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

Nim

People who say that Achaea is not a single player game are right, but the perspective itself is somewhat limited. Instead, other players are not merely incidental, but a main feature of the game. Single player chess would not nearly be the same game as playing with another person. Same thing with Mafia, and same thing with Achaea, and this includes all interactions that the game encourages, explicitly or implicitly.

Removing mudsex would be akin to removing PvP, though admittedly a better parallel would be "removing violence" since removing PvP is relatively easy (just turn off all the PvP mechanisms), but removing violence requires a lot more effort, since even without the game mechanics backing it, people can roleplay violence. I'm sure this already happens - I'm sure it happens a lot in Mhaldor.

Some people wouldn't care about this change at all. Some people would think it's positive. However, regardless of what some people think, it would be a removal of a feature for an already niche game with an already limited audience, and so it's likely that some people would stop playing or stop playing as much over it.

All features have bugs. Either mechanism can ruin someone's day or even turn them away from playing forever. Either mechanism has their flaws and can do with some improvement. Mudsex is not built into the game, so improving that will require a clever yet delicate hand - it's easy to balance an obviously overpowered game rule, but much more difficult to balance culture.

The current solution is to report sexual harassment, but there might be better ways. I'm better at abstract logic than social mechanisms, though, so I don't have anything particularly amazing. I just figured I'd bring the game design perspective into play, since Achaea is a game, after all.

Sena

I identify as female. When it comes to casual characters that I don't plan on seriously playing (like if I just make an alt to test something), the genders are pretty evenly split, I don't really have a preference. I did initially use male characters more to avoid propositioning, but males got hit on just as much as non-siren females, so I just avoid siren now.

For characters that I really RP, they're always female now (I used to play both genders). It's just more comfortable than playing males, even if it's a masculine female compared to a feminine male. In games without roleplaying, I still usually prefer female characters but I'll sometimes pick male characters, especially in graphical games if the male models look better.

I haven't ever encountered any OOC discrimination (and no serious IC discrimination) for being female (either me or my character), but I've never really been a combatant or leader either. I did once have an IC friend that basically ended up hating me both OOC and IC when she found out I was trans.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that when I play female characters, people tend to assume I'm male OOC, but when I played males a lot of people assumed I was female.

Rohai

Re: 3rd paragraph: That's really messed up, but I think it goes without saying that person is the kind of "friend" you're better off without.

Adalie

Silas said:

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.

I feel like maybe you're right, but just for sake of argument, how would you have heard about something like that? Like @Achimrst said, they probably just would QQ and most people wouldn't have any idea it happened. I have definitely been propositioned as newb-Adalie and as various female alts, but I've also had female alts that didn't get approached by anyone at any point at all. I think it used to be a lot more of a problem in the past. 

Achimrst

I have been propositioned on an alt before, it was pretty lol. I just went on my main though.

Adalie

Though it's a bit off topic, since it was brought up earlier, I feel like mentioning that I totally disagree with there being a need to completely do away with Mudsex. I don't personally enjoy that type of RP, but also don't think it damages the game in any real way and rather adds another depth to it for people who are interested in that sort of thing. Just like IRL, people need to not be jerks about it or make people feel uncomfortable (propositioning random newbies, etc), but I like how Achaea is both very fantastical and in other ways very rooted in reality, and sex is a part of adult life. That doesn't mean that I don't think certain people cross a line, but that can be said of combat, of politics, of many things.

Anyway, thanks for your discussion, guys! I suppose I did't really set up the thread well, because I was mostly in how you perceived others based on a character's IC gender and their player's RL gender and how you felt you were perceived based on the same criteria (are you taken more/less seriously as a female character, do you get more/less help, more/less out-of-line comments, if you're a woman and people know it, do they take you less seriously in politics, blah blah etc.) and whether knowing a person's RL gender changed things at all.

I enjoyed the discussions about why you choose to play what genders you do and the other interesting points that were brought up, though! Please feel free to keep discussing any and all things.

Adalie

*mostly interested in <-- not sure how I missed an entire word there. I can't go back and edit now, though.

Nizana

When I first started playing Achaea, after having played Imperian. I was 15 or so on my first attempt, I think? My character got invited to have a chat so I was like "Yay, RP!" and scampered off to chat with them. They took me someplace I had no idea how to get out of, so I was effectively trapped, and then did some pretty aggressive mudsexy things. I was post-portals and so it was a very 'meh' experience. I ended up quitting and playing Aetolia briefly before just stopping altogether due to WC3:TFT Dota1 Stuff.

I eventually came back, obviously.

Prythe

Hot chatting was what it used to be called - if you build it, they will uh, yeah. (See what I did there?)

I play females because much of me, idealism, naivety, service orientated personality, is built into my character, I know how to do those things as a woman, and in Achaea (and other games) I can do them in larger than life ways. (I've been looking at that sentence and realizing I do things fairly large in the real world as well....)

I think it remains true that many people play different types/genders of people online in order to explore those aspects of self. Not all, but some. It is a safer, for the most part, place to learn and discover how the world, how you, yourself, operates from a different perspective in the world.

I think it is all right to a degree.

Example -

I knew a woman who pretended to be a man online on AOL (waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day).

That was fine, she wanted to explore the masculine side of herself.

What was _not_ fine (in my belief) was when she, in the guise of a male, because friends with many woman, being the "man" to whom they could tell anything, the man who understood them, the man who was there for them when their husbands, boyfriends, etc., were not, more than one falling in love with "him."  That I found totally uncool.

Herenicus

Prythe said:

I play females because much of me, idealism, naivety, service orientated personality, is built into my character, I know how to do those things as a woman

Man, you just described half the broads in my old infantry unit

Kitiara

I like both and so I play both.  Female is my main however.