Na. I usually just play male characters as my characters are just a fantasy version and extension of my digital self. But I do know plenty of folks that mix it up and play both. Several members of my guild as well as some other friends just prefer to play as the opposite character gender.
I am a male and usually play a female.
I usually play in third person and find a female avatar more pleasant to look at :)
I like to stay in character, but I don't role-play too seriously and really the gender of my character is usually not significant in an in-game way. I also play several alts and look at my characters more as heros whose stories I direct than incarnations of my self.
I also find heroines more interesting than heros. Heros have been so overdone in just about every media there has ever been.
Well I'd say most of my melee heavy characters are fits and I am not.
However, I rarely play female toons except if males are ugly as **** ( wow night elves and draenei anyone ?), especially because in roleplay, males playing females are overdoing stereotypical genres, and ends up beeing facets of a feminine personality instead of a full one.
Thus, I prefer to leave their credit to female players, instead of ending a caricature of some sort.
Assuming that there is no mechanical advantage to either gender I will usually use a male avatar in an MMO. In a MMO I spend too much time interacting with other players and find the gender identity disparity to be too distracting, especially when I intend to raid lead and a lot of voice communication. Its just odd to lead the raid with a deep male nerd voice but be referred to as Pinkfuzzypants and be a small pink haired female character.
All that being said my wife almost always plays male avatars because she does not like the generally sexist behavior, both negative and beneficial, that she has encountered when using a female avatar. That is also a contributing factor to why she doesn’t like voice chat, which is a shame for the rest of you as she has a beautiful voice.
I normally use both depending on the race and class I'm choosing. Most often my Main will be male (as I am), but I choose the gender of other characters depending on how I feel about the character and role. I also really look at the race and how they look both with and without armor that will be typical for that class.
I am male but my main is always female. As stated in other posts I prefer to look at the female in 3rd person than a male. But my second is always a male character. I ususally play Druid as main and warrior as alt. But until the other classes are released ( the full description) I am still probably going with Druid as main and Rogue is now a close second.
But, they may both end up the fairer sex.
This is actually a funny topic, mostly because all the female gamers i know, play male characters, and it's all because they don't want to be identified as female at all thanks to a select few people that have harrassed them in the past.
Myself, I will always play a male character, I have never rolled a female. Now, don't get me wrong, this is just my opinion, but there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about digital females to me, so playing one would have no point. Please don't hate on me for that it's just my opinion, i feel like i have to say this for some reason. But I am a male and will always play a male because of that.
I have played a pretty even mix of same/opposite gender, but in games like AO, you have neutral as well (atrox), and I have plenty of atrox toons in that game.
I don't care about the gender beyond the aesthetic and the RP value. I am not a female in real life, but I am also not an elf, dwarf, dark myr, atrox, opifex, iksar, sarnak, pandarian or undead either.
Does it really matter?
EDIT - this is of course, just my opinion, mine alone, and does not represent anyone else, intentionally or otherwise.
Dubah said:Myself, I will always play a male character, I have never rolled a female. Now, don't get me wrong, this is just my opinion, but there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about digital females to me, so playing one would have no point. Please don't hate on me for that it's just my opinion, i feel like i have to say this for some reason. But I am a male and will always play a male because of that.
Agreed. I am a man who plays as a man. Watching feminine pixels doesn't do anything for me, but nor do I begrudge anyone else's choice. You do you, boo-boo.
I tend to think up a general concept for a character that includes a class and then pick the gender that resonates most strongly with that concept. I do this in almost every game where you make a character for almost every character I make.
As an example, my 4th edition DnD Druid was an abandoned child who found solice and comfort in the thousands of little creepy, crawly friends we all know and hate. Because the character was supposed to be creepy and off-putting I chose for the druid to be a girl because I felt that actively pushing against the convention that girls hate and are afraid of bugs would help to serve my purpose of creating a creepy character. It also created great conflict with the other characters who wanted to care for the girl but were extremely disgusted by her.
Ultra-aggressive male in real life, and I always play the same way. Been around the MMO block a ton, I have never once considered playing as a chick. I have zero desire to increase my odds of getting hit on by lonely nerds. I do completely understand why women play as male characters though, I probably would too in that situation.
I usually play males. I've rolled a few females, but it has nothing to do with "looking at a pixelated girl" or anything. It was always a character concept. Like my half elf bard in Vanguard was female because I was just done playing a re-run of Shining Force CD and wanted to play a character with a name from that game, which happened to be female.
