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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
Back then, it was much like the days of Planetside-- how dare a female be a damn good at video game! I mean, I still remember when some guy typed out: "That dude has balls of steel" and my buddy responded. "You mean she has balls of steel." and so many folks lost their minds.
I remember my mom telling me how a bunch of 15-17 year old teen guys where steaming that a six year old girl beat them at the SNES Starfox championship... and a dude in Doom 3 Deathmatch refused to accept that he was being beaten by a girl when we were the last two standing.
The sad truth is, it has gotten better, but I still find myself hiding behind the male mask more times than not. Only because I still run into men who refuse to accept equality when it comes to video games or, you know, when we women might be better than them. I also get this in comics as well (and some ways, comics is still worse than video games)
So yes, to all you men who have accepted us and treat us one of "the guys". Thank you a million.
They need to git gud
If you're referring to the unsolicited whispers, erp requests and images, yeah that happens a lot if anyone believes you're an actual woman.
I blame the anonymity of the situation, what does anyone lose by whispering you?
I am curious though that some people are reading this OP as a desire to perpetuate special, different treatment towards women gamers, I read it more as reminiscing about gamers with manners, gamers wanting to be helpful and volunteering their time....Although, going by this community so far, (other than a tiny minority of inevitable knobweasels) everyone seems to have a mature attitude and have 'lovely manners' as my mother would say.
Perpetuating that attitude through the wait and into launch would be a wonderful thing to achieve! (Surprising, but wonderful!)
Reminiscing myself, a loooong time ago in LOtRO I remember standing there watching a horrendous world, general chat conversation by what seemed like a group of teenage boys, several people had already asked them to stop when
I got fed up and jumped in with a comment, I cant remember exactly what it was now, but they all apologised, and I was immediately swamped with a number of whispers laughing about the 'power of a polite woman'
My main group was me and three others, two of which were girls. I have seen from the matches we have queued up in the reaction of most people and its hilarious. XD
Still talk to those friends to this day!
Those fellas were from all over the world. They used the foul language of many male gamers. I did not. They didn't come on to me but accepted me for who I was and I them. It's not unusual for a female even today to get called a sexual object or spoken to in PM's as if they were tramps. It has happened even here in Discord.
I've had many REAL men as friends and still do. My gaming partner of 20 years is male.
Because I dare to say thank you and praise (imho,) an exceptional group of men and boys you try to put me down for that? How wrong you are. You are also part of what's wrong with society today. You can't accept someone complimenting or praising others without tearing it apart.
I asked "Do you have a memorial encounter playing video games?" That was one for me. I guess you have not had any such thing and only know how to criticize others.
You are pathetic that you can't see it.
@Warkov , I have known several gentlemen that I am thankful for the way they have treated me... just none of them are in a video game setting.
I would also like to point out something I believe to be a misconception; that there being a difference in genders means that there can't be equality
@CylverRayne I thank you for this thread it brings me encouragement in my walk from manhood into gentlemanhood
Women like Grace Hopper's contributions, while she was in the Military, which she entered when she was 34. Her contributions to IT began around 1949. Or women like Ada Lovelace (who died in 1852). Or Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, who died in 1985. For more on these women, and others, go to https://tinyurl.com/historicalwomen.
Women have more than contributed to the current level of technology which we enjoy; however, for quite a long time, men were seen as "better" at the maths and sciences, and women were excluded from these fields. During my first marriage, when I told my husband I wanted to go to school to learn to program computers, I was met by dismay. He went to his mother, who softly recommended I "go work at a bank, dear, they get to use computers there."
I'm more than gratified that you feel the way you do, that you don't think that women in games, and more specifically in tech careers, is abnormal. It means that I, and women like me, and the women whose shoulders I've stood upon during my career, have normalized something for you that wasn't normal, during my generation. It means that my daughter, almost-30, who's a scientist, doesn't get treated unequally in her field (as I most certainly have during my time in IT) just because she's a woman. For that, I'm more grateful than words can convey. However, for my generation, just accept it as given that we've had to fight against the stereotypes, against the unequal treatment, and our views are, necessarily, somewhat different.
I can't add to what @CylverRayne said, about what she said, and I won't try to. I'm taking a slightly different tack on this one. You see, I abhor labels that divide. I really do. However, I also celebrate the differences that make us unique, and interesting. I appreciate @CylverRayne's offering to the man she mentioned in her OP; as a woman, I've been there, and I recall very well what it was to be treated as "lesser" because of my gender, when I'd rather be treated as "different" because of my mind. However, I wasn't, she wasn't, and she chooses to remember those times not with a castigation against everyone who may've hurt her, but a celebration of what was a pivotal time for her. I don't see her setting herself apart due to gender; rather I see her celebrating a gentleman, and if you try to tell me that men don't appreciate being seen in that light, I've got ocean-front property in Arizona for you. Being married to a man who enjoys "feeling like a man" because of how I treat him tells me that in choosing to celebrate his difference from me, because I'm a woman, I'm giving him something special.
Please, in the future, refrain from looking for division where it doesn't exist, for the sake of preaching unity.
Your man should feel like man because of his own will, purpose and being, and NOT from being validated by a woman or anyone else, especially through how they treat him. A real man needs no one's approval or reassurances for being a man. Men who buy into that should be ashamed, and are nothing more than a blinded beta being led around through a feminin imperative.
There you go, using my least-favorite word. That pesky "should" word. "Should" denotes an ideal, an aspiration. It doesn't take into account "is" -- in fact, it tries to trick us into replacing "is" with this ideal that may or may not be viable for everyone.
If you wish to be done with a thread, dear Warkov, then simply walk away.
Don't worry! I won't ever treat you like some chad would! I'm always super friendly!
I'm older and I was taught to always be a gentleman but I can understand if the younger generation of men just let women fend for themselves.... they did ask for it after all.
I used to think people were awesome, then I turned 40, and the older I get the more I dislike people and am amazed that we've all continued to exist this long. Now I feel like I'm surrounded by idiots all the time and I kinda wish there was an easy way out of this circus.
Gender HAD something to do with it then. Hence it is relevant.
Does it now? Probably not, and I am with you that I'd hope that it doesn't in future. Although I have to say that in my own experience..and I understand the limitations of that, but those with griefing or spamming or just obnoxious language turn out to be almost uniquely teenage boys.
There has been several threads that were taken down through people attacking 'women' who chose to voice their opinions on behavior and environment that has occurred historically in games.
Please lets not turn this one into another gender battle simply because she's chosen to highlight that they were men.
Had she voiced the same comment as yourself, she would have been immediately taken down and branded as a, in their words, 'feminazi', and told to 'go back to the kitchen'. Yes, that's been going on here, sexism is still rife however this positive op, how is this truly harming anyone?
Ok, so you feel that the OP is unconsciously being negative towards men.... I'm sorry about that.
I do think you ought to be aware though that there has been a huge outpouring of negative comments going on in this community that is preventing women from feeling able to voice their own opinions. Almost every thread in which we've attempted to show that we've been feeling left out and pushed aside has been ganked by aggressive comments.
You appear to misunderstand, she is not asking for validation, she is honestly thanking people, who just happened to be men.
Moving forward can we not just ALL be wonderful and well mannered regardless of gender?
I must confess, it was fun and pleasant to feel special.
Now, I also must say that my position had always been a bit different. Even 12 years ago. I was already a mother, a little bit older than most, always in couple, so basically clearly not "free for taking". I've also always been leading projects, communities, guilds, before to become a content creator 5 years ago. So I guess that people do not have the same behaviour towards me than to other females.
I rarely had any sort of issues or harrassements. Sometimes a little bit on TwitchTV or some odd comment on Youtube, but that's to be expected I suppose
See, now this? This point is where I make the choice to walk away. Watch, see how it works.
I am the type of person when speaking to women, especially women I don't know, I always say "ma'am", especially when I'm working. I'm almost 45 years old now, and say "yes/no/thank you ma'am to the young teenage girls at restaurants and stores to this day. I feel really awkward calling them sweetie or darling, and living in the south, primarily Texas my whole life, that is a common term of endearment. I have been screamed at multiple times by women because they believe that I was talking down to them, when in fact, I was just being respectful. Heaven forbid I didn't say "yes ma'am/no ma'am" growing up, or my mother would smack me up side the head. The point here is that sometimes, women have a chip on their shoulders and take respect as looking down on them, and no, I am not saying all women do this, just that it does happen.
I have played MMO's with various women for 20 years. Never once have I judged a player because they were a woman. Back in my days in EQ, I was in two different guilds run by women, one a successful raiding guild with her as the raid leader and one that wasn't. I have seen women consistently perform on par if not better than their male counterparts in raids.
When my daughter was 4, I built her her first computer and bought her her own copy of WoW. By the time she was 6, she was playing well enough that she could log in with my rogue and still be in the top 5 DPS on a SSC raid. By the time she was 10, she was raiding with her own character, a druid and dual spec'ed dps primary and heals secondary. She was also tearing up the battlegrounds in PVP and always scored really high. Now at 17, before she transferred servers, she was the best geared shaman on her server and one of the top healers on the server. In the 13 years she has been playing, only a hand full of people ever talked down to her, and that was primarily when she was younger. Up till she was 14, I always had her computer next to mine in my office so that I could keep an eye on her, other than one pedo incident, her ignore list remained relatively small. I know a young lady, who growing up, has pretty much the same story as my daughter, except for it happened in EQ.
I tell the story about my daughter, because it shows that at an early age, she shattered the stereotypes of what a girl gamer was. I also use it to point out that people loved playing with her, not because she was a girl, but because she pulled her own weight in a group or raid and because of it, she was treated as an equal from an early age. I guess it goes to really show the difference between the Gen X,Y and Millennial generations.
I have never judged a woman for being a woman, but by the same way I judge everyone, and that is whether they are someone I can enjoy a game with or if they are an idiot I have to endure while playing the game.
I am an equal opportunity asshole.
taking".
"I rarely had any sort of issues or harrassements. Sometimes a little bit on TwitchTV or some odd comment on Youtube, but that's to be expected I suppose " If you say so.
As far as I'm concerned this thread has ended.