I’m a pretty lucky guy in some respects. Two of the things I’m thankful for are really two parts of the same thing. I don’t judge people. We’re all different; we’ve had different experiences and we have different values and weightings. I’m also surrounded by friends who broadly follow the same thought So firstly, thanks chaps (and chapettes) – you’re all awesome

That may sound like an oddly gushy intro but it leads me onto a topic that I find myself in discussion over again and again and again. Why do I, a fully-fledged member of the ever shrinking (hehe) sect of heterosexual males, so often play female characters in MMORPGs. Games where your choice in character is potentially very public and a long-lasting investment. Games where voice-communications are becoming more and more a standard feature.

I will typically, often brazenly reply with the oft-touted “I’d rather look at a cute butt” argument. This is not the reason. I’m just lazy and I know most people can’t be bothered to get into an actual intellectual conversation. That’s not a knock, it’s just an observation

The real answer, for me at least, is that I simply don’t see a difference. I play games, but I don’t see myself as the actual character in MMOs. In very immersive RPGs such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect my first playthrough will almost always be a me-like character. Certainly in his choices, if not his looks But in MMOs I don’t feel that same investment in the character itself. They are merely a vehicle for my fun.  They allow me to interact with the game-world and spend time with often very distant (physically) friends.

I do not spend afew hours playing a female character and then suddenly decide to go on the prowl for a cock sammich >.<

The question is usually asked by other guys and without sounding too judgemental, they often come across as somewhat homophobic or at least insecure during the course of the discussion. In my mind, computer games, especially ones as vast and social and socially significant as MMOs are just another form of media. Like movies or music, except that the player potentially has the leading role.

So I put this question to those who think it wrong for guys  to play female characters and indeed anyone else who wishes to comment:

1. Do you feel any less of a man when playing what amounts to some lines of code, hours of work and some pretty colours?
2. Do you have a problem with female singers or female leads in movies?
3. Do you have a problem with women playing male characters?
4. Is it better or worse for the female avatars to be “hot”?

That last one I ask because though I hear that “I’d rather be staring at a cute ass waggle for hundreds of hours” line alot, I really don’t get it. I’ve never looked at my char in a game and gone “phwoar, ain’t she a looker?!”. Maybe I’m just weird like that

My rather secondary reasons for playing alot of female chars (but not exclusively) are ones of cosmetics and taste. I primarily (almost exclusively these days) name my characters as Tepp-something. Starting with Teppo and Teppan, sometimes Teppot. Then I start running out of masculine sounding names. I’m onto Teppa, Teppi, Tepp (this just seems more feminine to me, but it could go either way), Teppy aaand the list goes on, much, much longer than the list of names for male characters.

The other point is that I’m a fan of Style Over Substance in my customization. I won’t switch to a new piece of gear that is just slightly better if it ruins the whole “look” of my character. Shock, horror! Yes, I am at least within shouting distance of my “feminine side” and have some small degree of style-sense. I have a great appreciation for the female form as a figure of beauty, not just sexuality and often in-game items just seem to look better on those outrageously modelled hourglass figures.

That and male characters in these games mostly just look like steroid-chomping beef-cakes who’ve had their heads made by a depressed sculptor exploring Cubism in the wake of a messy divorce.

Now I haven’t posted since I started playing Star Trek Online (actually for a good long while before that too), so I’ll give you a brief overview on my thoughts on it. It’s a “Good Game”. It isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. It needs the flesh out it’s content in a big way over the next 12 or so months. I hit max level with my main afew days after the EU launch (I was in head-start), so about a total of 10 days. Waaay too easy. But nevermind. I enjoy it thoroughly and I think it’s the lovely mix of sci-fi ground and space combat that does it for me

So they added their first Raid-isode the other day, by the name of “Infection”. It’s Borg centric whereby you have to disable a transwarp conduit bringing in Borg reinforcements then beam down onto a Federation Starbase in the throes of being assimilated, fight your way past hordes of nasty nasty sci-fi zombies to the Queen’s Lair.

Oh yes. The Queen. Or rather A Queen. The trick here – well I say THE trick, there are many – is not to fall in the “water”. I think it’s described as plasma coolant. It does a craaazy amount of damage that kills you in a second or two. So yes, you have to fight the entire circuit of the spacestation and down a looong, twisty, increasingly Borgie corridor, pass a halfway-house boss that used to be the Captain of the station and then you have this platformer of a Boss Room.

But that’s fine. I actually enjoy the slight absurdity of the encounters, the “challenge” of new content and of course the “phat loots” So yes, first things first, we tried doing this “challenging” 5-man raid for 4-men. 2 of which (myself included) were decidedly rusty after a week or so away and afew patches. So yeah – the space-bit was fine once we read the quest text and worked out what we were supposed to do The corridor fighting took quite some time. A couple of hours before we got our tactics sorted out. One more man would’ve worked out REALLY well >.< But kudos to our healer, as my Science Officer is very focused on debuffs and not heals. We would’ve died more than the 20-bajillion times we did without him XD Simply put – Damn You InterLink Nodes! *shakes fist*

So you’re in the Queen Boss Room and hopping around on the platforms, fighting constantly respawning Borgies. The key to this is going to every corner platform, punching the Borgies into the water (oh yes, you read that right ), then having 3 people simultaneously use 3 consoles to bring down the shields and upload a virus on the corner computers. These start individual countdowns such that you have to have all 4 hacked at the same time to bring the central shield generator’s shields down. You destroythat and then the evil flying Queen gets out and starts to bring down the hurt.

I feel I may’ve made that all sound relatively straightforward. It took us almost 5 hours total todo this Raid-isode (which I’m okay about – it was our first time, we weren’t well-equipped and a man down), 1hr 40mins of which was the zerging the last room, time and time again, trying to work out how todo it right >.< For future reference – do not start doing a Raid at 9pm. Or 10pm for one of our continental team-mates. He was a verrry tired bunny at work the next day.

But you know what? the loot wasn’t that good and the final peice of the pie?

IT DIDN’T BLOODY COMPLETE FOR ME! /RAGE

I just felt the need to get that out there. Don’t start me on the Sixteenth Hall in LOTRO. I’m just glad we got to the bit with my class quest in it. Thanks chaps!

To those of you who were getting redirects when accessing the site, I was the victim of a Wordpress hack because I had been a naughty boy and not updated this site in so long. Anyhow, I’ve removed the offending code and all should be well now. Please, please, please do not hesitate to contact me if similar issues occur. I have SOME technical pride, y’know?

Also a big thanks to @askgar for spotting the problem and pointing me towards a solution Cheers buddy!

Odds are, if you follow what I have rather optimistically named a “blog” then you are also aware of the chaps over at VanHemlock.com.  This is good, as they are probably my favourite regular podcast, spliting into a “what we’ve been playing” episode and a “news” episode (currently on hiatus) and as wonderfully British as they are, they do have a tendancy to come up with some very interesting points (we won’t get into VanHemlock’s intimate practical knowledge of UK Supermarket Security).

In their latest episode, they are prompted by the furore over Ubisoft’s latest plans for DRM – namely the needing a continuous, steady internet connection to play your single-player games – to have a little chat about computer game piracy.

Being a recently graduated student, still fresh in my mind is the exploits of many a student (especially the Computer Science ones) in various nefarious activities, including various forms piracy; be it music, movies, games or through various means such as torrents, rent’n'rip, swap-parties (not your partners ) so-on and so-forth.

The way I see things is that we’re always talking about the effect on The Industry, on Developers, Publishers and Retailers but we always miss out an important aspect. The Pirates. In this I mean the people who actually download the games (we won’t get into the other media right now), as opposed to those individuals that get down-and-dirty with the code and crack them in the first place or the distributors who get it out there into the public domain. So The Pirates, the users – some speculation goes into their motives for doing this in the first place. Maybe, as VanHemlock points out, they may have a misplaced sense of Anarchy or perhaps they feel they would pay for them, if they could but afford them or perhaps they keep telling themselves that they want to know what it is like before buying it. Afterall, we can listen to music on the radio or in the store, we can view a painting or watching a movie at the cinema before deciding to buy the DVD later, so why not computer games? They are, afterall, just another form of media/entertainment.

But once they get into the habit of it, what’s to stop them? I’ve often heard that some of the most habitual pirates are, in terms of demographical statistics, the best consumers. They spent the most money on this assorted media, even if they also supposed commit the most frequent crimes against it. Does this perhaps suggest that by immersing themselves in so many games (and lets assume they do, I mean it’s free right?), they start to develop a certain level of taste or preference. They understand and appreciate the difference between a good game and a bad game (in their opinions), and perhaps the work that must go into them. So now they appreciate them, they may not stop pirating but the chances are they are more likely to dig deep for some cash for “Good Games”. If out of solidarity if nothing else. Maybe they evolve into only Saturday Driving Pirates or somesuch.

Personally, I agree with VanHemlock, I don’t think that piracy is ever going to go away. There will always be someone who wants to crack things for the fun of it. I know I have and I will qualify that by saying that only on software that I have paid for and I deleted the modified files after proof-of-concept. Call it Intellectual Curiosity. And I’m a bugger for buying the latest and greatest games. But that’s besides the point. Piracy is here to stay and it’s a good idea to make it as inconvenient as possible for the mass market, thus maintaining the market, but not to go all draconian on us. StarForce did that and various other disc-checking DRMs and it did not go well for them. It’s probably better off keeping Piracy around about where it is now, if you keep pushing it deeper and deeper, it’s practices will only get darker and more dangerous for everyone involved.

As a last note I would like to say that though I can see where people are coming from, I do not condone Piracy. Of any media. These people have put time and effort into these products, these creations. Blood, sweat, tears have gone into these things. Often spiced with a sprinkling of divorce and broken families. They deserve they’re jobs and they deserve the small trickle of money they get from the publisher for every item sold.