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[fmn112]

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I never saw the connection between being powerful and being sexy... i don't say that women can't be powerful, just that powerful women are not interesting to me. Also i prefer cuteness over hotness.

Before you throw that out there, I suggest you read some ... let's say more recent media articles.

Not say that that I don't think Lara was never a sex symbol. Oh, she was. But she's still a hell of a character. I always liked her for her character, not for her looks. She was tough. But not manly tough. *shrugs*

[Astel]

Well, there is not much i can say about Lara Croft's evolution, since i have never played any Tomb Raider game... to me she is just a reference or an icon, so my opinions about her can be misguided.

[Rainbow Jello]

Girl, and I like female characters more because I'm bi 60/40 women/men. The end xD

[Feldschlacht IV]

As I get older I find that I don't care. Being a male, I used to prefer male characters, but as characters like Aya Brea, Lenneth, Emelia, etc began to pop up, you just realize you need good writing to carry a narrative.

[Honoris]

I am male and I do not care about a characters's gender. I find it is there storyline and personality that makes me want to play a character.

[Amy Pond]

I am female and I don't mind. To be honest it's not really something I tend to notice, as unless the storyline is really bad and revolves around the fact they're female, a female character is the same as a male character in most circumstances.

It gets annoying though when people think just because they have a female lead she has to be in a complex love triangle and break nails and god knows what else.

In a battle situation, or a saving the world scenario, a man and a woman are gonna act much the same way.

[Laura Yeah Righ...]

That's a trend with female characters in general. Females tend* to be archers, mages, healers, thieves, etc. If they are a melee fighter, they'll be faster but weaker than a male melee fighter. Males tend* to be melee fighters, tanks, gunners, and thieves. You will rarely find an male in the prime of his life as mage, let alone a healer. Children, old men, and the infirm are the exception.

The trend seems to be that those with physical weakness/more femininity chose the less physical classes. Although that's a common misconception about archery - pulling a war bow takes massive upper body strength.

Yay for thieves for being an equal opportunity character class!


*Note the use of the word "tend." I am aware there are exceptions.

Well, I just have to agree with this.
I may prefer female leads, but that is because I can relate to most of them. But I tend to get away from my habit as playing a girl. But if I have the choice to choose a character, I tend to go with the girls.
With that, I want the girls to be covered. You don't have to be attractive to be a female character.
(Fran, Ashe, Yuna, Rikku, Fang, Vanille... I'm looking at you!)

Also, why can't a male in the prime of his life be a mage? In one my games (too bad this one is halted due lack of interest...) one actually IS, and he's not the damage-dealing one! But he is part of the mage twins, siding with a female black mage.

And in another game, I have another male mage in the prime of his life, but he's a black mage who can actually tank. Also to break the tanking melee attacker. The melee attacker in this game wears light armor, like corsets. (yes, a female, but not the lead), and wields some quite long cutlasses. The lead is a male, ranged character, who uses boomerang-alike shurikens as weapons.

And about the archery-part, I am an archer myself, and even with a very light bow (20 lbs, compared to the 80-100 lbs of a war bow) I sometimes have trouble pulling it. But you can partially counter lack of strenght with a right technique, if you want to know.

And thieves are awesome. I like the thieves of the party the most, along with the spear-wielding guy or gal. (Dragoons ftw)



And sorry if I made any mistakes in my English, it is not my first language. (it's Dutch, and heck, I even have trouble with THAT)

[Piyan Glupak]

And about the archery-part, I am an archer myself, and even with a very light bow (20 lbs, compared to the 80-100 lbs of a war bow) I sometimes have trouble pulling it. But you can partially counter lack of strenght with a right technique, if you want to know.

You are correct, archery in war was not for weaker people. Longbowmen (from the later Middle Ages to the 16th Century) had to be very strong. Their skeletons, for instance from the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years War, showed signs of very heavy musclar development in the arms, and, I believe, the torso. Written sources suggest that they trained from from an early age, and that their training included exercises to develop their muscles. Most of this training would be done at home. There was an old saying "If you want to make a man an archer, first make his grandfather an archer."

[manat31790]

As long as the characters are well designed and developed, I don't mind. I'm male, by the way.

However, in a game that you can choose the main character's gender, I prefer being female. It's cuter that way, especially if the game's an anime style.

Lara Croft has become a sex symbol for video games, despite Toby Gard's intentions for her to be sexy "only because of her power"

Tifa could be said similarly, but really, I like them more for being strong, cool, and independent.

This post has been edited by manat31790: Nov 15 2011, 01:07 PM

[Laura Yeah Righ...]

You are correct, archery in war was not for weaker people. Longbowmen (from the later Middle Ages to the 16th Century) had to be very strong. Their skeletons, for instance from the Wars of the Roses and the Hundred Years War, showed signs of very heavy musclar development in the arms, and, I believe, the torso. Written sources suggest that they trained from from an early age, and that their training included exercises to develop their muscles. Most of this training would be done at home. There was an old saying "If you want to make a man an archer, first make his grandfather an archer."

Uh-huh. I researched archery before I started my training. (not that I'm training to participate in a war or so, just for sport!) I also read the part about the skeletons, IMO it was strange. About the young age, the King even ordered to train your kiddos in the way of the bow, instead of training for soccer or some other sport.

I am aged 15(almost 16) and I started my training only two years ago. Also, if you pull a bow the wrong way, you can render your pulling arm useless for at least a YEAR. You can rip your muscles apart, and that takes a lot of time to heal. I almost experienced myself last year. I had a lot of troubles last year, and it hurt my arm so bad, that I had to stop shooting for a month. Then I had to pick it back up and train on pulling technique again. That was not funny, but I'm glad I did. And with right technique, I mean putting the pressure on your SHOULDER instead of your arm. That way you can use much stronger bows than by putting the pressure on your arm. The 20 lbs I use is quite some bow for a girl like me.

We have quite long warming ups before training or contest, which will make the difference between a good or a bad day. Concentration is also a very important factor.
Oh, and I think I cheat by using a sight on my bow, since the Longbowmen in the Middle Ages didn't have those



My personal record is 201 pts, out of the possible max of 300. I'm in the Cadet(13-18 years old) - Recurve category, on 20 yards distance and three arrows per round. There are 10 rounds in each contest, plus two practice rounds.

And uh... shall we go on-topic again, since I don't want to make the mods mad.

[Exactly]

This might seem odd, but I like having both a male and female lead at the same time. Either as a couple or having two storylines running seperately, but meeting up at some points of the game.

[Chaco]

Well if it's a silent progtagonist I definitly prefer it to be a male.
Otherwise, I don't care.
I can think of many good female leads like Lara Croft, Samus Aran, Chris Lightfellow (Suikoden), Terra (FF6) and Tifa Lockhart to name a few.
They are all strong and independent, and they could kick the crud out of many male characters I know!

That said, I do prefer a male, however, I don't mind a female at all, and don't mind having one as the main character.

[Manga-Matrix]

I am Male, I dotn really care that much. But i would lean towards female leads.

[DefiledCore]

I'm a male. Voted for female leads. Since I play mostly MMORPGs, I noticed that most of those games have females with way smoother animations, while males are all choppy and clunky. So playing as a female character turned into some sort of a habit over time. I don't mind male leads in general, if they aren't shallow douchebags like that Cloud guy. Heck, my first character to finish DA2 was a male Hawke (for a gay threeway with Fenris and Anders, obviously). As long as the story is engaging and the character is easy to relate to, there's no big difference, but given a choice, I'd pick a chick.

[RivalNightmare]

I usually don't care about who is the lead. I right a unique backstory for all my characters, and if it's a male or female matters not.

[fCandy]

I thought I loved both but now as I'm getting older I realize that I am straight and nothing compares to a real man! MAybe girls start loving girls cause it's so hard to find a Man with a capital letter...

[thatbennyguy]

Just clarifying the statistics in case to prevent the current ones from being misleading...

SAMPLE STATISTICS:
81.4% of the surveyors were male, 18.6% of the surveyors were female.

MALES:
29% preferred a male lead, 21% preferred a female lead, and 50% didn't care.

FEMALES:
35% prefer a female lead, 18% prefer a male lead, and 47% don't care.

COMBINED MALES & FEMALES:
30% prefer a lead of the same gender, 20% prefer opposite gender, 50% don't care.

CONCLUSION:
Whether male or female, the largest portion of survey takers had no preference of protagonist's gender. The second largest portion preferred protagonists with the same gender as themselves, and the smallest portion of surveyors preferred the gender opposite to themselves.

Females seemed more inclined to want someone with the same gender as themselves. In fact, almost twice as many females preferred female leads over male leads, whereas the men had a roughly equal male/female ratio. However, the sample size being smaller may have skewed the results somewhat.

Overall, most people don't care about what gender their protagonist is. Some prefer the protagonist to be the same gender as themselves (females more so than males), and only 1 in 5 prefer the protagonist to be opposite to themselves.

[Frousteleous]

I'm male. I generally prefer a male lead, but that's mostly only because I'm male. It does go back to the whole relating to them thing. Someone said that a male or female lead would act about the same if the fate of the world was in their hands. But I have to disagree. I think people tend to forget that we are two seperate things. Go back thousands of years ago: men hunted, women stayed at home. It's not sexist, it's fact. Our bodies are built to carry different burdens. So when you also keep in mind the setting of the RPG, you have to keep in mind the history as well. And they 'why?' of it.

This might seem odd, but I like having both a male and female lead at the same time. Either as a couple or having two storylines running seperately, but meeting up at some points of the game.

I did something similar to this awhile ago. I had the lead male and another character play up to level 15. then switched the game over to the female lead and her companion and played til about level 15. then both characters meet up and team up from there.

[ShadowL]

I'm female and I personally don't really care. Well, most of the time I would pick female but other than that I didn't really care. When I was playing pokemon I would always choose male cause I personally think they looked better than the girls XD but yeah, don't really care.

[dither]

If I'm going to be staring at a character for hours on end, I'd rather they were female.

That said, I'm of the opinion that game writing is pretty terrible across the board, with female characters being largely uninteresting and disposable with rare exception -- not that male characters are any better. By sheer virtue of statistics, I think there are more strong male characters, but I ultimately prefer strong female characters. Just sayin'.