilled.2481]

@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

@"Daria Morgendorffer.7049" said:I try to play both evenly to keep it interesting, so each character looks & sounds more unique.

But I find it hard to play female characters, because of the pretty sexist way women are treated in GW2 (especially humans/norn). The same armor/outfit on a male vs female character is so different — a fully clothed armor on a male character is a revealing battle bikini on a female character.

This is the SAME armor skin:

I'd give a dozen more examples, but we've all seen it.

I've never made a human female character because all the faces look identical, like Snapchat Filter Model Barbie. There are no old women in Tyria? No women who don't wear heavy makeup? Everyone has to only look one way? Only "pretty" like a doll?

I know some people like these designs (they do look good individually if you're into that), and that's fine, there's just a lack of options. I don't mean to insult anyone's beloved characters. You do you — I even have a female Norn, myself.

100% agree.

I'm a guy and I play an even mix of genders because I just like to think of them as characters with some backstory that I make up, rather than avatars for myself. And I completely agree about the armors,

especially

light armor. I find myself wondering why so many of the female armors are so

ridiculously

male gaze-y. Even the heavy armors have weird random "windows".

My wife watches me play sometimes, and she was interested in the game so I made her a free account to try it out. But then she went to make an elementalist, and hell I forgot how weird the starting light armor is for female characters. She was so annoyed, her reaction was pretty much "I'm a sylvari still in the Dream and I have to wear a freaking

garter

? Really?" I agreed and offered that we'd find her some better armor first thing but even though she halfheartedly continued for awhile, she was kind of done. Said she didn't want to have to

earn

pants. I don't blame her at all. Anet lost a new player there.

While I understand that some people love the current options and I don't want to take them away, they should do better about providing more, especially for the starter and early game armor sets when people are leveling and are just stuck with things for awhile. Some of the armor skins labeled "pants" are not anything anyone would mistake for "pants".

And there's definitely some sexism in the available character models, too. You can make male Norn of various ages with just totally gnarly, scarred, weatherbeaten faces, look like they've been through hell. There is, I think, exactly one female Norn face with any kind of scar, and zero older faces with any visible wrinkles at all. Not to mention male Norn have totally different proportions from male humans, but for some reason female Norn are just tall.

Oh my god I went browsing the forums because I was wondering if anyone else had the same issues.While I have both male and female characters, I definitely enjoy playing the male characters more. If I do make a female character, they're generally sylvari or charr, which seem to have a slightly more gender neutral appearance. (I'm just not a fan of the asura movement animation.)I really dislike the lack of options for female human and norn characters. Most of the face designs are very similar in that they all look like made up dolls. So many of the male faces (even with the charr and sylvari) seem to have faces with more "character". There are way broader options for age, skin marks, facial structure, and damage in the male characters. With female human and norn faces the option is basically "what color do you want your lipstick and eyeliner?" I really try to make all of mine unique and it's really a struggle with those races. Running around the game, it looks like I'm mostly running around looking at the same character but with different skin and hair colors. I really wanted to try playing every race storyline, so I figured it would be fun to make the human character look like myself. The trouble was that it wasn't fun at all, because there's so few options that aren't just Barbie variations.I'm with you guys on the armor differences too. I do a couple types of historical combat, so I've spent a lot of time running around in armor, and I really hate that so many of the female armor options are pretty much bikini-maile. I really wish that they would at least give you the option to customize the basic starting armor appearance so you don't have to start off wearing stripper outfits.When I try playing a female character, it often feels like I'm just playing a walking pair of boobs. If walking boobs is an option, and not just the norm, I'm fine with that, but when that's the default, it takes the fun out of playing the character. It's not really a character anymore; it's just eye-candy. There's nothing wrong with giving people the option to make eye-candy characters, but I find it both weird and kind of insulting that you're playing characters in the game who are a range of ages and have obviously seen combat, but so few of the female character options represent that.

[Eramonster.2718]

@danfenton.7329 said:

@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

@"Daria Morgendorffer.7049" said:I try to play both evenly to keep it interesting, so each character looks & sounds more unique.

But I find it hard to play female characters, because of the pretty sexist way women are treated in GW2 (especially humans/norn). The same armor/outfit on a male vs female character is so different — a fully clothed armor on a male character is a revealing battle bikini on a female character.

This is the SAME armor skin:

I'd give a dozen more examples, but we've all seen it.

I've never made a human female character because all the faces look identical, like Snapchat Filter Model Barbie. There are no old women in Tyria? No women who don't wear heavy makeup? Everyone has to only look one way? Only "pretty" like a doll?

I know some people like these designs (they do look good individually if you're into that), and that's fine, there's just a lack of options. I don't mean to insult anyone's beloved characters. You do you — I even have a female Norn, myself.

100% agree.

I'm a guy and I play an even mix of genders because I just like to think of them as characters with some backstory that I make up, rather than avatars for myself. And I completely agree about the armors,

especially

light armor. I find myself wondering why so many of the female armors are so

ridiculously

male gaze-y. Even the heavy armors have weird random "windows".

My wife watches me play sometimes, and she was interested in the game so I made her a free account to try it out. But then she went to make an elementalist, and hell I forgot how weird the starting light armor is for female characters. She was so annoyed, her reaction was pretty much "I'm a sylvari still in the Dream and I have to wear a freaking

garter

? Really?" I agreed and offered that we'd find her some better armor first thing but even though she halfheartedly continued for awhile, she was kind of done. Said she didn't want to have to

earn

pants. I don't blame her at all. Anet lost a new player there.

While I understand that some people love the current options and I don't want to take them away, they should do better about providing more, especially for the starter and early game armor sets when people are leveling and are just stuck with things for awhile. Some of the armor skins labeled "pants" are not anything anyone would mistake for "pants".

And there's definitely some sexism in the available character models, too. You can make male Norn of various ages with just totally gnarly, scarred, weatherbeaten faces, look like they've been through hell. There is, I think, exactly one female Norn face with any kind of scar, and zero older faces with any visible wrinkles at all. Not to mention male Norn have totally different proportions from male humans, but for some reason female Norn are just tall.

Oh my god I went browsing the forums because I was wondering if anyone else had the same issues.While I have both male and female characters, I definitely enjoy playing the male characters more. If I do make a female character, they're generally sylvari or charr, which seem to have a slightly more gender neutral appearance. (I'm just not a fan of the asura movement animation.)I really dislike the lack of options for female human and norn characters. Most of the face designs are very similar in that they all look like made up dolls. So many of the male faces (even with the charr and sylvari) seem to have faces with more "character". There are way broader options for age, skin marks, facial structure, and damage in the male characters. With female human and norn faces the option is basically "what color do you want your lipstick and eyeliner?" I really try to make all of mine unique and it's really a struggle with those races. Running around the game, it looks like I'm mostly running around looking at the same character but with different skin and hair colors. I really wanted to try playing every race storyline, so I figured it would be fun to make the human character look like myself. The trouble was that it wasn't fun at all, because there's so few options that aren't just Barbie variations.I'm with you guys on the armor differences too. I do a couple types of historical combat, so I've spent a lot of time running around in armor, and I really hate that so many of the female armor options are pretty much bikini-maile. I really wish that they would at least give you the option to customize the basic starting armor appearance so you don't have to start off wearing stripper outfits.When I try playing a female character, it often feels like I'm just playing a walking pair of boobs. If walking boobs is an option, and not just the norm, I'm fine with that, but when that's the default, it takes the fun out of playing the character. It's not really a character anymore; it's just eye-candy. There's nothing wrong with giving people the option to make eye-candy characters, but I find it both weird and kind of insulting that you're playing characters in the game who are a range of ages and have obviously seen combat, but so few of the female character options represent that.

Humans(especially female), have the most customization. Asura have the least, few facial option but they have the best attack animation imo(flashy and cute). Vaguely remember making a necro with old facial features. But deleted the character, too lively with straight back and the voice acting.... :lol:

[Yggranya.5201]

@Eramonster.2718 said:

@danfenton.7329 said:

@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

@"Daria Morgendorffer.7049" said:I try to play both evenly to keep it interesting, so each character looks & sounds more unique.

But I find it hard to play female characters, because of the pretty sexist way women are treated in GW2 (especially humans/norn). The same armor/outfit on a male vs female character is so different — a fully clothed armor on a male character is a revealing battle bikini on a female character.

This is the SAME armor skin:

I'd give a dozen more examples, but we've all seen it.

I've never made a human female character because all the faces look identical, like Snapchat Filter Model Barbie. There are no old women in Tyria? No women who don't wear heavy makeup? Everyone has to only look one way? Only "pretty" like a doll?

I know some people like these designs (they do look good individually if you're into that), and that's fine, there's just a lack of options. I don't mean to insult anyone's beloved characters. You do you — I even have a female Norn, myself.

100% agree.

I'm a guy and I play an even mix of genders because I just like to think of them as characters with some backstory that I make up, rather than avatars for myself. And I completely agree about the armors,

especially

light armor. I find myself wondering why so many of the female armors are so

ridiculously

male gaze-y. Even the heavy armors have weird random "windows".

My wife watches me play sometimes, and she was interested in the game so I made her a free account to try it out. But then she went to make an elementalist, and hell I forgot how weird the starting light armor is for female characters. She was so annoyed, her reaction was pretty much "I'm a sylvari still in the Dream and I have to wear a freaking

garter

? Really?" I agreed and offered that we'd find her some better armor first thing but even though she halfheartedly continued for awhile, she was kind of done. Said she didn't want to have to

earn

pants. I don't blame her at all. Anet lost a new player there.

While I understand that some people love the current options and I don't want to take them away, they should do better about providing more, especially for the starter and early game armor sets when people are leveling and are just stuck with things for awhile. Some of the armor skins labeled "pants" are not anything anyone would mistake for "pants".

And there's definitely some sexism in the available character models, too. You can make male Norn of various ages with just totally gnarly, scarred, weatherbeaten faces, look like they've been through hell. There is, I think, exactly one female Norn face with any kind of scar, and zero older faces with any visible wrinkles at all. Not to mention male Norn have totally different proportions from male humans, but for some reason female Norn are just tall.

Oh my god I went browsing the forums because I was wondering if anyone else had the same issues.While I have both male and female characters, I definitely enjoy playing the male characters more. If I do make a female character, they're generally sylvari or charr, which seem to have a slightly more gender neutral appearance. (I'm just not a fan of the asura movement animation.)I really dislike the lack of options for female human and norn characters. Most of the face designs are very similar in that they all look like made up dolls. So many of the male faces (even with the charr and sylvari) seem to have faces with more "character". There are way broader options for age, skin marks, facial structure, and damage in the male characters. With female human and norn faces the option is basically "what color do you want your lipstick and eyeliner?" I really try to make all of mine unique and it's really a struggle with those races. Running around the game, it looks like I'm mostly running around looking at the same character but with different skin and hair colors. I really wanted to try playing every race storyline, so I figured it would be fun to make the human character look like myself. The trouble was that it wasn't fun at all, because there's so few options that aren't just Barbie variations.I'm with you guys on the armor differences too. I do a couple types of historical combat, so I've spent a lot of time running around in armor, and I really hate that so many of the female armor options are pretty much bikini-maile. I really wish that they would at least give you the option to customize the basic starting armor appearance so you don't have to start off wearing stripper outfits.When I try playing a female character, it often feels like I'm just playing a walking pair of boobs. If walking boobs is an option, and not just the norm, I'm fine with that, but when that's the default, it takes the fun out of playing the character. It's not really a character anymore; it's just eye-candy. There's nothing wrong with giving people the option to make eye-candy characters, but I find it both weird and kind of insulting that you're playing characters in the game who are a range of ages and have obviously seen combat, but so few of the female character options represent that.

Humans(especially female), have the most customization. Asura have the least, few facial option but they have the best attack animation imo(flashy and cute). Vaguely remember making a necro with old facial features. But deleted the character, too lively with straight back and the voice acting.... :lol:

What is "cute" about a tiny warrior running at you and cutting you down to size, both figuratively and literally? Heh.

[Daria Morgendorffer.7049]

@danfenton.7329 said:

@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:

@"Daria Morgendorffer.7049" said:I try to play both evenly to keep it interesting, so each character looks & sounds more unique.

But I find it hard to play female characters, because of the pretty sexist way women are treated in GW2 (especially humans/norn). The same armor/outfit on a male vs female character is so different — a fully clothed armor on a male character is a revealing battle bikini on a female character.

This is the SAME armor skin:

I'd give a dozen more examples, but we've all seen it.

I've never made a human female character because all the faces look identical, like Snapchat Filter Model Barbie. There are no old women in Tyria? No women who don't wear heavy makeup? Everyone has to only look one way? Only "pretty" like a doll?

I know some people like these designs (they do look good individually if you're into that), and that's fine, there's just a lack of options. I don't mean to insult anyone's beloved characters. You do you — I even have a female Norn, myself.

100% agree.

I'm a guy and I play an even mix of genders because I just like to think of them as characters with some backstory that I make up, rather than avatars for myself. And I completely agree about the armors,

especially

light armor. I find myself wondering why so many of the female armors are so

ridiculously

male gaze-y. Even the heavy armors have weird random "windows".

My wife watches me play sometimes, and she was interested in the game so I made her a free account to try it out. But then she went to make an elementalist, and hell I forgot how weird the starting light armor is for female characters. She was so annoyed, her reaction was pretty much "I'm a sylvari still in the Dream and I have to wear a freaking

garter

? Really?" I agreed and offered that we'd find her some better armor first thing but even though she halfheartedly continued for awhile, she was kind of done. Said she didn't want to have to

earn

pants. I don't blame her at all. Anet lost a new player there.

While I understand that some people love the current options and I don't want to take them away, they should do better about providing more, especially for the starter and early game armor sets when people are leveling and are just stuck with things for awhile. Some of the armor skins labeled "pants" are not anything anyone would mistake for "pants".

And there's definitely some sexism in the available character models, too. You can make male Norn of various ages with just totally gnarly, scarred, weatherbeaten faces, look like they've been through hell. There is, I think, exactly one female Norn face with any kind of scar, and zero older faces with any visible wrinkles at all. Not to mention male Norn have totally different proportions from male humans, but for some reason female Norn are just tall.

Oh my god I went browsing the forums because I was wondering if anyone else had the same issues.While I have both male and female characters, I definitely enjoy playing the male characters more. If I do make a female character, they're generally sylvari or charr, which seem to have a slightly more gender neutral appearance. (I'm just not a fan of the asura movement animation.)I really dislike the lack of options for female human and norn characters. Most of the face designs are very similar in that they all look like made up dolls. So many of the male faces (even with the charr and sylvari) seem to have faces with more "character". There are way broader options for age, skin marks, facial structure, and damage in the male characters. With female human and norn faces the option is basically "what color do you want your lipstick and eyeliner?" I really try to make all of mine unique and it's really a struggle with those races. Running around the game, it looks like I'm mostly running around looking at the same character but with different skin and hair colors. I really wanted to try playing every race storyline, so I figured it would be fun to make the human character look like myself. The trouble was that it wasn't fun at all, because there's so few options that aren't just Barbie variations.I'm with you guys on the armor differences too. I do a couple types of historical combat, so I've spent a lot of time running around in armor, and I really hate that so many of the female armor options are pretty much bikini-maile. I really wish that they would at least give you the option to customize the basic starting armor appearance so you don't have to start off wearing stripper outfits.When I try playing a female character, it often feels like I'm just playing a walking pair of boobs. If walking boobs is an option, and not just the norm, I'm fine with that, but when that's the default, it takes the fun out of playing the character. It's not really a character anymore; it's just eye-candy. There's nothing wrong with giving people the option to make eye-candy characters, but I find it both weird and kind of insulting that you're playing characters in the game who are a range of ages and have obviously seen combat, but so few of the female character options represent that.

Thanks so much for weighing in, really interesting to hear other people having the same experience. I'm sure it must be pretty jarring from a historical combat background >_> Would love to hear more about historical armor design in relation to GW2's armor, tbh.

I came to GW2 from a different popular MMO where the women's outfits almost all have MORE clothes than the males'. Particularly in cases where the male version of the armor is bare-chested, the female version has to have some chest covering, but otherwise looks the same. So it's definitely possible, and even a sustainable business. I wonder how the playerbase gender ratio compares between MMOs.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I am male. Almost all of my characters are female.

For several reasons.

I do not want to stare at a mans behind for hoursI do like making my chars look pretty (and surprisingly, the ones I think are the prettiest are also pretty decent). Playing with skins and dyes for hours.

And most importantly:It does bother me a lot to hear another man's voice to be mine. A female voice does nothing, but a male triggers a strong 'I do not sound like that, why does my char sound like this? This is stupid!' response that completely ruins everything for me.

My two male chars are charr and norn for that reason.

For those complaining about 'sexism'.

You can make outright ugly female chars. If you want to. You can make a thick norn female. If you want to. You can make your char look so modest and decent, even a nun would not find anything to complain about.

But most people do not go down that route.

Oh and one complaint I have:

when it comes to heavy armor, most is either stupidly reavealing or makes the char look fat and lumpy. Not 'well armored' and 'strong', but fat and lumpy. The heavy sets that look kind of real AND kind of good are very rare - and usually ruined by some stupid ornamental garbage screwed on all over the place.

[Yggranya.5201]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:I am male. Almost all of my characters are female.

For several reasons.

I do not want to stare at a mans behind for hoursI do like making my chars look pretty (and surprisingly, the ones I think are the prettiest are also pretty decent). Playing with skins and dyes for hours.

And most importantly:It does bother me a lot to hear another man's voice to be mine. A female voice does nothing, but a male triggers a strong 'I do not sound like that, why does my char sound like this? This is stupid!' response that completely ruins everything for me.

My two male chars are charr and norn for that reason.

For those complaining about 'sexism'.

You can make outright ugly female chars. If you want to. You can make a thick norn female. If you want to. You can make your char look so modest and decent, even a nun would not find anything to complain about.

But most people do not go down that route.

Oh and one complaint I have:

when it comes to heavy armor, most is either stupidly reavealing or makes the char look fat and lumpy. Not 'well armored' and 'strong', but fat and lumpy. The heavy sets that look kind of real AND kind of good are very rare - and usually ruined by some stupid ornamental garbage screwed on all over the place.

If you just stare at your characters ass for hours, you are doing it wrong.

[keenedge.9675]

A proper poll would add the option Who Cares. I would have picked this.

[Odinius.9826]

Mostly females for better looking armor (as a male), but it depends on the personality/profession I have invisioned for that particular character.

[aspirine.6852]

I think I have around 20 chars, about 5 of them are male I think. So mostly female.

[Nidarrock.5692]

I'm a guy, but generally choose female when given the option in games. It started as the Lara Croft reasoning back in the day, but now it is due to characters being based on a story of mine. Playing them as close as possible to their story counterpart makes for some fun decisions in games like Mass Effect and Old Republic. As limited as it was, I do miss the personality system GW2 used to have. Funnily enough when I counted my characters in GW2, I have 8 males and 5 females. That said, my main char, female, probably has more game-time than the other characters combined.

@Danikat.8537 said:Something I always wonder about when these topics come up: for people who only want to play one gender (either their own so they can identify with the character more easily or the other because they prefer to look at them), how does that work in games where you don't get to choose?

Do you avoid those kinds of games? Do you only play them if your preferred gender is available? Is it as important when the character isn't human/humanoid? (e.g. playing a Sonic the Hedgehog game is fine even if you'd never want to play a human male.)

As I said earlier in the topic it's not something that would have ever occurred to me if I hadn't read it so many times in topics like this, so I'm not sure I really understand the idea but outside of RPGs it seems like it would be incredibly limiting. Especially if you only want to play characters who look like you.

It is an interesting question. I do not shy away from games which lock you into a character type and feel it would be very limiting to what kind of entertainment I consume. I absolutely love character creators, the option to build your own character and in some case have your own custom adventure, but I would never want to miss out on games due to a lack there of.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

@Hyrai.8720 said:option A: a man who plays tomb raider only plays it to stare at lara croft's body, so he is a pervoption B: a man who plays tomb raider is gay/trans/qu.eer (why does this get censored?!) because he identifies as a womanoption C: a man who plays tomb raider is a self-reflected adult who realizes that playing a fictional, virtual character does not influence his reallife sexuality

according to a big part of the online community option C is invalid.

Funny thing is, the vast amount of people who think option a and b are only valid probably weren't even born around tomb raider.

[Fat Disgrace.4275]

@"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said:I am male. Almost all of my characters are female.

For several reasons.

I do not want to stare at a mans behind for hoursI do like making my chars look pretty (and surprisingly, the ones I think are the prettiest are also pretty decent). Playing with skins and dyes for hours.

And most importantly:It does bother me a lot to hear another man's voice to be mine. A female voice does nothing, but a male triggers a strong 'I do not sound like that, why does my char sound like this? This is stupid!' response that completely ruins everything for me.

My two male chars are charr and norn for that reason.

For those complaining about 'sexism'.

You can make outright ugly female chars. If you want to. You can make a thick norn female. If you want to. You can make your char look so modest and decent, even a nun would not find anything to complain about.

But most people do not go down that route.

Oh and one complaint I have:

when it comes to heavy armor, most is either stupidly reavealing or makes the char look fat and lumpy. Not 'well armored' and 'strong', but fat and lumpy. The heavy sets that look kind of real AND kind of good are very rare - and usually ruined by some stupid ornamental garbage screwed on all over the place.

See, that's a silly comment "I dont want to stair at a mans back side for hours"... you ain't, or cant lol, you cant focus on that and watch all the surroundings at the same time, infact when I play I hardly even look at my char, as that's not where dmg is coming from unless a thief Ganks you or something

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Female - better models, better armor, more fitting animations.

[LadyKitty.6120]

40+ female characters and one male charr mesmer that looks like female (since mesmers are masters of disguise).Reason: Kitty's female and her characters are kind of her avatars though over time they've become thematic /puns on stuff. Most of Kitty's character names also follow a certain formula with "Lady Kitty" in them (all include "Kitty") and it would be weird if they were male with such name.