Are female characters really penalized in Age of Conan?
by Adrian Bott 
Jun 11th 2008 at 9:30AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Bugs, Rumors
There's an unpleasant rumor gathering strength in the Age of Conan community. It seems to have begun with this eight-page review, which (despite delivering a relatively healthy overall score of 76) is uncompromising in its criticism of those parts of the game that, in the reviewer's opinion, fall very short of what was advertised. The bombshell comes on page 7, where the reviewer states outright that '... Age of Conan's weapon swing time depends on the duration of the visual swing animation, and female characters swing their weapons about 25% slower than males - so every female melee character does 25% less damage over time!'
Immediately, players demand to know whether this is true or not. Some report that it is; others report that they're not seeing anything at all different between their characters, and maybe it's down to class as much as gender. Although there's a lot of noise and not a lot of signal, the general consensus from the forums appears to be that female characters are indeed attacking more slowly, resulting in overall lower DPS.
Some players express satisfaction at this discrepancy and make tiresomely predictable sexist comments. Several female players react with frustration and anger. Maturity plummets, even by stereotypical MMO forum standards. Threads are modsmacked. And while all of this is going on, FunCom refrain from offering any clarification as to whether this is a known issue, an intended game feature, a bug that's only just being discovered, or what.
As of this morning, FunCom have finally spoken up:
'There should of course be no difference between a male and a female character of the same class (other than the looks). But we have gathered the feedback about this and are looking into it.'
So, whatever oddities may be going on mechanically, at least we now know there's no intended difference in function between the genders. This is just as well. Even for a game that was hyped as 'boobs and blood', penalizing characters for their gender would have been spectacularly stupid.
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.
Now that the initial euphoria of Age of Conan's release is ebbing, the criticism of its bugs and other problems is gathering momentum. FunCom will, no doubt, track down and fix this issue as soon as they can, but as bugs go, this has to rank among the more unfortunate. We're well aware that some of the Age of Conan designers worked hard to counterbalance the characteristic sexism of the setting. Issues like this just risk undermining that work.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
double9s said on 10:59AM 6-11-2008
Despite the score he gave, the reviewer actually shreds the crap out of AoC, with lines like "Verdict: Major Disappointment" and "Next contender, please."
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mikejl said on 11:06AM 6-11-2008
To be honest .. it could make sense to have female swing faster and male hit harder. So a female may play an assassin or ranger better than a male. And male may make a better tank and heavy (2H) weapon fighter. But NO everyone has to be equal. If everyone should be equals then ALL races (Male and Female) should be able to be ALL classes. Why do be become such hypocrites over political correctness.
Ahh /end rant
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BethO said on 11:29AM 6-11-2008
Thank you for that demonstration of the "tiresomely predictable sexist comments".
mikejl said on 11:45AM 6-11-2008
I knew I catch some flames on that... just wanted to et the comment juices flowing. :)
IMO .. good that FunCom will look into this and make and needed changes.
royale said on 12:07PM 6-11-2008
That was the most brutal review I've read so far. Many people are saying that the game is new and just needs time, but it's sounding more and more like there are fundamental design issues with the game that are going to be the most limiting factors. Not things that can be touched up and improved on. How they could hype this as revolutionizing MMOs is beyond me.
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Nadril said on 12:17PM 6-11-2008
Which design issues exactly? I've been playing for a while and, honestly, the game is just lacking content currently. Sure the game isn't "revolutionary" , but the only people who said that are those going along with the PR Hype.
However it does have some very strong design issues backing it, some which are already getting looked at (read: PvP). Other than that I feel that we can't really get a decent idea of what the game is like when most of the population is probably around level 40-50 right now.
Either way I'm curious. I haven't read the review (no time to read an 8 page review, at work) but any sort of bullet points would be great. I admit the game does have its flaws (lag screws me at times with the combo system, and spellweaving seems more like a fancy [if not extremely fucking cool] trick right now) but I don't think any of the core issues are a problem.
As far as females go it certainly is a hilarious bug. Yeah, it's crippling but it is funny.
Origosis said on 12:28PM 6-11-2008
It's ok for a Gnome to hit lighter then a large ORC, so why not a petit women hit lighter and faster then a hulking man, but on the flip side a Hulking barbaric Mrs. Hotty knock the living daylights out of a smaller man.... not making the game, make men and women different but take size into account... a toon at 100% max height hits 25% slower, but harder and a toon at the minimum height hitting faster but weaker..... i think size coming into account would be a nice dynamic....
so if this guy made his male toon short and his female toon tall.... and this feature/glitch exists, then it makes sense... or it could just be the animation graphic.
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Origosis said on 12:30PM 6-11-2008
now that I think of it I really like my idea... imagine beaing able to size up and opponent literally in PVE or PVP!!! o hlook a short tank he is going to be fast.... or good a tall ranger she will be slow, but if she hits me I will take more damage.
R. Talbot said on 1:15PM 6-11-2008
I kind of disagree with the idea that taller= slower and stronger and shorter= faster and weaker.
While perhaps it's a reasonable starting point, I think the two characteristics (speed and power of hit) should be linked, and you can adjust them whatever height or build you choose. The link would mean that as you raise one one you create your character or whatever, the other would be lowered.
I mean, not all tall people are lumbering monsters with fists like sledgehammers, and the shorter folk aren't all lithe, agile ninja leprechauns, no matter how cool that would be.
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Schad said on 2:59PM 6-11-2008
If this is true: Hahahahahahahahaha
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Adrian said on 3:48PM 6-11-2008
There are no patch notes available for tomorrow, unless you're referring to something currently on the Test server that only people there know about. Since information on the Test server is under NDA, you'd be breaching NDA to do that. :)
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Adrian said on 3:56PM 6-11-2008
Until a patch actually goes live, supposed patch notes can't be reported as if they were genuine. Firstly, FunCom can change them before the patch hits; secondly, breaching an NDA is a very bad idea, and it's not all that clever to broadcast information that people have attempted to leak.
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Kilawhar said on 4:28PM 6-11-2008
Pot, meet Kettle. Kettle, Pot.
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cd said on 4:58PM 6-11-2008
Bloggers are not journalists.
It does not "seem to have begun" with a review. Here is a forum post which addresses this topic, dated June 7th (article was published June 10th):
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=69451
And that is not the first of such threads. However, that one has data to back-up its claims.
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Krystalle Voecks said on 5:12PM 6-11-2008
I'm all for healthy debate, but ad-hominem attacks on people is right out.
You can disagree without insulting people. Please keep that in mind. Further name-calling (and the name-callers) will be nerfed.
Thank you.
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onetrueping said on 5:56PM 6-11-2008
...you can "dual-weild"? Amusing. And for the record, my fiance is a very talented and capable student of martial arts, able to take down multiple higher-ranked students in a single bout. Take your sexist bullshit elsewhere, please.
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Kilawhar said on 3:52AM 6-12-2008
What's interesting to me is how you seem to have such an intimate knowledge about who can and cannot dual-wield various weapons. Outside of Hollywood, how many folks (gender aside) do YOU know that have actually done so in a real life combat situation?
And no, duct tape covered rattan does not count.
While you're at it can you also point me to the people you know in real life that can summon undead minions, cast fire and ice from their hands, or turn into snakes? The fact that this is a fantasy game doesn't seem to be a valid enough excuse to remove real-world physics for you, so clearly we need to eliminate all this other unrealistic stuff too.
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DrunkenPandaren said on 2:00PM 6-12-2008
Actually all weapons have a sweet spot where they will swing faster and and other spots where they will swing slower. So not every weapon is the same. So stats can be similar but one mace could be swinging faster at q where as another mace will swing faster 3.
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Ardy said on 12:23PM 6-12-2008
This is all terribly amusing.
If the women swinging really heavy item slower bug is a bug, well then it is both hilarious and unfortunate.
If it was an intended feature that wasn't balanced right (along the idea of slow but with other bonus) and not implemented right, they could have at least been upfront about it.
Sexism and the lovely knee jerk "women cant dual wield" comments aside.
If it's a bug, it'll get fixed. If it is something they neglected to mention, they deserve to get blasted for a poor idea done badly. Rationalising it when it appears to be something bugged and without rationale is silly.
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Jim said on 3:07PM 6-13-2008
ahem? what's the problem... isn't that just like in reality?
can female tennis players play as hard or as long as their male counterparts...?
what's the problem? if you look at some fighting games most female characters have LESS strength but are often FASTER than the male characters. and outcry there...?!
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