Rodneye

I feel my writings in this blog have neglected an important part of my Perfect World experience, and that is my dear friend Rodneye the Blademaster.

I owe this boy a lot. The beginning of my acquaintance with Rodneye also marks the time I actually started participating in Perfect World as a multi-player game.

We met at the beginning of spring break, which happened to be the same week for both of us. Free of the shackles of school and work, we went exploring all night, traveling pretty much all over the map by the end of the week. We frolicked on the mountains with the Ostial Centipexes. In the proud, ancient city of Archosaur, we swam in the fountain. And once, somehow, we got stuck in a volcanic wasteland surrounded by some of the strongest enemies in the game. A compassionate level 80 Blademaster had to lead us out.

Rodneye is the one who invited me into my first faction--which so happens to be directed by his sister Kristei. Then, despite my protests, he talked Kristei into rapidly promoting me.

"I hope you know you're pretty much my best online friend," he said to me once. It was one of the last things he said; he hasn't been online in over a week. He could be occupied with school, or, for all I know, he could be grounded from the computer. But his sister hasn't been online either, and I'm worried about them.

It might be time for me to give up on Rod, but I still check my friends list every time I'm on, looking for him.

Here's to you, Rod, my best online friend. I hope you come back soon.

Just for the record...

...I don't particularly like being a scary androgynous bitch.

I had a good system going with Liulen. She was a persona I assumed well. While playing as Liulen, I am delicate, friendly, and feminine, despite the plate armor and gigantic sword.

Recently I met a fascinating wizard. With his linguistic acrobatics, bizarre sense of humor, and awkwardly chauvinist pick-up techniques he reminds me strongly of one of my ex-boyfriends. Maybe it was because I felt I already knew him that I found myself being more honest with this wizard than with anyone else I talk to on Perfect World. Thus it was that Liulen turned into an aggressive, castrating, sarcastic grammar nazi... in other words, me on a bad day.

His shtick is asking girls if they want to ride on his flying sword. (He does actually have one; the flying swords are kind of cool.) Today he asked me, "Hey, are you a girl? If so, want a ride on my sword?" This pissed me off beyond reason. I've thought it odd that people usually assume players in PWI are actually the gender of their character. Well, here was someone not making that blind assumption. Good for him, right?

The thing was, I'd been talking to this guy for a while, and he still didn't fully believe I was a girl. But that's ok, too, right? Gender shouldn't really matter in a world where players make no physical contact with each other.

I guess I might still be bitter from the time I got my hair cut like Bruce Lee's and everyone kept calling me "sir."

Eventually he excused himself, citing faction business as his reason. I ran into him later in the city chatting with a Venomancer. Fully aware of the awkwardness of the situation, he said, "Holy shit... uhh, want to ride my sword, Liulen?"

*Headdesk*

I don't do a lot of either world chat or common chat in PWI, but I do keep an eye on what others are saying. Every once in a while I come across something like this and have a sudden urge to slam my forehead onto my desk.


Later on, though, I found a rare piece of true wit.

Link to study on gender identity and avatars

When my friend Tamar learned about this blog, he showed me an article from Investigaming on gender identity and gaming avatar preferences.

This study says that there is surprisingly little difference between male preferences for avatar choice and female preferences. Both genders seem to prefer exaggerated, over-sexualized body types; however, both genders also prefer less-revealing costumes. Both genders shun negative female stereotypes and are attracted to positive stereotypes--I'm pretty much quoting the article, here; what's an example of a positive stereotype?

I do wish I could get Meirizhu some more modest clothes. Light armor in PWI apparently consists of bra, miniskirt, and heeled boots.

Anyway, go ahead and check out the article here. I, for one, am skeptical of its validity, since the authors don't mention their research methods. But judge for yourself. It's an interesting read, at least.

My Characters

I love character creation. It's my favorite part of games. I've made a bunch of Perfect World International characters, most of them hunky men. What can I say? I like men so much better than I like women. But I never made it very far into the game with these male characters before I got bored. No one talked to me. And I wanted to try out one of the winged elves. So I made Meirizhu, a female Archer.



She looks just like me!




Well, sort of. She looks like what I wish I looked like.

I liked Meirizhu a lot and played with her for a while but one day got a strong, bizarre urge to make a character who was actually sexy. So I made an elf Cleric with curly blonde hair, big blue eyes, petite frame and big boobs. But that was far too cliché. So I made her a Blademaster and got her the heaviest armor and the biggest, most ridiculous sword I could buy. Behold Liulen, the doll-faced tank and favorite of the gents.

Introduction

Hello, everyone, and thank you for visiting my blog! Here I'll be chronicling my adventures in Perfect World, an MMORPG. I'll be focusing in particular on what it's like to be a female player and how my female characters are treated. What a fun project! It combines so many of my interests: writing, gaming, and quasi-feminist ranting!

Perfect World International is structured a lot like World of Warcraft (WoW), but it's prettier, more Asian, and FREE.

If you're interested in online games—or even if you aren't—go ahead and check out www.perfectworld.com. You might find Perfect World as enjoyable as I do! And if you play on the server Sanctuary, you can meet my characters. I'll introduce them in the next post.