Current mood:	exhausted
Current music:	tribalistas- ja se namorar

im just a girl in the game world
First of all, let me say that playing as girl, especially a hot one, is a COMPLETELY different experience. Let me talk a little bit about my character and how it was treated. First of all, I made a female human priest on the Dunemaul PvP server. The girl conforms to what a consumer oriented society tells us is beautiful: She looks like one of the girls from the Virgin Suicides. The fact that she is a priestess makes her assume one of women’s more traditional roles: the caring, protecting mother. This, I believe, added to the appeal of my character (putting aside the fact that priests –male or female- are very sought after when its time to form groups) because it made her seem more vulnerable. This “vulnerability” (the fact is she is just as capable as any newb character) made, in my experience, guy players feel somewhat responsible for my well being.

Ok, so I created my character and landed in the human newb area outside Stormwind. First off, I went and got a quest and started doing it. I finished it and started a second one but had to go somewhere and logged off right in front of the newbie guard station. On my return, I saw a congregation of male paladins and hunters dueling right next to where I was standing. I, following the opposite of my gaming style, stood there trying to be shy. One of the hunters won and bowed in front of me… I didn’t laugh or anything but said “thx” and that was it (again, I was being shy). The avatars kept dueling but none came over and talked to me… It was like being six all over again because they kept showing off in their manly duels and kept trying to give them a good angle which to look at but still kept my distance. If I hadn’t spoken, I strongly suspect they would have come over and pinched me and I would have had to put gum in their hair (isn’t young love a beautiful thing?). However, I did speak because I was getting bored. I said hi and asked where Stormwind was. Normally, when I ask somebody where to find a place, I have to do it on the general chat so that somebody takes pity on me and replies after I have typed the same question five times. Not so with a girl avatar. Not only did they tell me where it was, the two paladins offered to escort me all the way over there. I was real happy about it and thinking I was going to get free stuff for my other character to sell when one of them goes “ok let’ go but, cant you take your clothes off or something?” I was totally taken off guard and, pretending I was a girl, tried to show a lot of finesse by walking away and politely saying I would find it on my own. At this point, the other paladin said “I think we should escort the lady all the way over there” and I got my personal security force. I felt like Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq.

I started “opening up” to conversation (I think that if I were a girl I would a huge tease… or worse) and they started telling me about their lives. At first, we were running but they suggested walking to keep the conversation going for a longer time. I kept trying to role play the characteristics of the opposite gender by telling them they had cool muscles and stuff ( I know it was the corniest stuff ever) all while claiming that I was not a geek (like I am in real life) and had a great social life because I was on my high school tennis team. Note that I also tried hinting to the fact that I had a hot body by saying I was not only an athlete but played tennis (tennis players don’t get very big muscles). I have to say though, it was quite challenging to role play like this. I felt like a huge meathead because all I could think of for my role playing were stereotypes about girls. I believe that such generalizations are not only degrading but actually prevent role-playing. I say this because, in order to role play, one has to really get into the character. Generalizations are usually wrong and when they are correct they are usually pretty shallow. Anyways, I ran out of “girl expected” talk and let the guys do the talking for a while. I was pretty distraught because I realized how little men know about women (or about anybody but themselves for that matter) and was about to quit when, after killing a thief, one the paladins goes “I got a big stick to protect you with”. If I were a girl, I would have felt really offended. I actually got angry at the guy (although I didn’t say anything) for being so disrespectful to my character. That allowed me to have a little more insight about what role playing really feels like and how girls actually feel when you say stuff like that to them. I was able to role play (somewhat) a girl, but was unable to role play another personality.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was unable to act timid. First of all, I think that wow does not really make things easy for timid people. The game is made to allow interaction, but the interaction itself depends on the willingness of the players. Much like in the real world, there are only certain places in the game in which random interaction is simplified for shy people. For example, in front of an NPC that gives quests out. All a shy person has to do is ask to do the quest with a player who is getting the quest as well. The same is true for the real world. The workplace forces people to interact no matter what their social skills are. Aside from these and a few other places, it is not very common to just have people in the street come and talk to you in wow or the real world. However, it must be said that random interaction is more common in mmos because players have a buffer (avatar) and because being in a game world is in itself something all inhabitants of this world have in common.

Perhaps it is good to clarify what I mean by a buffer zone. In the gaming world, (as this blog makes evident) it is easy for people to assume any role that they want. For example, I am a heterosexual guy and was able to play a flirty girl. The games allow people to create idealized personas. This, in turn, allows people to omit their defects (or what they believe are defects) and thus reassures them. If you are who you want to be, why would you be shy? You would have nothing to hide. The game also creates a buffer zone by allowing anonymity. As we read in class, the fact that people are not bound to their character (unless they choose to) allows them to behave in any way they want. This is not so in the real world, where actions last and people cannot be changed like avatars can. That is the fundamental difference between real world interaction and game world interaction.