PAX Panel: Girls and Games

QFT, My girlfriend is a gamer and can kick my ass haha.

I think its wrong to have a GLBT-only guild (I am in a GLBT-friendly guild) and it is pretty much as Lady Lozza said, drama, crap, etc... comes from BOTH SIDES, and to say Girls are the only cause of it is pretty much silly (sorry Avarre, your "facts" are just plain wrong) and sounds like a 5-year old boy shouting no girls allowed and girls have cooties. I know plenty of girls who are competitive, have warriors, etc... so sorry, but no.

Sadly, you're not the only moron magnet. Luckily, I seem to attract more people who *at least claim to be* female players. Only said "at least claim" because sadly, there are guys out there who pretend to be girls *bleh*.

I really do not understand why guys find it weird or unusual that girls play video games. Anyone can play video games just as much as any other person, girls are no exception. But I must say, that this topic is getting annoyingly ridiculous because of the naivety of people in this world.

Sadly, idiots cannot be removed. But if I could, I would, and under the pretense of "population control."

Perverted mind is perverted x.x

Once more, I gotta quote you, just because I agree once more.

First, lol at the "Me guy! You girl! We bang!" because of how true it is on most online games. *Take a look at pre-searing if you don't believe me, that place is usually filled with cybering Neanderthals*

Second, I agree completely. I will admit, I love romance stories and plots. How I've noticed it, the guys who put on the "big macho man" identity and acts like a tough guy all the time is really a softy on the inside, but is afraid of letting that out because of the false accusations. Heck, many people think I'm a big tough guy, which is only because of being 6'7", but as I said, I like romance and other things that people would consider "girly," but I also like a ton of things that would go under the category of "tough guy." There are probably many people who like the same things as girls, such as romance stories, even if they only like it so that they can relate to their girlfriends/wives and whatnot.

Girls are not the only one who complain over things like that Avarre. I've seen guys leave guilds because of being annoyed by someone they could simply have just ignored. I've only seen a girl complain about a cape a few times, and most of those times it was just them trying to get their way, using their own femininity to their advantage over the guys in the guild. Which I find simply pathetic.

Most of the girls I know seem to like playing Dervish, Necromancer, or Mesmer. Mostly Dervish. Of course, I know quite a few monk main playing girls.

While I do agree that mostly girls bring the attention to themselves by saying they are a girl, not all do, as you pointed out. Some simply get on vent or on forums have a "girly" thing about them. Any smart man should be able to tell when a person is a girl most of the time, just by how they act, and if you can't, you need to get out more.

I do agree that there are a lot of guys who try to "coddle the precious lone female," but I say that is to be expected, just as guys hit on the random good looking girls at the bars, guys online will hit on the girls who have similar interests as them. It's actually only natural, and it will get annoying at times, but all of life is annoying.

While, I do feel like joking and saying "don't use ventrilo," I won't because of the seriousness of this matter.

There will be those who joke, and there will be the rednecks who don't know shit.

The bolded part made my rofl. The rest, dealt with that before. Annoying as heck -.-

I hope I'm not going to turn out to be one of the few who you can name who think girls are inferior x.x Because I know they aren't. Girls have kicked my arse to Mars and back in games like Mortal Kombat before... And the treatment you ask for, is what I give to every female, not just female gamer, except one, no matter what they do to get a different treatment. And I think everyone should do the same.

I, sadly, must agree with you, once again. I can't even think of anything that I can add.

Sadly, in an overall standard, there is no line. At least one person can consider any comment racist, sexist, or whatever, even if that comment was a compliment to someone, a person can turn it into an insult to another person.

Some are...

Fully agree. Sadly.

If "good" warriors are defined as tanks, I think there is something that is wrong. Every person I talk to with an idea of what a warrior should be *and not those moron who pick a warrior because he is "big" and the "armor is cool" or because they "like swords"* have told me that tanking is not what warriors were meant for, PvE or PvP. The warriors in PvE who just sit there taking damage are not playing the profession the way many many people I have talked to, who doesn't act like a complete ignoramus, believes they should be played as. Dark Necrid, your idea of what a warrior does in PvP is what a warrior should do all around, so please don't think that the people who play warriors because of looks/swords is how everyone in PvE plays a warrior.

Not to be offensive, but these three responses read out sexist attitude all over them. Better word more carefully.

Just because Avarre brought up PvP, does not limit the entire thread to only PvP. PvE needs to be brought up as well at times.

I think I responded to enough posts...
__________________________________________________ ______________
All in all, this whole "no girls on the internet" and the whole female gamer "issue" is just another form of the archaic "men are better then women" idea, aka sexism, that has been implanted in most men's minds since longer then I care to know. It is something that will never be completely rid of, once the gaming "issue" is over, men will start looking at the newest thing and say that girls cannot do that and only men can, then some women will come along and prove them wrong and the whole cycle starts all over again. Same thing goes with racism. Neither will ever be solved because people always want to be better.

Why do you even bother? PvE doesn't have a following, it doesn't have a metagame that matters, and it doesn't demand playing well to get past areas. It isn't the same. A chimpanzee can mash buttons on a keyboard and win with bullshit like ursan and consumables, so comparing females to males in that environment is as pointless as it is possible to be.

Anyone can do PvE. Guilds aren't required. Vent isn't required. Playing as part of a team isn't required. Learning to play a specific class/role and being good at it isn't required. All of those things have bearings on how males and females play and interact, especially when they're forced to interact daily in stressful circumstances like Automated Tournaments. PvE doesn't have any of that. You could have a black person (or any race, really) and an absolute racist in the same party in PvE and still do incredibly well. In PvP, that is nearly impossible.

You grasp that there is a difference between PvP and PvE, but not that PvE doesn't have anything by which to gauge... anything! Sure, people can make snide comments in team chat, but that really doesn't affect the outcome of the party. In most PvE areas, someone can literally leave the party in rage and the group will probably still win. What's the point of discussing male/female roles without anything to base arguments on?

I don't remember reading Avarre ever saying that drama was girl specific or why people respond as if he had said they were all drama queens either.
Of course both male and females will contribute to drama. I think the difference is however that with females the potential for drama of the e-relationship kind can (and probably will) occur, which is usually more intense and well...more dramatic than the usual "ur bad", "this cape sucks", "I don't want to play x profession anymore I want to be a warrior". Even if the girl didn't intend for it to happen there is still the point that she was the eventual catalyst.

However with that said I'm not aware of any guild that has barred girls from their roster solely because of 'drama potential'. The only guild that I can think of at the moment to declare they were not interested in recruiting girls was because they thought it might be a confronting and inappropriate environment (they enjoyed making very sexually explicit and crude jokes) and probably didn't want to have to censor themselves to avoid offending.
Doesn't matter too much, if people want to stereotype/exclude a group then those who don't agree probably wouldn't want to play with them anyway - at least they are doing everyone the favour of being upfront about it so others can avoid them completely.

I'd also stand by the argument that most girls have a tendency to gravitate towards the support classes. In terms of high-end pvp play they feature exclusively in such roles (yes it is a tiny fraction of the community but success usually means a certain level of skill - the point of contention - which is difficult to measure overall in other areas of the game). And although you may chastise people for saying such things, there has not even been a handful of examples where a girl has featured in a frontline role in high-end competitive pvp. (pve, imo is much more different: flexible nature of the group/build - you don't NEED certain classes or utility as much as a gvg build does and if you don't agree with decisions made go h/h; the warrior=tank! mentality; and the comparative lack of finesse and skill required to run a warrior bar as effectively ie 1/4 knocks, positioning around target, consistently landing bulls, appropriate target selection and correct strat calls.)

Not that I'm implying that girls are simply incapable of playing those positions, but either they don't choose to (prefer the non-aggressive playstyles) or simply aren't that good at it (which probably will offend someone, but seriously most guys aren't very good warriors in the realm of pvp either...). Most girls also usually wont perform the duty of strat caller either which is an important and stressful role.
Warrior/frontline in a pvp build is a highly contested spot in competitive play because (and I agree) it's the most fun. In my experiences at least, nearly all girls are pretty flexible in what they will play and therefore are relegated to the roles most people don't usually want (flagger, monk, defensive midline).
I guess in my opinion a number of factors contribute to why we don't see females playing the number 1 warrior spot in gvg/ha/whatever, but feel free to disprove my points (I would love to see some female chiizu-calibur warriors running around )

Sorry for the lengthy rant! To finish off though...

lol

As any hot blooded male should...

Along with cars and beer!!!

I know a guy (who has since quit GW) who pretended to be a girl so he could get stuff from the people who went "OMFG YOU'RE AN ASIAN GIRL GAMER".
It was, as I recall, pretty successful. Which says a lot about both sides.

See, that's what I mean by they're forced into the role. Guys usually voice their opinions louder than women, so the outcome is that women get the last pick of what they want to play.

Also, a lot of people expect women to be the "pleasers" and play the roles that guys feel are "not manly" or "the girl's job."

I would guess that one of the major factors why you don't see many girls in PvP is because of the subconciously sexist attitudes. Some of your "facts" might be true, but they are still sexist and offensive and they will naturally deter people.

Actually, "snide comments in team chats" can screw up a team. I have seen it before, sadly. You say PvE is too easy and whatnot, it has no stress and no difficulty. Yet, I know many people who have issues with playing even PvE in Normal Mode. But besides all that, with PvE being just as liable - despite your belief - about how people play, my point was that you cannot just look at one point of a game and judge everyone of a specific trait on that one part of the game. If you only look at High End PvP, then you get a bunch of self-proclaimed "hard-core gamers" and people who deal with more stress, especially the support people. If you add PvE, you see people in a more relaxed state because it is not as hard. Sure, most people can steam roll over most of PvE, but not everyone, and hardly can PuGs ever do that because they have little organization.

If you look at PvE with H/Hing everything, and look at PvE with PuGs, you get two completely different things. Same goes for "low-end PvP" and "high-end PvP" just as "PvP as a whole" and "PvE as a whole."

What I was saying did have nothing to little to do with Avarre being called a sexist, because I don't care about that. My point was to get to DarkNecrid that you cannot only talk about PvP when on these types of topics. Which, he was just plainfully ignoring everything but high end PvP. And sadly, I think I have to point that out to you as well. And I hope I did.

Yes I am sure rawr just magically forces three pounds to play Monk because no one else wants to, not that she's really good at it and they don't have anyone else who is as good at it. Same goes for all the other top guilds (which again, is what we're talking about), clearly they are all delegated to play Monk, Ritualist, and Mesmer not because they are good at it, but because no one else wants to.

Maybe you should ask Three Pounds or one of the other top female players if they get forced to play their role at all, because I'm absolutely 100% positive they will all say no. Anyone who thinks a female in any top guild is forced into their role is pretty ignorant. Someone who is forced into a role, won't like being forced into something, and then they won't play their hardest = you will lose. You need to keep everyone happy to win and you sorta don't keep people happy by forcing them to play roles they don't really want to play or aren't the most effective at simply because no one else wants to.

Please follow the topic.

Here I'll reiterate:

A: Avarre says something about top PvP.
B: X person says he's sexist about top PvP.
C: me and others started arguing with that person about top PvP.
D: bunch of other people randomly come in and arguing about not top PvP.

If you want to argue about sexism and women and roles about how women totally don't just play support classes in PvE, then you should probably do it when it's relevant to the discussion at hand, and not when we're arguing about Avarre being called sexist because he said women only play support classes in top PvP and there's very little good female warriors/non-support classes in top PvP.

I'm not ignoring anything but top PvP for christ's sakes, that's what we were RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing talking and discussing about was how is it sexist to say there is no good females who main non-support classes in top PvP when there isn't?

Are you even reading what Azazel The Assassin just posted?

I am talking about Guild Wars as a whole. Not JUST PvP, not JUST PvE, but BOTH PVE AND PVP.

(Btw, I think the subject of discussion has moved.)

That's great, no one else was until a bunch of people decided to push a huge "ZOMG SEXISM EVERYWHERE" agenda out of nowhere. This whole sexism thing started and is about how is it sexist to say there are no women who play non-support classes in top PvP if none of them do. Calling Avarre sexist for that is what sparked this whole thing which is why we were discussing for a whole page and a half top PvP and the comment towards Avarre and random people decided to not read those and take it for the whole RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing game to derail the topic even further.

No because I'm pretty sure my post was referencing yours:
He posted while I was typing.

EDIT:
Someone should just make a sexism in guild wars topic so we can at least remove the last 3 pages from this one which didn't bother to do shit with if it was sexist or not to say there are no women who play non-support classes in top PvP if none of them do. And then get back to the topic about Girls and Games.

This is addressing posts from throughout the thread so if it sounds a bit stream of consciousness, my apologies.

1. Is there a difference in how males and females are treated in game? Yes. Same as there is in RL.

2. Are most games designed for guys? Yes--because that's who originally were buying the games. Designers wanted to sell to their market and designed it accordingly. What they haven't caught up with is that women have started joining in markedly increasing numbers.
My generation is the first that grew up playing video games on a regular basis--both boys and girls. I had a hiatus from gaming while going through college because of all the time required for my particular course of study and the lack of money to buy the games/consoles and later because of the requirements of taking care of 2 young children along with other work/non-work activities. I started gaming seriously again about 4 years ago and found it was more entertaining than most of the caca on TV, and it also gave me something I can talk to my kids about. My hubby and kids play GW--it's a way we can do something together, rather like what I had with my family with board games when I was growing up.
The demographic of game players is changing faster than devs can keep up, I think. However, if they want to increase their market share to broader segments, they're going to have to think about what the broader segment of gamers plays/wants in a game, and adjust accordingly.

3. What makes a game good for many women?
a. Good story.
b. good solid gameplay that doesn't require a steep learning curve. I don't have time to work on a PhD in Skill and Weapon Usage to Defeat the Uber-Bad-Guy.
c. good story.
d. if you're going to have people interact and have relationships, include OPTIONAL romance. Some people like romance (I happen to), some people don't. My son is at the age where kissing is just beyond gross and would avoid romance like the plague. If romance is optional, both groups are happy.
e. Did I mention a good story?
f. avoid mindless button mashing. I got that out of my system playing Asteroids 25 years ago.
g. encourage different play styles--one of the reasons I love playing Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is because I can run around being sneaky to get around the battles, or I can put a ton of points into being Sniper Goddess and just shoot the snot out of everything in sight.
h. make it easy to stop in the middle of battle if need be. When my kids get hurt or have some (real or imagined) emergency, I have to put the game down immediately. One of the problems I have with an MMO is that there's no way to pause a battle. However, if I sacrifice a pixel toon for my kids, that's the way it goes.
g. Here's another suggestion: A Good Story.
h. give me an option to cover up my women a little more, or if you're going to have half-naked Xena-boob women running around, at least be a little fair and give me a studly Hercules type. And here's a hint--having seen real women in real chain-mail bikinis, I can tell you they're darned uncomfortable and don't even protect against sunburns, let alone something like a sword strike. At least find something a little more realistic even for fantasy. Or perhaps give us clothing and boob-size choices--that way we can decide whether we want B-cup women in realistic armor, and the 13 year old horn-dogs can have the half-naked EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-cup pixelated pin-ups.
i. goodstory-goodstory-goodstory
j. Don't insult my intelligence by assuming that just because I'm female, I like cutesy pink princess frou-frou crap. I don't. Some girls might, I'm not one of them.
k. A. Good. Story. (are we sensing a theme here yet?)
l. I like variety in my gaming. I like to think about the options and choose what I think will work best for that situation skill or weapon-wise. This is why I don't play FPS stuff much--I prefer something more interesting than "Level a: Jungle level. Shoot bad guys in trees. Level b: City level. Shoot bad guys in windows. Level c: Cave level: Shoot bad guys on ledges. Level d: Sea level: Shoot bad guys in boats."
m. Hint, hint: A good story.
n. Corollary to point l.: Make my choices actually count. While I like the variety of choosing Sousuke or Jin, or Master of Whispers vs. Margrid, it has absolutely no other bearing than what kind of spare hero you get. You still end up whooping Abaddon's butt, or whatever substitute he has for one, no matter what you do. It would be nice if there were a few different effects of hero choice.
o. Choice of level of gore. Make it as gross as you want, and I guarantee you having worked in the medical field as long as I have, it won't bother me. However, if my kids are around and playing with me, I'd love to be able to turn the gore/violence down to a more kid-friendly level.
p. Difficulty levels that range from easy to hard for PvE play. So penalize me a few xp if I'm playing in easy mode if you want--I'm OK with that. However, at least give me the option of easy mode. Some days are crazy and I just want to relax, not get frustrated that I can't kill Fluffy the Wonder Bunny because I forgot to read the wiki and equip the uber-Bunny-kill skill in town an hour back. Remember, some of us are playing for the story, not because we enjoy being the brunt of some sadistic dev's idea of "Impossible-to-kill Monster=FUN!!11!!!111!!!eleventy-one!!11!!!"
q. Bling and eye-candy scenery are great, but "It's the Story, Stupid."
r. Do your QA so that the game plays right out of the box on most rigs, and doesn't require a zillion tweaks to make it work. Give your instruction manual to someone who hasn't played before to read so that your instructions make sense to a new player. For tech support issues--make the solutions clear and step-by-step. I don't have a lot of time to wade through obfuscating verbosity. By the same token, don't treat me like a complete moron, either. I know my DVD drive is not supposed to be a coffee cup holder, thank you.
s. Good story--wait, even better--a Great story!
t. Replayability with a few different options. If you're going to make me grind for reputation points, at least make the story a little different so I see something new now and then.
u. I had the focus and determination to kill the same 10 wurms outside Boreal station I don't know how many times to get to Legendary Survivor. I did that solely because I think the title is rather cool, even though it's completely useless and was incredibly boring after about the first 3 wurm runs. If you're going to make me grind, at least let it have some kind of benefit like the LB track has.
v. A good story that will run on my rig will make me willing to forgive a whole lot of other problems.

4. Why aren't more girls/women in high-level PvP? Perhaps lack of experience and a lack of confidence. In my case, and this might speak also for a lot of women who work in and out of the home, I could learn the strategy/timing/tactics required for high-end PvP but lack the time to spend doing the practicing required to pull together a top-notch team. I also play to relax, not to win a tourney, and certainly not to get my butt chewed if I don't win a PvP battle. PvP requires a lot of concentration if you want to do well. I have to concentrate hard at work--I don't want my hobby to force me to do the same.

5. Why do I play support characters instead of a warrior? I find running a warrior is not nearly as interesting as ranged, midline, or even monk. I love playing assassin and dervish, but my main favorites are ranger, ele, and necro. I think that's a function of my personality as much as anything else--I'm a big-picture kind of person rather than small details, and playing ele or ranger allows me to scroll out and get a wide view of the area to figure out where the best place is to direct x attack. It's also a lot of fun to do massive AoE damage. I love seeing all the yellow numbers on the screen when I get a great barrage, spiteful spirit, searing flames, or death blossom hit. I don't get that same experience playing as a warrior. I could be just as competitive with my warrior as with my 'sin or dervish, but I can do more interesting things with the latter two, so I play those classes instead.

I might add more to the disseration later, this is enough for now.

1.) A good story doesn't necessarily mean a girl will like a game. Hell, my fiancee doesn't even really follow the storyline of Guildwars. She's played more than me, and she does because she likes the gameplay(And making her monk look pretty).

2.) I'm male and I enjoy playing a support role more than I do whacking things with a hammer. My main character is an SS necro. I love dealing massive amounts of damage to several targets. My second favorite character is an earth elementalist: I like protecting members of my team in ABs using tanking tactics as well as dealing out weakness and knockdown spells(rendering most melee classes useless.). Some think it's noobish to be an earth ele in ABs, I think it takes an extraordinary amount of finesse. My fiancee plays a similar role in ABs with her water ele - she deals the main damage and I deal the support damage.

You're right--when I didn't qualify it with 'many' it was too much of a generalization. I changed it accordingly.

Jae Onasi, I have so many funny remarks to that entire paragraph but... I'm trying hard to resist.

Oh what the hey, I'll do one.

"I want to respond to your post Jae Onasi but... well screw it. It's too much work/concentration to think and type it all out."

Pause.

Waits for the irony of that to sink in.

There are different types of players (regardless of gender). You have the:

adventurer - wants to explore everything
lore - wants a storyline, progression, interesting tidbits of info lying around
hardcore - plays 20+ hours a day because they have the time
acheiver - wants to conquer everything first day

So on and so forth.

You can't group a gender into one style of play such as "story". I understand that you meant your post as an opinion, but it certainly came off that you were speaking for the female gender as a whole and it's just not correct. It's not even what the majority of females gamers want, because there is no majority.

This is why it's important for gamers to identify a play style and pick out games that they know they are going to follow and love. I personally tend toward FPS and intense puzzle-games (myst, mysterious island, and the whole line of games in that genre). But speaking for the female gender and saying they don't want to "concentrate enough" to play PvP? That it takes too much time? Believe it or not, the majority of MMOG players are in their early 30's, married, with a job. There are also a high percentage of woman MMOG players who are hardcore (putting in 4, 5+ hours a day). So the "time" arguement can't really be stated as a factor of gender because most of us are in the same boat.

You forgot Guns and Violence

It's OK, Inde, I can laugh at myself, too. As long as you're not too sarcastic to me, I'm good, and I did get a chuckle at your comment.

Well, I did say "in my case" and "might" as qualifications in point 4 addressing PvP, but perhaps a paragraph break would have made it more clear that I was speaking for myself and my particular situation.

I spend a lot of time playing GW and other games, but I don't spend a lot of time in PvP. It's fun once in awhile as something different from the usual PvE, but I don't want to do the work required to be at/near the top in GvG or 1v1. There are likely plenty of women out there who do have the time and inclination to put the work in to be the top-ranked PvPers, which I think is going to be more than just the average time for the average gamer. The best PvPers are going to ideally have good relations with each other (not that they never get upset or angry, but overall good relations ideally), a lot of practice together to achieve the necessary coordination with both their own skills and their teammates' strategy, a lot of time spent studying the maps and studying their opponents' matches to work on offense and defense, a lot of concentration during battles to get the timing just right to kill instead of being killed, etc. It's a decision on my part not to turn my game into something that would end up being more work than fun with me.

Pffft, Bish please.

Jezebel.com has a discussion about one of the PAX panels (same one?)

http://jezebel.com/5045534/want-vide...ore-child+like

Pink? Sparkly? Kiss my wammo sass.

My wife plays but I think she doesn't tell anyone she is female anymore, just too many idiots.

I was on her account upgrading her armor when I get a pm asking if I had changed my mind about leaving my husband. Another time when I was doing something on her account I had a guy come up to me and tell me I was still the hottest elementalist in the game. Both time I was laughing so hard I almost cried but really have to wonder, how do women put up with these idiots. It's like guild wars rudeness times ten if they find out your female.

You clearly do not get what I was saying, even though you say you do. If you will talk about sexism and girls in a game, you cannot talk just about top PvP. I know you started talking about High-end PvP, but many things you said were commenting on girls in video games as a whole, which is what I believe Taurucis was commenting on. With a topic such as this, even if it starts out at a specific point, in this case High-end PvP, then you cannot keep the topic at high end PvP, it will faulter to the game as a whole.

The world cannot do as you alone wishes. You cannot expect a thread to stay on course.

In fact, when you were talking about high end PvP, you already went off course, and now you say talking about PvE is going off course. You're just being a hypocrite right now, not to be offensive *as everyone is a hypocrite once in their life*.

PvE has as much relevance to the real topic as high end PvP. So don't complain about people talking about PvE.

I'd have to agree with her...my main char is an ele, not because I wanted to play a support class to my hubby (although I do like it when it ends up that way ) but more so because I like dealing massive damage - big yellow numbers and LOTS of it. Whacking single targets up close isn't as fun. My secondary character is monk, but again...it wasn't because I wanted to support, sure it's nice to play that once in awhile but I made it for reasons like versatile farming - god I made a killing off selling titan gems when they were 25k+ a piece.

In relation to Guild Wars...I found it immediately appealing as girl instead of WoW or other MMO's. The graphics are beautiful, the music is touching and at LEAST there is a story (better than what else is out there...but maybe I haven't looked around enough?) A good story would probably be the main factor on whether I decide to pick up a game and try it. The second would be preeettiinnesss (no Ex10 cup boobies in loin cloth please...it hurts just to look at it). I do take the time to read the dialogue in quests..at least most of the time when it involves something comical or romantic. I also enjoy the OPTION to be able to relax and have fun without feeling like getting left behind.

Use of heuristics, "thin-slicing", etc. is unavoidable (and well-advised, in any case) because they are survival tools; in many instances you simply can't afford to produce a formal proof or collect a statistically representative body of data before making decisions. We must be able to produce snap-judgments based on incomplete data, or we'd go through life without a thought in our heads.

If you think about it, there's nothing remarkably tragic about this. We pretty much never have complete data in anything we do. Religion could be cleaned up pretty quickly if we could prove the validity or invalidity of each religion. Ditto with global warming and alternative fuels. In fact, most policy arguments are a direct result of incomplete data - there wouldn't be anything to argue about if we could actually predict results with complete accuracy.

Why would individual decision-making be any different?

There doesn't necessarily have to be a line (see: Sorites Paradox; Loki's Wager; Continuum Fallacy), and in the fuzzy middle it might just come down to what people want to call it.

My personal view, however, is that heuristics are based on data (i.e., experience), whereas sexism/racism is largely arbitrary. Some people might just hate women because they are women - where is the factual or rational basis in that? Further, some aspects of racism really have nothing to do with heuristics, and rather boil down to cultural differences. For instance, some cultures emphasize individuality and personal expression; others emphasize conformity and societal harmony.

The easy test, in my view, is how readily one is able to recognize and accept exceptions to a heuristic, and how easily the heuristic is adjusted. Obviously, those who cling to their original heuristics (and corresponding hatreds) in the face of significant contradictory evidence aren't really applying heuristics at all.

As for the rest of this thread: the sexism card is overplayed. Especially in light of:

Care to elaborate on exactly what gives women away? You perceive that, as we are discussing gender equality, this is a rather pertinent question.

Finally, here's a related article from Ars Technica regarding an EU report on women in media, advertising, and video games: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...her-media.html

Topic has just about run it's course but honestly it's not so much the girls that cause the drama as it is the socially inept clowns that make up most of the male playerbase. They either don't know how to or aren't able to deal with having females around. There's plenty of examples in this thread alone.

Also, about 5-6 people in every team play support chars. Do the math.

So for example in Avarre's case, it wasn't the girl's fault for refusing to play because of disliking the cape but in fact the leader's (assumed male) for changing the cape, what a chauvnistic pig!

The statement about classes doesn't make the statement about most female players playing support rather than warrior/frontline in high end PvP any less true.

The girl needs a smack IMHO.

Not every guy is socially inept, and not every girl will cause drama. In Avarre's case, sure it's the girl's fault. But there are also people out there who will shower lots of undue attention on a player simply because they think the player's a girl.

I know someone who pretended to be a girl just so he could siphon things off guys. He amassed quite a lot of stuff from guys who were falling over themselves to get to know 'her'.

If an actual girl does this, is it her fault? Yes. Is it also the fault of the guys who fawn over the player simply because she's a girl? Yeah. My friend's trick wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did if there weren't any guys who reacted with 'OMFG GIRL *SHOWER GIFTS'. It goes both ways.

I can't help but laugh at that

zomg t3h sexism!

I see the "guys can't deal with having women around" line of argument a lot, and it frankly confuses me. The gaming demographic centers largely around the college+ group from 18~25 (varies, some studies cite slightly different ranges), and men in this age group can not only deal with having women around but actually strongly prefer female companionship over sausage parties. Thus, I'm really not sure where this whole "can't deal with women" rationale came from.

Frankly, I'd say you're hanging with the wrong crowd if that's the issue. The situation is similar to complaining about noisy kids at a daycare center - like srsly wat ded u xpekt?!?

The amusing part about the second group you cite is that they have no way of knowing whether the woman on the other end is even attractive.

I visit everywhere from Prophecies mission outposts to AB to various places in Cantha and Elona. It's hard to find an idiot-free district/group.

If you've toss a bucket of blue marbles into a tub, and then toss two buckets of red marbles into the tub, chances are you'll fish out red marbles every time you take a handful. Same goes for GW - if you have one quantity of polite and mature players, but two quantities of morons, you're very likely to encounter a moron.

The second part, yes, I know, but sadly there are some people out there who are pathetic enough to hit on anything they even think is female.

Way off. Don't let the most dumb (and also probably the loudest) portion of the population equate the generalization of the many. For every one jerk, there are probably around 25 men that aren't.

Yes it's her fault in that example but guys refuse to play for stupid reasons all the time. From capes, to dye combos, guild halls, Vent/TS preference, you name it. If they can't be reasoned with they get benched/kicked, a guest or someone else is brought in if available and a more reliable replacement sought. It should be no different with girls and has nothing to do with sexism or w/e you want to trip about.

The point you were supposed to pull from the classes statement is that the majority of players are in support roles i.e. few play frontline. Since females make up a much smaller percentage than males at that level you would expect an even smaller fraction to be in that position, regardless of the reasons.

Because preferring female companionship means acting appropriately. OK. The rationale comes from the experiences of "girl gamers" when their cover is blown.

"Acting appropriately" isn't at all related to "can't deal", which was your original complaint. Being rude doesn't mean you can't deal with a situation - it just means you're rude.

And again, if this kind of shit bothers you, you're hanging with the wrong crowds. I've never expected to find anyone intelligent in GW - and the game has met those expectations. How most players treat female gamers is just a small subset of their overall idiocy.

Wish my girlfriend liked games . She refuses to bloody try them...anyone got any ideas as to how to make her at least have a go at pong or something? xD

Try something like an rpg? 0o Meh I'm lucky mine is a gamer... and a good one at that haha.

Introduce her into a nice, friendly social circle? Sometimes that's all someone needs to start rolling dice or twitch-clicking.

²nd, It's like the world isn't the same anymore now that I know that there is stuff like this going on in my gw!

Make a deal with her. You'll try something she likes but you don't if she'll try gaming.

But not everyone likes PC games, regardless of whether they are male or female, so I wouldn't get my hopes up.