Up to this point, I’ve been pretty kind to AoC despite my personal disinterest in the game. There have been a lot of bugs and crap, obviously, but because it just released and I’m not actively playing it at the moment I haven’t thrown many stones.

Then I read this little gem. By the way, I’d like to note that I’m linking to TTH here instead of the forums proper because I still can’t see them without logging in. Despite Funcom saying this would no longer be a problem. But whatevs.

You may have read on Massively previously that male and female avatars have different damage outputs because of problems with their animation cycles. They said they’d get back to the playerbase (of which I’m still a part) as soon as they knew something. Well, now they know something:

I know that many of you will probably be disappointed to hear that it might take us as much as another three to four weeks to solve this issue, for which I can only apologize, but we want to make sure that we devote the amount of time that an issue of this magnitude and importance deserves rather than rush out a “quick fix” that might not work as well.

• This is utter crap. I’m sure there is a design reason for basing damage output on the length of an attack’s animation (and I’d love to hear it, actually), but putting on my player hat: I don’t freaking care. You’ve just told a large portion of the playerbase that their game experience has been harder than was originally intended all along. You’ve told a large part of the playerbase that their male counterparts are better at their classes, generally. This cuts to the very heart of the average MMO player’s reason for playing an MMO in the first place. “If only I’d picked a guy, I’d be a better guildmember,” is the implicit thought in every player’s head.
• Maybe, and I’m just saying here, if this game wasn’t built on an IP that includes the subjucation and objectification of half the human race … this might not seem quite as bad as it seems.
• Damnit, two out of three of my characters are suffering from this bug!

Why can’t they bring back the bug that made female breasts smaller? That one I liked. Made my avatar look a bit more, you know, human.