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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 14,229
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09-26-2007 19:50
From: someone Shanda's Aurora Bans Transsexuals
Aurora, Gaming, Internet, King of the World, MMORPG, Online Game, SNDA, Shanda
Posted by: Riki Hsu on Sep 20, 2007 | 17:09
Editorial Summary
Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) subsidiary Aurora Technology has frozen game accounts of male players who chose to play female in-game characters in its in-house developed MMORPG King of the World, reports 17173. Aurora stipulates that only female gamers can play female characters in the game, and it requires gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam, according to the report. So .... are they making people pose in front of a webcam along with a photo ID that matches something else they've verified? Or when you want to get an opposite sexed account do you just get your opposite sexed sibling or the girl or boy next door to register the account for you? The headline uses the term "transsexuals"; hopefully that is just a stupid headline writer or a bad translator or something. If you read the TS discussions you'll swee there's some passionate held opinions about what is or isn't a TS. One of the viewpoints you won't see passionately defended by anyone, I think, is that playing opposite sexed avatars in a computer game or virtual world makes a person a transsexual. "Hey, wow, so your a TS, cool... post op, pre op, or SL lady?"  Assuming you don't have to take your clothes off while holding you government issued photo ID, face, and genitalia up close to the web cam, there's probably plenty of people who could pull off playing the part of the opposite sex during a web cam interview with a MMO employee. Some of the folks most likely to be able to would be TG folks that have the makeup and hair and voice and mannerisms downpat. Such practiced cross-sexed artists who also happened to be named Pat would be especially capable of pulling off such sexual subterfuge. There might be some other folks with ambiguous names like Pat that would cause the interviewers some problems. "So Pat, welcome to your sex verification interview. I see you left the sex blank on the registration form blank." "Oh, sorry, that was a just an oversight." "Well are you going to tell me?" "Tell you what?" "Come on, help me out here." "Are you having some kind of difficulty?" 
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Conifer Dada
Hiya m'dooks!
Join date: 6 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,716
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10-22-2007 05:32
The same could happen with race verification - like if you wanted a black avatar you'd have to prove you were black! Men with hair would have to prove they were not bald in RL by pulling their hair hard in front of a webcam.
What about attractive, young, slim female avatars played by fat, ugly older women? No problem - webcam to the rescue again!
Since this is not SL we're talking about, it doesn't worry me, but if LL start thinking about things like this will I be forced to adjust my saddlebags' a couple of percentage points?
If the nature of a 'world' is like SL, where you can be who or what you like, it should continue as such. If it is one where it is assumed that people are there specifically as themselves, then I suppose webcam verificatio is OK.
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Strife Onizuka
Moonchild
Join date: 3 Mar 2004
Posts: 5,887
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11-04-2007 18:21
The same thing could be done for species, if you want to dress up as a fox you have to pose with your fursuit.  *giggles*
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- Cyril Connolly
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- James Nachtwey
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Winter Phoenix
Voyager of Experiences
Join date: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 683
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Show Us Your [Lah Lah Lah]!
11-04-2007 18:59
Sounds to me like the games management just wants to get freebie webcam shows. Id consider this whole report suspect. Whats the point of needing such gender verification in this venue? Is KING OF THE WORLD some kind of dating MMORPG? Got doubts on this one. If it turns out to be true, TIME TO TAKE EM OUTTA BUSINESS! DOWN WITH THE IMAGINATION POLICE!!
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Nika Talaj
now you see her ...
Join date: 2 Jan 2007
Posts: 5,449
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11-04-2007 19:06
Well, we had a previous 11 pages when it was first reported in the press: /327/ef/213276/1.html |
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SuezanneC Baskerville
Forums Rock!
Join date: 22 Dec 2003
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11-04-2007 22:17
I don't get what you mean by that Nika.
The Pacific Epoch story appeared on 9-20, the thread you linked appear on the 27th.
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So long to these forums, the vBulletin forums that used to be at forums.secondlife.com. I will miss them.
I can be found on the web by searching for "SuezanneC Baskerville", or go to
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http://lindenlab.tribe.net/ created on 11/19/03.
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Robin, and Ryan
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Nika Talaj
now you see her ...
Join date: 2 Jan 2007
Posts: 5,449
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11-04-2007 23:23
Oh, sorry, didn't notice the first post date of this thread. Just meant to save folks having the same discussion all over again ...
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