01 March 2009

Female characters in WAAAGH!!


This has been a hot topic over the last couple of weeks with the two new classes coming out. I find it strange that there are so many classes that are gender specific within the realm of Warhammer Online.

I have played a fair share of MMO's over the last 6 years starting with SWG, and have had the opportunity of gaming with lots of great people. Some of the more influential have been female players and I cannot understand why Mythic would short change them on character selection. I understand that the lore does not full support female characters in certain rolls like the Chosen or Slayer, but there have been cases where in some books they have made an appearance. What I don't understand is that Mythic can create a completely new character class, the Disciple of Khaine, and not have the ability to expand the role of female players within the Warhammer universe.

I can appreciate not wanting to corrupt the original idea of Warhammer, but in this case when you create a virtual world the players need the ability to make it their own. For now though, all the ladies out there get to chose for barley clad Dark Elves and a few other classes on the destruction side. I know the Greenskins are fungi but they are a version of the all boys club if you read almost anything that they say, so its hard to count them as a non gender race. The Order side is more balanced between the sexes, minus the Slayer. Everything evolves over time, this game is not the same as it was at launch, so maybe the option of expanding female roles would give this game an even larger fan base to draw from in the future.

There are lots of great blogs and podcasts out there on this subject. I just though I would put my two cents in. I just think that when you are creating a world this big and in depth, you sometimes have the let the players decided the outcome and perhaps create a some new lore along the way.

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