whenever i play online games i try to portray myself in a way that represents who i am in real life. the game that i play and have played ( and will continue to play) is the Settlers 3. it is not so much role playing but strategy and having played it for over 4 years i have come to know thousands of people who like me love the game.
i have put off moving on to other games simply because there is a large online community in the current game and for me, that represents about 75% of why i play.

Whenever I create an avatar, I try to find hairstyles and physical features that match my own. Euipment is usually chosen for stats value, while the race I choose reflects upon my own real-life values.

I find myself playing a character that looks appealing to me. For me, both EQ and EQ2's cat races is the perferred race and all female. I found out for myself I made my EQ2's characters radically different with different personalities as if to pigeon hole a different aspect of me. Depending on my mood, I may play my dark moody warrior type or my happy-go-lucky-but-not-too-smart sounding rogue. My rogue does not know what the pronouns "I" or "you" are. The rogue will use a character's name and he/she that's it. My warrior perfers her silence and will communicate mostly by socials by preferrance.

I also have a very intellectual sounding sorcerer, and my main is 'just me'. But I find my rogue's the most fun to play due to the RP.

Don't you think that even though people claim that their identities in the games are just pawns, that they still are a part of them as much as the ones whos identities are idealized version of themselves? I mean, the way ones avatar is in the game has to come from the player's mind, his thoughts, ideas, feelings, wishes etc..

I think Kevin made an interesting Point there. Seeing a Character as a Pawn is a Metaphor that can be interpreted in differend ways by different Players. Some say "I see my Character as a Figur i dont have emotional connections to" others say "Though I am emotional connectet to this Character, I would not mind if he dies because i realize he still is just a artifical Form". But if he was a Character from a novel, and he would die, the second type of player would have a stronger emotional reaction.

I see the charecter as my creation. Like a beatiful statue made by sculptor. As i'm a male player I like to watch charecters that are apealing to me, so all my charecters have been female.

I also noticed that males that roll female charecters actually have really good items and they tend to know their class really well. Mayby it has something to do with perfecting the creation.