Controversy never ends with Age of Conan
by Seraphina Brennan 
May 25th 2008 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Culture, Opinion
First it was the gore. Then it was the fatalities. Then it was the promise of nudity. Then it was the nipple toggle. Now there's more controversy in the Age of Conan - the Stygians.Richard Cobbett brought up a new area where AoC might offend some of the more religious people in the population in his online journal. The Stygians, the infamous followers of Set, love demonic magic. And when we say love demonic magic, we really mean that they can turn into demons if you're a Herald of Xotli or summon demons if you're a Demonologist. The word Stygian can even be translated as "dark" or "infernal".
While this is pretty tame for those of us who are into fantasy settings, it's just another part of where AoC can be offensive to those around it. Funcom has no doubt pushed the envelope with this game, but as any good Conan fan will say, "It's just another normal day in Hyboria."
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Arabica said on 7:32PM 5-25-2008
After playing the game for a week I've come to loathe this controversy noise. Funcom has done an amazing job to illustrate how dark, brutal, and jawdroppingly mercilous Hyboria is that I've completely forgotten about the "mature" components that were hyped before the game released. To be frank, all of the people who were complaining about nipples, ass, wenches, prostitution, decapitations, Satanism, or any other offensive tidbit probably played an hour or two and then pissed themselves crying in the corner huddled in the fetal position.
Age of Conan is that offensive?
No. The people who were complaining just happened to miss the mark. They were focused on curse words and nipples while a legion of poor sons'a'bitches were being impaled on skewers and raised in the air to add ambiance. THE ENTIRE GAME IS OFFENSIVE...if, as one mother pointed out in the forum, her pre-teens are hanging around her PC as she plays. There is no slider or check box that will change the overwhelming amount of brutality that is readily apparent no matter how you try to cover you eyes.
The Stygians are "dark"? Bravo. One of the skin tone options is not pasty white. Alert the media. Hey, while your wringing your hands over that I'm going to take this vial of whores blood to this altar and burn countless practitioners of the dark arts to death. Do you want a slider to tone that down asshole?
Again, the **entire** game challenges the sensitivities of people who want their gaming experience to edgy and exciting...just as long as it's not too edgy and not too exciting. Oh, and it needs to adhere to the Judeo-Christian value system also...and no nipples...and no blood...and no dismemberments...and no gods...and no mention of ritual sacrifice.
You people need to find a different game. It's that simple. To change Age of Conan into what you want would mean throwing the entire game out the window and starting over again. How about I just pay my $15 a month and play it as is, okay?
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ScytheNoire said on 9:11PM 5-25-2008
Has this world gone insane?
People need to stop looking into things that aren't there or meant to be there. This is as dumb as the Resident Evil thing about black people when the game is set in Africa.
Stygians come from the south, they are dark skinned, it's evolution. The Cimmerians are light skinned, they come from the north, it's evolution. It's just how it is in the real world.
Embrace diversity, don't try to point to it as if it's some type of flaw. It's a beautiful thing.
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Euragone said on 4:01PM 5-27-2008
What it works out to is Parents Need to read the box, Since it has a "M Rating"
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asymetric war said on 8:12PM 5-28-2008
welll.... it *is* an issue that in just about every game, from EQ to DDO to AoC, dark skinned races are consistently portrayed as evil and light skinned races are consistently portrayed as good. it's not an issue with the games, it's an issue with our society that's reflected in the games.
the people who are bothered by that sort of of thing aren't over-reacting or picking on gamers, they're making a valid point about our perceptions of each other in the real world and the way those perceptions impact the fantasy worlds we create and play in. Is it really a coincidence that even though in the real world black folks and white folks in america use drugs at about the same rates (for example), black folks are more then 10 times as likely to be incarcerated for drug use? (that's a real statistic by the way).
there's a reason why racially biased policing is the norm - and it begins with the fact that people with dark skin are consistently portrayed in our culture and media as menacing, threatening, and criminal and so cops, judges, and juries tend to be much more aggressive in punishing people of color. to the degree that AoC or any other game, movie, novel, or other art form reinforces that tendancy to associate dark skin with 'evil', it's a problem for real people with dark skin (and their friends and allies) who are sick of being portrayed in a negative way.
video games are just one tiny tiny part of that, and far from the most important part. gamers need to chill out and quit feeling attacked when people bring up real issues that are only tangentially related to gaming. get it straight here: they're not picking on your game, they don't give a damn about your game. AoC is only relevant to their analysis because it's one of many examples of something that happens over and over and over again in the real world.
as for the blood and violence and nudity and all of that, it says M on the box people. if you can't handle seeing a nipple or some blood then you shouldn't be playing the damn game in the first place. personally, i like AoC (over all) and I'm enjoying the game.
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