Posted by ReDDoT in Blue Milk & Cereal | 27 Comments
Blue Milk & Cereal: Will Your Main Character Be Male Or Female?
No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal. Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!
Today’s question is rather simple. As most of you know, part of the character creation process in TOR will be gender selection. To some folks, this selection is rather simple. “If I’m a guy in real life, I’ll play a guy in game“. Some guys state their opinion in an opposite way – “If I am going to be looking at one character for hours from behind, it would better if its a female“. Other people will try to follow a certain character from the lore and make a prototype of Han Solo or simply create a character for role-playing needs.
Some statistics report that men are 3-5 times more likely than females to make a character of an opposite gender. There are many more reasons for this so-called “gender-bending”, including the rumored benefits that players receive if they are perceived as females. However, there are a few publications that have begun to appear where females tend to be more “hardcore” when it comes to MMO games, yet at the same time they “under-report their playing habits“. So the whole issue may be more balanced than it would appear.
So let’s contribute to some of these statistics by answering the two questions below!
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As with all MMO’s since … well Ultima, my first toon will be named Contente and a female.
The back story on this odd cycle is that my wife’s name is Contente. So for each MMO I start I do spend a lot … a lot of time playing, and she has no interest in gaming herself. BUT she does not mind if I migrate to the living-room and play while she does other things. I have found she has some interest in how I play, what the character is wearing, possible romances, etc if I start out the MMO efforts with her associated with it.
I am a very male, male. I always play a hot female. I will spend better than 20 hours a week staring at this character for probably several months. I want to enjoy what I am looking at to be aesthetically pleasing to me. I don’t really care if anyone else likes it… i have another friend that feels the same way while many of our friends will only play same sex toons.
Main will be male…more than likely the majority of my other characters will be female. I like to mix it up.
Male (78%, 130 Votes)
Female (17%, 29 Votes)
No, my main will be my gender. (78%, 125 Votes)
Yes, my main will be the opposite gender. (17%, 27 Votes)
This Poll shows one thing clearly so far…there are no females in the internet. XD
IT SEEMS there are only males out there in the star wars universe ;) thats sad…
My first and main toon is always male to match my gender, but I usually create a female alt, usually in a different class just to change things up a bit.
well the updated votes now show female gamers voting on the site. :)
Male because I’m a guy and don’t believe in the whole “I go female cause i like to look at pixelated animated graphic female asses”
It can get confusing when in Vent talking about him vs her when it is a man playing a female character. But I’ve started getting used to it and most of the time can avoid confusion. It is funny how many men in various guilds I’ve been in have mostly female characters. My hubby talks about the “stare at butt” factor and how it is a nicer view if it is a female character. It makes me laugh.
I have found that I tend to confuse guildies a lot more those few times I play cross gender and have a male character. Considering that I find most male avatars to be goofy looking and poorly made, I don’t have the same incentive as they do to watch a shapely male butt. Usually it is connected to gorilla arms, a funny walk, or other poorly conceptualized male features. We need a lot more female software devs creating hot looking male avatars in games! LOL.
Although I am contemplating on changing what class my main character will be but my current choice is going to be male which happens to be my gender. I however do not care weather my character is going to be male or female the voice acting is going to be my deciding factor. For example I do not like the male voice of the Jedi Knight so I will be making a female JK.
I’d be interested to see results in a single cross-tab. :)
Here’s the thing. I plan to play Jedi Knight and Trooper. Depending which one I like more will become my main down the road, but I plan to play Jedi Knight main atm.
That said, I’m male, and plan to play male Jedi Knight. My Trooper will likely be female only because Jennifer Hale is the voice. So, how should I vote because I’m very much decided from a certain point of view? d:
your comment about Jennifer Hale made me question my decision… originally I chose male, because I want my main to have a relationship and felt weird having it be with a male NPC(I will have female alts).
Now, I think it will depend on the character voices and scripts… I don’t want to listen voice I hate for the next 3 years.
If someone from Ask a Jedi would made a video and article of all the main voice actors I would give everyone a big hug!… or high five
As this is one of the big selling points of the game, I’d agree that an article on this should happen at some point if it hasn’t already.
Not sure where you’ll get all of your information, though.
I can assure you there are indeed females on the internet and we will even play SWTOR! We do exist!
I did the whole opposite gender character thing in WoW when I created a female blood elf. She ended up being the class I wanted to play most and simply became my main.
(Because I couldn’t stand the male blood elven voice I chose to play a female. Hah, imagine if I couldn’t stand the voice in this game!)
Plus, the name “Chixor” wasn’t taken on my server. It had to happen. :p
It’ll probably happen in this game too. Perhaps a female sith sorcerer someday. *chuckles*
I usually play my own gender (male), but lately most games male toons look horrible so I started making female toons just because of that. I will make a male toon in TOR unless, like some other games, the male toons look lame.
I’m one of those guys who plays female characters, unless the women look horrible for their race (think Tauren in WoW).
I thought the Tauren ladies were better looking than most of the Horde races, to be honest. Orcs and Undead were just creepy looking. Trolls weren’t much better come to think of it.
Opposite gender forever. Yes, I’m a girl.
My main characters are nearly always male. Mainly because the female versions are either lame or look like alien hookers.
In a lot of MMOs female characters wear a chainmail bikini while male toons get badass armor. And even though that doesn’t happen in TOR, my main will be a male sith warrior.
Okay, nice try but protip? The term “females” in the way you’ve used it is not just incorrect (hint: “females” and “women” are not interchangeable words any more than “males” and “men” are) but outright offensive.
Not to mention terms like “gender-bending” and the implicit assumption in your opening paragraph that all readers are male.
Seriously, if you’re going to re-hash the “lolol no girls on teh interwebs lolol” argument again, you might wanna get a decent copy editor first. >_>
Ah, looks like we’re not following the feminist manifesto.
The article wasn’t intended to make a statement or send a message. It’s a simple poll for entertainment purposes only.
If you’re applying for the job of copy editor, let me know :)
Absolutely no intentions to make any sexist statements in an article. Look, there are only a few genders to choose from for an example. Most of the time, you pick between female and a male which usually leads to excluding at least half of the population, so in a way it is always offensive if you’re on a strict agenda.
Then I can also bring transgender people in, as well as mixed gender and other biological variations that are part of our civilization.
The point is, if I was to include every possible combination, it would make the article too long and uninteresting.
Gender-bending is a perfectly fine term used for video games, as its synonym “transgression” does not mean nor imply the same thing.
I also included some neat statistics about the females in there, but fact is, there aren’t as many females as there are males in MMO games. Most of female gamers reside on Farmville and other popularized games. That’s not sexist, that’s just statistics.
I hope you understand what I am trying to say, and I again, in no way was the article intended to appear offensive.
And one more point, you’re absolutely right, females and women are not entirely interchangeable.
Women is a term that applies to only the adult females. Hence the use of “female” to point out that both the young and adult “versions” of the definition are included.
When the article talks about “men”, it specifically focuses on that age group, as pointed out in the study. In fact, here’s the actual quote :”…older male players are the most likely players to gender-bend.”
I hope that clears it up for you.
I intend to play many characters, nearly one of every AC for the Empire. Whether they end up male or female depends on a basic RP concept for the character, as well as trying to have one male and one female for each storyline. However those plans may change dependent on if I find a particular voice-over too annoying to play…
It would be interesting to see this poll done again now that SGRA have been announced. I know i myself as a straight male am more likely to roll a female character to get in some girl on girl action. Where as before i intended on rolling a male and being in a male/female romance arc.
I play both males and females. And as I’m an altoholic, I seldom have a main character. But as same gender romances with companions arn’t included for launch, I’m inclined to play more males than usual. With the exception of the Trooper of-course. But as I’m not the only Jennifer Hale fan, the Republic forces will probably be dominated by females.
I am male and i usually play female characters as main, and will do on SWKOTOR, im a roleplayer too, so sometimes some people get confused lol, that can be funny sometimes, but i like to point out ooc that im a male to people i get to be friend of or if they ask, just not tell to everione on sight lol because im usually IC, I dont know why i like more to play females usually, i suppouse its about the good look, but i think the main reason may be that for me its easier to get emotionally atached to a female character, especially when most men characters that you usually can do seems some kind of brute ogre. In games where the character personalization is good enought i dont have so much preference as i can do a male character what i like more like more or get more identified with.