Let the Flames begin!

[cycerath2]

www.twitchguru.com/2006/04/11.../index.html

This Article popped up on twitchguru.com, a partner/sub site of tomshardware.com. Essentially its a conversation between two article writers about the subject of females in gaming today.

Although it doesn't quite apply to most of our Awesome Women gamers of FFXI, it brings up a good point that there are poser gamers out there that are not just manthras, but real women as well. And we need to ignore them, just like we ignore the male posers(or try our best to do so.)

I've personally never seen any woman behave like such as mentioned in the article. I have met the occasional young woman-gamer who struggle to play at a mediocre level of skill, but more often than not they are open to suggestions so the experience is not a horrible ordeal. I have also met many who perform on the same level, and at a higher level of my own, may it be skill or dedication.

Will there ever be a female clan that rivals a male clan on a professional level of gaming? Yes. Will we continue to allow the pinup women posers to thrive in gaming? Not in FFXI society. Such deemed manthras already get the slag of our comments, these type of women simply do not thrive in our game from what I have seen. Opinions? Anyone seen these pinup-posers the article describes? Just how bad was it? And is it really such a big deal?

-Lac

I read it and I don't know what to say... let me know your thoughts. and Feel free to Flame all you want ;D

[tarureaper]

4 Words. Too Lazy to Read. =P

[Chadness]

There's two different subjects being addressed here...

1) Female gamers
2) Male gamers playing female toons (or characters, for you non-WoW folk)

The first point is obvious. There are female gamers out there who match or rival male gamers - no matter how much male gamers want to thing otherwise. Its not a question of IF there are...there definately ARE.

The fact that women are (usually) more self-conscious about themselves make them, in my opinion, a bit more shy in the online world, especially when it comes to online communication via voice chat in MMOs or other forms of online gaming like XBox Live. Just because they're not as assertive as male gamers does not, in any way, mean they don't exist or are few in number.

On topic two above, I (obviously) don't see anything wrong with a male gamer playing a female toon (or vice versa). There are many factors that go into deciding on a toon to play. In a game like FFXI, no one should ever critisize the other person's chosen race because race affects stats. A Mithra IS the best all-around race in the game, even better than Hume in many respects (especially for THF, NIN and mage-related jobs). A person may simply choose their race based on stats alone.

In a game like WoW and Guild Wars, among others, some people, like myself, may feel the female character models far outweigh the male models in terms of aethetic appeal. Honestly, male Night Elfs are butt ugly, so are male Humans. They both look like they always are running with a stick up their butt. Therefore, the majority of my toons are female (with the exception of a Gnome male, which look decent if you cover up their facial expressions with a beard of some sort).

On top of it all, these games are called Massively Multiplayer Online ROLE PLAYING GAMES for a reason. True, these males who play female toons are not obviously females in real life. But, the males who play male toons definately aren't bulky warriors, agile elves or hefty dwarves. Nor do they slay massive dragons or the ravages of the undead scourge on a daily basis, in real life, either. Males aren't mages, corsairs, dragoons, hunters, assassins, necromancers or the like by any stretch of their imagination. So, if they're allowed to play what they want in a ROLE PLAYING GAME, why aren't some males who - either for the stats or because they don't want to stare at a butt ugly Night Elf male behind for hours a day - allowed to play what they want?

[tarureaper]

chadness said:

There's two different subjects being addressed here...
A Mithra IS the best all-around race in the game, even better than Hume in many respects (especially for THF, NIN and mage-related jobs).

I resent that but Im to lazy to argue about it.

[Goero]

hmmmm

I know i posted to this.. but its gone..

....

[Chadness]

tarureaper said:

I resent that but Im to lazy to argue about it.

LOL. You're one lazy Hume.

Proof - Mithras have more base AGI (good for ranger, thief, ninja and arguably paladin) and more base MP (good for any mage jobs, paladins or dark nights, obviously) than a Hume does.

[tarureaper]

again Too lazy to argue about it. =P

[lizhellsing]

lol everybody can play what they want either if it's male or female=p

and in wow bg i know i was just as good of a competition as men are i don't think women are worse gamers then men=p
i just think they don't try hard enough cause their not interested
it's a shame!!!
but this comes from a women who wants to ride motorcycles and loves to go see streetraces=p
so it culd just be me >.>
tho i don't want to be treated as a man..
cause that's what some part in that says..
i'm still a women lol i like to dress up sometimes=p paint my nails and all that stuff=p
but i like all the cool "manly"stuff too ^^

[sihmak]

i am a sexy manthra ....but whoever says chicks cant play dont know the girls i know that play this game, they put some guys to shame