I apologise in advance for the topic, but its been bothering me for weeks.
I was "raped" in wow a few weeks ago. The experience was so awful and so traumatic I left wow. I've been playing EQ2 and moderately enjoying it, but I miss my mage in wow and miss the whole wow universe. But I've been afraid to come back.
I did come back this weekend with a new character, but I'm so afraid of it happening again.
The main problem is that the youngish guy players have no idea they are totally debasing and instulting female players. And if a female objects she gets innundated with ever more insulting prods. To the point that she has to leave.
I dont believe there is a recourse. We dont have a "rape police". There is no rape kit. The female players so destroyed kick themselves and blame themselves and in most cases quit mmorpgs altogether.
I had hoped, with the new pvp servers, that the worst offenders would be gone. But coming back as a junior mage I see just as much annimosity to female players as there was before.
In my case, when I said I'm a rl female, the response was, "oh nice, boobs are ftw". I objected (sheesh) and the response was "boobs are ftw" "boobs are ftw" "boobs are ftw" from about 20 players. I felt just plain dirty. If that doesnt constitute online rape I dont know what does.
I doubt very much that ANY male player can appreciate the feeling. All I could think of at the time was, if it were !&!@$ instead of boob, would everyone have had such a big laugh?
Now granted, possibly they wanted to drive me out of the guild (lv 60 mage). They did succeed. But I'm thinking any high guild wants to keep their high players. I think what happened was it was a bunch of 14 year olds that had NO IDEA how hurtful they were being.
Neither you nor I nor Blizz can tell 14 year olds how to behave. But... I got raped by a bunch of them and I'm still afraid to come back to wow.
I dont want it ever to happen again. I cant play this universe if I have to submit to virtual rape just to raid.
I dont know the solution at all.