Women of Norrath, what's your experience?

[Roth]

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

Go for it!



I think you're totally right.



Wait, what was that about white-knighting and not being sexist? Cause this is pretty fucking sexist.



So you're a chauvinist, too?



What, exactly, the fuck is "deserved sexism"?



Is that deserved sexism? Or are you just achieving perfect empathy with all the ladies you slighted by stating that women have to "prove themselves" to be decent at a game?



I thought so, too - thus my post.

I'm being honest on my opinions and my thoughts... sorry if they aren't sugar coated to be nice sounding. I mostly meant the worst posts should have been called out. Maybe my opinion is too neutral. To clarify I meant that any broad blatantly offensive statements are over the top without any proper reasoning to back them. If someone is reasonable with their post and explain themselves it is fine, imo. Apparently what I typed wasn't what you wanted to hear.

I also was mostly directing this at people just blatantly women hating to the extreme you can sometimes see on message boards and in comments on youtube.

[lecompte]

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

My wife played WoW with me at a competitive level for 3 years. I was the guild leader for a well-known, highly-ranked horde US guild from classic (molten core) -> TBC (black temple / hyjal).

I gotta say that people's reaction to her being a woman was a huge obstacle for her, myself, and ultimately lead to her quitting the game.

Story time? Story time.

It started innocently enough. We were in a guild that was originally formed in WC3 that was the first guild to down Onyxia. Leader was an asshat, we reformed. That leader was an asshat, and then we reformed again. I was elected leader. I modeled the guild after the only successful guild I had been in to date - a guild on Veeshan server in EQ called Primus Exodus.

Around the second reform my wife (then just a girlfriend) had started to play to spend more time with me - we were doing a long distance thing, and in addition to nightly calls we could play the game together.

It was her first MMO and she ended up being very decent - she wasn't a pro player by any means, but she caught up quickly playing a warlock.

When she hit max level, i knew she could raid - I'd seen her play in all the dungeons up to raid, and we were critically short on warlocks. If you played during molten core, you would know how essential warlocks were in so many battles. I petitioned to let her move to from a 'casual' rank to a 'raider' rank. This is where things started their downward trend that would eventually culminate in me and my wife quitting the game.

At first it was just called out as blatant favoritism. "The guild leader's whore" - this was a term that people used. Mainly behind my back, but of course I would find out. We were on progression mobs which entailed many, many wipes. The overreaction to any wipe caused by her, in comparison to the multitude of wipes caused by a LOT of our raiding members, was out of this world. There would be disproportionate bitching and moaning anytime she got interrupted before a banish or heaven forbid she forget to cast soulstone.

It then rollercoastered into her being 'bad all the time'. This was really before the advent of DPS meters, and people would complain that she was doing her rotation wrong or not pulling her weight. This was actually a catalyst to make dps meters 'mandatory'. When doing so, we discovered something magical - of all the warlocks, she was typically the top dps. Hooray! Problem solved? Not even close.

After she had established her 'right to raid' - a feat that literally no one else was put through, she then had to deal with creepers. People would send her suggestive messages alllll the time. There was a group of people in guild that would make alts and ask her inappropriate questions. We had several people end up getting kicked out of our guild because of this ongoing behavior - people really seemed to have a problem with her, despite the fact that she rarely, if ever, talked in vent, always showed up, on time, to raids, and never caused any drama beyond the typical loot-drama that accompanies a DKP system.

When TBC came out we all leveled up and she decided to reroll into a new class. She had the alt, a shaman, already geared up from alt runs.

At the time, she was playing a very unpopular spec - the 'elemental shaman'. Those of you who might remember, there was a time when ele shamans only had 1 instant, no DoTs, and no way to cast while they moved. Blizzard has since rectified this issue, but the overarching complaint was that on movement based fights (read: all) ele shaman just couldn't keep up. Analysis showed them bottom of DPS, just below boomkins.

So we got to raiding shortly after TBC released, Karazhan, and that's when the shit storm blew up once again. Coming in at 6th place, even though she was off by maybe a half percent of total dmg from 5th, was a huge confidence killer. She was ridiculed for being 'bad' at her class. Melee shamans were way outperforming at this point, and her contribution was being downplayed. Never mind the fact that she was part of a group that was server first to clear Kara - that she played a class with tangible benefits to our caster dps -- that she had clutch instant heals when needed -- that she provided bloodlust and never fucked up -- her marginally less dps than the mage was enough for her to get tormented by members of our guild. It goes without saying that on times she raided with 'pugs' she was number 1 dps by a wide margin.

Convinced of her inability to play as a girl, people started openly bashing her whenever I wasn't online -- in guild chat, in private message, etc. When I logged on, it would magically stop.

Eventually we had to give up. She couldn't log on without me being on. It got to the point where I didn't want to log on, so she couldn't either. I ended up mailing the entirety of our guild bank to the next in command, and deguilded myself, and quit WoW.

In our entire raiding history, she was the only openly female raider in our guild. It was my experience that she was much more heavily scrutinized than others, excluded from a lot of activities, and usually accused of being the 'worst' player when I know for a fact she was far from it.

I'm 100% positive it was conflated with me being the guild leader. Back then, leader was a full-time job for me in addition to anything else I had going on. A 40 man raid meant at least 66 active raiders, constant recruitment, and tons of drama.

However, because of that situation, I can barely get my wife to play any online games with me now. She's always very self conscious bout playing - about 'messing up' despite my assurances that she does a great job.

She did play here for a bit, but ultimately quit because of some real life obligations. I asked her to come back and play with me but she said she was strapped on cash and needed to save up. I asked her how much and she replied to the tune of $3.50. Well about that time I realized she was an 8 story tall crustacean from the paleozoic era! I screamed 'Goddam loch ness monster! Get off my lawn!"

boy I was angry

Please edit this post and put up a tl;dr

I've read the first 6 pages of this thread and wow... how.. ... wow. I didn't know this was such a thing. can't beleive it matters. It is what it is. I strive to treat everyone the same and don't even (conciously) consider their gender in my decision making. People either make it or fail on their own, regardless of gender. If a guy is able to manipulate folks into giving them gear, great. If a woman is able to manipulate folks into giving them gear, great. I think a lot of time people (especially people on this server) have confirmation bias rather heavily when they decide to roll female / male characters. I rolled a male character and got 8k in gear for free (Been paying it forward ever since), randomly, before level 25 -- I have a female character and didn't get 500pp in gear -- I think male characters get all the free loot. I play a male ranger, no one listens to me on raids, I think men aren't respected.

Oh ya, and in a stroke of creepiness, I call everyone sexy when they do me a favor -- I mean, come on! Who doesn't like to be told they are sexy!

[Ugrask]

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

Please edit this post and put up a tl;dr

No Shit, I was about to read that and went...nope.

And to the previous entries, call people out on shit but don't get worked up. It's the internet, people are going to be piles of human shit. White Knight, who cares. Chivalry should never be considered dead, unless they're right about your intentions =P

[Spitty]

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

Apparently what I typed wasn't what you wanted to hear.

I also was mostly directing this at people just blatantly women hating to the extreme you can sometimes see on message boards and in comments on youtube.

There wasn't really anything I "wanted to hear". I read most of this thread with my usual simmering loathing of the piles of excrement that can somehow operate a typing device and an internet machine.

What I was doing, and what you totally missed, was pointing out that your post was pretty sexist and mildly chauvinistic in and of itself.

I know, and associate with, women who can fucking straight-up regulate in games like CoD and EQ and have become pretty adept at using any given male's attitude and behavior towards them as a barometer of their true personality.

There's a lot of 'em out there, which might come as a shock to someone whose stock reaction is "prove it" when a female states they possess some sort of magical game-playing ability that's apparently inherent to men everywhere.

[Roth]

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

I read most of this thread with my usual simmering loathing of the piles of excrement that can somehow operate a typing device and an internet machine.

I really wonder what drives people to be this hateful. I have no idea why you would think things like this about other people. And when you say things like that, I wonder even more how you can believe that you are being a rational understanding person. If you would actually consider someone's thoughts and empathize with why they would think a certain way, I think you would probably have a better time understanding why they would say or do what they do.

[Spitty]

Are you, or are you not the person who was just explaining your position by describing your target pool as "people just blatantly women hating to the extreme you can sometimes see on message boards and in comments on youtube"?

Do you really have a difficult time understanding why I have a somewhat poor view of internet dwellers? Do I need to find examples in this thread of people that are clearly right at home when it comes to trolling and personal attacks?

I don't get you. At all.

[Raavak]

Any women of Norrath need a port? I know a nice romantic spot... And yes my wand is magical, and epic ;-)

And no I'm not being sexist :P

[loramin]

I think the main difference between women and men players of P99 (both in-game and in forum threads like this) is that people make generalizations about how "all" or "most" women do X or Y, and just about no one makes generalizations about how "all" or "most" men do anything.

[Roth]

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

Are you, or are you not the person who was just explaining your position by describing your target pool as "people just blatantly women hating to the extreme you can sometimes see on message boards and in comments on youtube"?

Do you really have a difficult time understanding why I have a somewhat poor view of internet dwellers? Do I need to find examples in this thread of people that are clearly right at home when it comes to trolling and personal attacks?

I don't get you. At all.

I'll break down my original points

1) Having an opinion on a situation, person, or other form of thought is not bad in itself. Everyone has an opinion on something whether they would like to have one or not. Unless you are of the school of thought that gender is only a construct and there is absolutely no difference between women and men outside the physical differences, you will likely think there are minor differences between women and men. Telling this person they are an asshole or wrong isn't going to change their beliefs on the core level unless you can really convince them. It's possible to silence them, but it's hard to change their core thoughts.

2) I mostly expressed my opinion that in GENERAL, as in most of the time, not all the time, many female gamers I've met are slightly less hardcore than men. It's just a fact of reality that most pro gamers, as in people paid to play, are men. You can debate the reasoning behind that, it doesn't actually matter why it is or isn't. It's just a fact of reality.

3) I have gained some stereotypes of female gamers through experience which is what I stated in the above post. Being more casual is not a bad thing in itself. I never said females are worse at games than men. But generally I am more likely on a subconscious level to be more cautious I suppose of a female gamer, I need to first see how they play. If they are a great player I have no issues considering them as such. I have met many good female gamers.

4) I mentioned the above because originally, I wanted to show that I do not view the situation as black or white. I wanted to show that I do think that there is a grey area... it is alright to openly express your opinions if the situation is appropriate, it is not okay to be openly hateful towards other people.

5) Blatantly discrediting female gamers who have shown their skill is disrespectful to them. Also, being hateful towards females is also something I'm not a fan of. I used the word sexist but I suppose really what I should have said Is I dislike when people openly hate females and no one does anything about it. I think that kind of behavior should be called out.

6) If someone is rational and freely expressing their thoughts I do not think that in and itself is bad if they are not intentionally being hurtful or trying to degrade someone. I think it becomes an issue when you have people saying things like "fuck all these whores"

[Sylexis]

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

I really wonder what drives people to be this hateful. I have no idea why you would think things like this about other people. And when you say things like that, I wonder even more how you can believe that you are being a rational understanding person. If you would actually consider someone's thoughts and empathize with why they would think a certain way, I think you would probably have a better time understanding why they would say or do what they do.

Odd, I found his replies to be right on the money.