Should Male Characters In MMOs Be Stronger Than Females?

MTV Multiplayer writes: "Last month, some "Age of Conan" forum members discovered that female characters in the MMO swing their weapons slower than males, causing them to do significantly less damage over time.

Developers at Funcom stated earlier this week that they "never intended for any character to be stronger/weaker than another based on its gender." They said the fix will be coming in the next several weeks.

Reading about this topic on a few other gaming blogs, I noticed a few comments from people who thought there should be differences between male and female avatars in terms of physical abilities. Here's what I found:"

[Alexander Roy]

No.

Why? There was this girl in my class, who could kick my ass easily. She wasn't a body builder or anything like that, she was just badass. Luckily we are friends, so I'm safe. :P

[kevin1122]

so because you are weak women should be strong lol.

[Alexander Roy]

Whatever.

This question shows how many people think in stereotypes.

[donator]

Aren't games usually supposed to suspend belief so that we may escape reality? Why punish girls for playing games as girls. Or why punish guys who play as girls for their own reasons. I don't want to go into psychobabble.

[Leord]

While it might be more logical to let women *over all* have lower physical stats, it's not fair and not working in gameplay. In a Japanese dating game or the like, they might do this, but not any form of action/rpg games!

Problem is that men and women tend to end up differently on the charts of performance, in terms of physics, or mental capacity. Men usually populates most of the bottom rankings, as well as the top ones, while women more tend to stay between the two extremes, more to the middle.

Most (not all) extremely intelligent, extremely stupid, extremely strong, extremely fast, extremely long, extremely short tend to be men. Women are just better balanced =)

For an MMO such as Conan it should not be any difference though, as the game isn't trying to describe a GENDER, but the type of person that would typically do a certain thing as a "profession", or lifestyle. Then the standards are to that lifestyle or profession, not gender. Women can very well be "over all" managing less physical strength, but the ones adventuring sure don't, or they would get crushed!

[Armyless]

Men and women are different.

I know that shocks some of you.

[Potty Scotty]

Yeah, stronger and slower and not as limber.

[Silogon]

By and large, passed down in history and genetics the male is dominate. Why should we have to sugar coat and change **** around to make people live in a bigger fantasy world than they are already playing in?

Please. It's like Spike Lee telling Clint Eastwood he should have had Black Soldiers hoisting the Flag at Uwajima. Doesn't make sense. It's like how they had 3 white fire fighters lifting a flag after the towers fell and on the statue they made they had 1 black one, a white one and a Mexican one. Where's the Indian?

See what I mean? They change enough history around and as Napoleon said "History is a lie agreed upon" but the truth is the truth.

So, in closing, you might have 1 or 2 or 10 or 100 bad ass women out of 1000 men that could be tougher/stronger/ whatever but statistically and genetically it's always been

Male > Female when it comes to overall physical prowess/barring giving birth of corse. And until they incorporate that into a game, it should reamin as such.

[DavidMacDougall]

And the words of the day are "3 white fighter fighters "

[AscendedConservative]

very true bro. it's all because of political correctness... the new form of censorship. and you gotta luv the "repeat a lie enough times, and people will accept it as fact" quote.

-ascended conservative
PSN: Homey_D_Klown

[DavidMacDougall]

Damn you changed it !

[PeeboDaKilla]

lmao. An ascended conservative?
That's like gloating about reaching a new level of ignorant stupidity

[iamtehpwn]

Women aren't stronger in real life,
Why should they be in video games?

[Alexander Roy]

Have you ever seen a female bodybuilder?

[Impact]

and whats your fuking point? overall men are naturally superior in the physical department. I'm not saying women can't be strong. there is a reason in sports and in combat they have different weight classes and leagues for men and women of all sizes

[Fishy Fingers]

"Women aren't stronger in real life, "

Computer games aren't and neither claim to be real life representations. I'm not sure whether you should concern yourself with "my male character should REALISTICALLY be stronger than that female", while your slaying a dragon and getting health out of jars.

[Old Snake]

LMAO

[Sangria]

Male: stronger, slower.
Female: weaker, faster.

[Tyrael]

Males and females should have their advantages and disadvantages. It makes an MMO or an RPG a bit more dynamic and realistic.

[tplarkin7]

If a woman fights a man, she loses. If a woman races a man, she loses.

[specialguest]

They gave that Black character the advantage on jumping. Now that's stereotyping. haha

[Xi]

I think that there should some class specific desgins.

Like specific classes can only be male or female.

Witches - women
warlocks - men

or you get things like amazons or something, or dwarves... if wow has taught me anything, female drawves require a lot a liquor to make them look hot.

or even let them learn slight variations on skills or abilities.

[Vicophine]

Males: High Strength and Defense
Females: High Magic and Magic Defense
Males: Slower but carry more.
Females: Faster but carry less.

[BLUR111]

Well women have babies all the time so yea I guess females should be stronger , besides juuken has had like 7 already and she is strong I inmagine

[DavidMacDougall]

lol i can just amagine juuken sitting offline eating dinner somewhere and suddenly she looks off to the distance .......something bad has happened !!

[BLUR111]

.

[cpt]

Male and female do have physical/mental differences in real life. If this is to be reflected in the game design, it should be implemented in a balanced way that enhances game play. Some attribute fine-tune is acceptable, but differences in weapon swing speed would prove to cause huge balancing problems, rendering the existence of a female character meaningless.

[Wolfmoonstrike]

I think MMO's should lot you a certain amount of points and start every stat at one regardless if you are a female or male. there problem solved so each gender can choose whatever style of play they want.

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

Well some women are more flexible, smaller body wise and also are swifter so you could always do a trade off in that extent.

[digger18]

During the time the Celts were around in Britain, men and women would have fought side by side and were very similar in battle prowess and strength.

I think over time as men have tried to dominate women and things may have changed a little.

So, getting back to the era of this game is set, men and women would have been very similar.

[ZombieNinjaPanda]

So long as the women in the game have advantages that the men don't

Did that sound weird? It shouldn't have ^_^

[Bolts]

Just like in real life.

[cyclindk]

Hello people, biological gender is not the issue...it should simply just be a matter of body mass and whether or not this particular game takes into account real-world physical properties, i.e., more muscle (whether male or female or something else entirely) equals more power. So if this game is at all based upon reality and males in the universe of this title are indeed like males in our universe then males would normally prove the more powerful.

[jaja1434]

Hm, I do find it funny when people try to throw realism into games. Take Age of Conan for example and this whole idiotic argument as to weather men should be..

. Well if you want to say yes, men should be stronger than female because that's how it work in the "real world" then shouldn't everyone die the first time they are hit in a fight? Because last time I checked if a huge broadsword, arrow, or fireball of death hit me in the face, I would probably die instantly...

[devilhunterx]

Male = Slow, Strong and less intelligent.

Female = Fast, Weak and more intelligent.

You know. Like real life(tm)

[Genesis5]

Well you ungrateful... Even after I took down Bohan to save the world. In the final battle I couldn't even get life out of a jar. It took all the womenly powers I could muster.

[xav0971]

What does intelligence have to do with gender? There are male geniuses and there are female geniuses. Your going to have to show me the statistics proving there are more female geniuses than male ones or better yet the average IQ scores between the two genders.

Intelligence has more to do with your up bringing, access to education, environment, possibly genetics, etc. not gender. Prove me wrong.

[Timesplitter14]

I think it isn't sexist to say that men (especially the men pictured in the game) are much stronger than women.

But meh it's a game and they should be equal. We all love to make a sexy girl character once in a while, no?

[Blooper]

Female characters should have god like stat bonuses, but only once a month. That should make things even.

[dragunrising]

Obviously, there are many strong women whom are stronger than men. However, you will never see a woman stronger than a man when it comes to body buiding, strong man competitions or athletics (600 lbs bench pressing, football linemen come to mind). This isn't a knock against women, but nature. Just like most people will never be professional athletes, most women are never going to be stronger than the average man. Granted women can be adept fighters and best men in any form of combat; this still depends on training and how willing the woman is to let go of gender stereotypes. Strong women are hot btw.

[TheForgotten0ne]

It is not science that men are naturally stronger then womens. But to put this in a game is just silly. They could have made the women to less damage in each hit, but swing the sword faster.

I wouldn't approve of this idea. And I doubt that Funcom intended it to be like that, it's probably a mistake in some codings or something