Careful, there’s a REAL girl playing!
stargrace I have to share this story, and hopefully no one from my group reads it – if they do I hope they take it with the same sense of humor that I approached the subject from.
Last night I decided to join a random pick up group that was headed to Anchor of Bazzul. I don’t typically join these groups, I have a steady bunch of friends who play and I prefer to play with them. Nothing against pugs really, I just know my guild mates play styles. From time to time no one is around, or I want to meet some new people. I sent a tell when I saw the group advertising for Anchor and was on my way to Moors in no time.
They (the group leader) requested that everyone join group voice – something I am also typically opposed to, especially for such an easy zone. The tank ended up being Ultann from my own guild though I didn’t know that before hand. The group set out and as we zoned into AoB I heard the conversation change slightly.
Three group members (all male) were discussing roleplayers, and how they had nothing but horrible experiences with these people. They were talking about roleplayers as a whole, and had nothing at all good to say. Their comments were amusing to me (being quite an avid roleplayer) and so after a few minutes I spoke up, and said mid conversation, “you know, not all roleplayers act that way.”
*** Edit ***
Ah, I forgot to mention one key point –
I was not the only one defending the roleplayers, one of the three was also mentioning how he enjoyed roleplay, which is why I took the rout of “why did the conversation suddenly stop” – two were going on about how horrid their experiences were, and one was saying he liked to roleplay but found it difficult etc. *goes to edit* too much stuff going on today to get all my opinions out in text!
So in other words – if they were not afraid of offending the one guy who claimed he was a roleplayer and enjoyed it – why would they be afraid of offending me.
It was all I said. The conversation stopped dead in its tracks, no one said a word. I wondered if I had offended someone. Dead air for a few minutes while the awkward silence carried on.
Then someone said, “that must have been Ellithia, right? Because it was just three males talking and then all of the sudden this hot female voice spoke up,” – he sounded surprised that an actual real live girl spoke up in voice chat.
I laughed, and said yes it was me, though I then joked around saying it was Ultann and he was simply roleplaying. The subject was completely dropped and no one spoke about the roleplay issue again which sort of disappointed me because I’m always eager for a good debate. I hate when people generalize ALL gamers into one category, and it’s a good discussion.
I couldn’t help but wonder what I had said that had pursued them to drop the topic. Was it the fact that I disagreed with them or the fact that I had breasts? Maybe a combination of the two? Whatever it was the topic did a complete 180 and moved on to other things.
It was one of the most amusing groups I had ever been a part of, and the first time I had evoked that sort of reaction simply by talking into voice chat. I’m sure they’ve been in groups with female gamers before, and I’m sure they’ve spoken to them before too but for some reason they decided right then and there that the conversation should stop. Maybe it was because I was the only healer and they were afraid I’d throw some sort of fit and stop healing them, I have no idea, or maybe they were worried their opinions would offend my delicate mind (hah!) but it made me chuckle none the less.
Maybe I need to get a voice modulator so I can pretend to be a guy and have some worthy discussions in voice, hehe.
I figure that title is bound to get me the most spam comments I can possibly get, aside from maybe “how to level from 1-80 in an hour” or some other similar title. When you get down to the nitty gritty of EQ2 you really don’t need money for a whole lot. If you’re used to running instances your master spells will drop and there are quite a few zones that have masters on smart loot, in both RoK and TSO. Then there are the research assistants and their monthly (or less if they’re lower level) masters available to players, gear that comes from questing (a la shard runs) and if you’re a raider you’re taken care of pretty well too. There are repair bills but then there are also raids that pay a nice amount, and if your guild sells gear at all chances are you’re used to a guild split every so often.