MMOs, the measure of mooks, and things I'd love for games to do

[smurasaki]

As I said in a previous post, I think SW:TOR has killed WoW for me. I am loving having a voice acted story so much that I don't think I can go back. I'll put up with it so I can hang out with my superheroes, but even that will be hard. The moment someone makes a superhero MMO along the lines of SW:TOR, I'm remaking Keith, Raizel, and Kit (

Comments

[smurasaki]

I can think of a few exceptions, but, outside of comic books, female heroes pretty much stop once they hit adulthood. There are still books with female main characters, of course, but most of those books (as I've ranted about before) spend a fair amount of time punishing their main character. No dreams for adult women, indeed.

Talking about how young heroes are (particularly women) got me thinking about the class stories in SWTOR. The storylines for each class establish where your characters are in their careers, and, as far as I can tell, the smuggler is the only class who's truly, well, established.

You've been doing this independent freighter captain thing for long enough to have something of a name for yourself. (Which might not be long, but could be.) The bounty hunters and troopers aren't rank beginners, but they are still establishing themselves. (Of course, one could've been an accountant for 30 years and now be taking up bounty hunting. It's less clear whether one can join the Republic military later in life.) The agent is on their first mission. (And I don't see Imperial Intelligence taking on older people.) Your Jedi and Sith characters begin as apprentices (and only one of the Sith classes seems to allow for older characters since you were previously a slave.)

So, by accident (I had no idea about the above when I created characters - brand new game and all), I've done better with my main characters in SWTOR. My smuggler is a woman (and was meant to be adult before I discovered that, hey, she's established, which immediately bumped her age upwards in my mind) firmly in her thirties (perhaps my own age). My agent, though also an adult, is only in his early twenties.

In general, though, I'd say it's so bad that any fiction not aimed at teens, and/or featuring women heroes older than eighteen is pushing things in the right direction. With bonus points if it presents other women as something besides stereotypes.