How would identify a female player guy/girl?

[KaiKatzchen]

Me back when I played Unreal Tourney 3, man I loved being a sniper. Meowhahahaha!

[Maero]

Can any tell by my name? Just curious
There are far more female gamers now then some may realize

[ExKage]

I'm quoting studies. You two are telling me I'm wrong because of your own limited experiences. So stop stroking your own egos.

Says the person "quoting" studies.

[Weedity]

Never really did understand why people played as the opposite sex, I mean, it's cool and all. I'm not against it.

I guess for me when I'm slaying monsters and dragons I find it hard to believe a 5'1 thin cat-girl would be able to pull that off.

[Teryaani]

Don't forget the housing talk! Heehee, and trying to figure out what interior wall was up in my house! XD

And I do love the housing stuff. I was a Sims player before my wife got me into WoW and the character options, the dollhouse (FC/Personal house/Personal room), and the ability to learn everything on a single character, this game scratches the Sims and WoW itches for me.

[aisustrong]

I didn’t read all the posts so I have no idea if this was mentioned already.

I gave this some sarcastic thought awhile ago and came up with the assumption that all female Roegadyns are in fact females.

In my thinking female Roegadyns are too masculine and butch looking for any male to play. Men want to look at their own feminine booty in a swimsuit.

No man wants to play Brienne of Tarth

stop assuming everyone is cis and hetero
also stop assuming that everyone must always have a raging boner for their character

[Sadana]

Never really did understand why people played as the opposite sex, I mean, it's cool and all. I'm not against it.

I guess for me when I'm slaying monsters and dragons I find it hard to believe a 5'1 thin cat-girl would be able to pull that off.

Nope, we're good, thx.

[KaiKatzchen]

And I do love the housing stuff. I was a Sims player before my wife got me into WoW and the character options, the dollhouse (FC/Personal house/Personal room), and the ability to learn everything on a single character, this game scratches the Sims and WoW itches for me.

OMG I love Sims!! That is such a fun game to me, I love the building a remodeling etc... it's really fun! I haven't tried Sim's 4 yet, heard it wasn't very good out of the gate and they took a lot of stuff away from players...

[Kosmos992k]

Oh boy, *this* topic.... LOL!

(TL;DR : don't assume, ask; this isn't a pickup bar; respect people, make friends.)

So many responses and so many theories - but it's kind of like taking a multiple choice test, you have a 25% chance of being right so you might as well guess. I mean any avatar could be a guy playing a girl, a girl playing a guy, a girl playing a girl, or a guy playing a guy. To complicate that further, you may have a guy playing a girl, but behaving in a very male, neutral or female manner, which of course is true of all the possible combinations of player gender and avatar gender, and that doesn't even begin to get into player and character orientation.

Oh, and by the way, voice chat is not a good indicator, apart from the fact that many people have voices that are pretty well gender neutral, there are also some pretty good voice changers that can alter the pitch masking gender.

I've heard it said, and believe it may be true, that FFXIV has a larger contingent of female players. Given the less in-your-face nature of the game and the absence of blood, gore, guts and huge space marines swearing more than a drunk Glaswegian football fan on Rangers vs Celtic day....(i.e. a *LOT*), I think that female gamers do enjoy FFXIV more than other games.

When I first started playing MMORPG, I decided that gender wasn't an issue, it didn't matter if I played a guy or a girl, all that matters is whether I like my character. I always play a female avatar, and she may dress skimpy, or cover up, she might go girly, or butch up for combat. Many of my own personality traits form my character too, since I do not attempt to adopt a different personality when playing.

Over the years I have noticed that a (slim) majority of people believe to me be female. If I had to try to guess why, I think it comes from being a good communicator, not swearing much (if at all), being helpful, friendly, generous and concerned for others, and I don't treat the game(s) as a virtual pickup bar. It seems like those personality traits combined with a female avatar, rightly or wrongly make people believe me to be female. I was once told by one very annoyed player that I should not have been so friendly or helpful. Presumably they thought that any friendly and helpful female avatars were actually female players looking to hook up with some guy 1000's of miles away over the internet... :rolls eyes:

However, as anyone who knows me in-game can tell you, I'm a guy, and happily married, it's not like I make a secret of it or anything. However as Kosmos, I've been hit on, offered gifts, help, and all manner of other things. I've had people ask my gender in real life, I've had people ask for phone numbers, or offer phone numbers.

Incidentally, my wife also plays FFXIV, and has a very pretty female avatar. She dresses however she pleases ranging all the way from a bikini to head to toe robes, it depends on her mood and what she's playing. So it's no use assuming that all bikini clad female Miqo'te are guys. The truth is, that men and women both respond positively to a pretty character, so there is no reason to assume that female characters are either male or female players.

Everyone should remember, this is a virtual world, you cannot know the gender of the player unless they tell you.

What you *can* do is treat others with respect regardless of the gender of their avatar. Unless a player has stated a preference, use pronouns based on the avatar gender and/or name.

There is no point assuming because of avatar gender, behavior or mode of dress that someone is male or female. Even if you guess correctly, you have no idea of their orientation or circumstances. So, treat everyone as a friend, and only a friend.

Anything beyond that is a private matter to those involved and they need to agree boundaries in-game should they differ from reality.

[Ashkendor]

Dammit! How do they always know?

I dunno, but humans are funny. :3