[back]A question of character

Talk about being intimidated by a 'woman'!

Why do some players take exception to being beaten by a female character? Or is it just my imagination (and I do have a very active one..!)? Do they really think there is a girl behind the player who just whipped their ass, surely not, girls aren't that good are they?

Is there some unwritten law that clearly states that a boy must use a male character and a girl must use a female one? This may sound flippant but what does this mean if you use an 'alien' character that doesn't appear to have any obvious gender, if your character is a blob of jelly do other players ask themselves if it's a girl blob or boy blob? Does anybody imagine there might actually be a blob of jelly playing as a blob of jelly..!

Rotten apples

As usual it's the few that spoil it for the many; most people just want to play and aren't bothered by a 'girl' beating them. One or two are, the 'headline' that attracted you to this article was actually said to me after I had done a couple of fluke shots on dm17 against another player, 'he' (Sarge) stopped dead in his tracks and the message popped up "...You're a f**king BITCH...".

Wow. Now I wasn't expecting that and it made me catch my breath, how do you reply to that without dropping to that level? The only thing I could think to say was "thank you". Sarge did apologise and we carried on playing for a bit until his ping went south for the winter and he disconnected.

I don't suppose it would have mattered so much if it hadn't been such an aggressive statement, there was no hint of humour, no originality of thought, in fact he might as well have hit me.

Now would he have done this if it was a male character whipping his ass? No. He would have said something like ".. Good shot.." or "... Lucky bastard...".

Well, it was a guy whipping his ass. There I've said it, I've 'outed' myself, I'm a guy who plays with female characters (aye aye..!). And for the last time, I'm NOT gay.!

Out of the flames into the fire... as they say...!

As I see it, it's his problem for 'assuming' he was playing against a real girl, in fact I'll go one step further and say that the only reason 'they' (objectionable players) talk to 'me' is because they think I am a girl, and in some odd way hoping to get their collective leg over..!

Brothers know best

When I mentioned this little incident to my brother (who doesn't play q3, the Heathen that he is..!) he said something quite interesting; the guy was basically trying to compensate for his loss the only way he knew how, '.. Lets meet and I'll shag you senseless..', it's beside the point that we lived in different countries..!

Is this what real girls have to put up with in order to play what is after all, a game? I though we all played because we like the game, the challenge, meeting other people who share the same 'passion' and all the other things that go with Q3 community, and not to bombarded with sexist, racist, and all the other '..ist' words you can think of. I play the game to escape, to play as an 'Unnamed Player' if I choose to, and not to be faced point blank with this crap (those few who read this and think 'if you don't like it then leave' are the source of the problem and to whom this article is aimed at, railgun and all..!).

I can now see and understand why there are 'girl only' q3 communities, web sites, games, chat rooms......

The only good thing to come out of this from a personal perspective is it makes me more determined to be a better player so when someone does say something I'll just quietly stalk then blast the 'bejezus' out of them, I don't care if I loose but I will make it very difficult for them, if they were on my game server, I'd 'kick' them no questions asked...

I really don't know what to make of this, to me it makes no difference, I just like playing the game.

I suppose, ideally, I'd have to be very self-indulgent and get a copy of 3D Studio Max just to build a character of myself, would that be better?