Hey, Achaeans! I am working on an assignment and thought you guys might be willing to help me!

Adalie

I honestly thought that option would have more popularity too, @Bluef! 

So no one has answered one of my questions that I find the most interesting: 

Do you think a female combatant that we know is played by a man is taken more seriously than one we know is played by a woman? What about city leaders?

@Hayte answered the combat question for me in another place and said "yes, because people take horses more seriously than unicorns." I had no idea RL lady combatants were so rare! Anyway, what do you all think?

Nizana

If they are, it is only because of how tech-related scripting is. In my CIS classes, for example, there are some 20-30 men and between 1-3 women, in total, and because writing up an offense just to be a combatant seems to take a bit of coding knowledge, I assume that'd be why.

If they are not, then awesome. It makes no difference to me. I get my butt kicked all the same, whatever gender they are.

Edit: I read the question wrong. I come from Aetolia, with my city/guild leader being a female playing a female. She's probably one of the most respected/hated people in the game, but it's hard not to respect how well she does in the role.

I don't know any females played by males who are city leaders, though. I've been, at least in Aet, not too impressed with what I saw.. but then again, I've not played in their organizations where males are leading the charge. I see plenty of male combatants though!

Shirszae

I don't really fancy that analogy, comparison, whatever. Nor do I think the answer to it is so simple... Personally, a combatant who knows how to hold his or her own is just that, an apt combatant, regardless of whether it is male or female. 

Nizana

Shirszae said:

I don't really fancy that analogy, comparison, whatever. Nor do I think the answer to it is so simple... Personally, a combatant who knows how to hold his or her own is just that, an apt combatant, regardless of whether it is male or female. 

If that's in response to me, I am just commenting on how certain mindsets could be in place. Like I said, a solid combatant is a solid combatant. Regardless of gender.

Shirszae

Nizana said:

Shirszae said:

I don't really fancy that analogy, comparison, whatever. Nor do I think the answer to it is so simple... Personally, a combatant who knows how to hold his or her own is just that, an apt combatant, regardless of whether it is male or female. 

If that's in response to me, I am just commenting on how certain mindsets could be in place. Like I said, a solid combatant is a solid combatant. Regardless of gender.

It was actually in response to @Hayte's comment which @Adalie mentioned on her post. You sort of ninja'ed me  

Silas

Terra pretends to be a girl playing a girl, and nobody disputes "her" PK knowledge/ability, afaik.

Jules

I really think that people are more in awe of a truly formidable female combatant.  There is exactly one of these over in Imperian right now (and she's a real girl, who is also a programmer in real life).  The guys pretty much drool over her because their reaction seems to be "holy crap, a girl who can script better than me and kick my ass, *swoon*". 

Bluef

Adalie said:

I honestly thought that option would have more popularity too, @Bluef! 

So no one has answered one of my questions that I find the most interesting: 

Do you think a female combatant that we know is played by a man is taken more seriously than one we know is played by a woman? What about city leaders?

@Hayte answered the combat question for me in another place and said "yes, because people take horses more seriously than unicorns." I had no idea RL lady combatants were so rare! Anyway, what do you all think?

Absolutely. I was about to launch into a diatribe about how it's my opinion that women in general aren't taken seriously in Achaea (or gaming) in general, citing examples from the pool of denizens, perception and treatment of sirens, etc. but I think what I'm getting at in regard to why men are, IMO anyway, taken more seriously in PvP specifically in Achaea, can be easily summarized by the same ideas found in this article about why women are taken less seriously in conversations about sports IRL (one of my biggest pet peeves!).

Rom

Aedin said:

I'm like @Santar on this I'm a male and I of course play Male roles within anything that requires me to be IC in something. While graphics wise, I'll create a female character. After all would you rather stare a male rear end or a female rear end that also has "twin peaks" involved

Never understood this at all, but I read it all the time. Your character is almost always what you -don't- stare at considering they are surrounded by the actual gameplay, and I'm not gonna be zooming in on my WoW characters ass for some form of sexual stimulation while I quest. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a female character if you identify as male, but I don't understand this reasoning that always gets stuck with it (especially when you don't really need a reason at all).

That being said, I'm male and exclusively play male characters unless class/skillset is bound to gender in which case I choose based off of that appeal.

Eld

Rom said:

Aedin said:

I'm like @Santar on this I'm a male and I of course play Male roles within anything that requires me to be IC in something. While graphics wise, I'll create a female character. After all would you rather stare a male rear end or a female rear end that also has "twin peaks" involved

Never understood this at all, but I read it all the time. Your character is almost always what you -don't- stare at considering they are surrounded by the actual gameplay, and I'm not gonna be zooming in on my WoW characters ass for some form of sexual stimulation while I quest. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a female character if you identify as male, but I don't understand this reasoning that always gets stuck with it (especially when you don't really need a reason at all).

That being said, I'm male and exclusively play male characters unless class/skillset is bound to gender in which case I choose based off of that appeal.

I remember it being a big deal that there were posters of naked ladies in Duke Nukem back in sixth grade, but that was when it took ten minutes to download a jpeg. By the time they started making Lara Croft's tits bigger, I didn't understand why you'd care about that when downloading actual pictures was viable.

Dethea

Down with the gender binary!*

*girls are totally not legit, ever**

**also they have no personalities, and are only worth what they look like

Masaryk

For some reason, this thread reminded me of ole Edwin Odesseiron's gender-change in Baldur's Gate 2. Lol.

Sanek

I always play male characters in achaea and roleplay heavy games, in mmos I switch around based on role and animation quality of the race. (eg: male night elf in wow looks horrible, so I'd play female night elf there)

Nizana

Sanek said:

I always play male characters in achaea and roleplay heavy games, in mmos I switch around based on role and animation quality of the race. (eg: male night elf in wow looks horrible, so I'd play female night elf there)

Plus, female night elf's attack animation with Two-handed weapons and staves is just infinitely better looking and cool.

Caladbolg

Lorielan said:

To ever so slightly derail with an interesting occurrence that happens fairly often in Achaea:

It's common enough knowledge that denizen interaction, if not a part of their usual response is garden controlled (outside of your pets, of course.) In-keeping with the OP, a member of the garden generally finds themself playing all sorts of character types, ages, and sexes, but a problem we often come across is players refusing to interact with a denizen as a denizen, instead blurring the lines between IC and OOC to presume what they are being told or asked to do is some divine mission or mandate. Players often interact with the garden role they assume is behind the denizen rather than treat with Joe-schmo the average blacksmith who is asking for help finding his horseshoe nails.

On topic, I have little problem playing burly aggressive males, blushing females, and the spectrum in between. It kind of goes with the territory.

I remember getting one of these guardian denizen things once, It was really cool actually.. but to be honest I had no idea what harvesting was and took me like 3-4 hours to complete it. I felt really bad for the divine that was rping with me because I knew it had to end up lame for them while I spent all that time trying to learn what the other side of the game was like besides combat.

On the other hand i've talked to a few Denizens in casual conversation in Targ for awhile before someone finally points out that im talking to a denizen and not a player.

----
I actually typically play female chars in games because I generally like the way females look better. However Achaea is different from most games, I play it has alot of rp in it and I don't think I could play the female role.

I did try playing a female alt once.. got harassed by to many people wanting to have intercourse.  

Khairt

I identify as barrel-kin, and play males and females in similar proportions, with a slight lean to female. I've been propositioned on khairt far more than any female character I've run with on achaea. I do get ganked less as a female belf pally though. Thanks guys

Kerria

I think that maybe the wording has a few things off. Like, "I identify as a female" not quite the same as "I have female parts". You do that and it'll have quite a difference change to it. Or, I may be wrong.

Khairt

Wellp; I've been triggered. THANKS

Nakari

Kerria said:

I think that maybe the wording has a few things off. Like, "I identify as a female" not quite the same as "I have female parts". You do that and it'll have quite a difference change to it. Or, I may be wrong.

The wording is probably better for the question that's being asked, as it seems to center around gender identity vs how we portray ourselves in games. Really, centering the question around 'parts' would probably just make things inaccurate, because you'd be placing people who might identify as just as female as any other female into the male category with no distinction from 'biological' males.

That said, whether there would be a big difference if the question was asked differently is an independently interesting question.

Borran

I am a man, identify myself as a dragon, and playing mostly male characters. 

I used to play both genders pretty equally, but people generally treated my characters differently when they realized I was male ooc, and I didn't like RPing an IRL female rping a female character to get people to stop being weird about it. 

So now I just keep it simple and play male characters.

Aereidhna

I'm a woman, I play female characters exclusively. No desire to be a guy whatsoever. I definitely get fed up with gender issues in Achaea (judgment of sirens bugs me though I'm not a siren, being propositioned, etc.) but I can't imagine playing a male character.

Jacen

TBH I think Achaea would benefit from a ban on mudsexing. I think in a perfect world, it would be fine to allow in the game, but it sounds like its chasing newbies off. Problem is that I'm not sure how to do this without being heavy on admin time.  My initial suggestion would be to flag every custom emote/says/tell that has uh... sexual anatomy words in it, for admin review, but like I said, that'd be heavy on admin time. I don't know.

I've never had a problem with it, even as a siren, but then again I ignore tells from anyone not in my city/house when I'm playing females because I know its out there. Can't expect actual novices to know that.

Merador

Jacen said:

TBH I think Achaea would benefit from a ban on mudsexing. I think in a perfect world, it would be fine to allow in the game, but it sounds like its chasing newbies off. Problem is that I'm not sure how to do this without being heavy on admin time.  My initial suggestion would be to flag every custom emote/says/tell that has uh... sexual anatomy words in it, for admin review, but like I said, that'd be heavy on admin time. I don't know.

I've never had a problem with it, even as a siren, but then again I ignore tells from anyone not in my city/house when I'm playing females because I know its out there. Can't expect actual novices to know that.

Unlock mudsex with an artifact!!

Silas

I feel like a lot of this hysteria over newbie predators is made up. Maybe I just miss it, but I've been playing for ~10 years and I've never heard of a legit instance of a newbie being properly creeped on to the point where they just qq'd, and I've played in a city with Milabar.

Achimrst

Probably because they lol, log-out, and never come back.

Nakari

I've heard of people getting picked on by newbie predators from people who claimed to have experienced it, but never have myself, so I'm inclined to say that it exists but isn't universal.

Removing erotic rp from the game is probably a bad solution, though. The problem isn't mudsex, it's people who are dicks about it. It should be pretty simple to not freaking hit on newbies. Or, you know, get to know people before trying to get into their pants in general.

Regardless, encouraging people to report actual predators seems like a far better way of doing things then trying to police people's rp.

Aerek

Next, we could ban profanity on Xbox Live.

Deladan

I can assure you @Bluef is not me(The guy everyone hates.)

Kez

Female/female. I have had more than a few characters to try out different classes and cities, but most didn't really hold my interest. Only once did I try a male character, and that came to an abrupt halt the first time I encountered a situation that called for RP and I realised I felt extremely awkward as a male character. I did do a brief stint as a female satyr (a divine-assisted logosween costume) that was short-lived due to complaint.

On the subject of mudsex, I think that most sexual harassment in achaea comes in the form of people seeking opportunities to grief others. To highlight extremes on both sides of that: I've heard of people making newbies to proposition others for mudsex as a joke, and taking it so far as to get involved in the act and then emote a horrifying death and suicide the character. I've also heard of people actively seeking out and killing others on suspicion of being guilty of mudsex. I know that both of those extremes are real because I've spoken to some of the people behind them. People seem to feel justified in doing this to others, even when those others have done nothing that in any way affects them or anyone they know, and it often goes so far as to seek out and keep track of a person's alts, and make sure the stigma follows them from one character to the next.

I do know some people who play achaea solely to mudsex. Using one friend as an example, he plays two characters, - one male and one female, and both exist solely for mudsex. He will sit those characters in the brass lantern and wait for people to approach him. His characters do get killed because of it. He doesn't complain because he's used to it. I've heard about it from people bragging that they killed him before I heard it from him, even though he would set aside hours of his own time to help me analyse poetry for school. He's never made me feel harassed in any way, shape, or form. He simply told me that he would be interested and left it at that. Again, he made his characters just for mudsex, but I don't think that has any negative impact on achaea. I feel sick when I hear people bragging about killing him, and I really wish others felt that way too.

Moving away from the subject of mudsex, but still on sexual discrimination, I think that a lot of it comes about as rumours about female characters who rise in power. How many times have you heard about a female who gained influence on her back? I have been a guildmaster, a houseleader, and an orderhead twice, and each of those characters has been accused of either sleeping with the house or the god in charge of the order, and I've heard the same about many others, with a great deal of skepticism. I actually even heard from a new applicant to Lupus' order that someone in their city told them that one of the order requirements was to sleep with Kez. Never hear it about male characters, though.

I think often people might not realise they're making someone feel like a victim of this, as well. I had one character trying to become an aide to security in her city but the minister of security continuously refused, but could not offer a reason. His aides were all male, and they were asking him why not too, and countering his questions of her ability to fight by pointing out that she could kill them more often than not. More recently, there's a houseleader who says things like "(bleep) me, I outrank you" (about 3 times so far to me, anyway) and made a joke OOC about my character buying a vote with a blowjob, and when I yelled at him that it was all kinds of inappropriate to say that, his response was "I thought we were friends and you could take a joke like that." The truth is his remarks make me want to qq.

Often there are perceptions of discrimination that just fall to coincidence as well, I think. Someone has complained to Lupus that Kez would only choose male leadership for his order, but it was actually Lupus who chose the leadership and... clearly, he chose Kez, not male. It just so happened that the order was mostly male and those chosen were the ones who showed the best combination of a number of factors.

Oops, I wrote a lot. Have fun with that. No tl;dr for you.

Herenicus

Kez said:

the brass lantern

...there goes the neighborhood