f13.net

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/06/15/magazine/20070617_AVATAR_SLIDESHOW_1.html

Holy shit at the Everquester. Set vectors for the pizza sector, warp factor 5.

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/15/magazine/ava5.jpg)

Winner!

55 hours a week as a student? Does he go to class at all? Though even that pales in comparison to that women who spends 70 hours inside SL.

Harisu wins the hottie award.

You know how the camera adds 10 pounds?

The game subtracts (2)50. Except from french people.

Yes.

Should we take pictures of ourselves and do this?

One Rule: We don't need to use MMOGs... heh.

That EQ playin dude looks like the model for the evil hardcore player in the SouthPark/WoW episode.

Not sure this is indicative of the total userbase out there, but I was surprised by how few people crossed genders. What's happened to roleplaying dernit!?

(says the guy who's only ever had one female avatar, and that was a crafter...)

Editorial prerogative.

The Second Live people are interesting from the "percieved body image -> reality" standpoint.  The Japanese woman was the closest out of all of them.

Ailin Graef aka "Anshe Chung" is Chinese.

My bad, was going from memory of the images and picked an Azn.  I lose!

Yes, an awful lot of "my character looks just like me, but 75lbs thinner, slightly younger and somewhat hotter".


Don't you have to buy a penis as an aftermarket, player-crafted item in SL though?

She is also the most famous transsexual in Korea, apparently.

MMOGs - where even the women are men! :-)

(http://photo.gangus.com/d/26788-2/ackbar.jpg)

Doh!

Y'all just made my day.  But I am sad that someone else had to post a spoiler on it.  I wanted to see how many of you would jump on the hottie bus before crushing your fragile little egos.

~sigh~

Ego? Judging hotness isn't ego. And he's hot for a she. He. Whatever. If America produced transexuals like that instead of Ru Paul and uhmmm, well, take your pick, I'm sure they wouldn't be pushed to the edge of society.

I liked the one token WoW entry.  Gee, their online personas look like stock Blizzard undead models, wearing whatever gear is appropriate at whatever level they are.  What a shock.  On a similarly revealing note, here's what my avatar looked like when I was playing Metroid.

(http://www.stealthboy.com/images/samus_sprite.jpg)

Fucking WoW.  Anyway, lawl.  I didn't spot the tranny as a man, but I didn't think she was hot either.  Looked like another ugly Second Lifer.

[broken toys] Stuff like Jason Rowe's makes me think about how important this shit can be.  For most it's just a little fun, but for some, it's a real chance for true escape from a shitty world. [/broken toys]

And honestly, a Korean TV show had a completely different trans-person on for an interview and got lots of complaints.  Apparently, this other person was...unattractive.

Harisu interviews, on the other hand, are always overwhelmingly positively received.

Did you see that she did a feminine product ad on TV?  In some bizarro ways, Korea is ahead of America in that area.

Unfortunately, the rest of the time, they pretend that homosexuals just don't exist in Korea.

And I couldn't think of a better word than ego, but i still hoped to crush something....or deflate....or make less erect....whatever.

America just needs to find one really hot transexual who doesn't try to soapboxit every other minute.  Then we'd be set.

What I was thinking.

That Harisu looks like a man to me.

Edit: Nevermind, should read the thread more carefully. Anyway, you people and me obviously have different definitions for hot.

Yeah, I'm disappointed because I'd been really looking forward to the dramabomb and angstfest if SWG ever got the heave, but now I have this troubling thing you humans call "emotion" nagging away at me because of that wee lad.

It appears that they represented the entire player base of City of Heros.

In that there were several times as many of them as SWG players represented?  Good spot, Mr Glass House.

Edit: Spellunk

All jokes about overweight dudes and he/she issues aside, the quote above illustrates an aspect of this business that I find personally moving. I've had a chance to meet quite a few MMO players with disabilities ranging from mild to severe, and it's really made me aware how important these games can be to people. For someone who will never be able to get out of a wheelchair and walk across a room, MMOs provide a chance to be immortal heroes saving a world.

I have no illusions that working on MMOs is anywhere near as important as being a doctor or whatever, but I do feel a certain level of responsibility to players like this. What most of us often shrug off as just another game can mean so much more, and is another reason I feel very lucky to do what I do.

Okay, sappiness off. You may resume snarking.

Conan, what is best in life?


To be honest, most people who post on forums that I've seen are just normal lookin' dudes. I think for that article, they went in and picked out unique looking people.

SPECIAL ABILITIES Dual Wield

That picture is from 2004 at the earliest so chances are he might not be playing SWG anymore.  Robbie Cooper was featured on a couple of BBC articles, earliest being in 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3683260.stm) when he had an exhibition in London (which, sadly, I missed) and then in 2005 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4360654.stm).  Note also that the writer is one Dr Jo Twist who also features as a Second Life player in the NY Times link. 

I'm not amazed you're still single!  I certainly wouldn't have kicked her out of bed... well at least not until the wife got home. Then it's 'awkward questions' time.  :cry:

Wow, just lol I tooootally belive you man.  You are so much smarter then the other people in this thread.

I think I've gotta point out they totally made a point of having the TG girl being the only decent looking female named in the lineup (I'm sure some would say the white girl w/ the Jo guy is cuter but it doesn't name her).  All Trippy said was she wins the hottie award.  Which is more like she's the hottest one there.  Which she obviously is, post op, pre op, or whatever.

I thought this whole thing was dumb but I've gotta say, it does illustrate well how lame WoW's characters are.  That isn't quite 100% fair though, because CoX and SL are for sure two of the best avatar creation games.  Also I'm sure the BH or whatever from SWG looks like all other BH's at max level if you've ever touched SWG.  The EQ2 character(s) just look like ass, similar to the people playing them.

Which makes sense, when I was trying to play EQ1 two years after launch it took so long to get started on something I was always going afk to get food or to smoke a cig.  I got kicked from hella groups for afk'ing because I wasn't smart enough to play wiz and replace afk with oom.

fucking w went missing.

Must... resist... adding... tophats...

Well, I say the same thing about Jennifer Garner after that one unflattering photo was posted here, and she is proven to be a woman. Different tastes for different people. Large hands and lanky bodies are just not my thing. Yes, I think all those skinny models should be force-fed and the new Kira Knightley is a crime against nature (especially when compared to her old self).

And I don't give the slightest fuck if you believe me. Its a message board on the internet. You would be an idiot to take any opinion not based on facts stated here at face value.

Not a dude.  She.  I'm dangerously close to ranting on the attitudes displayed and I do a Sir Bruce impersonation to rip apart posts.  Let's not make this deserving of Politics, okay?

He loses sympathy points for choosing the name Rurouni Kenshin.

You can't change chromosomes.

/runslikehell

Um... the white girl is Jo Twist.  Dr Jo Twist no less.  She's a technology reporter for the BBC.  Random interview with her here (http://www.ourmedia.org/taxonomy/term/14742).  The bloke she's with is her SO.

Ah my bad, like I said I always think these sorts of things are pretty fucking dumb I thought it was like the wow post where the guy has a char and the girl is just some girl.  In fact this whole thing is so dumb the only thing of merit is WUA's post about how lame WoW characters are.

*bang*

 :-P

No no it's /facepalm  or /headdesk.  *bang* involves jail time.  :-D

Did I get joke-shot or did you joke-shoot yourself?  I hate this thread.

It's ok. So does Harisu.

You never hear the one that gets you.

(http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2499/emotsmithicideqq4.gif)

My hottie awards go to Elizabeth Brown and Wang Yao.

I still can't believe that Anshe girl was my guildleader in Shadowbane. Didn't believed for a second she was a woman in RL. What a moron.

It was for SnakeCharmer, not you.

Aw c'mon, ignore the dress and look at their head.  That looks like a man.  Like I said, I didn't know it was a man.  But I wasn't surprised, either.

Whoever wrote the data like character race/class obviously knows nothing about what they're talking about.  The EQ guy's Human Warrior (you can tell it's a warrior because of the blue and red glowies in his hands that can only be the Blades of Tactics and Strategy) is listed as a Barbarian Berserker.

That's the thing. If you look closely at random people's heads, you'll find that most or at least women who aren't overwhelmingly attractive/have a super-feminine face could be indistinguishable from men if you took away the bodies, hair, and various accessories like makeup, jewelry, etc.

Exactly.  Hell, I know a few you can't quite be sure on even when you DO see the body, hairstyle, etc.  It's Pat! indeed.

And it only gets worse as people age.  At the start and end of our lives men and women look damn similar.

Well, in the good old days Men had Adams Apples and Women hadn't. I blame all those steroids in our meat!  :-D

Yes. Or a vagina. Or a furry tail. Or whatever attachments and animations you want to use said attachments.

The thing about the SL avatars is that not a lot of them are made for "normal" dimensions. I think I've seen one vendor that sells "overweight" skins, everyone else's are fairly idealized versions of the body, with funny names like "Male Chic" or "Macho" or "Surfer." But yes, even my avatar in SL has more meat on his bones than me, since even if they sold stick figure avatars I wouldn't use one. He wears a Liverpool T-shirt and spends his time dancing in casinos for money since I'm too cheap to buy Linden.

My SL avatar (way back) looked like what might happen if Poppa Smurf ate all of the other Smurfs.  Shortest and fattest I could make him, with white hair/beard.  And, I think, a white jumpsuit.  Contrarily, I do not own a white jumpsuit in real life.

What colour IS your jump suit, then?

Blue.  Sleeveless.

I knew someone, a white person, who made their SL avatar a ridiculous looking caricature of a black man with absurdly huge lips and baggy jeans.  Then he would fly around shooting and griefing people until someone would snap and scream "GET OUT OF HERE AND LEAVE US ALONE YOU NIGGER!"  Then he would page and have the victim banned.

And no, it wasn't me.  My SL experience lasted all of an hour before I'd had enough.

So, you called him a nigger.

I see.

Rofl Latke

I have a Cthulu avatar. I felt rather cool finding that vendor.

I have to get all sappy as well on this one.

Back in 1997/98 when I was coding a mud, and lead admin for it, the code base was crashing left and right, the player base were driving me nuts, and I finally said 'screw it" and shut it down in a fit of frustration (I meant it though, wasn't a drama thing)--wasn't worth the effort anymore (I hadn't coded for 8 years, and didn't know much at all about muds when I inherited the damn thing)...I got an email a couple of hours later from one of the guys that was a big PITA (although a nice guy overall)--turns out he was a cancer patient, basically waiting to die, and his only interaction with other "people" was through the mud.

His description of sometimes being so weak that he couldn't type, but still laid there and watched what people said was so heart-wrenching that I took a week's vacation, hired a guy to help me figure out the bugs I was having, and got the mud back up and stable in just a couple of days.

Sure, the guy could have been lying through his teeth, but to this day I don't believe that someone could describe that kind of loneliness and feelings of community if he wasn't actually feeling it.

Fixed... and worth a shot. :-)

At the risk of sharing too much, Asians aren't her type.

So..you're Asian?

No. I ignore the rest of thread. The parisian dude got close:

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/06/15/magazine/ava3.jpg)

He could've made himself skinner, though.

That's what the fatter people do. The skinny ones want to bulk up.

The picture on the right is him in the Real World. The picture on the left is from The Matrix City of Heroes.