Originally I had thought about this week's chousen being to research and design a new colossus from the CLASSIC and sorely underrated PlayStation 2 game, Shadow of the Colossus. However, during my previous paragraph, I happened to type Team Fortress 2 and thought, "Maybe we could design a new class illustration for TF2?". I then remmebered Niff doesn't really play that and it seemed a little unfair. Then the whole gender issue came to me of how female gamers (or gamer girls, grrlz, gurlz, or however the "hip" way to spell it is) who are REAL gamers and take their games they like seriously and they almost seem to be more hardcore at times than guys. I have listened to girls in vc (voice chat) in LotRO and TF2 and they are extremely knowledgeable and they KNOW what they are talking about. They have their shizzy together and I have respect for that as a gamer myself.
Then in the back of my mind I thought about it and wondered, "Are these Female Gamers so deep into it because they feel they won't get the same respect if they were more "casual" about their game of choice? Is it possible that there is a sexist mentality in gamer culture that results in females proving they are hardcore to get guy's respect?"
Honestly, I don't think that is the case as a whole. I have been guilty of admitting that I didn't expect a female to make it to endgame content in LotRO because of the fact that she was more interested in seeing the places of LotRO and didn't know how to maintain a minimum income of money to afford repairs because she's a caster who likes to run into melee where area of effect attacks abound. She plays to collect the hang around her friend in game who hangs in places where enemies are 15 levels above her and she can't get out of there because she dies and respawns back in the same place. But this girl is also like 14.
Is she in need of advice about the game and keeping your self financially sound? Probably. Am I wrong for thinking that a 14 yr. old girl won't make it to endgame content because she enjoys the social aspect of the game more than anything? Possibly. But when you contrast that with the Lv. 50 Minstrel who knows the strategy to take down raid bosses and gives direction that leads to victory, one can't help but realize that maturity is a BIG factor in building respect. Will that 14 yr. old get her shizzy together and start connecting the dots that lead to success? Depends on if she keeps with the game for more than a fancy instant messenger. Only time will tell.
After all of this soap-boxing, (Wake up, Dan!) we finally get to my idea for this weeks chousen...
Chosen: During the current week, your mission is to create a FEMALE counterpart of one of the 9 classes in Team Fortress 2. The stipulation is you have to do your best to emulate the art style of that game. In the details section will be several sites you can check out for visual reference.
Deadline: Saturday, October 25th, 2008 @ Midnight.
Choice of Medium: At the artist's discretion.
Details: Here's some websites for reference. Remember we're trying to put a piece together that looks like it could have been done by the guys at Valve.
- http://www.teamfortress.com/ The official website. They have a hilariuos section of sound-bytes up for the movie "Meet the Sandvich". Across the top you will see from left to right: Medic, Scout, Soldier, Demo-man, Spy, Engineer, Pyro, Sniper, Heavy.
- http://www.wegame.com On this site you can find videos of most of the classes by going here and searching for "Meet the [Class]"
-Darrick
3 comments:
Hey now, I used to be a fairly hardcore gamer. Money(mostly) and time just no longer allow for that. It makes me sad that my PS2 and my Gamecube are in a box under my bed. :(
Having played with lots of a kids in MMOs, its pretty rare to have one on-the-ball, I think the big problem is of course those kids parents' dont also play. The ones that play more as a family tend to kick ass.
To Niff, I know you were a hardcore female gamer. As a result, I respect that. But then again you have that maturity that I spoke of. You have developed the tools to figure out how to successfully stomp through the games you play.
Like if you were to join me and Dan in Left 4 Dead, I know you'll quickly pick up because you have seen footage of what happens when people go off by themselves in that. There are sadly some grown men that have seen how the game is and still won't understand you can't Leroy Jenkins your way through that game. Again I believe it's the maturity I spoke of.
In comparison to what Dan was talking about, the girl I speak of has a friend in our kin who's like a couple months younger than her, but he's got a Lv. 50 Loremaster (same class as the girl) and has no problem making money although he is prone to blowing his money from time to time. The thing is he has 2 older brothers in the kin that he plays with so he's drawing information from them to use. Like Dan said, his siblings play so he does kick ass.
In contrast to that though, the girl's parents appear to have character's in LotRO. The dad has a mid-level character I believe. I don't know if the mom really does anything on it except to maybe try and see what's going on in the game. I actually believe she is higher level than her dad. So she can't really draw her own knowledge from her family so she has to get it from the kin-mates. We do offer plenty of advice about class dynamics, and how to make money and such, but it comes down to what you do with that information.
Maybe she'll "click" one day and get it, but I remember like 3 months ago I had to tell the kid who played with his brothers about some of the same things like staying out of melee and so on. And I think it was when he tested out PvP combat and realized melee was not going to work out for him. So, it's quite possible she may be due for the click.
It's just something to think about. Like I don't know if our D&D dragonborn fighter plays City of Heroes with her parents but if they did play together, I know she'd more than likely kick ass at it because both of her parents are gamers, so she's like genetically predisposed to be good at them. She's got 2 pools of information, tactics, and philosophy to learn from.
It's something really interesting to think about. Kinda like Gamer Sociology/Psychology.
-Darrick
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