EVE General Discussion

Em you have not attributed that quote correctly, Mara.

It is a pretty sexist thing to say that women are only interested in playing with computer-generated dolls and clothing, yes.

Doublepost, like a boss. ignore

If it were Grand Theft Auto style and I could jump out and gank barbie on the street, hell yea I would

The player base in EVE is fine and is about on-par from what you get from other games, it's not really the factor that is keeping more women away from the game.

Here's the main thing, EVE isn't really a "game" when compared to everything else that's popular. It's more or less a blow-stuff up and market-spreadsheet simulator. There's pretty much no story that you can follow along, nothing that contributes to immersion, and no clear goals to work towards other than more ISK. These things have very niche appeal; EVE's player base regardless of women is pretty small.

The tutorial is bland, the UI over-complicated for new players, and there is a substantial lack of customization options. Imagine if EVE had a similar system that is in the game All Points Bulletin, where you can design your own art for characters and vehicles. Heck, I still remember seeing this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtwESnTOwY and thinking holy crap that's awesome! Being able to focus on a character that you've made makes it more personal; instead in EVE you are usually a giant dull metallic brick in space, plenty of which are pretty male/phallic looking as well, hah.

The game is also very unforgiving, shocking as it may be, most people's definition of fun doesn't involve having their stuff blown up and then being laughed at.

It's not going to make much difference if the culture can't accept that women are also equally capable of enjoying and understanding this game.
They should, considering that there are many women who play EVE, who are both as competent and as fallible as any man, many of whom also enjoy the PVP aspect as much as or more than any given man in the game.
RAZOR Alliance's "Troika" (essentially an executive leadership board) includes a woman who I must say (at the risk of brown-nosing) is very good at what she does. It's also pretty common to see her in fleets, often flying logi or providing titan bridges (or both).

You were doing so well and then you come with one of those examples that proves women can be a serious threat. You disappoint me.

Spot on as usual, James. There's two sides to the coin (speaking as a girl).

Ladies need to suck up a certain amount of the "locker room" banter. It's not said in malice, give back as good as you get, this is EVE.

Gents need to lay off when told to do so. If someone asks you to cut out the kitchen jokes, then cut it out. It's likely gone well past funny anyway, if someone is telling you to shut it.


Hooking in an amusing anecdote...Had a foolish person making too many kitchen jokes in fleet. I was running the covert cyno chain. Well, the bombers needed an emergency jump out, and I may have waited until said idiot got popped before I lit the cyno.

"OMG WTF where was cyno?"

"Sorry, I was in the kitchen, making my man a sammich. He says it's real good, BTW."

I meant to say ... you shouldn't need to use an example of how tough women can be. The only reason you need the example is to make it feel good for you to write something like that about women.

It's not just him or guys like him, it's overall the environment. MMO PvP games are an offshoot of FPS games and it adapted it's culture, and how guys psyche each other out is all that smack talk. It's a guy thing. But that's not how women interact. Women can be competitive, but generally they're supportive. That can be seen as a weakness to guys, but that's what women do.

I can relate a story from my past when I was a WM (Woman Marine). The ladies barracks we would help each other out (we're all in this together attitude). We were on the 3rd floor of one of those old H buildings, and the guys were on the 2nd floor across in another H building. The mentality in the men's barracks that we could see was alien. Guys who refused to shower, they would carry them into the shower clothes on, hooping and hollering. Again it was a guy thing. To them it's competition, they like competing against each other. Women barracks was very quiet and orderly, we had our routines and it was calm in contrast. We didn't compete against each other. PT in the marines you're taught how to use pugil sticks, and the ladies it took more effort to attack. First time I was paired with a tiny girl just barely 5ft tall. In my mind I couldn't attack her as she was so small. So I let her attack first. See? The guys took no prompting, they put on the war face and attacked each other.

And that's the Marine Corps, at MCRD Parris Island.

Now put women on the rifle range things changed. A lot of the ladies excelled. Not because they could listen to instruction well, but because by nature. Men pull the trigger hard, when it's instructed to squeeze it gently. Men also breathe harder, so when it came qualification time they pulled the triggers and didn't hold their breath well. Ladies did. They would get tighter groups, and that's how you get your rifle badges in the real world...it's not headshots...it's tight groups.

Women cooperate. Put a group into a foreign situation they'll by nature pull together and help each other. Activities that work well for this they will be very good at. Men compete. And we see games all about competition. On the fundamentals they are at odds in gaming. What is considered "gaming" to men (and to many devs itself) goes against what women do naturally.

And that's the real reason why gaming doesn't appeal to women, especially combat oriented games. They don't want to compete like guys, and they prefer to cooperate. They will gravitate to other things that feel good and relate to them. And if that's pink furry pets, it'll be pink furry pets (but they can do fine without them too -- do you see a Woman Marine hold them on duty??? -- but if that's all they can relate too...).

This is w-h-y a game must have PvE for women. Point blank. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make the horse drink it. So any effort to simply train a woman to do PvP will fail unless she has her comfort zone that is supportive, cooperative and social (with a lot of communication).

Currently that's not the design of EvE. It's "Everybody vs Everybody" and that environment will not be conductive for most women. Do the studies, and it'll show just that. Superior hand/eye coordination. Superior shots. But ask them to compete every step of the way, they'll return to WoW or game like it (because there they don't have to compete with others).

So correcting him to be more PC in itself won't make it better. That's what devs have to do (after they conduct their surveys and all) to design an environment that's hospitable for women, while still living up to being EvE itself.