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What gender do you play as?
trekbrony
Member Posts: 72 Arc User
I noticed that players play female sometimes.
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Join Date: Aug 14th 2008
And I've always been this way. Had a interesting interaction way back in City of Heroes where I was using a female character and a guy started very obviously flirting with me. Moment I told him I was a guy he freaked the TRIBBLE out and started calling me sick. How am I sick? I'm not the guy beating off to video game character....
My main toon, Byron Taggart, is an expy of myself. His appearance is based on my own, with some liberties taken.
Maggie Dalton is an "elevated" BOFF of Byron, meaning that the appearance of Maggie was lifted from Byron's version of Elisa Flores, who was a redhead.
Ruavu Deruno is a Roswell Grey initially envisioned as a mix between Roger from American Dad and Paul from the movie of the same name. Things evolved from there to where the Grey Alien is his true form and he's also a shape shifter (hence his alternate costume with alternate physical appearances... 17 and counting). The Roger/Paul connection is now simply via appearance.
Karatek evolved from a desire to play a Reman female, as the idea of a Reman female hasn't been explored on screen.
Misryath is a Frost Giant Space Wizard and was an alternate form of Ruavu at first, but I liked the look so much that I made him a separate toon.
Tolata is a female Space Wizard whose people evolved from bat-like creatures. She was created to have a Romulan Space Wizard counterpart to Misryath.
Of course, since there was a Federation and Romulan Space Wizard, I had to create Stebanyir for the KDF. For that, I hit one of Ruavu's other alternate forms and tweaked it a bit.
Zeus is, of course, the Greek God, so he's a dude.
Algernop Krieger, like his mainstream counterpart on Archer, is also male.
Things I want in STO:
1) More character customization options such as more clothing options, letting the toon complexion affect the entire body, not just the head. Also a true RGB color picker applied to all costume and appearance options, which would allow for true appearance customization and homogenous colors instead of "this same exact color looks vastly different on two different pieces."
2) Bridge customization, not bridge packs. Let us pick a general layout and adjust the color palette, console appearance, and chair types, as well as more ready room layout options.
3) Customizable ground weapons, i.e. The aesthetic look of phaser dual pistols but they shoot antiproton bolts. For obvious reasons this would only apply to standard ground weapons.
4) For the love of Q please revamp Plasma Ground Weapons. They look like demented Supersoakers right now.
5) True Vanity Impulse and Deflector effects similar to Vanity Shields.
6) A greater payout for hitting T6 Reputations. Currently it takes more time and resources to get from T5 to T6 than it does to get from nothing to T5. Make that grind really pay out at the end.
7) Mirrorverse Refugee event similar to AoY/Delta/Gamma, complete with new Mirrorverse recruits for all factions.
8) Independent Faction, because yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me!
You'll sometimes find some folks in MMOs getting worked up about males playing females, accusing them of various things. In the end it seems to come down to whether a player sees their character as an avatar of themselves, or whether they just see it as an action figure that they're pushing around in the game world (i.e, is the character internal to them, or external).
Personally, I've never seen any game character as representing me. I also like kick-butt Action Girl types in TV/movies/novels/etc. So, yeah - as a het guy, I play female characters in games when I get the chance.
@boachev
...yeah, I've never understood that whole "hit on someone in an MMO, and then get offended when they turn out to be male" thing. I guess I've just always assumed anyone is a male player
The real key is to play Mass Effect multiple times. I think I played through the entire trilogy with three different Sheps.
That other guy couldn't log out fast enough!
.... I suppose that makes me undecided... Or equal opportunity.
I blame Tomb Raider.
I do have more female characters than male ones but out of those only one comes close to Kogar for personality is 'C.C.' who is a Fed human. She was also from FASA and also had to be retired because that GM died, and going to a new GM was ... well not the same, nor could it be.
Both characters were awesome, and I pushed them to the limits in ways that seem difficult to recreate in STO. Respawns have to happen. as it is an MMO here, but in the FASA game there was no respawn. When you took on something scary, it was scary as in 'roll up a new character' scary.
Kogar was always an engineer and tweaked his D7M a little bit, and I put my character build towards building a grand master strategist and tactician. He let others do the face punching stuff. The most epic moments included counting coup on Starfleet Academy after the Feds had sheltered pirates who were raiding the KDF on their side of the NZ. He used cloaks and followed another ship through the defense grid, then uncloaked and yelled 'Boo' while using tractors to hover a few hundred yards over the Starfleet academy, shot a planetary ahield generator, recloaked and split. The Feds finally did come to the negotiating table though ...
The most epic combat was a Romulan invasion of the Empire. The finale was a battle between his D7M and three Romulans flying two battleships and a light cruiser. Kogar normally uses the cloak but it was a matter of honor, and the entire fight was done showing his teeth the whole time. For the glory of the Empire!
C.C. was a marauder if there could be such a thing in the UFP, or maybe more like a privateer! Built to a tactical style she could out draw, out punch, and out shoot most people, and she was constantly badgering Starfleet to implement more experimental concepts like the Kelvan warp modifications. Using the FASA rules for ship construction she submitted a request for a dedicated combat platform and got it pushed through and was testing it. meanwhile ...
Another player was leader of a Klingon house with 200 ships, who raided Fed space and took prisoners (KDF players interacted a lot with Fed in that campaign, we mixed it up a lot). We had one major battle and it was after C'C' got the requested new ship. He had 200 ships and lost about 12, then he took his fleet and ran ( he called it a strategic withdrawal) Pursuit continued to the NZ where Starfleet told C.C. to stop.
With the right tactics he would have won, with many going to an honorable death, but he got panicked, and lost face. He spent the whole trip to the NZ rotating ships to the rear of his formation to avoid losing any from to much damage, and he refused all challenges including insults to his family honor. He did keep the prisoners though (dang Neutral zone!) Starfleet called C.C. in to say "WTF were you thinking?" Well ... she was thinking about the prisoners.
C.C. reminds me of an old girlfriend who was my biggest pre college crush, and my strongest opponent in school student government on nearly every issue. She rolled over obstacles the same way. Her Mother disaporoved of me just enough for it to matter. Good times in spite of the drama.
My current favorites besides those are Nausicaan named Krule. and a Andorian female (KDF alien) named Kayn. Both are pirates who aided the Gorns and especially made rivals out of Orions, and finally ended up with the KDF afterwards. Both are bahdass in their own way as concepts, and I like the way both look. Krule runs around with blades on his arms, and his Boffs include body doubles (covered in the backstory) I went for the 'hotness' with Kayn because ... duh!
I try to have a good story for each toon, so besides that I guess I go for visuals, and nostalgia. I really hate tramping out any of the ladies to be honest. They are officers and they have stories, If the uniform doesn't fit, then I won't do it. "I know that Ferengi is wearing a lot of clothes but you can stop staring at her like that"
Well anyway, that gives you some idea. I play for fun.
Qapla'!
Fem Shep was my 'good cop', and male Sep was my 'bad cop'. I could go all out with it! it was fun.
Qapla'!
Well I kind of see myself in all of my characters. I think that is natural because after all, I am putting some of myself into creating them.
I've always appreciated a good visual for all characters, and female ones are sort of a guilty pleasure I guess. Before I got happily married, my 'Gahd Emperure of the Wurld!' dark side had often pondered what it would be like to be the absolute ruler of all ( I would be a kind and just dictator, really). I used to think I'd invite a different lady to dinner every day, no strings, no obligations, just to enjoy the variety of beauty in the world, and there is a lot there to be sure. The remnants of that desire seem to live on mostly in my Boff selections, but has affected my choices in PC builds also.
I have mentioned elsewhere that Diablo II was my first online PvE PvP shared area. I had a Sorceress as one character, although my main one I liked was a Necromancer. I noticed that people treat you differently based on the visual. I think that speaks volumes as to how the human mind works. Maybe in scary ways. It speaks to bias, and even to outright prejudice. I believe a lot of the 'accusations' and anger that occur with 'wrong' gender visuals are rooted in nature.
Think of gender relations on a primitive level as being a thing each of us invests into, and nature expects/demands that for the species to remain strong there has to be a certain percentage of reliable bonding. No gender has a 'zero' investment, and time is only one commodity of many that are used. Since time used mistaking someone for being of a preferred target gender when they are not, is lost/wasted, then it is possible to see where the anger comes from. The assumption of gender may be a false one, but it can lead to subconscious expressions of attachment and when the 'lie' is revealed there will be a sense of betrayal that comes as a reflex.
Literally, the 'offended' party feels lied to and is hurt. Perhaps stupidly so since what are two toons going to do that has any reality to it anyway? I know there are some folks who like to RP, and some of that gets ... intense, but all of it needs to be seen for what it is. An illusion. The anger may have another metaphorical source, which would be the result of suddenly waking someone from a pleasant dream into an unwanted reality. So yeah, misplaced attention followed by anger.
Time and culture will mitigate this as we become far more used to the variety of artistic tools we have for interacting, and expressing ourselves.
@trekbrony I have to add that you seem very focused on what people do for characters in the game. I'm curious if you are a Psych major or some related field, or maybe an aspiring writer?
Anyway, Qapla'!
If you don't mind my asking, do you see your choice as being more about identifying yourself with the 'avatar' ? I know I go both ways where sometimes I feel represented, and sometimes it is more like telling a story. So yeah, curious.
Qapla';!
In my defense... my main doesn't follow that. Mostly because... max bust kinda causes the TNG movie badge to clip something fierce. So she's kinda forever locked at about 50% on the slider to accommodate the badge unless I'm going Mirror Universe. Other characters I may have various levels of high bust slider. But at least they're not toothpicks.
But, as the guy on PVPOnline once said, if I'm gonna look at a butt for three hours, it might as well be a nice one. Is it my fault I find one sort more attractive than the other?
Most of the time I just pick what I want to play and go by what looks best in the character creator. On STO I think it's easier to make females, the males all look.. weird to me.
I find this usually holds true, although much like in Rattler's case, it doesn't hold true for my characters, although I tend to run the bust slider high, I balance it out with the other sliders to create a believable figure. In one case I even ran the bust slider at max and when I asked someone who dislikes the majority of male made female characters because of the bust issue where he thought the slider was, he swore it was set to the minimum.
I've also made so many characters now that I can create a female character in 30 seconds flat which looks more believable than most I see around ESD.
Sometimes when I play, if I am going to be staring at a character's TRIBBLE for a few hours as I run ground missions, I'd rather it be female. Just sayin'.
If there are posts here that do not appeal to you, or opinions you disagree with, the best way to deal with that is to resist the urge to add comments. Instead, engage with the content you like! Don't feed the trolls!
So their gender has no relation to my own. They are whatever the stories in my head create.