Transgender Positive Fail from 4Story

I'm transgender positive. In my 3000 years, I've known a few people who have made this epic transition. They are special people. I'm talking about life here, not just MMOs.

MMORPG has a press release, more or less from 4Story titled, "4Story News - Transgender Potion Giveaway". Transgender potions sound kind of neat (and my red hair is JUST as fabulous in female styles, I'll have you know), so I thought I'd read the story.

Here is the whole text:

To celebrate 4Story's release of Coliseum Update, 4Story Global Service team is giving away free gift codes here at MMORPG.com. Each keys will enable you to redeem brand new newbie package and additional 5 transgender potions which allows you to camouflage your character switching your sex.
There is nothing more important in MMORPG world than reaching higher level faster and hiding your real force against the others. In this way, you will slay all enemies in severe coliseum battles.

Wow, the level of gender assumptions in that one paragraph makes my head spin. The level of ignorance and idiocy it assumes on the part of players is astonishing. Looking at their website, 4Story is a free-to-play fantasy based MMO, which has a "WAR" feature, claiming that anyone at any level can join.

I couldn't tell if they gimped female toons or not. They certainly put them in non-functional cosmetic armor, based on their supporting artwork. But really, I suspect not. As usual, it's entirely an appearance thing.

The first question would be, if a female toon really levels faster than a male one, why don't you then simply play a female toon? Why bother with a transgender potion? I guess maybe you didn't think of that when you started the toon?

To be fair, there probably are a lot of players that will see a female avatar and think that they are no pvp threat. Men do pvp more than women as a statistical thing. But if they are in the war, one would assume that they are competent, wouldn't one? Doing otherwise will get you killed.

Now, if their are people playing 4Story dumb enough to make that assumption, I can see the temptation to play female and kick their ass. Repeatedly.

But if that happens enough, it kind of kills the advantage, doesn't it?

No, I suspect that demand for transgender potions comes some from the above "I'll get an advantage because gurlz have it so easy" foolishness, but more from other desires, like "What would it be like to play and be perceived as a girl/man?" It might also come from women who aren't really interested in unsolicited comments on body parts, or unwanted solicitations for cybersex. Or, it might come from a simple desire for fun.

The thesis that women are less hard-core than men is a lie based on a half-truth. By several metrics, on average women players are less "hard-core" than men. However, the top 10% of women players are, in fact, more hard-core than the top 10% of men. I personally know three women in my guild (one doesn't play any more) who are more hard-core than I am. And there's a few more that are neck and neck, or maybe have been more hard-core than me in the past.

But no, these idiots have to sell based on competetive advantage. Their website also is slow-loading, with lots of splashy, sexualized graphics, and exciting music that takes forever to load. In short, they think I'm stupid, led around by my hormones, and easily swayed by irrelevancies. Oh, and they assume I'm hetero male, since there are no hot looking men in the art.

And I'll bet these guys sit around in marketing meetings sometimes asking "How can we get more women to play this game?" I'd headdesk at this point, but I don't want to muss up my hair. They aren't worth it.