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

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

[TheLinuxSRC]

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

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

[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

[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.

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

[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: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: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: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:Female characters should be weaker

[PakProtector]

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

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

[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: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: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: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)

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...