MMO Gamers

Comment from Bildo
Time: February 20, 2008, 9:31 am

I usually really respect Tipa’s opinion, but we differ too much on the assumptions she has about AoC.

It’s clear to me that she hasn’t done her research on the title, for if she had she might not be focusing on the blood and sex part (which is a part of the lore as low-fantasy mind you, ask Robert E. Howard’s ghost), and instead she’d realize what kind of game Funcom is really crafting… a massively ambitious one.

Instead, we see her simply writing it (and anyone looking forward to it) off as immature children or misogynists. I sincerely hope she wasn’t pointing fingers and is suffering from foot-in-mouth on that one.

Comment from Tipa
Time: February 20, 2008, 9:37 am

Thanks for commenting on my post! I never expected it to be so controversial. Reaction seems to be about 50/50 whether I’m insanely delusional or if I have a point, but I guess we’ll all see when WAR comes out, how close it is to WoW’s next expansion, and whether people will be able to move from WoW to another game without getting heartsick and feeling obliged to return.

However, re: AoC, I think it was the press releases which gleefully, triumphantly stated that full decapitations were IN, nipples on women’s breasts were IN… those are the kind of anti-woman elements that have convinced me AoC is actively courting men with low opinions of women.

I understand, though, that men wouldn’t normally see the game from this perspective. More beheadings and more female nudity, after all, is GOOD, right?

But it’s going to drive away the women, and women are vital to the success of any MMO — we build the community and we make it a socially acceptable place to spend time. Without women, AoC is doomed to a MMO niche.

Like your captchas

Comment from
caliga
Time: February 21, 2008, 2:35 am

I agree absolutely 100% with you on an MMO needing female players (yay, we agree). Coming from a RP guild in EQ2 we had many female players and without them it would not have been so fun or so immersive.

Perhaps because we are the opposite sex we have difficulty empathising with each other. For me the subject matter is not whether we allow women to be decapitated, but rather, do we allow all sexes, races, creatures to be treated the same.

As for the nudity, I can take it or leave it, though it would be nice if I could decide whether I want to partake in it or not, rather than the developers or the censors.

I do hope you’re wrong about it driving away women. I’d like to think Funcom is promoting it’s mature content to attract mature players and in turn more RPers. And from my experience women were the better RPers.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Comment from Bildo
Time: February 21, 2008, 10:58 am

“and whether people will be able to move from WoW to another game without getting heartsick and feeling obliged to return.”

I have a friend who is in the beta actually for WAR… his words one day to me were “It makes me want to play WoW again.”

We’ll see if such a line of thinking becomes the concensus this spring/summer, eh?

Comment from Tipa
Time: February 21, 2008, 12:04 pm

Well, it would be too easy to go all Godwin’s Law on this, so I won’t.

Okay, here’s an analogy. Let’s say I wrote a ChickFlick MMO. All the women would be beautiful, clever and catered to, and all the men dimwitted morons with only the slightest sense of what was going on in the world, but it didn’t matter as long as they looked good and coughed up the dollars for trips to which they would not be invited. Okay?

Would you, as men, eagerly await this game — EVEN if it had groundbreaking game mechanics such as a sophisticated economy based on, say, social standings?

Or would you say, “hey, men have it pretty rough in this game. It seems aimed at women. I don’t think I’ll play.”

Now, let’s say that women players can get benefits if they kill their partner after sex, call the game “Black Widows” and publicize it heavily?

I’d imagine you would tend to focus on how women would be encouraged to use men until they’re through with them and then kill them, apart from any innovation in game mechanics, right?

That’s where I’m coming from.

Comment from Openedge1
Time: February 21, 2008, 2:51 pm

WoW…
This WAR discussion, and then on to AoC really has the game world in an uproar for 2008.
We cannot discount the fact that Tipa notes what I have seen plastered all over the net…it seems the naughty bits of AoC are the big story…
And I wish it was not.
It feels right when I look at the videos, and various visuals…and makes me think of the old Conan comics…it feels better than LOTRO ever did for their world…
But, the brunt of the whole “Women objectified” thing really is hurting it…
The fact that women models have come into the game “later” shows a male tangent..
My wife plays these games as well, and I am interested more and more in what her opinions will be on this…
Guess I better get the questions out to her..
Lets hope that the game does not burn on it’s rating and visual acuity toward a rough and “seedy” side of gaming..

Comment from
caliga
Time: February 21, 2008, 5:22 pm

I have no doubt that a week or so after AoC release the subject of nudity and decapitations will be an afterthought and the focus will be on game mechanics and whether it is fun to play. After all, if it’s not fun to play the rest doesn’t matter.

Comment from Bildo
Time: February 22, 2008, 8:32 am

The case of boobs and blood certainly is bad marketing, Tip. But trust me when I say that it’s NOT the selling point of the game and that in the game, women are no more objectified then men. That’s all I can say really for now.

Pingback from Funcom’s “mature” game. What does it mean? | MMO Gamers
Time: June 14, 2008, 3:49 pm

[…] Departments, and the blogoshere all had a say.  Tipa said her piece on the matter and I commented on it myself.   It’s actually quite good to go back and read these posts again to see the […]