gender
Latest
Outlaws of EVE Online: Mynxee
EVE Online is as much a setting as it is a massively multiplayer online game. EVE's galaxy of New Eden spans thousands of charted solar systems, with thousands more waiting to be discovered in the uncharted frontiers reachable only through wormholes. For all the myriad opportunities New Eden offers players to explore and create, there are just as many risks. The dangers that other pilots can pose also provide memorable stories that few other MMOs can match. The outlaws of EVE Online halt the calming lull of mining lasers, inject some thrills into otherwise routine trade runs, and disrupt the rote completion of mission objectives. More often than not, encounters with New Eden's pirates will leave you with a pounding heart and surge of adrenaline to go along with the flaming wreckage of your ship, if not a one-way trip back to the cloning facility. They create that fear of what threats lie on the other side of the next star gate and ultimately set the tone for New Eden. But even among these criminals there are a few whose accomplishments truly stand out. The capsuleer called Mynxee is a well-known pirate in New Eden's underworld. Hers is a name remembered well by the many victims who've met their end under rapid fire from her autocannons. She is the founder and CEO of Hellcats, an all-women pirate corporation in EVE Online, and a central figure in EVE's criminal society. Outside of New Eden, Mynxee has built up quite a following through her Life in Low Sec blog and is one of EVE's more active pilots on Twitter as well. If there is such an individual in New Eden that can be viewed as its pirate king, Mynxee is undoubtedly its queen. She first caught Massively's attention years ago with her flashy red dress (size -10), but she's since become a pivotal figure in New Eden, popular with players from all walks of life in EVE. Massively recently spoke with Mynxee about the allure of being an outlaw, and how she has expanded the scope of her piracy -- bringing it out of the shadows of low security space and into the light, where players feel they are safest.
Verizon advertising says Droid is for men, Pre is for women (video)
If you ask us, the Palm Pre Plus pretty much sells itself. So if we were working out a promo campaign for it, we'd just display the competitive pricing front and center and get the hell out of the product's way. But that just wouldn't do for Verizon. After all the machismo it attached to the Droid, the wireless provider is back with a set of ads for the Pre Plus targeted at the modern lady. We're not told why two slabs of plastic and silicon with comparable sliding keyboards and similar internals must be compartmentalized by gender, but we don't really care. The new ads are crazy enough in themselves, so just go see 'em after the break.
New study reveals insights into gender in MMOs
A new study has appeared over at the Virtual Worlds Observatory, the home of a team of social scientists interested in researching online games, and it delves into perceptions of gender in online games and the reality behind it. Utilizing EverQuest II, the study uses a sample size of over 7,000 players to measure player interactions along gender lines and learn more about the gamers behind the keyboards. Surprisingly enough, while males exhibited predicted aggressiveness and achievement-oriented gameplay, it was the female gamers that exhibited more "hardcore" behavior. The top 10% of male gamers only played an average of 48 hours a week, while the top 10% of female gamers played an average of 56 hours a week. Yet, during the study, females under-reported their playing habits more than male gamers, as if unconsciously reacting to a stereotype. The study is full of interesting details, and the full report is available for your viewing pleasure online. [Via The Border House]
The best of WoW.com: December 1-8, 2009
It's patch day again in the World of Warcraft, and that means there's a whole bunch of upgrades and updates and brand new challenges, quests and things to do in the most successful MMO ever made. Joystiq's sister site WoW.com has all the patch 3.3 info you'd ever need, from the new Dungeon Finder system to class changes, to all of the various UI tweaks and tips for getting your add-ons ready. Find ten of our most popular posts of the past week after the break, and head over to WoW.com for the latest on the game's newest update.
All the World's a Stage: Anonymosity
All the World's a Stage, and all the orcs and humans merely players. They have their stories and their characters; and one player in his time plays many roles. Roleplaying is a journey of trust you take with strangers. You may now and then start out with a group of people you know in real life, but for the most part, the people you roleplay with have no idea who you really are, or why you are sitting here at the computer. You can tell them if you want to, but most people don't ask. Roleplayers tend to keep personal details private, and don't intrude on one another's space. Besides, other roleplayers don't necessarily care that much about who you "really are" either. They're there to get to know your character, not you as a person, unless your character first makes a very good impression and they decide that they actually want to be friends as real people. Even though you respect each other as people who share the same interest, there's still a distance between you which either (or both) of you may wish to maintain. And yet, the relationship you have is one of trust. It's not at all at the same level as a best friend of course, but you still have to trust one another in a very creative sense -- you rely on each other to create interesting things for your characters to share with one another. You're not just buying a shirt from a salesperson or holding the door for a passerby -- you're exchanging behavior and language in an unpredictable and totally interconnected way. Any little surprise a stranger brings to an interaction may completely alter the whole game session and stick in your mind as one of your most memorable gaming experiences. Roleplayers have to trust other roleplayers to help make those experiences positive, even without knowing anything at all about one another. Sometimes two characters can even become very close friends, even though the real people behind them do not.
Gender differences in armor
A few readers sent us this post over at Border House that has laid bare (heh) the oft-mentioned differences in armor between the genders in World of Warcraft. While there are some exceptions, in most cases, the exact same set of armor (like this chestplate above) shows up as much more skimpy on female characters than it does on male characters. To the point of absurdity in some places -- even plate leggings, designed to serve as solid protection to the legs, appear to be more like plate thong underwear on the ladies. As Border House points out, this isn't just WoW's problem. Fantasy and sci-fi in general have been the domain of boys in the past (even if that is changing quickly), and the sexual depictions in the genre have reflected that, for both traditional and financial reasons. As I pointed out the other day, all of Blizzard's luminaries thus far have been men -- is it any surprise that the game is designed from a mostly male perspective? And as BH also says, fortunately, WoW has lots of different gear. If you don't like what your character is wearing, then you can find something else.
15 Minutes of Fame: Amazon grace, how sweet these guilds
15 Minutes of Fame is WoW.com's look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes -- from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. Why would players want to play only with others just like themselves? Members of special interest guilds tell us their groups allow them to play away from others who either inadvertently or purposely seek to harass or offend. GLBT guilds, Christian guilds (scroll down to Recruiting) and similar groups offer a haven for players seeking a peaceful place to hang out with like-minded souls. This week, we look at a new group that offers not one, not two, but three special interest guilds. The Goddess guilds of Nesingwary and Winterhoof, along with a brother guild also on Nesingwary, welcomes females - actual, physical females, not female characters - with a friendly, events-focused environment. We visited with long-time gamer and Goddess guilds founder Myredd to find out why so many women appreciate playing in a females-only environment.
Anti-Aliased: Boobs and you
Well Happy Turkey Day everyone! It's Thanksgiving Thursday, but it's also that time of the week again -- the time where Sera gets to rant in her opinion column to her heart's content. Yes, that's right, it's time for Anti-Aliased.This week's topic is one that's near and dear to my heart. Well, it's near to my heart, at least, and I mean that quite literally. It's also a perfect topic for today's holiday! I mean, who doesn't like to talk about large breasts on Thanksgiving? (Score one for the terrible synonym.)During last week's column on Blade & Soul, the main topic that came up time and time again in the comments wasn't the game's combat, or the game's engine, or anything really related to the game at large. No, it seems that many of you were turned off of the game by the fact that the screenshot I used had a woman with huge boobs. That was the deal breaker for the game.
Drama Mamas: Time to man up
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we pretend to be a gender we're not. When we discussed boys playing girl characters before, we all pretty much agreed that it was cool as long as there was no deception involved. Roleplaying = yay. Experimentation = good. Hiding your true identity in a non-roleplaying environment = uh oh. Unfortunately, for One Big Liar, what began as experimentation and a wee bit of roleplaying evolved into a full-scale reputation for being a "real girl." Uh oh, indeed.
Drama Mamas: Of crime and crossdressing
Dodge the drama and become that player everyone wants in their group with the Drama Mamas. Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are real-life mamas and experienced WoW players -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We're taking your questions at DramaMamas (at) WoW (dot) com. Pictured above is just some of the torture devices on the prison ship Success. The writer of our first letter is not looking to send a guild "criminal" on a tortuous journey across the globe to a penal colony, but he is looking to exact a harsher punishment than the one already meted out. Our second petitioner is tortured about being considered weird for playing the opposite gender. We won't torture you with any further delays before letting you at the drama.
Chinese company bans gender-bending
You can frequently get asked to prove an awful lot in MMOs -- that you actually know how to beat this boss, that you really have insider access to the game developers, or perhaps most commonly that you are who you say you are. Aurora Technology over in China has apparently decided to cut out the middleman in the equation -- they're banning any male players who play female characters, requiring players to confirm their gender via webcam in order to enforce the ruling. The ruling currently only affects the Aurora-developed game King of the World, but there's always the possibility that this action could have further-reaching consequences. After all, Aurora is a subsidiary of Shanda, a company responsible for publishing Aion and Dungeons and Dragons Online in the region, which are names slightly more familiar to players on this side of the pond. China is a fair bit more litigious than the US when it comes to its online games, and the country as a whole has taken some surprising moves already. While this ordeal has been going on for over two years now, we can't help but wonder if this will herald the start of some rather restrictive policies. We're assuming that you'll need to provide pictures or it didn't happen.
Anti-Aliased: The mailbag edition
Well hello there intrepid Massively readers! This week, instead of my usual selection of complaints crammed into the tight space of a single column, I've decided to do something different. This Monday, I opened up a call for questions on anything MMO related on the Massively Facebook fan page, the Massively Twitter, and my own personal Twitter. You guys didn't disappoint, and you certainly sent me more than a few intriguing e-mails.So, for the past three days, I've been preparing responses to some of the questions that landed in my inbox. What did intrepid readers ask me to answer? Whose e-mails did I select from the pile of text I received? What is the airspeed of an African Swallow? These and many other questions (except that swallow one, that one's been done to death, go Google it or something) shall be answered after the break! Thundercats, hoooooooooo!
Fallen Earth's females get a more feminine facelift
Women of the post-apocalypse should look more feminine -- at least that's what Fallen Earth players think.According to developer Fallen Earth LLC, players thought that the female characters in the post-apocalyptic MMO, which just launched yesterday, should have physiological qualities typically associated with women."Fallen Earth has never been about the sexiness of its females," said product manager Jessica Orr, "but after some comments from fans and a hard look at the female faces, we decided some changes were in order."That meant having the game's artist, Chris Allen, make adjustments to the facial models in order to differentiate the females more from the male character models. The changes, implemented in a recent patch, included removing "excess skin" from under the chins, raising the cheekbones, softening the jawline, thinning the bridge of the noses and tweaking the shape and placement of the eyebrows. Allen also raised the corners of the mouth to make the women have "less of a scowl and more of a neutral expression," Orr said. The result is what Fallen Earth LLC sees as "more feminine models that steer clear of the characteristic 'babes,'" allowing players to focus more on the game itself. Orr also answered a few more questions regarding the look of the female models and provided us with more comparison shots below. What do you think of the changes?
Anti-Aliased: Virtual worlds as the great equalizer
So apparently it's gay pride week. I, pretty literally, had absolutely no clue that gay pride week was this week, even though I was lucky enough to speak at Metaplace's Metapride diversity event. Yes, I'm just that oblivious to my surroundings, even when I'm directly participating in them.I know I don't hide the fact that I'm transgender, but I'm certain that not many people click on my author link here at Massively or really ponder the significance of my @sera_brennan Twitter username. That last sentence is probably the first time many of you long term readers even heard that I was transgender. (Although I remember someone wrote the site once and told them to correct all of the times in my author profile that I was referred to as "she" because it was obviously a typo.)I owe much to my online escapes, as they aid me in more ways than just providing a fun distraction. They give me the opportunity to appear as I truly feel inside, and let me interact with others without the stigma of being or appearing to be transgendered attached. Beyond just me, however, are hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions of individuals who have gained an advantage or some sort of insight thanks to virtual worlds.
Anti-Aliased: Virtual worlds as the great equalizer pt. 2
Social situations shattered How many times do we have a young player in our guild who act more like a 30-year-old than the 30-year-olds do? How often do we cross cultural boundaries and forget that we're speaking with someone who might be across the world, in a completely different time zone? To us, they're simply standing in the same room as us, and that puts them in the same place we are.I know that I don't consciously think about where someone lives or who they really are when I meet them in Second Life or Metaplace. I'm too busy chatting with them about shared interests, because obviously if we're meeting one another while standing inside of a fantasy roleplaying simulation, then we both enjoy fantasy roleplaying.This is doubly true when I'm playing something like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI. Not only do we now have something in common, but we can be united with our goals as well. You're here to run Nexus? So am I! Let's work together to get through this dungeon. I don't question where you come from, who you are, or how old you are. I may question you if you're not pulling your weight or bringing down the party, but even then I'm going to help you so we can get through the task together. "In a weird sort of way, virtual worlds humanize us more than the real world is able to. In a weird sort of way, virtual worlds humanize us more than the real world is able to. While the condition of anonymity can lead to some really destructive individuals, it can also lead to being able to connect to one another without the hangups of social barriers that exist in real life. We can meet individuals who are very different from ourselves, find common ground quickly, and then learn from one another, rather than avoiding those who are different because it scares us.Beyond that, the experiences we gain from being in virtual worlds do not exist in a vacuum. We take what we learn and we apply it to what we do in everyday life. With enough time, I have no doubt that this too will help melt some of the social stigmas that we carry in real life, simply because we can come in contact with others in a more controlled online environment.If you want evidence, look at the decreasing age barrier. We let younger kids and teenagers into positions of power and responsibility in our guilds and online activities, and that in turn has slowly lead to more adults listening to kids when they have something to say. We use to completely bar kids from offering advice to us "more knowledgeable, older adults" but it's been slowly changing. While it may not be the only factor that has lead to this, it certainly is one of them.So I think it's time to give credit where credit is due. Virtual worlds, online games, and the Internet are bringing us together, and many of us are slowly finding out that we're really not so different from one another after all. We're learning about culture, gender, age, and sexuality, and it's certainly about damn time. Colin Seraphina Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased isn't that different from anyone else and is darn proud of it. When she's not writing here for Massively, she's rambling on her personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message her, send her an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow her on Twitter through Massively, or through her personal feed, @sera_brennan.
Online gamers are logging more hours, but spending less money
Interactive marketing firm Future Ads revealed a very telling survey from Gamevance today, showing that casual gamers were playing games for longer, yet were spending less money on them overall. Other notable sections of the survey showed a declining gender gap in the gaming population, a melding of the "casual" and "hardcore" gamer markets, and a decline in purchases made for video game consoles.Gamevance's survey revealed that 61% of the 8,000 "casual" gamers who responded said they were playing games for longer periods of time than they were a year ago. However, 80% of those same gamers reported that they were cutting back on console game purchases while 77% of the 8,000 stated that the biggest drawback to console gaming was that it was too expensive.Pair this with the rising Free Realms, Wizard 101, and FusionFall populations, as well as the proliferation of free online gaming sites, and you have a very noticable switch to cheaper gaming alternatives. Will this recession be the rise of the free to play gaming model in America, or will this die off once the economy stabilizes?[Via GigaOm]
Academic research into EverQuest II already proving fruitful
Massively recently mentioned that Sony Online Entertainment and academia are teaming up to plumb the depths of EverQuest II's server logs, with benefits for both the researchers and SOE. (For the record, private subscriber info hasn't been made available to the academic community, according to an SOE statement on the matter.) The data logs and opt-in survey results are already proving fruitful, according to a piece run today on MSNBC by Games editor Kristin Kalning. Her piece raises the point that EverQuest II's gamers, despite being a global community, spend far more time socializing with friends, family, and acquaintances than with the wider playerbase. This isn't to say that EQII players are insular, but it does emphasize the fact that games aren't simply a hobby or an escape for those surveyed, and are very much a way to keep in touch with family and friends. In other words, they tend to take their offline relationships online, Kalning writes.
This is your brain on PvP
Ars Technica has news of a new study that isn't directly World of Warcraft-related, but that does have some pretty obvious applications in Azeroth. By studying the way we play when we believe we're competing against a human and a computer opponent (PvP vs. PvE, in WoW terms), scientists have determined that different parts of the brain are more active when we think we're playing against a human opponent. They call this extra activity "mind-reading," but it's not that supernatural: when we think we're playing a human, we try to put ourselves in their place, and think what they're thinking.It gets deeper: they even throw gender into the mix, and discovered that male brains seem to be working harder to do this kind of "mind-reading" of the other side. Their conclusion says that that's because women are naturally more empathetic, and thus don't have to work as hard to figure out what another person is thinking. That seems a little general -- it could also mean that the males care more about competition, and thus are working harder to "mind-read," or it could even just be a wrinkle of the way this data was gathered. More research is probably needed on that one -- if women are so great at figuring out their opponents, why aren't we seeing all-female teams winning Arena tournaments?It would be interesting to know, too, whether there's increased activity in other areas, say pattern recognition or cause-effect centers of the brain, when we're playing against opponents that we know are computers. But this does tell us that there are definitely different skillsets at work when playing PvP or PvE, and why some people might very clearly enjoy one over the other.
Breakfast Topic: To re-customize or not
Paid customization has come to the game, and with it, some big decisions for a lot of players. We've asked for a long time to be able to change our gender or look in the game, and now that we can, we have to decide if we will or not.Personally, I'm torn -- way back when I first started the game, I created a female Night Elf Hunter, thinking along the old classic lines of "if I'm going to stare at someone's backside for hours and hours, it might as well be a woman." But since then, I've gotten a lot of flak for being a dude playing a female character, and since I've played all male characters since then, I think I better identify with male characters anyway, even if the view isn't as good.But on the other hand, I'm used to my Hunter now -- she's looked the same for almost 80 levels, and it would be weird to suddenly see a Night Elf guy on the screen in her place. So I'm torn -- change my character to a male and make being social in game much easier, or stay the same and keep my character familiar to me?What do you all think? Are you facing the same situation or is the choice easier (or even harder) for you?
Men are from the Horde, women are from the Alliance
Sanya Thomas continues a look into the demographics behind all of you World of Warcraft players -- last time around, we examined gender and how players measured up in the Bartle test (and crashed their servers -- sorry about that), and this time, it's all about the Horde and the Alliance, and why and when players choose a faction. No surprises until the very end -- the majority of players in game (though I swear it's become less of a majority since the game's launch a few years ago) choose Alliance, whether it's because of a "human bias," or just because they've usually been the heroes, and gamers tend to play with their friends.But things get more interesting when you start putting classes and gender into the mix. Women are pushing the average on Alliance side (men even out around 58/42, but women prefer to "grab their sword and fight the Horde" at 65/35). And when you compare the classes to faction choice, as above, then the stats really start showing signs of life:clearly, women prefer Alliance Druids (and when you look at the Druid forms, there's no question why). You can see the Alliance/Horde separation in the Hunters (that's all those Night Elves), and you can see the gender separation again in the Priests. And the Warriors probably have the weirdest stats: Men play more Warriors overall, but the gender gap is even wider on the Horde side. While there are some women playing Horde Warriors out there (I know an Orc played by a female that will tank anything you can throw at her), Horde Warriors are much more likely to be men.Very interesting. Keep in mind, as last time, that these gender numbers aren't character genders -- they're self-identified on the gamerDNA site, so we can be reasonably certain that we're looking at an (at least slightly) realistic stack of data here. There's probably lots more data to be explored, too -- it would be interesting to see what Blizzard knows about their players that we don't. What class, for example, logs in the most on any given week?[via Massively]
