AoC Bug Penalizes Female Characters?

Massively is reporting that there may be an unintended (according to FunCom) bug in the new MMO Age of Conan that would cause female characters to do significantly less damage over time. It seems that as the initial "shiny factor" wears off for the new darling MMO, the bugs and complaints just continue to pile up resulting in a fair bit of buyer's remorse. "In the meantime, some ingenious players have provided fixes along the lines of the 'unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed' trick. Poster Dnotice even provides evidence that variation in listed attack speed may be down to the gender of the first character you log in when starting AoC, and not the gender of the character you may be playing at the time. Curiouser and curiouser: although the listed speed can be altered by changing the first character's gender, the actual animation speed apparently can't."

Comments

Simple explanation

[greg1104]

Obviously this is because the female characters are off-balance due to their breasts shrinking.

Re:Simple explanation

[IBBoard]

I love the update quote about that:

Funcom has responded to the complaints ... The team is "working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon."

Re:Simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've seen, that is for very large values of "normal"

Re:Simple explanation

[Original Replica]

Breast resizing is used to balance the the FLGWTYRLLT* bonus so male and female characters level at the same rate.

*Free Loot from Guys Who Think You Really Look Like That

Re:Simple explanation

[ultramk]

Stuff like this is why it's a matter of time before AoC goes tits-up.

What? What did I say?

Re:Simple explanation

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

While I understand that your tongue was firmly in cheek, there may be some truth to this. The only mmorpg that I play currently is Two Moons, where to be an archer, one must also be female. I constantly get invitations to join guilds, trade, etc. Not for a moment do I attribute this to my gaming skills, which are meager at best. No, I'm not undervaluing what I personally bring to the table. I'm old and chit - so my reflexes are slow. I play from my laptop, which puts me at a display and reaction disadvantage. But my character has t&a. Exactly the same t&a as every other female archer, which makes it even funnier. It's just a continuation of the old irc warez channel trick of formulating a female personna so that peop0le would share freely. In most cases, I could garner op status within a week, unlike my male persona which had contributed to the channels for months or years. So....if there is a penalty to female characters - perhaps there should be. In 2Moons, there is an advantage to being an archer - ranged weapons with pushback rock at lower levels. But I digress.... The question isn't really whether there should be certain penalties against male or female genders, it's how those penalties play out in game play. If social interaction plays a significant part, then penalize the females on strength and the males on charisma (or whatever you want to call it.) I'm not even sure the playing field should be level anyway. I mean really - how many female barbarian warriors have ever existed - and could they ever go toe to toe with their male counterparts? Make deception and sexual manipulation part of the game play if you want it to mimic real life.

Re:Simple explanation

[nschubach]

I know you were being funny, but the only thing they offer that's even remotely unique is the combat and it's not even that unique. I think DDO did combat a little better than the typical click to auto-attack and spam spells/skills.

It's your typical quest grind to max level where you are forced to participate in PVP or raids to pass time. Damn, I'm so sick of MMOs.

Re:Simple explanation

[montyzooooma]

I mean really - how many female barbarian warriors have ever existed - and could they ever go toe to toe with their male counterparts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica

Re:Simple explanation

[montyzooooma]

The funny thing is the grind to max level at 80 isn't that hard. It can reputedly be done in 5-10 days of solid play without abusing any bugs or quickfixes. I'm an extremely casual player and I've made level 40 in less than two weeks. When I played WOW it took me about 8 months to get to level 30 of the then level 60 level cap. And yes I am THAT casual, maybe an hour 2-3 nights during the week and some decent 3-5 hour sessions at the weekend.

Hey now

[Renderer of Evil]

Some people pay good money to see bugs penalize female characters.

Re:Hey now

[MindlessAutomata]

Here, I can give you that for free:

(WARNING!!!)

http://image.nuclearmayhem.com/happyfunsmile.jpg

Re:Hey now

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus christ.

*clears internet cache and history*

Re:Hey now

[nschubach]

He did warn you... and thought it bears striking resemblance to every description I've heard, I don't think that's Mr. Christ.

Other gender bonuses to offset?

[bornyesterday]

Has anyone checked to see if there is a gender bonus for female characters who have tailoring or cooking professions?

Re:Other gender bonuses to offset?

[berashith]

only while they are not wearing shoes

Re:Other gender bonuses to offset?

[PaganRitual]

Why does everyone automatically assume that I know those two?

(Also, I like to fart in the tub.)

DPS

[spyrochaete]

I play the game and have heard the rumours but have not tested. However, damage is calculated as DPS (damage per second) in this game, so wouldn't a slow-swinging she-hulk simply do more damage with each swing?

It's true though - the game is rather unfinished. I'm going to unsubscribe when my 30 free days are up and perhaps I'll come back in 6 months. It just doesn't pay to get in on the ground floor with an MMO.

P.s., female characters wear only a g-string under their armour. :) Topless Playboy bunny hops abound. It truly is a fantasy wonderland.

Re:DPS

[merreborn]

It just doesn't pay to get in on the ground floor with an MMO.

There's also a disadvantage to getting in too late, though. Newcomers to WoW are increasingly finding that it's very hard to find people to run low-level instances with, and as a result, when they finally *do* catch up with everyone else at level 70, they don't have the instance-running skills they need to successfully contribute to end-game instance runs.

Similarly, there's no value in low-level trade goods, like there once was. Back around launch, you could make serious bank sewing low level packs to other players, etc. These days, it's next to impossible to find buyers for anything you craft until you get up to higher levels.

For the optimal MMO experience, you want to get in while there are still plenty of new players coming in so you'll have people of the same level to quest, hunt and trade with, but after the major bugs have been worked out.

Re:DPS

[Timothy Brownawell]

hmm... what would it take to get people to (repeatedly) switch to a new character after they get to the highest level?

Re:DPS

[spyrochaete]

You're on the right track, and that's why I bought AoC a couple of weeks after launch. I didn't want to be intimidated by 3 million people spouting jargon and acronyms I didn't recognize. However, the game is so buggy and unfinished that much of the knowledge I amass is moot shortly thereafter. For example, most of the character attribute points do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING right now.

I'm wagering that 6 months is the sweet spot. The game box will probably be cheaper by then, and the real game-quashing bugs should be been squooshed.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could just wait until a new server opens up.

It happens occasionally in WoW and surely will happen in AoC.

If he simply gets back in the game with the creation of a new server, he shouldn't be missing any of the problems with instances or trade-goods

Re:DPS

[TheLinuxSRC]

Perma-death. If your character dies, you start over.

Re:DPS

[bishiraver]

That's because the power curve of the game moved as the game matured, and settled at 60, then 70 or whatever. 80% of the characters are utilizing 20% of the level range, if even that.

The fix for it, of course, is to somehow keep the power curve a distributed bell curve with a majority of the people being average. There are many ways to fix this, but the problem is coming up with a solution that won't piss the ever loving hell out of everyone who plays the game. One way would be to make the "heritage" of the character important, where you gather stuff for your line of characters instead of for your single one.. but the flip side of that is each character you make can permanently die.

It's the big conundrum so many MMOs face as they age. And nobody has put something out there to fix it. Except maybe - maybe - Eve, where corporations are bigger than anything else in the game, and the game is about, well... looking at spreadsheets.

Re:DPS

[Incoherent07]

Actually, low level trade goods in WoW are only going up in price, especially on older servers; the only people buying are people who already have 70s to finance their alts. My most recent alt was the first in awhile to actually have enough money for a mount at 40, simply by selling crap you get from mining.

Re:DPS

[Sponge Bath]

A shiny new badge like in Call of Duty 4.
My friend said "Give up my cool weapons for a badge? No way!".
Me: "but it's so precious and shiny..."

Re:DPS

[Fozzyuw]

Similarly, there's no value in low-level trade goods, like there once was

Er... you're not playing the WoW I'm playing. Actually, the reverse is true. Low-level goods and items are drastically higher in cost than they can reasonably purchased by new players at those levels.

This is do to primarily to the inflation of money injected into the economy with daily quests. It's very easy to farm money for any level 70, and as such, they transfer that money to alts. Not wanting to spend endless hours leveling up trade skills (again), they just purchase the trade goods off the Auction House, and they're willing to spend 5g-10g for a stack of 20 wool cloth, to save them 20 mins farming it.

Likewise, some nice class stat green items are selling for several gold for levels in the teens. However, the main point is the same. This is a major disadvantage to new players. Players whom I've come to hand out 100g to just so they can buy some decent stuff.

Re:DPS

[NeoSkandranon]

Lots of people do that in WOW out of boredom or to explore another class or profession. But, at that point, they likely have a guild whos members are providing equipment, so even though there are lower level players lots of them are "supported" and don't purchase lower level goods.

Re:DPS

[menace3society]

I think what you mean to say is to allow someone else to get in the game early and work up to high levels, and then buy his account off of him so you don't have to waste your time killing squirrels or whatever.

Re:DPS

[murdocj]

Actually, it's a major advantage to new low level players, because they can sell the stuff they harvest for good money (e.g. for buying their level 40 mount). Low level players do NOT need to buy equipment on the AH. They get plenty of good stuff via drops / quest rewards. My characters have almost never bought gear on the AH, certainly not at the low levels.

Re:DPS

[Bloodoflethe]

Newcomers to WoW are increasingly finding that it's very hard to find people to run low-level instances with, and as a result, when they finally *do* catch up with everyone else at level 70, they don't have the instance-running skills they need to successfully contribute to end-game instance runs Frankly, that's BS. All these people need is some attention and guidance. That is, in other words a guild that actually cares about their development in the game. I personally trained some newbies (husband and wife) in instancing. The husband took to it pretty well and I taught him higher level tactics that over half of the raiding guilds never seem to achieve. His wife, more of an artist than a statistician and tactician, was also able to keep up and do well, in fact.
We picked up a few more of the same along the way and ended up with quite a motley crew of individuals that work together with not nearly as much raiding experience as most raiding guilds, but with a combined effectiveness far greater than most of them. Why? Because we communicate effectively.
A simple solution but so very overlooked. Quick example. Gear checking sides say that we were barely ready for Karazhan in WoW, but we felled the Curator on the second attempt.

Re:DPS

[Tridus]

I had the same problem with it. I'm willing to live with running into walls of max level players if it means the game that I play is actually finished.

What they released is beta-quality, at best.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

A Rebirth system.

Basically, stat boost when you drop a high level char to lowest level and lose all eqp.

Re:DPS

[zippthorne]

Not really. They can sell stuff they harvest, which is good if they enjoy harvesting. If the crafting game is what's fun for them, they can't really access it until they're at an advanced level.

It's simply not cost effective, since they can't dump their grind-goods even for the cost of the non-farmed components.

It's a bit disingenuous to say that this is a recent development however. The nature of the crafting XP system means that the raw materials are almost always more valuable than the finished goods, since with the raw materials, you can get the item AND the XP. The only *chance* you had for profit with the crafting system was to make items that are components for goods in other crafting professions.

Frankly, though, the crafting minigame always seemed a bit primitive. "Gather components and wait for progress bar" doesn't require any skill, and therefore can't differentiate products, either.

Re:DPS

[MaskedSlacker]

Correction: Its an advantage to min/maxing low level players aware that they can finance themselves with 2 gathering professions. It is a major disadvantage to any wanting to play a roleplaying game where their character fills a role. OTOH WoW isn't really an RPG any more.

Re:DPS

[dwye]

> P.s., female characters wear only a g-string under their armour. :)
> Topless Playboy bunny hops abound. It truly is a fantasy wonderland.

Well, Robert E. Howard didn't write Conan at the highest level of sophistication, either, as his target readership was mostly teenage boys (no cracks relating to his possible homosexuality, here), to this is entirely appropriate.

Now, to be politically correct, male characters would have to go about in fur jockstraps, as well.

Well, whatever keeps the players out of the gene pool.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, low level trade goods in WoW are only going up in price, especially on older servers; the only people buying are people who already have 70s to finance their alts. My most recent alt was the first in awhile to actually have enough money for a mount at 40, simply by selling crap you get from mining. He was talking about crafted goods, not crafting materials. The prior is nearly valueless, the latter is quite profitable as you say.

Re:DPS

[Chris Burke]

This is do to primarily to the inflation of money injected into the economy with daily quests. It's very easy to farm money for any level 70, and as such, they transfer that money to alts. Not wanting to spend endless hours leveling up trade skills (again), they just purchase the trade goods off the Auction House, and they're willing to spend 5g-10g for a stack of 20 wool cloth, to save them 20 mins farming it.

Likewise, some nice class stat green items are selling for several gold for levels in the teens. However, the main point is the same. This is a major disadvantage to new players. Players whom I've come to hand out 100g to just so they can buy some decent stuff.

The thing is, it's no harder for that low-level character to gather the trade items than it was before, so if they themselves are trying to craft things, it's the same as before.

But on the other hand, the trade goods that the low-level character gathers are now worth much more than they used to be. This means things whose costs are fixed like skill training and the level 40/60 mounts are now much easier to afford. I started a brand new character on a new server after the expansion hit, and that character was swimming in money by the time they hit level 60. Another new character started after the dailies hit was also swimming in money, even loaning some to my level 70 to afford their epic flying mount, and was also able to frequently buy upgrades.

So there are plusses and minuses. Mostly plusses, I think, if you know how to work the system. But for a new player who will probably want to try everything and not know the best ways to make money, yeah, it's probably tough.

Re:DPS

[Omestes]

For the optimal MMO experience, you want to get in while there are still plenty of new players coming in so you'll have people of the same level to quest, hunt and trade with, but after the major bugs have been worked out.

Amen, I started WoW about 2 weeks after launch, the early game was pretty fun, finding your market niche, playing the AH, exploring new instances with fellow newbs. I played my ally druid to 60, and promptly quit (school, and the fact that Raiding sucks) shortly after they opened Silithus up. I started playing again a couple weeks after BC came out, and rolled a new horde toon... It was much less fun, every item under 30 was massively overpriced thanks to twinks, but there was no market in ANY trade skill items, except high level stuff, and mid-level potions/enchants. Finding people to do most instances is impossible, unless there is a twink drop. That and the fact that all the 56-60 content is dead, which is a shame since some of the best instances are in that range (scholo and strat rocked, as did Onyxia/MC raids).

I quit about a year later, after leveling my shamie to 70, and getting a couple 60's. I didn't want to do the pigeonhole raid thing.

I miss it when there were very few cookie cutter builds, since people were still figuring out their classes, too.

I'm planning on trying WAR about a month after release, when the rush dies down, and some of the dire bugs get quashed. I might migrate back to WoW for a month or so after WotLK, just to see what they added, and join in some groups whose never actually run any 70+ instances. Being confused together leads to better grouping.

Re:DPS

[zlexiss]

what would it take to get people to (repeatedly) switch to a new character after they get to the highest level?

Aging? You start losing stats after the character gets too old. Been done in RPG's before.

Re:DPS

[nschubach]

That's the most realistic solution I've found. The other is not making it a race to max level before the game begins.

Re:DPS

[nschubach]

One of the more creative ideas I've heard, but how do you avoid people following HOWTOs on building a character the way they are best needed? For instance. If you somehow had to complete objectives in order to achieve a certain skill or trait, those objectives would be recorded and repeated by thousands of people the next day in their ultimate race to the max level. If you make it random, or difficult to figure out, people will cry that they missed the opportunity to get their character the cake baking skill and cry that they are gimped/nerfed/etc.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

stop stop, if i read anymore i'll be tempted to install UO again and join up on the hardcore private servers.

for the 7th summer in a row.

Re:DPS

[Lehk228]

it's been over a year so things may have changed a lot since i played, but all the real money i made in WoW was made using the auctioneer addon, speculating on goods around patch time and sniping undervalued items who's auctions ended at low population times.


i never broke level 35 and always had more gold than my brother who was level 60, then again by the time i started doing that i had bored of the PvP and PvE aspects of the game and was almost exclusively playing it as a MMO version of DopeWar.

Re:DPS

[lgw]

Give everyone the HOWTOs in the game. I'm always annoyed that I have to search all the character class forums and sit down with a spreadsheet to get an MMO character that doesn't suck, because the designers either hide the important info from me, or simply don't know. The latter case is particlarly sad (Mythic, I'm looking at you here).

Re:DPS

[lgw]

Maybe "gathering" is the role they wanted to play? Bah, min/maxing is the only fun part of these games to begin with.

Anyway, WTF is a "gathering profession" - I've never played WoW, but it looked like you be swinging a sword or casting a spell or somesuch, not be a haircutter/dancer like that fantastically stupid SWG game.

Re:DPS

[duckInferno]

Fun.

Re:DPS

[Fluffeh]

you want to get in while there are still plenty of new players coming in so you'll have people of the same level to quest, hunt and trade with, but after the major bugs have been worked out. Yes and no, getting in at the ground level while there are a lot of bugs can be annoying for certain things, but very very beneficial for others.

Perfect example: If you got into crafting early in EverQuest II, you could have been lucky enough to use a lovely little crafting loop where you bought a few items from a NPC, crafted some goods and then sold your crafted goods back to the same vendor for a decent profit level. Outcome: Free easy cash. Subsequently these type of "bugs" are weeded out and follow on players can't benefit from this.

Therefore getting in right at the very very start:
Downside - Game is rather broken and things don't work as well as they should.
Upside - You can turn some of these things to your advantage quite quickly before these problems are fixed.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a masochist and you deserve everything you get.

Re:DPS

[Gideon Fubar]

sadly, this would be far more exploitable than the current system. As soon as the first base-stat exploit hits, there'll be people running around with unsigned stats.

I shouldn't have to tell you that this would be game-breakingly bad.

Re:DPS

[MaskedSlacker]

Gathering = Mining, herb gathering, skinning Gathering supplies. As for your silly statement that min/maxing is the only fun part, that's your opinion. I play rpgs to play characters in a role. To live in that character. WoW fails at that miserably. Even on roleplaying servers.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda depends what way you look at it. I think of myself (my character) as someone who goes off questing, adventuring and killing things; not someone who makes a living as a tailor and just does a bit of adventuring on the side. (Just as well too, for any craftable less than epic you'll never get more for them than the cost of the shard it'll disenchant into.)

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that won't do you any good. Any time a new server opens up, there's a round of free character transfers from high population servers to help get a critical mass of players for the new server. As far as I know, there haven't been any new servers with new characters only since shortly after WoW's release.

It may be a different case for other games, though.

Re:DPS

[KDR_11k]

I hope that won't ever be combined with the 2000 hour grind style of MMORPG. With permadeath I'd hope they'd make progression upwards faster and have more dynamic play overall.

Re:DPS

[robosmurf]

Well, to a certain extent FFXI attempted this.

As each character can level multiple jobs (classes) then there is a reason to be in low level areas.

Also, there are a number of areas that are level capped (you temporarily de-level when entering). This is an interesting idea, but seems to annoy many people.

Also, FFXI hasn't changed the level cap in years, so most of the recent content IS tailored around the high level players.

Re:DPS

[KDR_11k]

Any sufficiently complex game will have quirks the designers didn't anticipate and sometimes these quirks end up as making one or more options way OP. Of course people will always flock to the most OP solution and then complain when it gets nerfed or even disabled (if it was the result of combining things that weren't supposed to work together). I'm fairly sure the goal of the designers is that most builds are viable but once you get people hardcore min/maxing it that easily breaks, especially if the combat situations don't change enough to require different skillsets for each.

Re:DPS

[DerWulf]

Your post is not true. While you can't find a group for every low level instance, a lot of classes have quests in the most important ones. Plus, instancing is currently slower than questing since the leveling changes were implemented a few patches back.

Low level trade goods can be extremely profitable depending on the server you are playing on. We just started two character on a different realms (so no money twinking etc.) and both of us are at 200G at level 35 just from selling copper (5G/Stack), iron (20G/Stack) and leather. If anything the opposite is true: measured by the rarity and the kind of goods you can produced high level materials are actually undervalued since most miners, herbalists etc are level 70 and don't bother to go farming in low level areas (thank god!).

Re:DPS

[Cym]

That's not really accurate. The low-level game in WoW is certainly not what it once was, but it's not entirely as you describe, either. A lot of it has to do with server age. I haven't seen Blizzard open many new servers lately, but when they do, it's like the launch of the game all over again as far as low level material is concerned.

I play on one of the older servers, however, where it is entirely different. When I leveled at release, I had to scrimp and save and play the auction house and make money any way I could in order to get the 80 gold for my mount at level 40. I recently rolled a new character on that old server, and with no genuine effort on my part, had about 400 gold by the time I hit level 40. I wasn't doing anything particularly different; I had one crafting skill and one gathering skill, just like before.

The difference was that since it's an old server, there are plenty of people with level 70 characters - sometimes a half dozen level 70 characters - and money to burn. They're either newly picking up crafting skills and want to plow through the low level materials without putting in much time, or they're giving hordes of gold to their low level characters in order to speed them through the game. At release, if I could sell a decent level 20 green weapon for one gold, I was happy. Now, you're looking more at ten to twenty gold, and some of the twink weapons go for hundreds. Crafted materials (the good ones, anyway) are much the same.

I actually find instance runs easier to get together now than back in the day, though that's due almost entirely to the new tools they put in place, like meeting stones.

I tend to agree with you that the optimal experience is after the bugs but before everyone passes you by. What I enjoy most about MMORPGs, though, and what's sadly hardest to get, is that feeling of exploration and discovery. And while you can create that for yourself by not talking to anyone and not reading websites about the game, that's almost impossible (for me at least). It's best achieved by getting in at release, or better yet, beta.

Re:DPS

[bishiraver]

Yah, but FFXI was one of the worst grinding games out there. With the proposed system, you could get to 'average' level / power in a matter of days, not in a matter of years like with FFXI. Plus, there would have to be some skill involved -- I remember playing FFXI a few years ago and literally falling asleep at my computer while our group pulled stuff in some desert or another. I woke up a half hour later with my group congratulating me on how well I did.

We had all gone up half a level.

We had spent four hours there.

Re:DPS

[Fozzyuw]

Actually, it's a major advantage to new low level players

Please note, I said "new" players, not "low-level" characters. There is an inherent difference between the two.

New plays are at a disadvantage to these goods just like they are at a disadvantage to find groups to run a dungeon. "low-level" characters of a higher level character likely has other high level characters to supply them with man-power for dungeons (instance run) or easily/quickly farm resources for crafting.

New players have to...
A) Understand the economy (what items are valuable, such as cloth and green items)
B) Understand the Auction House (or even know it exists)
C) Be able to acquire resources cheaply and easily (which requires them to level up to a higher level first)
D) Learn about and acquire some trade professions (ore, leather, and herbalism gathering are all impossible without having learned their respected trade professions first)
E) Not have a profession that will consume the resources they're gathering (it's hard to make money of cloth if you're a tailor and are working to level your trade skill).
F) Actually be interested in spending time farming stuff for money, so they can buy the items that alts of high level characters are buying with their pocket change, instead of continuing to level their character to make farming eventually easier.

I think what I'm really trying to say is that, Blizzard has spent a lot of time making it faster to level and fighting gold farmers, without balancing the actual monetary progression or effects of inflation. Now that people are leveling even faster than before (which was already fast), they're out leveling quests, money and item rewards, and having less loot to turn over to vendors or AH for cash, before having to buy more spells for their character.

Those with high level characters have no problem. Brand new players, should probably just be given 100g credit when they start so they can at least compete on a financial scale.

Re:DPS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, one of my newer characters I decided to just ignore crafting skills and just took skinning and herbalism. Crafting is a huge money sink, but there's a lot of money to be made dumping flowers on the auction house.

Re:DPS

[lgw]

I play characters in a role: the role of a competitive person. Competitive people min/max. Min/max and role-playing are othagonal, it's not a spectrum.

Re:DPS

[DerWulf]

I disagree ... a friend of mine started sometime after me, was and is a complete newbie as is appearant when looking at his talents ;) ... Making money he could though. It's ridiculously easy to do nowadaysm easier than leveling a hard class (warrior) solo ...

Re:DPS

[bishiraver]

I'm fairly sure the goal of the designers is that most builds are viable but once you get people hardcore min/maxing it that easily breaks, especially if the combat situations don't change enough to require different skillsets for each.

That's what automated testing is for. It's fairly easy to programmatically figure out all possible combinations and test against all other possible combinations. And then graph the results.

Re:DPS

[KDR_11k]

It's not easy to judge the result of such a thing. Maybe the ability can maintain a permanent stun, how do you check if it does? Repeat just it? Repeat a sequence of moves? Brute force all possible chains of action (grows exponentially)? How do you consider potential counter moves or strategies? Who could properly read the resulting graph? What exactly do you graph anyway, damage dealt vs damage received? Damage per second (wouldn't catch combos that reduce the enemys damage a lot)? Who dies first (have fun with all the level, item and skill combinations along with the problem of deciding who SHOULD win)? It gets worse the more factors the game has (e.g. is there a specific movement pattern that makes the seemingly OP weapon useless in real play?).

Re:DPS

[bishiraver]

"Brute force all possible chains of action (grows exponentially)"

"Who dies first (have fun with all the level, item and skill combinations along with the problem of deciding who SHOULD win)?"

Ahhhhh.... thus comes the adage, "Keep it Simple, Stupid." Maybe if combinations of equipment/skillsets cannot be easily tested automatically (you've already defined the skills and the equipment, why can't you write an algorithm to test 'em against each other?) ... you're thinking about the game mechanics all wrong. Maybe the game mechanics system sucks. There's a difference between a behemoth game mechanics system that attempts to predict everything, and all the subtle nuances and bugs that can introduce... and something simple and elegant that seems complex on the surface.

Bug?

[computerman413]

Are we sure it's a bug, and not just the work of some sexist programmer?

Re:Bug?

[RetroRichie]

If there was a sexist programmer on the team, male party members would be receiving damage over time.

That's not a bug....

[scipiodog]

It's a feature!

Actually, it's made up elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

The women do a tremendous amount of psychological damage over time.

Re:Actually, it's made up elsewhere

[SiriusStarr]

Gah! Dr Pepper on my Thinkpad!!

Another game another bug

[sparhawktn]

You know games have bugs, a lot of them, and people aways act surprised every time comes to light. Why is it then that people always buy something the day it his the selves then complain when it is broken, I know it shouldn't be broken, but more times that not there is an issue that needs to be addressed when you first load up the game and have to download a huge patch just to start playing the game.

Re:Another game another bug

[VanillaBabies]

This might because AoC was touted as "the" WoW killer and has been a)buggy and b) disappointing. Personally i was wholly disappointed and the unpolished feel from issues such as the one mentioned certainly didn't help.

Re:Another game another bug

[wattrlz]

I'm pretty sure there was a time back when things weren't released until all or most of the known bugs were dealt with. It was a while ago, so it's possible I just confabulated the memory. Back when if you bought something you got a thing and not just a limited license to access the current state of whatever it was you thought you had bought.

Re:Another game another bug

[afidel]

Did you play WoW at launch? It was buggy, crashy, and fairly unpolished (admittedly it was more polished than most games in the genre at launch, but it's from Blizzard that's kind of expected =) Almost all non-trivial software is fairly buggy at launch because no matter how good your QA is they will never have enough resources to perfectly model the real world, and even if they did the product would be so expensive it would never be bought. For example the code for the space shuttle costs a staggering ~$1,000 per line and it only has to run on one platform, and it STILL has bugs (admittedly very few).

Re:Another game another bug

[brkello]

Who is surprised it has bugs? It is just surprising, to me anyways, to have such a weird bug. To have a bug like described above, reducing combat speed due to the first character you logged in with being a female, has to mean some pretty horrible coding. How can that even be related. Add the breast side bug in and you get an amusing news story.

It is less about if an MMORPG has bugs...it is just how severe and how quickly the devs respond to the problem.

Re:Another game another bug

[KDR_11k]

I have a feeling that being touted as a killer for some other game automatically means failure. Most games just try to stand for themselves, just some try to directly grab the userbase of a big game and realize too late that the target has a huge userbase because it is an exceptional game and realistically the chance of beating it are very low.

Age of...?

[oahazmatt]

AoC Bug Penalizes Female Characters? That's a rather amusing headline if you read AoC as Age of Consent.

Re:Age of...?

[MaskedSlacker]

Then it would have to read AoC Bug Rewards Female Characters. Such as when female teachers molest male students. Niiice.

Re:Age of...?

[Fluffeh]

Perhaps I am getting too old, but every time I see AoC, I keep thinking that someone typo'ed when they meant to type in DAOC.

My brain happily refuses to acknowledge Age of Conan even though a few of my good mates talk nothing else MMO besides this (and the "good old days" spent playing every MMO going all the way back to Ultima Online)

Re:Age of...?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that you didn't post this anonymously...say hi to the party van for me.

Re:Age of...?

[JosKarith]

Maybe it'd read better as

AoC Bug Penilizes Female Characters?

Communication Issue...

[TheSubAtomic]

This was probably just a side effect of bad communication. The graphics devs probably didn't know to make the attack animation the same speed as the males. The variable attack speed based upon animation speed is a good idea, they just executed it poorly. Just like most of the stuff in the game thus far. It'll probably be fixed very shortly. inb4 sexism lawsuits

Re:Communication Issue...

[BlackSnake112]

It is a feature not a bug. The programmers where thinking of the slow motion Bay Watch running when programming female characters movements.

so what if they attack slower

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still strip them of all the clothing ....

I just want to leave you with this.

If you can see the nipples, does anything else matter

New MMO

[Merls the Sneaky]

New MMO has bugs, more at 11!

I believe AOC was released a little early, probably to beat wrath of the lich king to release.

Female characters should be weaker

[MikeRT]

It's a well-established fact that women have much weaker upper bodies. Hollywood has done a great job of propogating the myth of the ass kicking woman who can take on a bunch of athletic men in combat, but the reality is that even if most athletic women went up against a normal, decently in shape man, they would get badly hurt in one-on-one fighting.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[bugnuts]

It's also a well-established fact that you DIE when a barbarian sneaks up on you, stuns and knocks you down, then lops your head from your shoulders.

Stupid hollywood... if not for them, we'd all pay $15/mo to stay dead. How dare they make a game where they're not simulating reality?

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[moderatorrater]

LOL, first of all, the only reason this is flamebait is cultural, not physical/biological.

Second of all, the characters you play in MMOs are going to be the exceptions to the rule, so having strong women that are great at fighting makes sense.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Dr_Barnowl]

That's a statistic ; not a fact.

Statistically speaking, yes, women are not as strong as men ; but this is more to do with male and female culture differences than actual physical makeup.

On the tissue level, both sexes are built of the same bone and muscle materials. Even if you take into account the effects of higher androgen levels in men, there is no reason that a woman cannot achieve musculature equal to a man of similar height.

Women DO tend to be shorter than men, because their skeletal structure matures earlier, so statistically speaking, their mass will be less than a man. Again, this does not account for any particular individual.

As for your assertion that an athletic woman would be beaten by a "normal, decently in shape man", statistics state that "normal" does NOT mean "decently in shape" in most western nations.

I dated a Phys. Ed. teacher once ; she was an ex-member of a national swimming squad. While I was in my school rowing team and worked out regularly, she could probably have kicked my ass. Her upper body was most definitely not weak.

Strength is a minor part of combat ability anyway. As Firefly fans will know, it takes less than a pound of force with a sword to break skin. It's far more important that you choose a weapon appropriate to your build, and learn to wield it properly.

And most people will get badly hurt in one-on-one fighting, especially if their ability is reasonably matched to their opponent... on BOTH sides of the fight. It's only highly imbalanced fights where the "hero" has a level of ability far higher than the "henchmen" that the hero gets off scot-free while the henchmen eat dirt. Which is presumably just the sort of dichotomy that escapist media like RPGs are meant to represent.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[PakProtector]

Somebody needs to go take basic college anatomy and physiology classes.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[dave562]

I think anyone who practices Wing Chun will point out some serious flaws in your logic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng_Mui

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't AoC based on Hollywood?

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Anonymous Coward]

I dated a Phys. Ed. teacher once ; she was an ex-member of a national swimming squad. National women's swimming squad... That sounds familiar...

East German Steroids' Toll: 'They Killed Heidi'

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[ePhil_One]

but the reality is that even if most athletic women went up against a normal, decently in shape man, they would get badly hurt in one-on-one fighting

Yes, a well known fact.

While probably a troll, this is just a stupid statement. In one on one fighting, the number of factors that affect the outcome are pretty large. Speed, environment, weapons, willingness to attack (most guys specifically avoid specific vulnerable targets in a testosterone based version of MAD). But a moderately athletic woman trained in a fighting skill would kick the average untrained man's ass; the same way a professional racer in a Taurus can out-lap the untrained in a sports car.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Hubbell]

A friend of mine teaches women's self defense classes. He (my friend) taught his student's that they WILL lose if they try to fight an attacker unless they get the element of surprise in a strike to the balls, throat, or eyes. Either they attack those 3 vital points with utter desperation and ferocity, nearly any male attacker (who is more than likely going to be much larger mass/size wise) is going to fucking own them, for lack of a better term. It's simple physics, a 200lb man needs only swing his arm clothesline style to take out nearly any woman he would attack. The only women who stand a chance against a larger (and almost every time it WILL be a larger male) attacker are those who get the balls eyes or throat in the first go and do enough damage to flee/get a weapon, or those who are ridiculously strong (for a woman) and can actually go toe to toe strengthwise, or the third case is a woman who knows how to fight (especially ground/grapple) vs a drunk or someone who doesn't know how to fight at all.
I'm 5'11, 190lbs, and I've had girls I know who are all I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR and take karate/self defense classes say they are just as strong as a man/can take one. Every single one ended on the ground with me mounting them quite effortlessly. All the karate and self defense shit you learn means shit when it's the equivalent of a mac truck running over a motorcycle.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[zippthorne]

Every guy you meet produces and uses his own steroids. Women, not so much. I suppose you could say it's cultural...

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[MaskedSlacker]

Actually the physical strength differences between men and women that are not the result of different lifestyles (men doing more manual labor thus using and developing muscle strength more) are fairly small. Differing skeletal structures is one real difference. Grip strength (according to my physical anthropology professor anywa) is another. That being said, there is a rather large margin between male and female weightlifting olympic records (when comparing same weight classes) as high as 30%.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[moderatorrater]

the physical strength differences between men and women that are not the result of different lifestyles (men doing more manual labor thus using and developing muscle strength more) are fairly small...there is a rather large margin between male and female weightlifting olympic records (when comparing same weight classes) as high as 30% I believe you rebutted your own comment. Doesn't that pretty much show that the difference is biological rather than lifestyle? I'm stronger than my wife by a reasonably large margin, and she has a more physical job than I do. In other words, my experience doesn't back that up at all.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Chris Burke]

A friend of mine teaches women's self defense classes. He (my friend) taught his student's that they WILL lose if they try to fight an attacker unless they get the element of surprise in a strike to the balls, throat, or eyes.

Yes, that's very good advice for a self defense class, where the idea is to teach a woman how to defend herself from an attacker, and the attacker isn't going to wait until she's a 5th degree black belt before assaulting her. Most women taking the course aren't trying to become bad-ass warriors, they're trying to make it harder for some dude to rape them.

I mean really, for the vast majority of cases the best self defense advice is simply "kick em in the nuts and run like hell". When your goal isn't to win UFC, that's all you need, especially if you don't want to limit your students to those women who actually have the potential to be fighters.

It's simple physics, a 200lb man needs only swing his arm clothesline style to take out nearly any woman he would attack.

Unless you're assuming a 90lb waif trembling because she hasn't eaten in two days, that's pretty funny. If we're assuming a woman who is in shape, unless this ridiculous clothesline swing actually connects with a fist to the head, it's not going to do much.

I'm 5'11, 190lbs, and I've had girls I know who are all I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR and take karate/self defense classes say they are just as strong as a man/can take one. Every single one ended on the ground with me mounting them quite effortlessly. All the karate and self defense shit you learn means shit when it's the equivalent of a mac truck running over a motorcycle.

Person Taking Karate Thinks They Are Bigger Badass Than They Really Are, I think would be the Onion headline for that amazing story.

If "all the karate and self defense" doesn't mean shit when some mere 190lb dude is coming at you, then you didn't learn shit, and that's probably a terrible class. Karate might be a bad choice, since it's a very direct style. Judo would be perfect, it's a style designed around using your opponent's momentum against them, and a "mac truck" has a lot of momentum. But really, just about every style deals with methods of redirecting an attacker who is larger and stronger. These girls you beat up on just didn't know crap about that, so they lost.

For an actually skilled woman, which I readily grant tends to be a rarer thing than for men, your 5'11" 190lb as ain't even close to a "mac truck". I have personally witnessed such a woman drop a 6'6" 250+ man who bench pressed 400lbs like he was a sack of potatoes. And he himself could do a little better than clothesline swings and mad bull charges.

It's fair to say that on average women have less strength and less mass, and therefore the physics wins out. That's what your friend's self defense class advice is based upon, and it is sound advice. But your general statement that a woman can't beat a man unless she's ridiculously strong, or the man is drunk, is silly and wrong.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Hubbell]

9 times out of a 10 the average man (not skinny geek or pencil pusher) can take out the average woman. As for the clothesline comment I made, it's simple physics again. A larger man can swing his arm and if it connects either the woman goes down or she braced herself which means his hand is now on her. Unless she knows judo/grappling techniques, and barring this guy never wrestling/playfighting in his entire life especially as a child, it's over unless she manages a shot to one of the 3 weakpoints (balls, eyes, or throat) It's great and all to say BUT WOMEN ARE JUST AS xxx AS MEN! But it's just not true when you talk about the physical makeup of the two groups. Women are generally smaller, and men are generally larger, and in a lot of cases much larger. Unless a woman is a master of a martial art/fighting technique, has a gun, or is physically close enough to the size of her attacker (if she's >140-150lbs, atleast from my experience with guys I know who weigh 130-140 and even they workout, it's simply too little mass to contend with a much larger opponent unless you know how to fight), she will lose, and lose hard without a disabling move surprising and as such disabling her attacker.
As to 'the girls I beat up on' they asked me to spar with them every time, and in one case it was me fucking with her after she got out of class one day and her saying she could kick my ass, but the funny thing about girls is, atleast the ones I know, they are generally 100-125, maybe 130lbs. To a guy my size (I have very little arm strength but top notch abdominal/leg strength) it's a simple matter of getting my hands on them (them meaning the girl, or anyone I'm fighting/sparring/wrestling with and is smaller than me) As soon as I have a grip, physics wins in my favor due to the mass difference alone.
What I'm trying to say is, for the most part in a man vs woman situation, barring weapons and such, the woman loses almost every time unless she has top notch training (or a surprise disabling move to one of the only 3 weak spots that really count) and he is completely inept.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[shawn(at)fsu]

Not sure why this one is labeled FlameBait. Sadly I have no mod points to fix it.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Chris Burke]

Look, when you're talking about the "average" woman and the "average" man, of course the observation that the average woman isn't as strong as the average man is true. The "average" man could beat up the "average" woman, yeah, especially since the "average" woman has no training. Big surprise there.

But you can't apply the average to any particular example, and it's not nearly as automatically lopsided as you contend. You're claiming that unless the woman is extremely skilled, and the man has never so much as play-wrestled in their life, the woman loses. That's just wrong. The physics is not a powerful as you think, and sometimes works in the opposite direction. This notion that a simple clothesline is going to drop a woman who is in shape and not themselves inept is nonsense.

(if she's >140-150lbs, atleast from my experience with guys I know who weigh 130-140 and even they workout, it's simply too little mass to contend with a much larger opponent unless you know how to fight)

See, the whole point of discussion is people who know how to fight. When I was a 120lb wrestler I could beat 190lbers who also "knew how to fight", I was just better than them. They weren't inept, but their mass was simply not so great an advantage that it couldn't be overcome. Leverage works wonders, you know?

And as I just said, I saw an ~130 lb woman drop a 250lb man who knew how to fight. Yes, she had to know how to fight herself, but she wasn't the greatest fighter ever, I saw her get schooled by very skilled men closer to her size. In this case, though, the man had some serious physics working against them -- namely that big objects move more slowly.

As to 'the girls I beat up on' they asked me to spar with them every time

I was just saying that you kicked their butts, and that they sucked. I assumed this was a consensual sparring match, thus my mock Onion headline about them thinking they are tougher than they are? :P

They never learned how to deal with a larger attacker. It's not that it's impossible or even really that hard, it's that they didn't know what to do in that case but were nevertheless overconfident.

What I'm trying to say is, for the most part in a man vs woman situation, barring weapons and such, the woman loses almost every time unless she has top notch training (or a surprise disabling move to one of the only 3 weak spots that really count) and he is completely inept.

You keep saying there are only 3 weak spots that matter. Someone should introduce you to the knees and elbows. The best thing about them is that unlike the 3 you list, these aren't very well defended (by either innate reflex or intention) and are relatively large targets since you don't need to be precise. Not to mention that while even the worst kick to the nads is a temporary setback, kick the side of somebody's knee with the meager force required and they aren't going to be chasing you until they get out of their cast. But this is straying off topic (though it might be worth mentioning at a self defense class).

My point is, your extrapolation from the statistical averages and a few overconfident women that the woman loses unless she is top notch and the man is inept is simply wrong. A top-notch trained woman could be most men, especially those who think their size gives them an insurmountable advantage. However for a top-notch man vs a top-notch woman, then any difference in mass and strength could be telling, but even then not automatically. It's just not that simple.

And venturing back to the actual subject of the article and the OP, any female character in AoC can be assumed to have been trained in combat well enough that inherent gender differences should have no appreciable effect (and any other way of designing the game is silly).

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Codifex Maximus]

Chris Burke said:
"It's fair to say that on average women have less strength and less mass, and therefore the physics wins out. That's what your friend's self defense class advice is based upon, and it is sound advice. But your general statement that a woman can't beat a man unless she's ridiculously strong, or the man is drunk, is silly and wrong."

I agree. Strength and Mass are important as you say. But do not forget the command and control - The Brain. It is the brain, and not strength/mass, that rules the world - otherwise, the Gorillas would be outside the cage and we'd be in it.

Women have some obvious advantages: flexibility, agility, and just as good (some may argue better) of a brain as a man. My ex-wife had reflexes like lightning. I remember a time when she got in an argument with my brother. I was keeping an eye on the situation mind you. All of a sudden, his head moved a bit and he asked her if she just hit him... she had - swift as lighting like the strike of a rattlesnake. I barely saw her arm move.

You fight with your mind primarily - strength and mass are just two tools that are not infallible. The man who underestimates a woman is a fool.

Codifex

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm 5'11, 190lbs, and I've had girls I know who are all I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR and take karate/self defense classes say they are just as strong as a man/can take one. Every single one ended on the ground with me mounting them quite effortlessly. Taking quotes out of context is fun!

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[dunkelfalke]

you want to prove reality by a fictional character?

i seriously doubt that a woman of old china could be a serious fighter, given the chinese practize of foot binding

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, your obsessive fawning over women irritates me. Let's get this straight. Any male who focuses on developing agility or flexibility at the expense of other attributes can on average exceed a female in those categories. Larger muscles in a properly toned body will make him faster as well as stronger.

There's a reason you don't see females competing with males in athletic competitions (or any sport really), whether pro or amateur.

As for your brain comment, males have a much higher standard deviation of IQ than females. In other words, although the averages are nearly the same, there are many, many more genius males than females, and the smartest males are much smarter than the smartest females.

You see this tendency for males to to have a greater standard deviation than females in many traits. Even in something as skill oriented as golf or pool. Heck males excel even in areas previously dominated by females, such as cooking. When you get to the upper echelons in terms of skill of any category, the differences become extremely apparent. Not to be too anecdotal, but for immediate recognition purposes pit golf's male greatest (Woods) against female's greatest (don't know off the top of my head...used to be Annika Sorenstam right?).

As for a previous poster's comment about the flamebait comment being cultural, I'd like to point out how frequently western society (specifically white males) attempt to idolize certain females and put them on unreasonably high pedastals. Whether it's naming naval ships after females or husbands calling their wives their "better halves". Historically culture has dictated how the idolization has been done. In more ocnservative times you would have the "angelic" female royalty. There would be knights who would go out on several year long quests and dedicate them to women they had never seen before, who they assumed to be perfect embodiments of heaven's angels.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[Dr_Barnowl]

I have a medical degree.

I stand by what I said ; if you read it, my point was that specific individuals in no way have to represent the average which the parent poster was talking about, and that there is nothing precluding a (particular) woman being as physically adept as a (particular) man.

Yes, there are factors that bias the distribution in favour of men in terms of strength, which I acknowledged. But statistics do not apply to single individuals. If you select one female and one male at random, chances are that the man is stronger than the woman, but you don't know until you actually test that assumption.

Female characters in an RPG are not meant to represent average females ; they are meant to represent exceptional females. In epidemiological terms, they are a self-selected group, and you cannot apply the general statistics of the entire female population to them.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[ePhil_One]

Let me remind you of the original claim:

most athletic women went up against a normal, decently in shape man

It was not average man vs average woman, it was above average woman vs average man.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[PakProtector]

Maybe you should better apply logic and statistics of your own admission to what you said.

You agree that statistically, the strongest males are stronger than the strongest females.

This is due to sexual dimorphism.

Even if the female characters in the MMORPG are meant to be the cream of the crop in terms of fitness, then the men will still, on average, be stronger, since there is no reason to assume that the male characters would not also be the cream of the crop in terms of fitness.

The fact that we are even having this argument is slightly ludicrous. Just slightly.

A we both not in agreement that if 1000 random men and 1000 random women were tested via various methods of determining over all strength (say, how much can be lifted to chest level, over head, how much can be lifted solely using the legs, force exerted in a punch and in a kick, to name a few,) that the men would average higher than the women? And that the strongest man would have a high degree of probability of being stronger than the strongest female?

Thousands of years of natural selection and sexual dimorphism and much trustworthy medical statistics should not be disregarded and ignored in the name of political correctness. Not that I am specifically accusing you of such.

You do bring up a very valid point that, in a game, there is no reason to make one gender stronger than the other -- although it would lead to certain interesting behaviours, like female tanks and other warriors being rarer.

More and more I see simple reality being discarded and ignored in the name of political correctness, because some people find it offensive. Reality is what it is. And I'm aborting now before I start a completely different rant.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[PakProtector]

I need to start spell checking my damn posts. Non super gramatticos sum. Non Saepe.

Re:Female characters should be weaker

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It's a well-established fact that women have much weaker upper bodies. Hollywood has done a great job of propogating the myth of the ass kicking woman who can take on a bunch of athletic men in combat, but the reality is that even if most athletic women went up against a normal, decently in shape man, they would get badly hurt in one-on-one fighting. If they went in a head-to-head contest of strength, correct. Combat when engaged by a trained individual has little to do with with physical strength.

Re: Female attack speed and mount movement speed

[Eowaennor]

Those issues were already fixed on Monday...

unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed trick

[gblackwo]

Everyone knows you run faster with a knife.

Obviously the AoC developers learned...

[obijuanvaldez]

what is best in life.

Re:Obviously the AoC developers learned...

[Doddman]

hurr im a durr

Fixed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, fixed. I made a female character to test the bug, only to find out it was already fixed.

The Full Scoop

[Scorpinox]

I've been following this bug since it was first made apparent by some female assassins. At first we thought it was limited to the assassin class, but they were just the first to notice it, it turns out ALL classes who dual weild weapons are affected by the gender bug.

Here is a youtube video which clearly showcases the difference:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=k-C4z-pTrII&feature=related

Players who were in the beta of the game say (while breaking their NDA sadly) that this bug was in the beta for months, but was never addressed.

Funcom's response as of over a week ago was along the lines of "We'll look into it, they should be the same speed". There has been no communication on the bug since then.

I think it's great that this bug is getting mainstream attention now, it's a very serious imbalance that Funcom needs to take responsibility of.

Re:The Full Scoop

[afidel]

Didn't the beta NDA expire at release? The few that I have electronically signed have all said they expire when the game reaches launch.

Re:DPS (is not the issue)

[Scorpinox]

DPS is not the issue here. The game has many "procs" (each hit has a %chance of adding an effect like poison or extra damage), so after 30 seconds the genders may be doing the same "damage" but the males will have more procs than females.

Also, the game uses combos which require several regular attacks to initiate, a male will be able to fire off combos faster than females, many of which debuff or do additional damage that higher "damage per hit" will not make up for.

Shiney factor?

[Fozzyuw]

It seems that as the initial "shiny factor" wears off for the new darling MMO, the bugs and complaints just continue to pile up resulting in a fair bit of buyer's remorse.

Formally know as "the honeymoon period", this is just par for the course for all MMO's as well as human behavior for a lot of things (including marriage apparently, as the name suggests). AoC isn't really any different than any other MMO I've seen, including WoW, which suffered greatly from server crashes and lag issues in the first 2 weeks that prompted them to give time credit to all accounts. I think I have 8 days of "free" time to play beyond the "free" first month.

The only MMO I've played at launch that I recall having the least issues was LOTRO. However, they had plenty of server issues and quest bugs as well. Just a lot less than I've seen normally. WoW's problems stemmed mostly from unprecedented demand.

Re:Shiney factor?

[Ikar_rb]

Honestly, AoC had a *remarkably* smooth launch on the "server stability" end of things. One of the smoothest I've ever seen. There is a lot of things which remain unfinished, but then again there have been a TON of things enhanced in WoW since launch. My major complaints about AoC include: "Feats" i.e. wow talents descriptions are utterly useless, to the point that a person cannot make reasonable intelligent decisions about which ones to pick based on their descriptions. Not to mention there are numerous feats which simply don't work. Combat mechanics are very nearly a black box, again hampering decision making & optimizing effectiveness. Class balance is utterly broken- the "pure" tanks (guardians) do more damage than the "dps" tanks (conqueror) by nearly a 2:1 margin. Funcom chose to shorten the levelling grind, so it's a lot shorter to get to 80... but that also shortened their window to actually get an "endgame" together, so unless further development of an endgame shows up fast, a lot of folks will get to 80, and realize there's not much to do at 80. Those are pretty much the most egregarious problems I see. I'm putting AoC down and waiting 6 months to take another look, as it's clearly not ready yet.

Re:Shiney factor?

[Skuld-Chan]

The thing about WoW is its probably the most polished mmo I've ever played - even ones that have had a long time to mature (like EQ or Lineage).

Re:Shiney factor?

[Anonymous Coward]

first two weeks? on my server, it took 6 months and 3 server splits to fix it.

Re: Low level money

[Anonymous Coward]

The way to get money at the lower levels in WoW is to choose two gathering professions, eg, mining and skinning. The materials go for a lot more on t he auction house than the finished product does until you hit a bare minimum of level 40.

Re:unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed tr

[electricbern]

No. You run faster with scissors.

topless bunny hoppers

[Shivetya]

when I saw that in game and listened to my friends experience with this game all I could think of is, were the developers so desperate to get sales that they had to have boobies?

I guess if you can't compete on gameplay and product resorting to the gutter will get you some quick cash. What an abysmal way to get players.

Re:topless bunny hoppers

[evilkasper]

Never read any of the Conan books, or comics have you? Naked flesh is a central theme in the heavy metal fantasy style of the game.

Re:topless bunny hoppers

[sesshomaru]

Yes, it goes all the way back to his Weird Tales debut in the 1930's with covers by Margaret Brundige:

Wikipedia: Margaret Brundage

I mean, there's a reason why H. P. Lovecraft (notorious prude) would tear the covers off the magazine where many of his best stories appeared, to quote Wikipedia:

Brundage's art frequently featured damsels in distress in various states of full or partial nudity; her whipping scenes were especially noteworthy and controversial. Her sensual images usually illustrated scenes from the pieces chosen by editor Farnsworth Wright as cover stories; her work was so popular among readers that some WT writers, like Seabury Quinn, cannily included scenes in their stories that would make good Brundage covers.

So.. there you have it... you'd think people would've been able to tell this from the Conan movies, though. Or maybe... those are also too old fashioned now. I feel old.

Re:topless bunny hoppers

[Danny Rathjens]

AoC was developed by Funcom, a company based in Norway. Europeans do not have the silly obsession over breasts that we repressed americans do. :) (I won't even go down the road of the hypocritical lack of objection to the violent aspects of the game giving it its M rating such as the ability to decapitate people with blood spattering everywhere and whatnot)

Objoke

[Dogtanian]

From what I've seen, that is for very large values of "normal" Large breasts *are* normal on the average Slashdotter. Unfortunately, the average Slashdotter is also male.

He's got a point, though.

[wattrlz]

While I can't make any judgments on the relative combat-efficacy of men and women based solely on gender, but it's a well documented fact that game devs do have sexist attitudes towards female characters. Back when I used to play FPS it was almost universally understood that female avatars were smaller targets and moved more quickly. Generally female characters have less realistic proportions (and far more polygons) than their male counterparts. Not that I'm complaining, but I think it's silly to take for granted that characters who are represented as being a fraction as massive will be equally as strong. True their backs and shoulders should be epic from the degree of voluptuosity portrayed, but those biceps and triceps would probably leave a little to be desired.

Subscription question.

[antdude]

Does one require credit card to to play 30 days trial? I'd like to check out the game, but I don't want to give the company my paymeny information before my trial expires.

Re:Subscription question.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. That, or a 2 month pre-paid game card (in which case you have to pay for extra 60 days before you start).

Re:Subscription question.

[antdude]

Ugh, thanks. That stinks.

Re:Subscription question.

[Anonymous Coward]

The concern is fair enough, but they don't actually start a subscription or make any charges to the card when you do a trial account like that. You need to specifically set up a subscription before they'll charge you.

Re:Subscription question.

[mrtonic]

That's odd... I'm on a 30 day trial, and I don't have a credit card, nor have I bought a 60-day game card. I've registered saying I'll subscribe using game cards though, maybe that's enough to let you have the trial.

Grow up

[Rui del-Negro]

How is showing a perfectly normal part of the human body "resorting to the gutter"?

It never ceases to amaze me how some people (or some societies) look at a movie or game where dozens of people get shot or hacked into pieces, and are offended by... a nipple.

But only if it's a female nipple; male nipples are fine (although those have no purpose other than sexual arousal). Probably because men won't take shit about not being allowed to go shirtless when they want to.

Personally I think any game where characters have undetachable underwear is simple pandering to pseudo-moralistic puritan pricks.

Re:Grow up

[duckInferno]

Insightful. I wish I had mod points.

Re:Grow up

[deroby]

Hear, hear.

Although I wouldn't make it a requirement to be able to have a character being able to run around fully naked, on the contrary some (clean =) underwear is fine by me : less polygons wasted on something I'm not interested in anyway (**).
It's a matter of priorities I guess, I rather see people spend some time on customizing their facial looks than having to decide whether to go for a B, C or D cup. Worse, assuming the -if ever present- genitals would be customizable too it's going to be heaps of stress when starting up a male character : "if I make it too small, people will make fun that it looks just like me, but if I make it too big, people will say I overcompensate... My oh my, what should I do, what should I do... "

**: inside a computer game that is, in reality I find myself being hardwired to (unconsciously ?) consider those skin-covered balls of fat more interesting than they technically should be, sadly I'm only (hu)man...

Re:Grow up

[Rui del-Negro]

Going around naked would get old soon. Part of the reason why people wear clothes, even in places where it's warm enough not to, is to show off their unique / expensive clothes, and through them their status. And besides, it would mean no armour bonuses, possibly a health loss in cold regions (if the game models weather realistically), possibly undesirable reactions from NPCs or other players (making fun, refusing to deal with, etc.), and so on.

But if I have a big quest coming up, I definitely want to be able to remove my boring white polygon and put on some +5 Lucky Underpants.

By all means, add the option to cover the "sinful bits" with a (large?) black rectangle, or an american flag, or whatever, but it just doesn't make sense to make underwear part of the body. BTW, there was a running joke in Morrowind / Oblivion that the reason why there aren't any children in those games is that all the NPCs have their underwear welded on, so they would have no way of making (let alone giving birth) to babies. The actual reason was that it would require a much more elaborate ragdoll system (with different-sized clothes, extra textures, different animations, etc.).

Oh, how I miss Ultima VII...

Re:Grow up

[MendicantMonkey]

Is the ragdoll thing really the only reason? Notice that they don't put children in a lot of games where the player has a lot of free agency at the human scale. No children in Elder Scrolls, no children in GTA. Honestly, the most fun I ever had in Black & White was teaching my giant ape to eat the children at the school when he was hungry. The first time he did it on his own I was so proud. I missed Ultima VII so I assume the reference meant there were childrean eaten in that game as well.

Re:Grow up

[Rui del-Negro]

Yes, the ragdoll (and associated issues) is a huge technical reason, in modern 3D RPGs.

It means the game must have different kinds of clothes for adults and children (at least - possibly also intermediate sizes), or that clothes must adapt themselves to all body sizes. It also means that all animations need to be done for different body sizes (it's not just a matter of scaling them down; children have different body proportions). Plus a ton of extra animations (children playing, adults picking them up, children using objects and interacting with the world, etc.) and animation variations (ex., adult greeting child, adult greeting adult, child greeting child).

I think it would add a lot of realism to a game world, but it also adds a lot of time to development, and since children are less "useful" in terms of game quests, most developers just don't bother. And, of course, I'm sure that in some countries some groups would imeediately use some variations of "we must protect the (virtual) children" to make it impossible to interact with them in any way (which is probably how those people deal with their own children).

Ultima VII is "it" as far as RPGs (possibly computer games) go. It deals with religion, politics, sex, drugs, racism, you name it (there's even the possibility of having a gay relationship). Right at the start of the game you come across a very bloody murder (think ritual disembowelling) and the son of the murdered man (who looks about 10) offers to join your party. I remember when we came across a cave where a naked couple lived (one of their lines was "Me Mama, he Papa. We make zug-zug. Babies come."), the kid opened his eyes wide and started grinning, and an older guy in my party tried to cover his eyes, while the kid protested. It felt natural and funny and realistic.

I don't think eating people was part of Ultima VII. I miss it because it dealt with normal aspects of (non-cannibalistic) life and society in a sane, believable way (though, more and more, "sane" and "believable" seem be incompatible concepts when talking about society).

Humble Suggestion

[unsigned integer]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=254

Perhaps these bugs are by design

Re:unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed tr

[svnt]

"unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed"

That's what she said.

What is best in AoC?

[residieu]

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the female characters.

That's utter BS

[Chris Burke]

but the reality is that even if most athletic women went up against a normal, decently in shape man, they would get badly hurt in one-on-one fighting.

That's just plain bullshit.

If the average woman went up against the average man, then the man would probably win.

If the best woman went up against the best man, then the man would probably win.

If the best woman went up against the average man, the average man would get his sorry ass handed to him and would have to hire the Mossad to help him find the remains of his balls.

You're taking a statistical measure of central tendency, and trying to apply that to the extreme cases. That just doesn't work. In actual practice, a strong and skilled woman can kick the ever loving crap out of most men. Its only when you get to the upper echelons that their disadvantage in upper body strength (which is really a disadvantage of development tendencies, and in any particular man-woman matchup it is certainly possible that the woman is the stronger) limits them at all.

It sounds like Hollywood is your only experience with ass-kicking women, and you naturally assume that Hollywood is full of it. Well, they are to be sure, but in the reality of an actual matchup between a real man and a real woman, a "normal, decently in shape" man is in no way an equal to the "most athletic woman".

Re:unsheath your weapon to fix your mount speed tr

[geekoid]

How else could you slit the throats of 1000 warriors in one night?

Naive question...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Aren't there advantages both ways?

For example: Men probably have more upper body strength, and more muscle period because of testosterone. Women have a lower center of gravity, and an easy target (balls) with which to completely disable the man.

I don't really know, as I'm not enough into martial arts -- just guessing.

Re:Naive question...

[Chris Burke]

Aren't there advantages both ways?

For example: Men probably have more upper body strength, and more muscle period because of testosterone. Women have a lower center of gravity, and an easy target (balls) with which to completely disable the man.

Yeah, there are advantages that go both ways. I couldn't say they necessarily balance out. The lower center of gravity is very helpful, yes. Also in a lot of cases being smaller is an advantage because it means you are faster. In some styles where speed is emphasized, the men would do anything they could to avoid building muscle -mass-, just tone, because they didn't want to be heavier and thus slower.

In the end I think the statistical observation is true that men have the advantage. For specific but not necessarily extreme examples, those advantages may mean nothing or less than nothing.

Re:Naive question...

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't know nothing. just shut your cakehole.

Re:Naive question...

[Chris Burke]

Haha, okay man. Indulge your fantasies of masculine superiority all you like.

Titties!!!

[fat bastard of doom]

All your breasts are belong to us.

Newsflash

[analog_line]

Our top story today, a brand new MMO has lots of bugs at launch.

In other news, government scientists announce stunning findings, gravity causes objects to collide with the earth, the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and fire hurts you if you put your hand in it.

Re:Newsflash

[Jarnis]

Well, it *should* be big news. The status quo should be that a game is released when it's ready and polished.

It's a sad world when it's shocking to find a new MMO to be actually bug-free and polished...

Wrong fantasy series, huh?

[Valdrax]

Age of Conan? More like Age of Gor. Amirite?

AoC meet SwG

[Thedeviluno]

AoC is rated mature for adults 18+ The tits were huge the nipples pointed up and the dungeons were dank. Then the patches started rolling out. Smaller boobs, chat censorship, sexually suggestive emotes removed, nude NPC's don clothing. Whats next? will the eunuchs grow testicles? This is a blatant cash grab as Funcom attempts to outreach its grasp. Ask Sony what happened to StarWars?

Female characters

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows that women get -4 Str

Anti-Grind

[Jack Conrad]

This is why I would like to see an MMORPG w/o *any* leveling. Of course, at that point, people would probably fail to see it as an RPG. However, those people probably never played an P'n'P RPG for 2 years where in there was near 0 skill change and little dice rolling.

Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

To be sexist one has to be aware of the existence of the other sex. They're programmers.

Crom

[krytor]

I blame Crom.