arniejolt
09-26-2007, 10:23 AM
China doesn't get Rocky Horror either...from 1up (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163197):
The ratio of "men who like dressing up as female characters in MMOs" is pretty high. Real world stats for World of Warcraft players are approximately 84% male and 15% female and yet mysteriously, 35% of the avatars in WoW are female. That means half of WoW's male players regularly enjoy dressing themselves up and pretending to be women.
Who knows what the reasons might be for the gender parity? A casual sweep of MMORPG players will turn up every excuse under the sun, from a higher chance of scoring phatt lewt off of gullible rubes through to griefing and pranking and the classic "...if I have to stare at someone's butt all day..." mantra. Sometimes people just want to step into a different pair of (high-heeled) shoes -- nothing wrong with that, right?
Chinese-based MMORPG provider Aurora Inc apparently does not share your carefree cross-gender predilections. For whatever reason, male-to-female gender cross-play abruptly ended yesterday for players of the Chinese-based King of the World MMORPG. According to the Pacific Epoch, somewhere in the order of 17173 male gamers woke up yesterday to find their female characters mysteriously locked out of the system by the game's developer.
Aurora itself is one of the smaller satellite MMO providers in the larger portfolio of Chinese MMO juggernaut Shanda Entertainment. Besides King of the World, Shanda's properties in Asia include MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and tons more. As well as the games, Shanda boasts 460 million subscribers -- making it unequivocally one of the 2000 pound behemoths of the Asian online gaming scene.
At the moment, the gender restriction seems unique to King of the World. No particular reason for the lockdown has been provided, a fact which has left hardcore players plenty upset and created much in the way of speculation on these here capricious Internets.
Actual women who are interested in continuing to play female characters must now present themselves as evidence (over a webcam, no less!) to have their accounts re-activated. Too bad for those powerleveling males. Oh, and women playing as men? Still A-OK under the new protocol.
One can only imagine what bizarre turn of events prompted this reaction from the Chinese. Leigh Alexander (over on PlayNoEvil) suspects that the issue may in some way be tied back to Chinese cultural taboos against (homosexual) male cybersex in online environments.
Place bets now on how long this sort of restrictive policy is likely to last in the greater financial future of King of the World. Considering the widespread appeal that playing an alternate identity has for a big chunk of the MMO populace it's not likely that this is a precedent destined to go very far. In the West at least, such a decision would no doubt have meant financial ruin for any MMO developer heavyhanded enough to enforce it.
Which is not to say of course that Western MMOs are entirely laissez-faire. Just recently Blizzard cracked down on a sexually-themed World of Warcraft clan, after they unapologetically crossed the line of social taboo (http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/09/17/blizzard-disbands-extreme-erotic-roleplaying-guild/). The lines of MMORPG decency, it seems, are drawn largely dependent on where on earth you happen to be standing.
-----
To Harvest or not to Harvest, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The pipes and bullets of outrageous Splicers,
Or to take arms against a horde of Big Daddies,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep...
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c342/ARNie00/tonarinobigdaddysig.jpg
my deviant gallery
http://arnie00.deviantart.com
The ratio of "men who like dressing up as female characters in MMOs" is pretty high. Real world stats for World of Warcraft players are approximately 84% male and 15% female and yet mysteriously, 35% of the avatars in WoW are female. That means half of WoW's male players regularly enjoy dressing themselves up and pretending to be women.
Who knows what the reasons might be for the gender parity? A casual sweep of MMORPG players will turn up every excuse under the sun, from a higher chance of scoring phatt lewt off of gullible rubes through to griefing and pranking and the classic "...if I have to stare at someone's butt all day..." mantra. Sometimes people just want to step into a different pair of (high-heeled) shoes -- nothing wrong with that, right?
Chinese-based MMORPG provider Aurora Inc apparently does not share your carefree cross-gender predilections. For whatever reason, male-to-female gender cross-play abruptly ended yesterday for players of the Chinese-based King of the World MMORPG. According to the Pacific Epoch, somewhere in the order of 17173 male gamers woke up yesterday to find their female characters mysteriously locked out of the system by the game's developer.
Aurora itself is one of the smaller satellite MMO providers in the larger portfolio of Chinese MMO juggernaut Shanda Entertainment. Besides King of the World, Shanda's properties in Asia include MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and tons more. As well as the games, Shanda boasts 460 million subscribers -- making it unequivocally one of the 2000 pound behemoths of the Asian online gaming scene.
At the moment, the gender restriction seems unique to King of the World. No particular reason for the lockdown has been provided, a fact which has left hardcore players plenty upset and created much in the way of speculation on these here capricious Internets.
Actual women who are interested in continuing to play female characters must now present themselves as evidence (over a webcam, no less!) to have their accounts re-activated. Too bad for those powerleveling males. Oh, and women playing as men? Still A-OK under the new protocol.
One can only imagine what bizarre turn of events prompted this reaction from the Chinese. Leigh Alexander (over on PlayNoEvil) suspects that the issue may in some way be tied back to Chinese cultural taboos against (homosexual) male cybersex in online environments.
Place bets now on how long this sort of restrictive policy is likely to last in the greater financial future of King of the World. Considering the widespread appeal that playing an alternate identity has for a big chunk of the MMO populace it's not likely that this is a precedent destined to go very far. In the West at least, such a decision would no doubt have meant financial ruin for any MMO developer heavyhanded enough to enforce it.
Which is not to say of course that Western MMOs are entirely laissez-faire. Just recently Blizzard cracked down on a sexually-themed World of Warcraft clan, after they unapologetically crossed the line of social taboo (http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/09/17/blizzard-disbands-extreme-erotic-roleplaying-guild/). The lines of MMORPG decency, it seems, are drawn largely dependent on where on earth you happen to be standing.
-----
To Harvest or not to Harvest, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The pipes and bullets of outrageous Splicers,
Or to take arms against a horde of Big Daddies,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep...
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c342/ARNie00/tonarinobigdaddysig.jpg
my deviant gallery
http://arnie00.deviantart.com
