In Game Advantages – Gender-bending pt. 8

The Gender-bending series is based on the result of my own little survey, attempting to map all the motivations of WoW-players playing a character of the opposite gender. Each part deals with a certain aspect of gender-bending in games.

Part 1: Advertizing the Survey
Part 2: Throwing myself to the lions….I mean trolls!
Part 3: The Spectacle of Play and Characters
Part 4: Avoiding Clones
Part 5: To Wear or to Not Wear Robes
part 6: Bring the Player, not the Gender
Part 7: Uniqueness and the Trademark of the Female Dwarf
Part 8: In Game Advantage
Part 9: For the Love of Names
Part 10: Summing it Up

Now On to the Category of the In Game Advantages

Depending on the game, advantages can mean various things. In WoW when gender-bending is mentioned, I’m sure a lot of player’s first thought is that of a guy playing girl characters for the sake of harvesting gifts and favours. In other games, it’s a simple matter of mechanics.

The motivation of advantages was the largest and most popular amongst male players of primarily first person shooter games, in Kathryn Wright’s study (2000). She found 60% of her respondents mentioning factors such as smaller and faster female characters and unique spells and abilities (Kathryn Wright consulted for WomenGamers.com and if only they hadn’t shut down, I could’ve linked directly to her results).

However, in WoW the male gender of any race and class combination has the exact same mechanics as the female character, making this option elusive for WoW players to aspire to, although the psychological factors may still prevail.

I also want you to notice that we’re down into the lower percentages with this category, which also means this was mentioned very little in the comments. Most of the material here is based on Kathryn Wright’s study (except of course for the quotes, which are from my survey).

The figure above shows little evidence that players were heavily motivated to gender-bend due to their beliefs of gain in WoW. Comparing my findings with Kathryn Wright’s lends support to the conclusion that mechanics and the abilities of the characters are a primary motivator when available, whereas aesthetic motivations steps in as secondary when this possibility is unavailable as is the case with WoW.

Benefitting from Acts of Generosity

Despite the supporters of wanting to influence players for gifts are few, here’s a WoW-player mentioning the aesthetics first, and then secondarily the benefits:

“Basically just because the female models and animations are better made and looks more natural then the male ones. And because pretending to be a girl to geeks and flirt with them easily gives you things :)”

As the figure shows, this is something only a few male players chose as an option (4%). No female gender-benders agreed to this option, which means they didn’t create a male character with this in mind. It looks like this gifts-giving behaviour (from male players only I assume) is exclusively connected to female characters. Of course this easily makes female players appear manipulative, but Esther MacCallum-Stewart, the author of “Real Boys Carry Girly Epics: Normalising Gender Bending in Online Games” puts emphasis on the fact that this perception is something female players usually argue against, in an attempt to make the dogma and behavior cease.

For a while on my server Argent Dawn, one female human character (I forgot the name) would regularly advertize in trade about her brothel, of course offering erotic roleplay (ERP) for gold. Time goes on and suddenly a post by this character appears on the forum, where “she” reveals she’s actually a guy playing a female character and that he was now rich thanks to all of those, who were fooled to pay for ERP, from what they thought was a girl. I’m not sure how much his customers cared, but despite his attempts to ridicule them, he still did the work to earn the gold. Perhaps he’s not the real winner in the end…

The brothel example is not perfect, because that was after all a transaction, run like a business, and not acts of generosity. But what I found compelling about it, was the conclusion of the brothel owner, that he had indeed tricked these players using the female gender, they had been exploited.

Before I make it sound like giving gifts and favours in WoW is stupid, I’d like to point out that it is afterall just a gesture of gratitude, friendship or courtship. It’s probably parallel to buying the lady a cocktail, although of course, it can easily be a happy dude at the other end drinking it.

Added Insult and Moments of Hesitation

There’s also the mentions of a psychological edge. Based on the accounts of the players Wright spoke to, the male players in her study believed other male players would play less hard or give them the advantage of a moment of hesitation when they were put up against a female character.

The female night elves in the picture below are not just identical, but to me they look like properly twinked level 19 rogues. I wonder if those players were of that conviction.

In Wright’s study, some male players enjoyed what they considered added insult when defeating other male players, whom they thought would be more upset over having been beaten by a woman. One of the things I find interesting here, is the assumption that the opponent is always male. I’m also reckoning it has something to do with the feminine as physically weaker, thus proving the male opponent to be below the standard of masculine strength.

My study found more females supporting the claim of advantage to their game play (as f. ex. PvP), than male players, although in very small amounts (males 4%, females 10%). Perhaps some female gender-benders like the connotation of strength and added body mass of the male charatcers, although very few players bring the advantages up in their comments. In fact only one male player actually did, although this sounds like it could also be for the purely comical value:

“And the idea that a “weaker” gender can hold its own, if not better than the other. (i.e. There’s something funny about a female gnome beating up a tauren male!) :)”

And vice versa, perhaps there’s also something funny about playing a tauren as a female and beating up all the smaller Alliance races?

Okay, we’re almost at the end of the series, but before we get there, one more thing came up in the comments of my survey that I didn’t anticipate. I felt it was worthy of a post in itself, so mystery part 9 is up next.

These are the people in your battleground!

I found this thread on the EU PvP forum called “These are the people in your BG! Epic Thread!”, and it is really funny. It is actually a repost from the US forum, which you can find here. I’ve met almost all of the types listed, and I’ve definately been “The Knocker” myself, blowing people off of cliffs as a shaman can be very entertaining – I recommend it!

Anyways, I copied some of the ones I thought was funny, including some of the additional PvP types people were posting as well. Here we go:

Mr. Indestructible – He’s a lock wearing full Wrathful. Kill his pet? Never. Kill the lock? Never. Run? Too late. Have fun. Oh, and your trinket is down.

That Friggin’ Mage – You’re pretty sure that was his fourth consecutive iceblock.

The Arms Warrior – Who says warriors are hard to play? Don’t mess around with all that tedious stance switching. It’s simple. Hit Bladestorm. Do not hamstring. Wait at the graveyard for your cool down, repeat.

The Buffless – Heck no. Ain’t nobody’s gonna start up this here battleground until he gets his battleshout, kings, healthstone, and a paw.

Africa Is A PVP Server – That’s the name of their 5′s team. They were Gladiators last season. And the season before, but on entirely different toons. They’re grinding out this season’s new non-set epics. They hate doing it. They’re pissed. They’re all here. They will never be on your team.

Macroman – “GROUP1- GO LUMBERMILL, GROUP2-GO STABLES, GROUP3- HOLD FARM. . DO NOT FIGHT ON THE ROAD. HOLD THESE AND WE WIN.” Pure. Tactical. Genius.

Longshoot – You, a healer, a shadow priest, and a stealthed rogue are defending the stables. He’s the hunter rezzing, petless, at the Allied base. He’s sure that he can burst you all down, this time.

The Quitter – “OMG they’ve got 3 bases and we’ve only got 2!” “Just quit and let them win so we can get more honor.” This guy will likely die a virgin.

Thatonedude – Okay, so the point is to win and to do that you’ve got to kill the bad guys. But somehow, this punk has made it personal. Like, really personal. You’re seriously wondering where he lives and how you can find out.

The Motivator – “OMG YOU GUYS SUCK. SOOOO FAIL. Y DO YOU EVEN TRY? NOBODY EVEN GARDED THE FLAG ROOM.” Plays (you guessed it) a hunter. His stats for the game- 4 kills, 9 deaths, 97,000 damage.

The Unhealed – He’s the rogue, hunter, or warrior who utterly fails to understand that until he rolls a healer, he’ll never, ever get a heal. Screaming at the healers will effectively address this situation, right?

The Crushable – You just hit him for 6k with a white attack. You don’t recognize a thing he’s wearing, but you do know what a 19,000 health pool means. And you’re gonna run clear across the zone to find him again. And again.

AFK Guy – He’s working on the TPS reports, occasionally alt-tabbing to remove his inactive debuff. He’s at 125,000 honor today, and counting. Will eventually cause the Tattletale, above, to replace his keyboard. He’s the smartest guy here.

The Chicken – You are fighting a single enemy and he’s running towards you to help. Suddenly he sees other enemy approaching. “OMG 2v2 battle coming”. He keyboard turns his mount and runs away leaving you in trouble.

Try-Hard Guy – This player, usually Ret Paladins, will seek you out 1 one 1, get beat, try again, get beat, try again, get beat, then lay low. Will eventually return with 5 others, and spam /rofl and /spit on you as you die.

The Dispeller – He’s there somewhere, you cant see him but you know he’s there as the last of your 12 buffs vanishes.

Knocker – guy (ele shaman/boomkin/firemage) whos sole objective is to mount up to Eots bridge/ LM and thunderstorm/typhoon/Blastwave u off into oblivion over and over and over again.

“FOR THE HORDE” – This player will talk about how bad the Alliance is. His spelling will be awful.

And I’d add this one myself:

The Druid Flag carrier – He will grab the flag and take the speed buff in the tunnel. He is so eager to capture the flag and proud that he can run fast that he goes directly into travelform while yelling “DEFEND THE FC!!111″. He is the heroic druid flag carrier, always out of range, continously dying alone on the midfield, which of course are the non-teleporting healers fault.

This is Unconventional Gameplay at it’s best! – “Premade of Doom”

I previously wrote the post entitled “So, why do you play WoW? And how do you convey this to others?”, where I listed different thrills people get from the game.

There’s one which I’d like to elaborate on, because it sums up a creativity that can expand on the general idea of how you’re supposed to play WoW, and that is what I previously called “unconventional ways to have fun in the game“.

A perfect example is Falcore (from Moonglade EU) and his “Premades of Doom”, of which you can see the three part series underneath. If you’re doubting they’ll be worthwhile – trust me, those three videoes are hilarious!

The idea is basically to be silly and have fun, but it’s also entertaining to see them testing the Horde’s reaction to the unexpected and clearly gimmicky group of Alliance players. Some would attack them without blinking an eye, but you also see others being inspired by this, as with the orc breaking into Hammer time dancing in the middle of Arathi Basin in a sheer spark of party mood (featured in Premade of Doom 2).

MMO’s are virtual spaces with room for expression, you don’t have to play the intended way. Like Falcore says on the Youtube description of the videoes, they did it “as a tribute to the boring grind, that is, Battlegrounds.“

This is by no means the only example out there. My point with this post, besides spreading some really funny WoW videoes, is also to make other players think of how they can spice up what can sometimes seem like a daily routine in the game. The moments where you yourself redefine how you play, and parody the usual way we play WoW (like the Premades of Doom), can be just as much fun as conventional gameplay.