I was reading Saavedra's blog recently and he'd made some pretty good observations about the latest Tomb Raider title.  In the process, he noted that several reviews of the game concentrated on how Lara Croft looked, rather than on the gameplay or level design.  This got me to thinking…

 Before every MMOG launch I've ever participated in, there's a huge discussion on…well, size.

Both Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft had hundreds, if not thousands of posts on various message boards dedicated to the analysis of breast size. Seems that the latest indications are that Vanguard will introduce a slider that allows players to adjust their cup size however they want.

Now, this really piqued my interest. Recent polls have indicated that while 85% of all players in Everquest 2 are male, 51% of all characters are female. Yes, I'm aware that females are an increasing demographic of the playerbase, but even so, that's a whole lotta virtual cross-dressing right there.

Obviously, with a market saturated by male players, you have to wonder who's really going to "benefit" from Sigil's chest choices.

I'm suddenly struck by images of 1985's Wierd Science, where a couple of hapless and nerdy outcasts set out to create the perfect woman. Obviously, time was spent deciding the perfect chest size…just as Arnold Schwarzenegger did before his mind trip in 1990's Total Recall. To be fair, none of those protagonists chose the largest size possible on the scales they were presented, but that fact was likely due to casting choices for leading ladies as opposed to actual desires of the characters involved. After all, when designing movies for the masses, you don't want to go too far out of your way to outrage a chunk of your demographic.

So, why is it that gamers are so different in their thinking? The relative anonymous comfort of the internet? Backlash against the political correctness of the late 80's and 90's?

Whatever it is, this focus on "bewbs" will likely make it easier to pick out the real guys. Honestly, I'm going to be inclined to believe that the average uberbusty female character I encounter in those games where you can choose chest size are likely to be owned by male players.

There's been a great deal of discussion lately over on the Everquest 2 Official forums regarding the great "Solo vs. Raider" debate.  I always shake my head when I see one of these posts rear their head, and wonder at the thought processes behind posting yet another "new" discussion on the subject.  What's new to discuss here?

Apparently, one of the big concerns is over raid level gear being used to solo.  Therefore, non-raiders (who are typically non-groupers as well), make posts discussing the inherent unfairness of raiders having raid level gear and being able to use that raid level gear to attack solo rated targets.  Many of those who hold true to this point of view try to push the erroneous argument forward that without raid level gear, you can't effectively solo.

I'd like to address the rest of my post here to those who hold to the above belief.  Kindly listen up:

If you don't raid, you don't require raid gear.  I've personally shown this to be the case in parses during the recent Kingdom of Sky beta where I loaded myself up on common handcrafted and then successfully soloed several quests.  If you think you can't survive in regular gear, then that's a problem of perception - not of the actual reality of the situation. 

Approximately 80% of the upgrades for my "raiders" are coming in the form of legendary or fabled items we're getting from single group instances or dungeons.  We're not "raiding" Palace of the Awakened or Halls of Fate.  Are you also opposed to grouping? 

I get it.  You want more content.  Great.  Concentrate on that.  I'm going to set the following paragraph aside because I've found myself repeating this over and over in various discussions on the subject of soloer vs. raider vs. soloer vs. raider:

We all want more content.  All of us.  Every one of us in this discussion want more, more, more, more, more, more content.  More.  All of us.  Let me repeat:  We all want more content.  Hey, guess what?  Everyone wants more content.  Soloers want more content.  Groups want more content.  Raiders want more content.  Everyone.  Wants.  More.  Content.  More.

Get it?  I got it.  I hope we all get it.  It's not a question of raiders vs. soloers.  That's an artificial battleline being drawn in the sand by players, not by developers.  I repeat - we are artificially creating sides on an issue that doesn't require sides.  Because we ALL want more content.  All of us.  Every.  Single.  One.  Of.  Us.

We are not your enemy here.  You are not ours.  My guild consists of both raiders AND soloers.  Somehow, we manage to not kill each other every night, but actually do just fine.  It's not some magical land of rainbows and fluffy puppies where we get along in some make-believe way.  It's reality and there's no drama - certainly not like threads such as this would have us believe. 

Raiders and Soloers are in the game.  That's the reality.  You can't get rid of raiders and they can't get rid of you.  Stop the hate.  Stop the fighting.  Stop drawing battlelines. 

It's not about us vs. them.  It's about getting what we want.  All of us need to stop looking over that fence and commenting on how green "their" grass is.  Worry about our own lawns.  We all want more. 

Content.  More.  Want.  All.