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Meta-Character Results
This
survey focused on character choice, preference, motivation, and comparing
character identity to player identity. 374 people filled out this survey.
89% of respondents were male, 11% were female.
Gender
of Characters
107
men have played female characters (33%)
11
women have played male characters (28%)
Of a sample of 30 men who have female characters, 10 had their female characters as their
highest level character. 4
men of the 107 play only female characters
1
woman plays predominantly male characters (2 out of 3 in this case)
Favorite
Class (Back
to Top)
Bard: 27
Cleric:
44
Druid:
56
Enchanter:
32
Magician:
21
Monk:
20
Necromancer:
44
Paladin: 31
Ranger: 48
Rogue:
18
Shadow
Knight: 18
Shaman:
29
Warrior:
49
Wizard:
11
Character
Choice Factors (Back
to Top)
What
are the main factors you usually consider when you create a new character?
1)
Appearance
Cuteness...
how superficial I am... but it's just a game, calm down!
whatever
catches my interest. how
they might look in gear and just the general coolness-factor of them.
looks,
I want my new character to look good, I can't stand to look ugly.
2)
Game Impact
Survival ... Can they
play alone? Can they forage or summon food or water? can they cast Spirit
of wolf or gate? can they hide or invis?
paladins, btw, can do NONE of these.
How sad.
Whether or not I can see in the dark.
EQ has some zones that are way too dark and humans cannot see anything
=( I also consider starting
city. I prefer kelethin over
most others.
Usefulness in group, ability to do
his job in game
3) Enjoyment
How much fun will i
get out of this character.
If I will enjoy playing the character
comes first. How powerful the character will be is a distant second.
Mostly how much i will enjoy playing
the character.
playability, and longevity.
And how both of these relate to how much enjoyment i will derive
from them.
4)
Attributes / Numbers
if it is a caster,
how much mana will it have and if it is a warrior the strength and stamina
Whatever their main requisites are,
if I'm playing a warrior I'm gonna put it all in strength and constitution,
there is no need to have a high intelligence score as a warrior and have
the lowest possible strength.
5)
Miscellaneous
NAME: BIG factor.
If I can't think of a name for my character, I usually wait to
create it until I do.
It depends on the kind of character
I feel like making. I
may feel like a ugly/stupid/good character or a smart/beautiful/evil character.
I may feel like a mage or a warrior.
It depends on who I want to be...
Personality
Comparison (Back
to Top)
How
do your characters compare with you personality-wise? How are they similar
and different from you?
1)
My Characters are a Reflection of Me
My
character is similar. I will lead a group when I have to, and can instruct groups
well on what to do. But I
like to play alone a lot, and explore on my own out side of groups. Often I sacrifice myself so that others can live.
Or help others perhaps more than I should.
All this is somewhat of a reflection of my real life.
I
play all my characters with my real personality
I
play all my characters just like me. When I'm the warrior I crack jokes
and help people out when they need to by jumping in and pulling MOB's
off them. As the druid I crack jokes and heal people whenever they need
to, I usually spend an hour a day curing disease in Qeynos Hills.
2)
My Characters are Aspects of Me
All
have aspects of me but none are completely like me.
They
all have some of my personality although there is some differences my
characters are far more outgoing then me
some of the similarities is that they are impulsive and normally
cheerful.
All
of my characters seem to show facets of my personality, more so my monk
and druid than my necro. I try to put a bit more...
3)
My Characters are my Ideal Self
My
chars are more outgoing and act more how I would act if I could in real
life.
My
necromancer is how i wish i could be to some people. My cleric is how
i wish i could be all the time, helping, although most people seem to
laugh at me more than say thanks.
Personality
wise they're almost dead on. They
represent the best of me (maybe soon I'll venture to my darker side).
I love how they wish to do what's right, and uplift everyone around
them with what they have, not ashamed of what they have.
Different? Not many differences, I like to play true to form...and
whatever fits my mood, so if I'm needing to channel anger, I'll make up
a great Evil character or something, or just channel my good guy to start
hackin' out the baddies.
4)
My Characters are a lot of things
Zimorine
is a bit of a flirt and is rather harsh to deal with.
Naeza is much more like me.
She is more reserved but tries to be very helpful to people in
need. Generally just a nice
person.
The
paladin is my good-natured side. He is just and fair. The enchanter is
my evil side. I use the enchanter to cheat, lie, and steal..money and
kill steal..the play nice rules screwed him.
Shilstom
is the most like me. He is very quiet and serious and likes fighting his
battles alone. Vayen on the other hand is a very sociable person who gets
a long fine with others.
5)
True Role-Playing
They
are all role played with different personalities; so I really can't say
that they are similiar to me here either.
Ester was an adopted child who is thankful for the help she received
as a child, and there fore goes out of her way to help others. Cassandra
is the spoiled bitch type who is out in search of her first big adventure
and expects others to hand her everything she needs....etc.
My ranger is quiet and reserved, actions speak louder then words. My wizard is outspoken and never shuts up, and constantly fidgets My Enchanter has a tone of superiority, and it is hard to earn his respect. He is very manipulative, power-hungry My (ogre) warrier is extemely intelligent, kind, and noble. I love roleplaying that, and others love it
Class
Advantage (Back
to Top)
Do
you think some classes are significantly easier to play than others? Do
you think some classes have too many advantages or disadvantages?
1)
Caster Advantage
yes,
i think all casters have a general advantage over the hybrids and melee
classes.
All
casters have the advantage, power wise, over melee classes. Its just the
way the game was designed. However I like hybrid classes the most. They're
the most fun to play in my opinion.
2)
Druid and Necro Advantage
Druids
and necros definitely. Both
are pretty over-powered when it comes to various ways that they could
kill their opponent.
I
feel that both druids and necromancers are somewhat more soloable that
other classes; but all classes have strengths and weaknesses that are
best utilized in a group/
Hell
yes. Hell yes.
Play a druid and a necro... then play a rogue and tell me if something
doesnt need to be done.
3)
Melee Ease
Very
much so, melee classes are far more easy to play than caster classes.
Roque being the hardest melee, enchanter being the hardest caster.
Warriors
are by far the easist to play, enchanters and necromancers the hardest
. Warriors are always wanted in a group, die less often, and don't take
a whole lot of damage (until 25+). Enchanters have trouble getting into
a group earlier on, but at higher levels are the most valuable. Necromancers
are hard to play, but by far the most powerful.
Melee
classes are much easier to play than pure casters because unline a warrior,
for example, with a pure caster you have to have strategy instead of 'hack-and-slash.
Now, as said before, hack-and-slash is only a small part of the
game, but it is a melee class' main stay in battle.
Meta-Character
Discussion
(Back
to Top)
The
numeric data for gender-bending were perhaps the most interesting, and
admittedly most surprising, piece of quantifiable data found from this
survey. I would have expected gender differences in gender-bending rates,
though I would not have gone so far as to hypothesize one way or the other.
In this sample of data, about 30% of both male and female players have at least
one character of the opposite gender. Knowing that about 85-90% of EQ
gamers are male, many of the female characters in the game must be played
by men. Doing a little math, we find out that
about 1 out of 2 female characters is played by a female player. Of every
two female characters you meet in EQ, one of them is likely to be played
by a male player. This is particularly
amusing when we discuss gender dynamics in the game later on.
Where
male and female players differ in gender-bending is in the predominance of
characters of the opposite gender. Of the 321 male players, 4 had only
female characters, and another 8-10 had predominantly female characters.
In a sample of 30 males who play female characters, 10 had their female
character as their highest level character. Of the 40 female players, only one had more male characters rather than
female characters (she had 2 out of 3 in this case). None of the female
players have male characters as their highest level character. This may not be a
true difference given the smaller sample of women, but I would like to
hypothesize that it is. My rationale would be that our culture is less
forgiving of men who cross gender boundaries, while women have less
trouble crossing those boundaries. In an environment where those
boundaries do not exist, such as EQ, it is the male players who may be
more tempted to try role-playing a character of the opposite gender.
With
regards to personality comparisons between player and character, it is
interesting that some players merely play their real personalities through
their characters, while others play parts of their personality through
different characters. At the end of this spectrum is people who play an
idealized version of themselves through their characters. They role-play
their characters the way they would want to act in real life. But this
spectrum is not one-dimensional as the following player demonstrates:
“The paladin is my good-natured side. He is just
and fair. The enchanter is my evil side. I use the enchanter to cheat,
lie, and steal..money and kill steal..the play nice rules screwed him.”
Given
that EQ classes are mere constructs, it is intriguing that people change
their characters’ personalities when playing different classes. Some
players find that they their characters are more benevolent when playing a
cleric or paladin, and more rude and sinister when playing a Necromancer
or Troll. This character-driven personality can even lead to scenarios
reminiscent of a Jekyll and Hyde struggle:
The
rogue is constantly tricking, scamming, or demanding money for his help.
I usually have major conscious attacks playing him, and find it difficult
to log in as him for more than an hour at a time, due to the REAL guilt
felt by taking away peoples money.
In
a sense, EQ is the perfect playground to experiment with both gender and
personality and it should be no surprise that people take advantage of
that. Already, the question of whether EQ is merely a hack-and-slash game
seems moot. When players can articulate characters who represent their
good-natured side and other characters that are their dark side, we begin
to get a feeling that this virtual world allows us better glimpses of the
dynamics of personality than perhaps the real world can.
A Little Math on Gender-Bending (Back to Discussion)
Given a hypothetical population of 1000 EQ players, where 15% of the players are female and 85% are male, and where the gender-bending rate is 30%, we would expect:
Number of Male players who have Female Characters:
850 x 30% = 255
Number of Female players who have Male Characters:
150 x 30% = 45
Using samples from the survey population, we know that the average male gender-bending player has an average of 37% of his characters being female. We also know that the average female gender-bending player has an average of 32% of his characters being male.
Assuming that gender does not affect a character's likelihood of being played, we would expect that at any given moment:
Number of Male gender-bending players who are playing their female characters:
255 * 37% = 94
Number of non-gender-bending female players playing their female characters:
150 - 45 = 115
Number of gender-bending female players playing their female characters:
45 x (1-31%) = 31
Thus of the total 240 female characters in the game:
60% are played by female players
40% are played by male players
But these numbers are a conservative approximation because:
1) We know that men give equal if not more play time to their female rather than male characters, whereas the opposite is more true of female players.
2) We have a small female sample and it's likely that men gender-bend at a higher rate than women, as the gender dynamics survey leans toward.
With more relaxed assumptions:
Number of Male players who have Female Characters:
850 x 35% = 298
Number of Female players who have Male Characters:
150 x 25% = 38
Number of Male gender-bending players who are playing their female characters:
298 * 40% = 119
Number of non-gender-bending female players playing their female characters:
150 -38 = 112
Number of gender-bending female players playing their female characters:
45 x (1-30%) = 32
Thus, of a total of 263 female characters:
55% are played by female players
45% are played by male players
Thus, assuming that 15% of EQ players are female, about 40-45% of all female characters you meet are actually being played by men.