AION has a very easternized look and feel, but it can also appeal to Europeans who are not too familiar or in love with that style, like me. But the male models just do not appeal to me. Look at the hair styles and beards. They are stylized of course, but probably seen through the eyes of an eastern graphics artist. Most beards and hairstyles just look odd to me. While the char creation allows to adjust so many things, I still did not manage to get a face similar to those that you can create in Mount & Blade with a very similar system. The turkish creators of M&B are much more westerners than the Korean guys, so they do not have to try to create some “westernized” face, they just do it because they know them.

But sexy female chars do not seem to be too different or strange to be unacceptable for male players… hmm!

Not very charming, but when playing a female char I perform much more like a stereotypical female. And the silly thing is, the more stereotypical you play the “girl”, the more “guys” who probably do not even believe you are a woman, fall for the cliche and help the damsel in distress… pfft.

That follow up would be very interesting, how about you write it? You don’t blog enough as it is, so there’s a great new post for you!

And yes, I believe you are quite right about transgendered/sexual. I’ll change it to “gendered” and I’ll see if Sera butts in or not.

Thanks for the comment!

In general, I tend to agree with the general thought of this post, which seems to be mostly in support of what Sera Brennan was saying in hers (thanks for the link, btw, I had not seen that) in that virtual worlds can serve as a great equalizer, providing a venue for interaction without social hangups getting in the way. I don’t, however, ascribe to Ms. Butler’s claim that gender is defined by context only, that in reality it doesn’t exist outside of a system of iterative behaviours. My thought on that is rubbish. Gender is real. Respect it, pay attention to it, or be plagued by it, but it DOES exist.

One interesting follow up to this might be thinking about the attitudes virtual worlds themselves have towards sexual equality or bias. City of Heroes open embraces diversity, quite often having in-game events sponsoring Gay Pride week, or what have you. World of Warcraft, on the other hand, absolutely shuns any discussion of sexual or gender bias whatsoever, taking hardline stances against Guilds that center around gender or sexual preference.

One small thing, and I’m sure Sera Brennan will read this and can correct me, or set both of us straight, but I believe she describes herself as transgendered — not transexual. My limited understanding is that they are considered to be quite separate things.

Great post — way to not be afraid to tackle the interesting social discussions!

Dlangar
http://ofcourseillplayit.com