[cc-licensed image courtesy Flickr user chaospheonx]
There's trouble in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game universe of Age of Conan:
Along with its solid gameplay and excellent graphics Age of Conan has been hailed by adolescent gamers worldwide for its female avatars' gravity-defying bosoms -- a trait developer Funcom seems to have inadvertently removed.
Offering players apologies and a brief technical explanation of the issue, Funcom has stated that the changes to female characters' breasts was an unintended side effect of the latest patch, and will be rectified shortly.
"Funcom can confirm that some of the female models in the game have had the size of their breasts changed. This is due to an unintended change in data that was introduced in an earlier patch, data which controls the so-called morph values associated with character models and the size of their respective body parts," Funcom representatives wrote in a recent forum post. "We are working on a fix for this and your breasts should be back to normal soon."
I know I shouldn't be shocked at the massive outcry this has caused, but some people really need to find girlfriends.
Indeed. [Wired's Game|Life]
#1. Heterosexual men enjoy viewing well built women. If this makes you feel insecure about your own body, then identify that insecurity as your own shortcoming instead of a shortcoming of the men (and women, mind you!) who designed the game.
#2. Games, films and so on often do make use of idealized female AND male forms. Age of Conan contains not only improbably slender, buxom women, but also improbably fit, muscular men. After all, who wants to play an adventure game set in a fantasy world where everyone's a flabby sadsack? Singling out the portrayal of women in the game and ignoring the equally idealized portrayal of men seems a bit myopic; has it occurred to you that this balance isn't limited to games, that the fit, muscular male hero is a staple of entertainment, and that men have been cheering rather than complaining all these years?