WARNING: Hung over rambling to follow. Don't be looking for any deep insights, they are over on some other site.

Ok, so the hype machine is really ramping up for Age of Conan, due out May 20, 2008, in theory. Half of my guild is looking at going, and I am sick at heart with the thought of losing good people, yet again, to some game other than EQII.

But what does Age of Conan bring that we don't already have?
A gritty new world.

Where gritty apparently = boobalicious. At least, I haven't heard anything BUT discussion on the slightly more risque side of the game. ~yawn~

Apparently I'm not the only one who has noticed this trend. I really have to do something about Coyote grabbing MY topics before I get a chance to do my comic. He must die. ~adds to the bottom of the to-do list~

I am not in AoC beta, so I haven't a clue what the gameplay is like now, but I got a bit of hands on last year on the tradeshow circuit. It's... well... same ol', same ol'. They NEED the booby angle.

They can certainly trade on the fame and lore of the Conan lore, much as LOTRO lives by Tolkien's masterful creation, but that can only carry one so far. And boobies? You can get more titillation (pardon the pun) with a quick Google search.

As one who hates the boob-slider in character creation (Can't find it? That's cause it's usually euphemistically called "torso" or "chest" or something other than "drool-inducing orbs of pleasure"), I can't say that I really care to be the answer to men's pixellated dreams when I make my characters. They are PIXELS, people.

I still carry mental scars with the memory of the guy who came up to me in EQ years ago, and said, "Nice rack". Somehow, my wooden-faced Wood Elf character must have managed to miraculously curl her lip and raise an eyebrow (like I was doing on my side of the monitor), because he felt obliged to say, "No really, I mean it."

Uhhhhh... ok. Back in the day, the breasts on females in EQ were large, yah... but they were TRIANGLES. Geometric shapes drawn with a straight ruler.

So if THAT can turn a guy on, we are doomed, as MMOG devs crawl all over each other in the attempt to recreate a plastic surgeon's dream. And when they can script in "jiggle", they will. You KNOW they will.

Comics like the Conan series started many girls on the long and dark path of self-loathing for what they actually look like in real life. No surprise that they go for the very pretty in accordance with societal standards in game. Oh, and of course, so do all the GUYS that play females, usually moving the boob slider even further to the left.

Me? I am a female DWARF. With a BEARD. And damn proud of it. It's a lot closer to my reality.

Man, I really need a beer now.

;-)#
Brasse

ps. Oh yeah... while Wren originally suggested the idea, this comic was drawn specifically for my friend Quinatan, who requested a comic with the following, "something with really big boobs". See? everyone wants this crap.