Comments for PARC PlayOn 2.0

Comment on More Demographic Details by Shirley

Shirley — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:15:16 +0000

In my situation (54 F) I have joined an age 24+ guild. Having played in guilds with teens and kids and expierenced the dificulity this can have on raids and the amazingly horrific content of g/vent chat an adult guild that raids was my only option.

Comment on Character Race When Gender-Bending by virtual.jess

virtual.jess — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:31:25 +0000

I wonder if these findings are consistent with findings elsewhere that men police gender boundaries more rigidly than women do. When picking same and opposite gendered characters, men choose more gender conforming options, whereas women choose apparently on attractiveness independent of gender conformity. Amongst male horde characters, blood elves and tauren are most attractive because they are not grotesque, not monsterous, and not childish or plain ugly (the rendering of human, dwarf and gnome male faces seems to range from cute to ugly without hitting anything like handsome or attractive).

Comment on Character Race When Gender-Bending by Borderlad

Borderlad — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 06:40:26 +0000

I hope that didn’t come across as snooty or unfriendly.
It was not meant to be.

Comment on Respecs by Borderlad

Borderlad — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:59:47 +0000

What I wonder: Did the sample period include any patches with changes to talent trees? I can only think that would provoke a noticeable increase in respecs in the affected classes.

Despite my question, though: interesting data, as always! If somebody had asked me, I would have guessed this particular question would find a more even result between males and females. Sometimes it’s more interesting to be wrong. Learn new things, that way.

Comment on Character Race When Gender-Bending by Borderlad

Borderlad — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:41:33 +0000

You might want to be careful how you word things.
Your wording is messing up what you are trying to say.

In talking about your first chart, you say, “We see that women prefer the two Elves + Draenei. The men prefer Taurens, Orcs, Dwarves, and the Undead. It was interesting to see a strong and comparable preference for Humans for both genders.” You have used, “preference,” to mean two different things, but only one of those things is what preference means.

According to your chart, Orcs and Darves are not even in the top half of what men are likely to play. Nowhere near being what men *prefer*.

What your chart shows is that women play the two Elves + Draenei noticeably more than men do, while men play Tauren, Orcs, Dwarves, and Undead noticeably more than women do… and both show about equal (and strong) tendencies to play Humans.

“Preference,” indicates how likely someone is to choose a thing – not *how much more likely than someone else is* to choose that thing. A “p-r-e-” word for that would have been the idea of prevalence. It would be correct to say that men are more prevalent than women, as players of Tauren, Orcs, Dwarves, and Undead.

Not arguing with your data, of course – nor with your conclusions.
Just… when presenting your findings, your choice of words should mean what you are trying to say, is all.

Comment on Changing Guilds by Borderlad

Borderlad — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:00:21 +0000

I’m curious as to how a “guild change” was defined.

Was it simply the act of joining a guild? Or would a character have had to previously be a member of a different guild within X amount of time in order to be counted?

I wonder whether any characters joining their first-ever guilds got counted as “switching,” or whether something in the method excluded those from the count?

Comment on Character Race When Gender-Bending by Lawrence DuBois

Lawrence DuBois — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:44:07 +0000

As for why women play male elves, I would like to give the half-joking and uneducated guess of women wanting to play “bishi” (an effeminate man). Many of my female friends (of which I have surprisingly many) prefer a “bishi” to a more traditional “manly man.” I’m moderately surprised, and extremely amused that this tendency seems to carry over into MMOs.

Comment on Dungeon Deaths by Lawrence DuBois

Lawrence DuBois — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:22:12 +0000

Hmmm… One explanation that comes to mind is that if we look at the fact that older players ALSO die more often, and then take a look at one of the older studies (I believe back at the Daedalus Project) that took a look at player life cycle or something, I believe it showed that the most hardcore gamers are younger males.
Hardcore gamers would understandably have more skill than casual gamers, and therefore die less often.
This would explain correlations between both older players and female players dying more often, since they are less likely to be hardcore gamers.

Comment on Deaths from Falling by Lawrence DuBois

Lawrence DuBois — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:57:06 +0000

I think that comparing an individual player’s falling deaths to the average helps compensate for so called biases like the LK fight. As Nick has often mentioned, the simple fact of using large populations in these surveys should lessen the impact of such extenuating circumstances.

Comment on Achievement Categories by Lawrence DuBois

Lawrence DuBois — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:35:27 +0000

Are the maximum number of achievement points available different for each category? Is it possible to get more achievements (and therefore achievement points) in certain categories as opposed to others? That would probably skew the results some, too since – from a game design stand point if nothing else – it would make sense for a category with more total points be easier to acquire points in.
I think that percentages of total possible points in each category would make for more interesting results.