Women of Norrath, what's your experience?

[khanable]

lol

[Ajkuhuun]

TLDR Get your big girl pants on and play.

To be honest I haven't really experienced much of a difference this go around in EQ, but when I first started gaming oh 15 odd years ago the difference between the sexes was a lot more defined in games. Girls were treated as if (generally) they couldn't be trusted with important roles, so were often lumped into jobs which wouldn't matter if they weren't done or weren't done correctly. If you weren't lumped into that category, you were tossed into support. Now before I get jumped on when someone inevitable misreads the previous two lines, let me just say not important and support are NOT the same thing , however, most girls were confined to those two roles at least on my server. Myself I played the majority of live as a warrior, and made the mistake of letting folks know I was a girl. Despite my ability I was often passed over for males, because at the time, the leadership role of the warrior was very much a male dominated class.

As a social experiment, I rerolled as a male character, also a tank, and was immediately treated with a higher level of respect than my female toon. I was complimented often on my abilities, I was asked to tank raid mobs by pugs rather than being looked over as I was on my well known RL female toon, I was given important roles in raids whereas my other toon was never given that opportunity. At the time, as I said 15 years ago, the roles were very clearly defined.

That's not to say that there weren't perks to being female. If you screwed up it was attributed to you essentially being a girl and not that you just plain fucked up, gear was handed out more readily even my complete strangers, and overall folks had a nicer attitude towards you. I was personally one of those players that rejected being handed anything, I wanted to earn what I had on my own, and was very much against hand outs, so I had less experience in free loots part of being a girl.

Fast forward to WoW and the roles definitely began to become less defined, we now see streams of girls competing amazingly well in PvP, battle of the sexes raid races where females outperform males, female raid leaders are more common as well as guild leaders. However some of the same obstacles are still there, it's harder to be recognized for talent as a female in a raid force, even if the damage meters or skill recaps prove you to be out-dpsing or out performing your male counterparts and more important roles are often handed out to men. Some top guilds even shy away from guilding females, and I hate to admit it but often rightly so. A large portion of girls, you know the ones...(tee hee, ewhoreing, flirty, etc.) cause a lot of drama in a guild. Lord knows even as a woman I'm guilty of sexism when it came to hiring on new recruits when I ran a raid guild back in WoW. Often when I attempted to coach girls on how to become better at their class I was greeted with the "I'm a perfect unique little snowflake" syndrome (I don't want to use a gun because I just like how my bow looks...was one reason I was actually given by a girl player). Those of us who played WoW especially on the high end know that there is little room for customization at the high end, it's very cookie cutter in terms of build and gear, and I ran into these problems often while dealing with girls. Also the potential for drama is greater, as ewhoring at some point rears it's ugly head in any guild and you end up with gquits, animosity and even gkicks to resolve the situation after it inevitably blows up. These are a few of the issues even now which girl gamers seem to still have issues with in terms of bettering their reputation in games as a whole.

I feel girls need to pick their battles, you won't find me on the "omg string bikini I'm so offended" bandwagon. We're playing high fantasy games and like it or not much of the classic fantasy art we see depicts women in these kind of outfits, to be fair you don't see guys crying because He-Man's outfit and build somehow damages their self esteem. Lots of girls will (and have) jump me for this, but if I am playing a game my toon better have an amazing body and awesome armor (or lack thereof), it's aesthetically pleasing to me, as well as the majority of folks who play.

When it comes to the "white knights" who cry sexism on behalf of girls, I'm going to give you a bit of advice, You look like an idiot. We're big girls, if there's an issue we'll fight our own battles, you just look like you're trying to get into someone's pants and truth be told to those girls who are impressed by your valor you've just got tossed in the friends category. You're doing women a disservice by fighting their battles.

Like I said in the TLDR portion at the beginning of this post, put your big girl pants on and play if you're going to play, don't hide behind being a girl to get free loot or make up for your fuck ups, own them, improve, and become an asset to the game. Only when we all start doing that will we make true progress in the world of gaming, as many of us have been doing for years.

PS Cospay doesn't equal consent is fucking stupid, if you don't want someone to hit on you don't dress like a fucking whore. If it was some hot guy and not some comicon nerd coming up to flirt with you, you wouldn't have a problem with it, so cut the bullshit and dress as Samus if you don't want to get hit on (and not zero suit Samus..)

Let the perfect little snowflake girl flames begin~

[JPMorgan]

Originally Posted by Ajkuhuun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As a social experiment, I rerolled as a male character, also a tank, and was immediately treated with a higher level of respect than my female toon. I was complimented often on my abilities, I was asked to tank raid mobs by pugs rather than being looked over as I was on my well known RL female toon, I was given important roles in raids whereas my other toon was never given that opportunity.

I'm sure the fact that you were playing a tank for the second time through had absolutely no impact on this.

[Tiggles]

Girls are bad at MMO's and they cause drama that blows up guilds. This is why professional WoW guilds have policies of inviting female members.

[Clark]

Originally Posted by Tiggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Girls are bad at MMO's and they cause drama that blows up guilds. This is why professional WoW guilds have policies of inviting female members.

Dang lol didn't know that.

[Ajkuhuun]

Originally Posted by JPMorgan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm sure the fact that you were playing a tank for the second time through had absolutely no impact on this.

Normally I'd agree with you, because it makes sense. However in the many years I've played I've done this in reverse and achieved the same results, obviously the difference wasn't quite as pronounced as the years wore on, but still definitely there.

[JPMorgan]

Originally Posted by Ajkuhuun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Normally I'd agree with you, because it makes sense. However in the many years I've played I've done this in reverse and achieved the same results, obviously the difference wasn't quite as pronounced as the years wore on, but still definitely there.

I am curious about your experiment being conducted in reverse. Did you openly state that you were a female in RL on your female toon? I mean, let's be honest, most men assume most female characters are being played by men. I think this plays into why you may have experienced discrimination at all: the ratio of men to women in MMOs (especially in classic EQ) would be considerably skewed. Less women players inevitably means less skilled women players.

I find your disposition convincing. But, I think a lot of people would be quick to point at their race, gender, religion, sexual preference etc. as a source of discrimination, before admitting that they simply aren't as good as they think they are. However, in 1999 I suppose it's easier to imagine a more hostile environment. I also think it's important to consider an alternative source of this treatment. As others have so eloquently said in previous posts: you get free pixels, you get attention for no meaningful reason, and your personal behavior can literally destroy the social fabric of a guild.

[Faerie]

I wiped a raid once (easy as a bard~) and when it happened the guildleader was super pissed, but when I told him it was my fault he calmed down and was like, "Well, mistakes happen." At the time I didn't mind because I was super embarrassed, but looking back if most other members had done that they'd have been chewed out and maybe told to sit out a raid or two.

Sometimes now when I join an MMO, I don't tell anyone my RL gender. When I first started playing here (red release november 2011!) I did this, and if anyone asked about my RL I just told them I was a gnome. Other times though it's fun to express your femininity.

Even while being a Tunarian princess, I feel it's best to be really careful about things. In one of the MMOs I played, I found myself in a very unpleasant situation. I'd been with a guild for a while and really liked the people and how we worked together; they were great e-friends. Things really started to cross over into creepiness with the guildleader, though. We talked tons in game and on the guild forum, but I didn't think much of it until he started to get sort of needy and demanding of my attention. Then he told me that he was collecting our phone numbers in case there was something super important happening, and I gave it to him. So then he was calling and texting me like every day and I didn't know what to say to make him stop. I was 16 at the time, and he was nearing 40. It got to the point where I was actually frightened and I quit the game for a while, and blocked his number. Later I found out that he had been doing the same thing to other girls in the guild.

I hope I don't sound like those "gamer girls" in that youtube clip, but I just want to fucking play video games. It sucks to feel like you're inadvertently leading someone on when you just want to be friends and kill dwarves together or whatever. I have this serious problem where people become infatuated with me over the gaming medium. It hasn't happened here yet, but I think that's because I sort of know how to avoid it now.

And you read that phone numbers, addresses, pics and all sorts of things are being leaked over EQ drama. A lot of this recently over on Red, and it makes me very uncomfortable.

Anyway, yeah. Sexism and stalker behavior is alive and well here in the gaming community.

[applesauce25r624]

Originally Posted by Faerie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Sometimes now when I join an MMO, I don't tell anyone my RL gender.

you mean sex

gender is a social construct

PS: can anybody name any females (sex, you jackasses) that have played at a highly competitive level in PVP in any MMO games?

changed back it to original post. fuck it. didn't realize that edit history is displayed.

when that guy was perving on your shoe size, can't you just say something like "size 15, i'll rip your dick off with my monster toes?"

use some imagination

[Cecily]

Originally Posted by applesauce25r624 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

you mean sex

gender is a social construct

PS: can anybody name any females (sex, you jackasses) that have played at a highly competitive level in PVP in any MMO games?

Sex and gender are regarded as synonyms by most of the population. Not 100% correct, but you're just being pedantic.

On my Lineage 2 server, Gustin: H20Krystalize, ShortNSweet, Eurybi, ebilsacurachan, Eriyan, Desdemona, DivineJustice, Lydian, some treasure hunter, Lilija, Alhannah, IRcute. All people, women, I spoke to on a regular basis on ventrilo.

That list excludes women from other clans on my server and women on the other 7 servers. But, maybe I ran into all the women playing that highly competitive PvP game and there weren't anymore. Who knows? What the hell is your point?