Age of Conan Penalizes Female Characters

[Andy Chalk]

Age of Conan Penalizes Female Characters

It turns out that girls really are the weaker sex, at least in the new MMOG Age of Conan [http://www.ageofconan.com], which is the target of complaints that female characters in the game inflict less damage over time than their male counterparts.

The complaints originated following a review of the game by YouGamers [http://www.yougamers.com/reviews/19142_age_of_conan_hyborian_adventures/], which said the game's weapon swing time is dependent on the duration of the swing animation during combat. "Female characters swing their weapons about 25 percent slower than males," the review said, "so every female melee character does 25 percent less damage over time!"

Players looking into the claim have reported different results, but an article on Massively.com [http://www.massively.com/2008/06/11/are-female-characters-really-penalized-in-age-of-conan/] states that the "general consensus" on the Age of Conan forums is that female characters are in fact attacking more slowly, resulting in a lower damage per second rating. Response to the player investigations has been unsurprising: "Some players express satisfaction at this discrepancy and make tiresomely predictable sexist comments," the article said. "Several female players react with frustration and anger. Maturity plummets, even by stereotypical MMOG forum standards. Threads are modsmacked."

Rumors and complaints were fueled by forum post [http://www.funcom.com/]. "But we have gathered the feedback about this and are looking into it."

The exact nature of the bug remains a mystery, however, and may in fact be related to the first character a player uses to log into Age of Conan, rather than the gender being played at a later time. FunCom has not yet released details about when a fix for the problem will be released.


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[UpInSmoke]

This is an outrage. Men are only 25% more deadly than women? hogwash.

 

[cainx10a]

This is an outrage. Men are only 25% more deadly than women? hogwash.

QFT.

Besides, most RPGS, if not, all of them, don't make any concession between the two genders of mankind to behave differently other than looks (z0mg, wiggling boobies or six packs), and sounds(I had my share of girlish squeals in MH:F series). While I agree, this is a rather unwise gameplay mechanics to have Females attack 'slower' and punch 'harder' (not so sure about that), it's already weird enough to have a female gender for a game like AoC.
Giving one gender a clearer advantage over the other is rather, well, interesting in this case.

Let's face it, If I was punched by Marcus Fenix or by Lara Croft, in which situation I would feel the most pain?

 

[Joeshie]

I would be willing to give FunCom the benefit of the doubt on this one and just assume that it was an unintentional mistake. If it took the playerbase this long to figure it out (which can usually spot problems with a game faster than the developers can), I probably was easy to miss for the developers.

 

[JamesG]

Given that Funcom were responsible for the characters of April Ryan and Zoë Castillo, I'm inclined to believe it was unintentional. Still, it shows poor quality control, although judging by some of the reports I've been hearing the release version was a bit of a mess overall.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm not buying for a second the theory that this was an unintentional mistake. Plenty of other MMORPGs have made the sexes pretty much identical in combat without much, if any, ado. And other games (especially the Elder Scrolls series) have balanced them by giving males and females differing strengths.

My guess is that FunCom decided to embrace the rather chauvanistic spirit of the Conan mythos and made women simply flat-out weaker. Great for storyline faithfulness; not so good for an actual game that you might want women (or men who want to play as women) to enjoy. Now called upon it, the company is pleading ignorance and promising a fix.

 

[UpInSmoke]

it does seem like a pretty convenient "accident." I don't know anything about the game, but it seems like a seriously poor design choice for an MMOg

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Let's face it, If I was punched by Marcus Fenix or by Lara Croft, in which situation I would feel the most pain?

That's not really a fair contest. Marcus obviously takes bull steroids or "Essence of Locust" or something like that.
Maybe you should have said "Master Chief or Samus Aran" or "Solid Snake or Ayane" (she's one of the Dead or Alive girls).

Anyway you're right, the average man is stronger than the average woman. Women are generally more flexible though (and if Starship Troopers is to be believed, have a higher tolerance for g-forces), that could balance the genders.

 

[Midnight Voyager]

Big Barda disapproves greatly.

 

[tendo82]

What the hell? They've never heard of Red Sonja?

 

[KamikazeSailor]

Anyone else find joy in the fact that the actual article talks about how the AoC forums erupted into tiresomely predictable sexist comments and lacked maturity, and the very first post in response to this article was a tiresomely predictable sexist comment that lacked maturity and has such continued the trend?

Online forums are fun

 

[stompy]

I kind of like it. I mean women are physically weaker then men so when swinging around same size sword should be a little slower. However I would have given them some sort of other bonus such as with a spear or daggers they are a hell of a lot faster.
The Tenchu games did that and they are ages old. The guy was slower and stronger but the chick was faster and had a longer combo legnth.

See, it would be alright if that was the case. As it stands, the girls attack slower, causing them to do less damage overall, meaning they are just flat-out weaker.

Though, your idea holds merit.

 

[ADDLibrarian]

I'm not buying for a second the theory that this was an unintentional mistake. Plenty of other MMORPGs have made the sexes pretty much identical in combat without much, if any, ado. And other games (especially the Elder Scrolls series) have balanced them by giving males and females differing strengths.

My guess is that FunCom decided to embrace the rather chauvanistic spirit of the Conan mythos and made women simply flat-out weaker. Great for storyline faithfulness; not so good for an actual game that you might want women (or men who want to play as women) to enjoy. Now called upon it, the company is pleading ignorance and promising a fix.

I totally agree. Robert Howard's original Conan stories, while classic adventure fare, were not shy about showing Howard's sexism and racism. Even though I'm female, I think it's kind of funny that it continued to the MMO, but yeah...they probably should fix that. ^^

 

[Rack]

Women are weaker than men, it's about as sexist as saying they're shorter than men or have larger breasts. I'd believe this was intentional if they warned the players about it and even think that was a reasonable way to add some authenticity to the game. But making it a secret isn't really cool, and I'm sure they know they had to be spotted eventually.

 

[Girlysprite]

Ehr...since when were game about realism anyways? I don't buy that as a reason for 'women are weaker'.

 

[Ultrajoe]

i say meh!

if its a balanced move (like in elder scrolls, females tend to be better at sneaking, personality or bows... or even magic in some species, while males are stronger and more enduring) then i dont mind

if its just a straight up slower move then its an issue, if its based on how the model is programmed to move than i can believe its a genuine mistake.

 

[Singing Gremlin]

Nah, looks like an unintentional mistake to me. It says it was done by animation time, so they did different attack animations for males and females but the guy doing females made it slower without thinking, and then someone else pegged the attack points. I seriously doubt any game would have the gall to penalise the sex. Just because the original writer was sexist and racist, it doesn't mean everyone who uses the material has to be.

But it is a very large bug to have slipped through.