Hi Karya,

Nice in depth analysis there, must be the MBA getting you in form!!

Hope all is well, nice to see you back at the helm.

Hmm so the females in the old days (my first mudmeet, Jinck's one at ... Paddington? Kingston-on-Thames somewhere anyway! where I came with Topcat and Moo, and first met you and Umbrarg, etc) did you think Vulnax was a bloke? Doh!

I mainly played with the blokes, and there were very few real females on the game then, mainly peoples partners (ok you, Zordell, Jincks, etc were not at that time playing just 'cos partners were IIRC ). The guys certainly believed Vully was a girly, right to the last when TC guessed when we talked !!

Maybe others were just being nice, not shattering my illusions!!!

Still, even now people don't recognise Vully as the other main male personae ...!

For MT, any topics you would like that are on your To Do list? My Time as a transvestite perhaps?? hehe Lemme know!

Cheers

Vulnax

Hi Vulnax,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you, been a busy summer!

I think in those days (circa 1998) there were far less females playing than there are now. The main female personae I can think of (regardless of real-life gender) were Vella, Suzy, Lexley, Blackrose, Mathilda, you and myself. Due to the nature of gaming in those days generally players tended to be slightly older than is found today (most players being in their 20s and 30s back then). Most real female players came across as intelligent adults with a genuine interest in gaming however most male players role-playing female personae tended to play them as young girly types. Lots of giggling, coquettish flirting, airhead mentality - that kind of thing. It just didn't ring true with the "typical" female player at the time.

I think the female players could tell when they were interacting with a female persona/male player because something just didn't ring true. Any female persona who giggled a lot and acted coquettish was an instant suspect as a male player. And those qualities were the trademarks of Vella, Blackrose and yourself. It's probably true that on the whole male players didn't spot these falsities. Maybe male players at the time preferred their females that way! (please do not take that comment seriously!!)

Spotting fake female players these days is harder. There are a far wider range of ages and "types" of females. Reasons for playing have also changed. MUD2 has become more of a chat room than it ever was in the past and at the risk of getting shot down for saying it I believe that the average female player these days is not a serious gamer. Having said that, I do still believe that female players can, on the whole, spot fake female players.

I would like to emphasise though that I have been terribly generalist in places. That was mainly to get my point across and I don't really believe that people fall into distinct types or categories.

Karya