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The thread has arised from time to time among mmorpg.com of guys posting how strange it is to play as a woman and some would post as to why they do play as women.

Thought I would give my 2 cents here. Keep in mind this is just my outlook on it and it is, in no way, meant to be a persuasive argument for or against this practice.

First, Ill get to the nitty gritty. Yes. I've played a female avatar. No. I am not gay.  No. I did not do it for monetary gain or sexual perversion. I never hid the fact that I roled a female avatar and everyone in my guild knew who I was.  I only rolled one female avatar and that was Everquest 2. My guild was Desolation (our feerless leader, Kunou's, Guild). Everyone in that guild knew who I was.

When do I think its right to play a female? Its right when you do not take advantage of other players by making them think you are a female.  We all know that females get more attention in a Guild or in a party. It is very obvious. When a female logs into a MMO, that guild will light up with chatter. When I male avatar logs in, it's "Hey, man, what's up."

I believe playing as a woman to deceive your guild is wrong. Very wrong. Tell them you are a guy. Don't hide the fact. I have a male toon in Everquest 2 now but I lot of the females are guys in real life and no....they aren't gay!

I know this is really hard to comprehend for some folks who are completely against playing a female avatar but there are normal male folks who play female avatars and female folks who play male avatars.

With that said, I think Warhammer will be a very interesting game since some classes are gender specific only (which is wrong, IMO). You will see a great many Witches running around that are truly men. Why? Because they love the melee DPS that class has to offer but lo and behold, no male counterpart.

Playing a female avatar is fine in my book.  However, some no-nos in my book:

1. if you do it and start to "roleplay" (you know what I mean) with a male player making him think you are a female...then that's pretty messed up by not letting him know.....or if you intice an AOC Gamemaster (but that's a whole other story!)
2. If you play a female avatar to get free stuff. Don't be a leech or a moron. Going around as a female avatar just to get free stuff or free dungeon runs will do nothing but make you look like a great big A-hole if it comes out that you are a guy.
3. Don't buy that software that makes your voice sound like a female in Ventrillo or Teamspeak. Let them know you are guy up front. Don't masquerade it to the point that your guild believe you are female in real life because that will result in number 2. Getting free stuff.

My opinion is this. Anyone should play whatever he or she feels like playing without fear of someone thinking they are weird. However, if you cross the line by making others think you are truly that opposite class and by pretending to get free stuff or roleplaying with them in lonely darkened rooms, then you need to look deeper within yourself and analyze what you are doing and deciding if it goes deeper than mearly choosing your avatar.

By the way, I am playing a Chosen in WAR when it comes out so I will def be a male! Also, I play a male in WoW and City of Heroes. In Everquest 2 I have one female and 4 males. So just roll what you want to play!

These two terms gets thrown around on the forums here more than the words "Obama", "Christianity", "Bush", "Clinton", "Athiesm" combined.

For the most part, many people throw around the word fanboi and hater when they can no longer contribute to a debate or a discussion and have the need to end the argument prematurely.

However, these two terms are actually real and you can usually see them in action whenever a new MMO is released (or about to be released).  Ill try to describe each one with very little bias for each.

Fanboi

This term is usually meant to describe someone who is so loyal to a particular game they are playing that they (ironically) have little to no regard to the actual healthy growth of the game.

They usually become personally offended over a criticism of the game. They view the game with such loyalty and conviction that they have become blinded of the problems the game may face.  usually, it is the fanboi who is indirectly responsibile for the downfall of many games.

How could a fanboi be responsible for the downfall of a game they love you may ask?

Well, it is because they cannot handle any form of criticism that may come their way when it comes to the MMO playability (bugs, glitches, nerfs, etc).  Fanbois hold to their games and love their specific game like we love our dearest family members. Imagine if someone told you that your mother was too fat or that your daughter needed some help because she's sucking at normal social responsibilities. You would probably be more offended and pissed than actually listening to the people who are trying to get you to listen to reason. Why? Because you love your family and it hurts when someone else points out their faults.

Its the same way with fanbois. They view their games as thier mother, daughter, son or grandfather.  They will be the first one to scream "First!!!11!" in a developer started thread, they will never question a developer, they will bend truths around their game to make it look better than it really is.

The reason why fanbois are so destructive to a game is beacuse they say "no no no Mr devs, nothing is wrong...everything is great!! We love you!!!" when in reality, the game is going down the shitter faster than a soiled piece of toilet paper.

Hater

Haters are the EXACT opposite of the fanboi and they are usually created to harass the fanboi.  Haters usually see the game as their arch enemy and will feel no satisfication for the game until it is completely destroyed.

Most haters (ironically enough) were born through the ashes of fanbois who woke up one day and said this game has been taken advantage of me the whole time!!!!  Think of it like this:  A stalker who stalks a celebrity because they are absolutely in love with that celebrity.....then when that celebrity tells them to leave them alone, that stalker now wants to kill them. Same concept.

Other haters (as said before) are created just to piss off the fanbois and nothing more.  They usually post seconds after a fanboi will post and then give a brief statement of why the game sucks.  They then wait for the fanboi to respond and then it's back to work for the haters.

Haters also go by the name of Trolls.  Well, because, that's what they pretty much do. They just post to post.  Usually nothing constructive ever comes from the haters post. Its usually the same topic over and over and over and over with very little insightful things to say.

In conclusion, there really is no difference between the fanboi and the hater; only their passion is skewed in polar opposities of each other.  Secretly, they probably love each other and that's the only reason why they post here...often against each other.

Opposites do attract.

• Star Wars Galaxies: New Game Enhancement.  This has been debated FOREVER and I wont go into who was at fault or screwed up this more..LA or SOE.  I could really care less at this point.  I remembered when I was on staff here I did a review on the NGE (its still on the SWG section) and while I was playing it, I thought to myself: well, crap, this wont go too well with the players.  I remember when SOE tried to keep it under wraps but Amazon dropped the ball by releasing the new NGE details too early.  The Community Manager over at SWG kept on denying the truth that the Developers were messing around with a game that has been in productivity for two years now. Sadly, the Community Manager literally did not know and when she voiced her opinion against NGE, she was promptly fired.  No matter how many commercials (you guys remember all those SWG NGE commercials?) they produced, the exodus of players from SWG was jaw dropping.  Since I have been playing MMOs (since 1999), I had NEVER experience such a massive withdrawal of players from any MMO at one time ever.  This was the first wave (and hint) that players weren't going to take it anymore.

• Vanguard Saga of Heroes:  This game was the second AAA rated MMO that was affected by the players' mentality of we aren't going to take it anymore.  Brad McQuaid took a good idea and completely crashed and burned it into the ground leaving only a few survivors.  In his mind, he thought he could lead a company because he had a nice ranger in EQ and he was on the EQ development team. Well, common sense dictates that a game developer who helped with artistic rendering would not necessarily qualify them for running a multimillion dollar software company.  He had no business skills (or educational training) whatsoever.  He was so convinced that people would play his game regardless because of the nifty features he was adding (seamless world, diplomacy side quests, etc) but what he failed to realize was that many players just will not play a buggy game anymore.

• Age of Conan:  We all knew the hype.  It was hyped for YEARS and 99% of us thought it was going to be our miracle MMO that we have been waiting for years.  The screenshots were incredible, the combat combos were revolutionary and the fatalities were new.  However, when we started to play it we realized the hard truth.  It had a pretty game skin but the inside was just rot.  They are plagued with bugs, GMs unsure about their own PvP ruleset, questionable moderators, etc.  They boasted 750K subscribers in the first month alone declaring it from rooftop to rooftop and we saw it. The servers were packed and many more were coming in.  However, it had a fatal flaw:  it was release with way too many bugs, false promises, and missing features.

It’s in the hands of us now as the players to tell these companies that enough is enough. Develop it right the first time or don't do it at all. MMOs have been released with VERY LITTLE bugs in the past so it can be done. The question is whether or not these companies have the ethic morality of taking the time to do it right the first time versus having their first few months of subscribers pay for their patches