WoW Becoming Unfriendly To Women?

[Saturo]

Well Saturo for some one like me who does not like to roleplay i do not find it a bad thing :S I don't play wow to roleplay really

Surely you have some kind of backstory thought out, or at least imagine each of your characters with a personality of some sort?

[cowmuflage]

Nope most i have ever done was say cow is a grimtotem :S cos shes black and the only all black group of cows are grimtotems.

[Vephriel]

I'm excited about my Goblin Shaman, but I have the same reservations about the starting area quests. I've been reading about them and a lot of them just make me go..."Eehhh... =/"

Still, nothing that's going to stop me from rolling my character of course. I can get through it and then forget it, but still...not too much of a fan of how it all sounds.

[Renle]

I don't know if I'm really as offended by those goblin quests you describe Mania. If I were personally put in this situation IRL it would be a different story, but the thing I think of, is that these are not Humans. They are Goblins. Forget different culture, this is a completely different, fictional race of beings.
They could eat different then people, they could have different internal organs, they could see in a different color spectrum, anything really.

So to think that their society and gender roles are different then ours would be a very fair assumption. Just from what we've seen of goblins in game already before the new xpac show's what their culture is like, and the way you describe that relationship isn't very far from how I assumed it would be
It's kind of pointless to be offended by the gender roles of a different society. Blizzard isn't trying to insinuate that this is how women and men do/should act. This is simply how the males and females of this race that they created acts.

As far as RPing for the character I can see the complaint there, however at the same time, can't you just avoid those type of quests if you don't like them? And even if you can't I can still see many, many ways that one can use that quest chain to further their own stories.

For example, you mentioned people that might want to RP their Gobbies as homosexual. Wouldn't that be an awesome way to show how your character tried to fit into the unfair 'social norm' of society by dating a member of the opposite gender only to get burned by the relationship, thus making them feel more attracted to other goblins of their own gender?

Personally I've never really had an issue with quests that rp for me. Because if they do put an aspect on my character's personality that I did not plan myself, I can just ignore it. It's not like it changed my characters story, personality or history.
In my opinion, RP is how you handle your character. How something gets thrown in your path that you didn't plan or accept, and you roll with it, staying true to your characters personality.
In real life you can't control what happens to you either. ;P

[Cerah]

I'm another one who wanted to play a Goblin Shaman. The thing is ... I had her planned out in my head as being a young character, like early teens, a "little sister" to my Troll Mage. Hearing about these Chip Endale/Candy Cane npcs just sounds ... creepy, especially in regards to the backstory I had planned. There's nothing like that for any of the other races - nothing trying to tell you how your character "should" be.

The silver lining to this cloud is it's still just the beta, and maybe Blizzard will change this whole section before it goes live. I agree with you, Mania, in that a mooching friend-character would serve the same function for Blizzard's needs, and would leave things a lot more confortable with role-players. I hope Blizzard actually pays attention to their beta-testers suggestions.

[cowmuflage]

well remmber it would just be in the starting zone so i'm sure it would not affect your feelings on said toon after that zone. Just sayin :S

[Vephriel]

I was a little surprised to learn that the same quest line has you end up ripping the still beating heart of your cheating ex for the quest finish. I mean, that itself doesn't bother me, but the accumulation of the prior 'storyline' just seems...really off. o.O

[Mania]

To be clear, I am not offended. I have a personal dislike of the content, I find it fascinating from a sociological perspective, and I believe that it is bad game design. These are three different and unrelated comments on the content, and none of them fits neatly under the title of 'offended'.

From a sociological perspective, there is no way to separate the way we perceive this content from the social context that we operate in ourselves. We can compartmentalize it as roleplaying, but we're still going to evaluate the content of the text in terms of our social matrix.

Damn ... I don't have any way to express what I am trying to say in more normal language. I'm sorry - whenever I think that I need to be very clear about something, whenever I really want to get a concept across, I slip into the language that would work best for me to understand something. It tends not to be the language that would help other people understand what I am trying to say.

You should see me try to explain discrete math.

Vephriel: Yeah, I didn't even go into that. I was also very surprised when that quest popped up later. "Can't I just ignore this? I mean, I never even liked her!"

[cowmuflage]

So wait you do all this stuff for your lover then rip their still beating heart out? that sounds cool lol would be cooler if you got to name them after a ex of yours........

[Karathyriel]

This thread is very strange.
Don't you people see that it is all just your personal perception?

Keep in mind that WoW was designed with a target audience in mind.
It is a fact that most women do not relate to fantasy, so it was clear that most players would be male.
It is a fact that most women do not like computer games, so it was clear that most players would be male. Again.
It is a fact the most women don't like stuff that seem to have killing as main content, so it was clear that... Oh well, you see where this is going to, right?
Target audience: Young males!

The nakedness discussion:
In our modern, western society (which is again the target audience) the female breast is considered a sexual characteristic while the male chest is not. That is why the conventions tell you to cover the female but not the male chest when in public. That is all there is about that.

The feminist discussion:
I am 40 years old and a male. I do have some issues with feminism. Why? Because feminists do not ask for equality. They simply try cherry picking. Why I think this way?
I meet a lot of women. Almost all of them say that women should be paid the same wages as men. I agree. They say, they should have the same chance for a job as men. I agree. They still want me to be the gentleman and open doors, pay the bill, play the chivalrous knight etc. I disagree. Why should I? You want to take any advantage from men but still be the "weak gender" that needs to be pampered? Heck, no!

Please keep in mind that WoW is a game in a fantasy world and it's about heroic adventures. Heros have to be muscular. Heroines have to be sexy. Where would be the epic experience if my toon was as flabby and fat as i am IRL? Where would be the fun if all ladies were like IRL? It is a game and it is here for you to enjoy your leisure time. If you don't like it, don't play it. There is always that very realistic game called life. And that doesn't have a monthly fee on it... ;o)

[Renle]

And that doesn't have a monthly fee on it

Mine does! D:
Damn bills *grumblegrumble*
I don't know if all of this thread is strictly serious Karathyriel. Most of it seems pretty conversational, with a few things discussed that a lot of female players would like to see in game (*cough*femaledruidforms*cough*)

From a sociological perspective, there is no way to separate the way we perceive this content from the social context that we operate in ourselves. We can compartmentalize it as roleplaying, but we're still going to evaluate the content of the text in terms of our social matrix.

I think I see what your talking about Mania....
That it's hard for some people to play through the quests without applying their own personal feelings and opinions to the situation being presented?
Maybe?
Tell me if I'm wrong xP
(I probably am)

Anyways, I still fall back on my own preferred way to play the game, and that is, if the quest is not exactly interesting to me, or I find the story of it annoying in any way, I turn on Questhelper, and grind through it on my way to the next questchain.
In this instance it just becomes experience fodder and I shrug and move on. There have to be a lot of quests in this game anyways, and if Bliz were to agonize over every aspect of each quest as much as we'd like them to, I have a feeling they'd just revert back to the 'Get me 20 bear asses' kinds of quests

As far as the changing it into a 'Mooching-friend' persona, this could be a good way to turn it PC it and try and make everyone happy (it wont, because no one is ever happy, but maybe a majority of the people will be happy then lol)

I have yet to try this quest as I'm not on the beta, so I can't give a full review on whether I like the quest or not, but there is one aspect of this quest that (if I'm understanding the quest context right) I do like already, and that is the gender specific quest.
I've personally wanted to see quests that might be slightly different, or NPC's that react differently to your characters gender. Sometimes the quests that just go 'Hey there <race><class>' feel kind of dry to me.
This along with certain quests having multiple outcomes. (I wanted to save Drakuru darnit! He was just misunderstood QQ)

[Teigan]

It is a fact that most women do not relate to fantasy

Really? I've always loved fantasy...books, computer games, the whole shebang. Last I checked I was female.

Goblin questline:
Ick. Do not like. I don't like the stereotypes. Also, my toons really don't have romantic relationships, they just have friendships. My conception of RP is very limited...I just have vague outlines of personality and story, in my head, for my toons, but this still bothers me. I imagine for a serious RP-er, this would be a major turn-off.

And going back to the dwarf-bra thing...in a hard to explain way, I find it almost insulting that one of the most looked down upon groups of females in WoW has to have the what are probably the biggest, floppiest boobs in the game.

[Epicfail]

From a sociological perspective, there is no way to separate the way we perceive this content from the social context that we operate in ourselves. We can compartmentalize it as roleplaying, but we're still going to evaluate the content of the text in terms of our social matrix.

This is why most "aliens" in movies are humanoid, somehow know the same language as us and have similar feelings/cultures/customs as Earth, if not more extreme or subtle versions of them. And the "monster" style aliens are modeled after mixes of species on this planet. If they created something truly "alien", coming from a completely outside the box perspective, we might be fascinated by them, but we wouldn't be able to relate to them nor extrapolate an understanding from their inexplainable actions or reactions.

It also follows the concept of the man who knows many people, knows himself better than a man who stands alone. Now personally, I'd probably feel the same way had I done those quests. Its a little green person cast of the Jersey Shore . I suppose they always have been that way, but its easier not to care when they aren't your character.

As for my "insipid" assumptions, Mania, I didn't honestly mean to bore you. I just honestly get frustrated with people who buy actual stars on Ebay and then get upset because expedia doesn't book travel to that solar system. Seriously. I'll stop posting if I'm that uninteresting

[Mania]

As for my "insipid" assumptions, Mania, I didn't honestly mean to bore you. I just honestly get frustrated with people who buy actual stars on Ebay and then get upset because expedia doesn't book travel to that solar system. Seriously. I'll stop posting if I'm that uninteresting

No no no! I said *insidious*! Not insipid! Totally different!

[Epicfail]

As for my "insipid" assumptions, Mania, I didn't honestly mean to bore you. I just honestly get frustrated with people who buy actual stars on Ebay and then get upset because expedia doesn't book travel to that solar system. Seriously. I'll stop posting if I'm that uninteresting

No no no! I said *insidious*! Not insipid! Totally different!

OH.... yeah. heh... I sometimes read things so fast I mix up the letters . Or... maybe I just thought you were bored with my ramblings... They weren't exactly intended to be decietful or entrapping either.

[Mindsprocket]

Keep in mind that WoW was designed with a target audience in mind.
It is a fact that most women do not relate to fantasy, so it was clear that most players would be male.
It is a fact that most women do not like computer games, so it was clear that most players would be male. Again.
It is a fact the most women don't like stuff that seem to have killing as main content, so it was clear that... Oh well, you see where this is going to, right?
Target audience: Young males!

Um, no? Adult women actually make up a big junk of the player base. Sure, they're not the majority, but they're by no means a negligible minority either. See this article on WoW.com for example: WoW is most played core game by 24-58 females. I'm 28 and I grew up with fantasy and computer games. And I always shared this with other girls. The truth is, the number of girls and women playing fantasy games is constantly rising as it becomes more acceptable for women to do so. So "Women don't like computer games" isn't a law of nature either, but a cultural convention that's changing.

The problem is that completely ignoring women while designing games is a bad marketing strategy as it excludes a large number of customers from the get go. It's like starting a club and pinning a "No gurlz" sign on the door for the sole reason that "girls wouldn't want to join anyway". And then topping this off by actually taking the absence of girls as proof for that theory. That's pretty much what the gaming industry has been doing over the past decades. Blizzard doesn't do this, however. As has been said in this thread, they have far better female characters than most games and are generally far more welcoming to female players. That's why they have so many and that's also why other game designers finally start to realise their mistake and understand that women would play their games if only they gave them a reason to do so.

About that goblin quest, that really is a bit much and too personal. I guess whoever wrote this just went through a bad realtionship. Generally, though, I like how the starting zone is so planned out and really shows you what goblins are like. I can see how some people feel it ruins their rp. But for me, if I rp it's very important to know what kind of culture my character lives in because that actually plays a big role in developing her personality. Even if I rp her as a rebel I need to know what she rebels against. So I'm perfectly fine with going through the starting zone as a kind of tutorial on goblin culture and only really start rping aferwards. I far prefer this to the old starting zones that pretty much tell you nothing about your race's culture and history. The night and blood elf areas did a decent job on that, but all the others were pretty much useless.

Edit: After I posted this I went to That Guy With The Glasses to check for new videos, and funny enough they have one about this very topic. So here it is: The Fairer Sex and Gaming. The Sage even makes the same comparison with the "no girls allowed" sign. I'm so proud - fan girl yay! XD

[Epicfail]

Actually, that raises a good question... what DO girls want to do in an MMO? I mean, what guys like doing is starting a fresh life, becoming powerful, killing the bad guy and reaping the rewards. We like doing it enough that a game was created around the premise and most games follow this model.

What would a woman do to "earn experience" in an MMO? Or would they even need to? Do most of the women in this forum enjoy the traditionally male model of beating things up and taking thier lunch money or would you prefer a different or modified model of experience gains. I'll omit my own list of examples as I'm already too pretentious to begin with .

I only have this to add: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVhwwFHG ... 8ov_X62FNQ

I play it daily. Some days I don't even find my corpse...

[Vephriel]

I've really enjoyed reading the differing views and opinions on this thread, I think it's fascinating. I can't exactly say the feminist issues are something that have a deep root in me, nor do I relate to that line of mentality, but I still find it engrossing to listen to discussions like this.

[Mania]

Actually, that raises a good question... what DO girls want to do in an MMO? I mean, what guys like doing is starting a fresh life, becoming powerful, killing the bad guy and reaping the rewards.

I think it's a rather uselessly broad generalization to say that "guys like X". But if you are going to make that generalization - or at least the implied generalization that "guys who play MMOs like X" - then why would you think that women who play MMOs are different? I mean, here we are, playing the same MMOs.

And yes, we each individually have different things we get out of our games. But those are *individual* differences, not gender differences.

[Kayb]

Or maybe a race of humanoid Banana people... whose cultural clothing style resembles pajamas