If You're A Guy, Why Do You Play As A Girl?

Think about it a little while longer and you'll see the medicine joke.

I think that another large reason that males play female characters now is because of the very simple realization that if you play as a girl character, you get free stuff.

Of course, this is not simply limited to FFXI.

I guess that is where there is a difference in the way people play these types of games... I don't see my character as ME, I see her as her, as a character in a story. I am just an observer, like I would be with books or movies.

Wordworking or bonecraft would have tickled my funny bone more.
Can you explain this medicine joke because I don't get it...lol

Why would a gender change be any more of an immersion breaker than playing as a Galka or Taru? The character is an online extension of yourself, shaped to whatever specifications you prefer (whether visual or functional). I rolled a Hume because I didn't feel like dealing with the whole Manthra thing and it was the next best option to me, but once I actually got into the game I realized it really wasn't as big a deal as my friend had made it out to be. I was far enough in that I didn't want to reroll though, so I just use PlasticSurgeon. I prefer the Mithra design to anything else really - a lot of the armor models look better on them in my opinion, and I don't say that because of the character's *** or ***. Humes are just too stocky for my taste and the face designs are meh, and I dislike all the other races for other reasons. If they'd allowed us to roll male Mithra I might have done that instead, but I don't feel like the gender of my character (on my screen anyway) detracts from the experience in any way.

Sure is 2003 in here.

Why?

I think that's a personal thing, isn't it? Some people have more of a grasp on their self-image than others, and the ability to recreate oneself makes an impact on one's ability to socialize in a different medium. The fact that one's avatar doesn't fit one's self-image quite possibly causes this detraction.

Others tend to not associate their self-image with what's on screen, possibly just a conditioned response of playing so many RPGs for the gameplay alone, and not for the sake of escaping reality.

Since my speculation pretty much reflects on my own experience, I might as well explain: FFXI was my first MMORPG, and it's honestly what I'd always dreamed about--I'd spent my entire childhood with my nose in fantasy book after fantasy book, escaping reality by living vicariously through heroic characters but fully aware of the fact that, though I am caught in the story, I am unable to control the actions of the protagonist or whomever I've chosen to associate myself with. Along came FFXI, and, given the choice of race, gender, job, starting city, and the like, I was suddenly aware of the ability to choose who I wanted to be: the knight in shining armor, chivalrous and helpful. I ended up starting as a ditzy, disoriented nooblet who needed help from EVERYONE instead.... XD I don't think I've changed much, either....

Bah, well--it may not have applied to everyone, but I hope I made it understandable^^;

No, but only because I blanked out somewhere in the middle of the third paragraph

I play my wife's toon sometimes when she has to afk. But I pretend to be her now and text nicely with the ^^ and everything... but only because she caught me blowing up at someone once and...

ohhh you nooblet.
you were a paladin before you were even a paladin :P

IN MA HART~

What Anye said. It's a personal thing.

For some reason I can't explain, it's less "disassociating" for me to play a male taru than a female hume. It doesn't make logical sense.

I guess I'm just way too strongly self-identified with being male, to the point it's easier to accept being a point-eared dwarf than having boobs.

POINT-EARED DWARVES FOREVER.

Hence my question! Should've started a new paragraph after that second sentence to avoid confusion though, the first part was asking why and the second was my take on things. Thanks for the insight.

I can definitely understand the bit about choosing who you want to be. For me though, race/gender have very little to do with that. I wanted to pursue my favorite job archetypes - the light melee and the mage. When I found the two combined (see: BLU), it was a perfect fit for me. The backstory for the job didn't hurt either. I've since looked at other jobs that explore this combination (DNC after a fashion, and NIN), but while I love DNC I'm really a BLU at heart. That is how I defined myself in FFXI, not by my race or gender.