Digital Honeys Attract More Flies

K's friend Shawn told me the craziest story this week that had me collapsing with laughter in our booth at Outback Steakhouse. Apparently, back when graphical MMORPGs were brand new, Shawn played one called The Realm and picked the thief character to start with. Unfortunately, the way this class of character levels up is by pickpocketing, so even though Shawn was trying to play a "good thief" (one who steals for his team), everyone avoided him like the plague for fear of being swindled.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't want to be friends with him either

This not only made for a very lonely experience, but also made leveling up a slow and painful ordeal since no one would help him. So Shawn decided to do a little social experiment. In this game, people who are linked as "friends" could use the same house as a base for storing and sharing equipment. Therefore, he made 4 new login names and created 4 very attractive (aka sexy) female characters. Then he would go around typing newbie phrases like "I'm new to this game, can someone help me?" and add a few winks and smiley faces for good measure.

Yes, it's exactly what it looks like: a harem of elves

And what do you know, all the guys swarmed to help him! "Let me show you how to use your spells." "Come join our team, we're about to go on a raid." "Here, have some of this extra level 15 armor I have lying around." After accepting their generous offerings, Shawn would teleport to his home base to dump off the loot, and then would log back in as his main character to sell everything for ludicrous amounts of gold. His thief character really was like a digital pimp!

Welcome to Shawn's house of ill repute!

While K hasn't gone as far in exploiting the system, he knows at least ten other guys who have, and he did note that it was easier to find people to join his team in Monster Hunter Tri when he used a female character. What do you think? Is it wrong to deliberately choose a female character because you know you'll have greater favor among the majority male population in online gaming? Have you ever done it yourself?