I always perfer playing female characters, especially when she's in a role or profession that's dominated by men, but in some games like WoW, Dragon Age, Mass Effect or Saints Row, most of the characters have an equal ratio of gender, which, is less interesting. I still perfer female charaters, but I'm not against playing male ones as well. In Dragon Age: Origins, exactly half my characters were female, and half were male. Same with Mass Effect 2, although in Mass Effect 1, which I haven't played in years, I played 2 male characters and 1 female character. But in Saints Row 2, I've 4 characters, one is from my first playthrough, one is my main one, one I stopped playing halfway through, and 1 is for online multiplayer. All are female except for that one I didn't finish. On WoW, if I still played, I think atleast some of my characters would be male, but before I began questioning my gender, the gender ratio of my toons was half. My characters in Fable 3 are also have the same ratio, a good guy, an evil girl, an evil guy, and a good girl.

I read that some people see their character as a virtual personification of themselves, and have issues playing a character of the opposite sex, while others don't make that connection and are comfortable playing characters of both sexes.

I'm just wondering if anyone is comfortable playing a character that isn't the gender they identify with, especially in an MMO or other online multiplayers where you present your character to other people, and they naturally see you in that gender. I read the WoW boards before and some people were very uptight about it, while others didn't mind, and others didn't mind but they had a problem with doing it themselves. But what about transsexuals? In the real world we go through a lot of trouble to present ourselves in the gender that's different than the one that society expects us to, but what about the virtual world?

Unfortunately it's near impossible to play (and I mean really play) an MMO these days as female character and be instantly recognized as a female player. I play World of Warcraft and my main character is a female character. It's long been known that just because the avatar is a female that doesn't mean the player is.

Most of the guilds in that game require a voice over IP program for communications and many will want to do an interview over the voice chat system. Unless your near to perfect in voice (the quality of VOIP programs are somewhat decent) the chances of passing as a woman are slim (mostly because everyone has a 5th grade mentality on MMO's and something like this is fuel for their troll fires).

There are guilds in the game that are comprised of players of the LGBT community, but a lot of them don't fully support the T side of LGBT. Not only that, as mentioned earlier most of the players in MMO's have a 5th grade mentality and most of them know which guilds are comprised of LGBT players and they aren't shy about their comments in public channels. Once you have that guild name below your characters name (which everyone in the game can see) you're just a walking target for the trolls.

As for myself, there are times while in World of Warcraft where I'll get caught off guard. Most of the no player characters in the game will interact with the players via scripted text. This text is designed to be able to associate appropriate pronouns for the avatars of the players and if I'm 'in the zone' of what I'm doing my brain will associate the conversation happening with me (the player) not with my avatar. There have also been a few occasions where some unsuspecting player will bless me with the kindness of using female pronouns when referring to either myself or my avatar (and of course, I wont correct them if it happens but I wont lead them on either).

I can't say I prefer to play female characters. I do take a lot of static sometimes for having a female character and sometimes it's difficult to uphold a manly attitude about why I play a female character with people who don't know I wished I was a woman in real life. Gaming with people, both strangers and guild members is stressful enough (funny, gaming is supposed to be a form of entertainment) with out adding something like this to the mix. My voice isn't nearly ready to pass as feminine so I play the game as a male person irl. If I was to tone down what kind of activities I do in the game (currently I'm a tank healer and raid leader) to the point of not needing a voice chat program then I might be able to pull off playing as a woman in real life (such as my cat chews on microphone cords so I stopped buying them or my kids keep on breaking my microphones so I stopped buying them).

ugh. I could go on for hours about this subject (needs to get a life outside of WoW).

Yep every game always female, I especially like the ones such as fallout where you can adjust the features to make them more representative of how you percieve yourself.

In WOW i play a female mage, and the thought came at the beginining whether to say I was really a female, I couldn't do it. Mainly as I was in a high end guild, and required vent all the time, it really annoyed me!

I generally go 50/50. For instance, in Dragon Age, I have two female characters and two male characters, and the same in Mass Effect. I like to see the different dialogue for different genders, and the different romances available, etc. I've never played an MMO (no money to do so, although I've always wanted to try WOW), but I think I would probably play mostly males on there, but maybe a few females. I think I would get bored looking at just one character forever, and I would want variety with my seperate characters.

If I have a chose I always play a female.  A few games are male only.  Most of them are first person shooters.  WWII games is a good example.

Coming from my feminist perspective, I always played female characters, especially in WoW or DA:O! But when I realized my trans identity, I have switched to male characters in DA:O, mainly because it is nice to see a representation of how I want to look, and how I perceive myself. I have also chosen to be Elven most of the time, too. It brings a greater connection because the Elven males are smaller than the Human males; and much more like my transman self! Of course, I also have 3 different 'Liam' characters, but that's mainly vanity on my part! ^_^;;

I play female characters more out of practicality than desire.  I choose female characters even when the male counterparts have better looking models.  Since most people in the online gaming scene perceive me as being a girl, I found it awkward to play male characters.

Even in offline multiplayer, I often create female characters.  I really only create male characters if they have better models or voice-acting.

Or sometimes in the older games have unfair atribute advantages, such as strength and the women have none.  Ahh, the good old D&D games, how amazingly sexist yet fun to play!

When I was young, I always, always played male characters. I don't think I rolled a female character from the time I started gaming (~1994) until about 2006. That included, in games like Diablo, refusing to play classes that were female-only.

Then, in the military, I started gaming with people who knew me IRL. In the military, where questions would be asked. And so I rolled a female character in FFXI. Then when I started playing WoW with my spouse, I rolled all female characters there too, basically for the same reason - didn't want to deal with questions.

Then I hit max level, started doing endgame stuff and really getting attached to my characters, and I just couldn't take it anymore. So I sex changed all of my characters. Thank you Blizzard for the sex changes. If it weren't for that, I think I would have rerolled.

I have always played male characters if I got the choice. Before I had accepted my transsexualism or even realised I was gonna transition, people used to ask me why I always played male characters, and I answered something along the lines of "I want to be able to relate and feel involved with the game, and I just can't relate to female characters". This still holds true.
People just shrugged and somehow chalked it up to just not wanting to play a sexualized female (as those characters often are), but that really wasn't an issue for me.

What I play the most is WoW, and we use voice chat for raiding so they all know me as a female with all male characters, I wonder what they'll say when I get on T and my voice starts to change..

Quote from: kyril on February 26, 2011, 07:33:46 PM
Then I hit max level, started doing endgame stuff and really getting attached to my characters, and I just couldn't take it anymore. So I sex changed all of my characters. Thank you Blizzard for the sex changes. If it weren't for that, I think I would have rerolled.

I had a similar problem in Guild Wars.  I had all female characters except for a male warrior, because I really liked the male warrior armor skins.  I got him to max level, but not to max equipment.  But since most people in online games perceive me as a girl anyway, it just seemed very strange playing a male character, even though he was fun.  I ended up deleting him and retraining a female warrior to max level.

Fortunately, in Guild Wars it only takes a matter of days to reach max level.

I remember playing Super Mario Bros. 2 when I was little.
I always played as Princess Toadstool / Peach -- I gravitated towards her because she was the only girl of the four playable characters.

Now whenever I play Super Smash Bros., I almost always play as either her or Zelda.
Any time I'm given the option in any game, I default to being a girl. Male characters just don't appeal to me.


...I've been playing Final Fantasy Tactics lately, and all but one of my highly-developed characters is female.
(I just felt like I needed a token male in my party.)

Quote from: Arctic Kat on February 27, 2011, 12:50:49 AM
Now whenever I play Super Smash Bros., I almost always play as either her or Zelda.

My friends hate my Samus.  I abuse missile cancelling and flamethrower hitbox ranges.  My friends don't understand hit priorities, so they always run into my attacks thinking that they will land the hit instead of me.

I hardly play any other characters except for her and Falco.  Zelda is cool, but I don't like her playstyle.

I don't like Samus. Controlling her is too clunky. But I love Sheik  even though she got fricken weak in SSBB, and Metaknight but not as much.

Before SSBM my character was always Kirby.

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on February 27, 2011, 01:22:15 AM
I don't like Samus. Controlling her is too clunky.

That's because her moves are slow, and you have to have the proper timing.  If you don't know how to anticipate your opponent, someone like Fox will tear through Samus something serious.

Also, Samus falls really SLOW which is great in some maps, but a pain in others.

Quote from: VeryGnawtyZelda is cool, but I don't like her playstyle.

I play as Zelda when I'm lethargic. She moves slow but her strong attacks can catch you off guard. Her style is a nice complement to my personality, I guess... (That being said, I'm also good with Snake.)
I love Samus, but am not really good with her.

Quote from: Arctic Kat on February 27, 2011, 03:21:39 AM
I love Samus, but am not really good with her.

It took me a lot of practice to get used to Samus.  Other than her running speed (which is pretty darn fast) she moves really slow.  She is also prone to getting juggled due to her slow falling speed.  But she has a lot of extremely deceptive attacks.  She has good priority values, a few moves with some wicked knockback, some hitboxes which are difficult to avoid (the flamethrower in particular), and multiple projectile attacks.  Also, bomb jumping and morph ball tricks can play some serious mindgames on impatient opponents.  Aggressive people will almost always run into a morph bomb, not realizing that the small damage will add up if you keep bomb jumping around them.

She also has "infinite wall jump" and a grappling beam which can grab onto vertical surfaces.  Those can easily prevent falls which other characters can't recover from.

I've never played Brawl, so I don't know if they rebalanced her character.  My friends are convinced that the priorities on her low attacks are broken.  They are also constantly telling me that her reverse air kick has way too much knockback.  But since the only other character I use frequently is Falco (who has similar air kicks) I never really noticed.

I generally play female, although rarely I'll play male even if a female character is available (Left 4 Dead 2, for example). If at all possible, though, I will play female.

If a game is male only, chances are I'll pass it up, but there are exceptions (Such as The Witcher, Bulletstorm & Dawn of War 2), but I try to play female as often as possible. My WoW characters were female, my CO characters are female, I always play as a female in RPGs that allow me to (Fallout series, Mass Effect, etc) and even if I can't, I do often pretend I am a female behind it all - Especially in games with no protagonist (Strategy games, mainly).

Quote from: LightBulbs on March 02, 2011, 12:52:27 PM
Where do you find these games with female character choices? Ive played like 60 titles since 2008 (when I got a PC) and from those maybe 1 or 2 let you choose female.

Divinity 2, Drakensang, Heroes of Might & Magic 5 (Well, as your default hero), Mass Effect 1 + 2, Fallout 3 + New Vegas, GTA IV Multiplayer, a good number of adventure games, Civilization IV + V (Leaders) and a bunch of others.

Quote from: Lairiana on March 02, 2011, 01:28:39 PM
Divinity 2, Drakensang, Heroes of Might & Magic 5 (Well, as your default hero), Mass Effect 1 + 2, Fallout 3 + New Vegas, GTA IV Multiplayer, a good number of adventure games, Civilization IV + V (Leaders) and a bunch of others.

Also essentially any RPG or MMORPG. Everquest/EQII, FFXI, WoW, Neverwinter Nights, Oblivion, Dragon Age, and so on and so forth.