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What follows is 100 percent truth; you can take it or leave it.

The main thing I like about AoC is the superb graphics, which beats any other mmo out there I have seen. I also love the combat system, and the effort to bring Conan lore into a playable video game. I have quit playing this game twice now, and this is currently the third time I have subscribed, and sadly I am thinking of leaving it again. I want to stress that I TRULY WANT TO PLAY AoC, but I feel it is necessary to let the people who manage this game know exactly why I may be leaving it a third and final time, probably when Aion comes out.

You have this incredibly beautiful game world with incredible detail and obviously a lot of imagination put into it. Let's take an example to explain EXACTLY what is DEAD WRONG with this game. It is not something that is "merely" aesthetic, something that may or may not be "fixed" in the future, when they address "more important" things first. It is something that strikes at the very heart of what makes a video game popular for a large number of players.

Here is the theoretical example: I start playing. I have decided I want to make a devilish female Demonlogist that I will enjoy leveling, and decking her out in awesome and sexy armor while I am doing it, like something out of ROBERT E HOWARD (imagine that), or a Luis Royo painting (not to mention Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, the list goes on and on...). You know, like Red Sonja or Elektra or Witchblade or something. She's going to be damn sexy, that's what I tell myself. I'll like my character, I'll like looking at her while I'm obliterating monsters and other players. She's going to be HOT!

Nope. Not going to happen. Not in Age of Conan. Not in this version of Conan's world. Because, and this is important, THIS IS NOT TRULY THE WORLD OF CONAN. It is rather something like AGE OF THE EUROPEAN DARK AGES CIRCA 900 A.D. In fact, this aspect of the game is pathetic. Because I have a great deal of patience with a video game if I like the graphics, and if I can custom design characters the WAY I WANT THEM TO BE. I will keep playing it, and therefore keep paying for it, while it is being refined. I already know your design team has people working on bug fixes, class balance, new content. BUT HOW CAN SOMETHING SO FRIGGIN' BASIC AS ARMOR DESIGN FOR FEMALE CHARACTERS BE SO ABYSMALLY FAIL????? HUH??? From Level 1 to 80 a female caster has to wear something that looks like a pounded turd. I've seen Level 80 Demonlogists standing around in the EXACT SAME ROBE MODEL, except that its pink and has some trim on it or something. Therefore it's a pink pounded turd. They looked like a Christmas tree ornament. Nice. There are, in fact, a couple of high end armor pieces that do look damn hot, but I'm talking about the basic experience of playing and leveling a character, and in fact MOST of the high end armor belongs in the age of Charlemagne or something (or remind me of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The current basic armor models need to be removed from the game. There is no logical reason for them to be so bland. Currently, after creating a female Demonlogist and leveling for a while, I keep expecting her to burst out singing "Oklahoma" or something.

I DON'T WANT MY FEMALE DEMONLOGIST LOOKING MORE OVERDRESSED THAN FREAKIN' MARY POPPINS! Capiche? What the hell is not to understand about this?

I know there are a few armor pieces out there that are suitable to put on a female in this game, but even the conceptual design is flawed. Here's an example: the female's CLOTH Elegiast Britches (a great armor model) have the EXACT SAME model as a PLATE ARMOR epic piece. That pretty much covers the entire gamut of armor from cloth to plate. Yet in this game, there is almost nothing sexy at all in the Light Armor category, damn little in the Medium Armor, and of course the robes are the worst thought out thing maybe in any video game ever designed. THE FRIGGIN' *****S AND NEMEDIAN CASTER NPCs IN TARANTIA HAVE BETTER ROBE MODELS than the FRIGGIN' PLAYER'S DEMONLOGIST OR NECROMANCER OR FRIGGIN' WHATEVER.

I know full well there's a pack load of players who couldn't care less about this. Guess what: they are the people still playing this game (you know, the ones you moved to your remaining servers), so you DO NOT HAVE AN ACCURATE OPINION ABOUT WHAT WOULD REVITALIZE THIS GAME QUICKER than some obscure point about "guild reputation", as good of an idea as that may be.

Most of the people, and there's a lot of them, who care about character customization, and like to make hot looking female characters, have already left this game (and the "leet doods" will say "good", just before they post complaints in the upcoming months about fatally dwindling server populations). And if you want an estimate of how many like me there are, who would have been paying for this game all along, just take your current player base and multiply by 3 or 4, or maybe even more. You are damn right to fear the incipient release of Aion. All you "macho" types who like to scoff at such ideas, well, try not to weep too much when in about 6 months or so they pull the plug on the last AoC server to save electricity.

And when I read about it, I myself will feel sad, because here you have this marvelous game in almost every category improving, and probably the most stunning environment you could ever ask for in a mmo, world graphics in fact even better than Aion, an awesome combat system, and hopefully cross-server pvp games you can queue for looming on the horizon, tons of awesome ideas..... Yet apparently you put some Franciscan monk in charge of basic female armor design. In a M-rated game even. I'm saying all this because apparently no one else still playing this game has the balls to come right out and say it, and the remaining player base are almost certainly comprised mostly of the types that agree with the said Franciscan monk.

Here's the truth: If you put in sexy female armor available across all categories and levels, your game will revitalize. If you do not, your game will fade away. No one truly wants to play a demonlogist dressed like Whistler's Mother.... except maybe Whistler's mother, or someone who aspires to be Mother Teresa in real life.

Character customization is the future of mmo's.

This is not a low priority thing. You have made very admirable efforts over the last year in improving this game, and finally the time has come to NOT PUT OFF THE "AESTHETIC" ASPECTS OF ARMOR any longer. It's at the point now that if you do not make this, at least temporarily until you have it fixed, the MAIN FOCUS of your attention, the final spiral is nigh. And I have no doubt that most of the player base you still have, and obviously people who work for you, DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS, although many players do, many like me who want this game to be what is it supposed to be, and want it to succeed.

The basic issue is that most people who feel like I do about games like this one usually remain silent, and just leave rather than say anything, because they know they will be scoffed at by some pseudo-macho teen who knows absolutely nothing, who cannot not understand a crucial factor in the attraction of games like Aion for large numbers of people. In Aion, for example, you can transfer the stats of a piece of armor to another that has the appearance you want. At least make this available and add additional female armor skins.

I want to make it clear. I know every gamer does not feel this way. But I can tell you there are a large number that do. Surely you have at least one person in your company that understands this. When Aion is released you will have the ability if you want, for example, to custom design a character that pretty much looks like Jessica Alba and have this hot angelic character fly around killing the enemy in pretty much whatever sexy armor you want. You know, like comic books, fantasy art/novels.... like Conan... Let's see. Jessica Alba with wings and sexy armor, or Heidi just back from milking the goats . . . . both games, although different, are equally fun mechanic-wise . . . . huh . . .

Can you say "Tabula Rasa"?

Save your game. If you do, I'll be playing Aion AND Age of Conan. If not, Adios Amigos.