Child-like characters?

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

You mean how everyone kept crying for Viera to be added and a good chunk of the player base kept telling you to play an elezen? How they are literally the same height but the only difference is the ears and for some, Viera are slightly prettier?

Those of us who want a short race only have one option. I play both lala and Au Ra but that doesn't change the fact that lala is too short and Au Ra are still too tall for what I am looking for. Sure, Au Ra has the frail look but too tall. Lala has the cuteness I want but too small. There is an awful lot of things that look like they just smashed it down to fit a lala and that messes up a lot of there glam options. Then on Au Ra, those same glams might look better but it's not giving me that overly cute appeal. Hence, why I would love for there to be a race that is right in between the two.

In anime MMOs they're simply known as a loli/shota and every one of those games nails it. But somehow, SE went all around it.

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Alright, calm down I was honestly just asking lol I also never asked for Viera to be added but hey, here we are.

So something sized like the Elin from TERA or Lyn from Blade & Soul minus the animal features?

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Originally Posted by Yencat

Alright, calm down I was honestly just asking lol I also never asked for Viera to be added but hey, here we are.

So something sized like the Elin from TERA or Lyn from Blade & Soul minus the animal features?

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Apologies for coming off too strong but I just wanted to get my point across. But, yes, games like Tera, BnS and many others I have played or seen are what I'm talking about. And like @Halivel mentioned, there's an entire gap in height that could be filled with a race that fits it. Lalafells for me has always been perceived as chibi. Au Ra, unfortunately, misses the height and just leaves me wanting for something in the middle of them.

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

Apologies for coming off too strong but I just wanted to get my point across. But, yes, games like Tera, BnS and many others I have played or seen are what I'm talking about. And like @Halivel mentioned, there's an entire gap in height that could be filled with a race that fits it. Lalafells for me has always been perceived as chibi. Au Ra, unfortunately, misses the height and just leaves me wanting for something in the middle of them.

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If they're serious about not adding more races I suppose your best bet would be to hope for them to expand the height slider ranges then maybe. Would that work?

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Originally Posted by Yencat

If they're serious about not adding more races I suppose your best bet would be to hope for them to expand the height slider ranges then maybe. Would that work?

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I'm of the camp of people that would love more character customization options for something like this to be pulled off. I wouldn't mind a slider that would allow me to be the height that I want but my fear then is if the features we currently have would even make sense for that height. Just scaling a character down to the height doesn't guarantee that everything would look proportional. They would most likely have to add more facial and body features for it to work. And they would have to do this for all the races.

I don't understand developer work so I don't know which would be more difficult. A new race or sliders? Either way, if they somehow receive more budget for this to be done I would be happy with a slider or a race. But I am leaning more towards another small race since lala is our only small race.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

That's just an assumption, but looking how some people react at Lalafells, female Auri and female Miqo'te, western part of community, most likely, is pretty much the reason why we don't have anything inbetween Lalafells and Auri. To avoid undesireable... consequences.

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I'm not oblivious to creeps being in every game I play. I know that not everyone sees loli/shota type of characters the same as the next person. The main point I was getting at is, it's not a big deal. That's like when people were saying Hrothgar should've never been added because it would only attract those who see that entire race as a fetish. If every time developers allow the presence of creeps (or people bothered by them) to dictate what race they should add, in order to avoid creeps as much as possible, we would probably only have Hyur and even that's questionable.

If SE has a certain image of characters that they want in their game and want to strictly follow that then fine. I'll respect it. But it begs the question of where is this line being drawn for another short race to be added? Can they not just whip up a lore and give them a non-child related presence? Could they not just give them features that clearly differentiate from a normal kid like they do Lalafell?

Au Ra is a race that is completely unique to this series and I would love it if they kept it going by adding another unique race that's short. I'm not asking for a child race, I'm specifically asking for another short race, that does not have a teddy bear-like body. Lala's have that covered lol

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

I'm not oblivious to creeps being in every game I play. I know that not everyone sees loli/shota type of characters the same as the next person. The main point I was getting at is, it's not a big deal. That's like when people were saying Hrothgar should've never been added because it would only attract those who see that entire race as a fetish. If every time developers allow the presence of creeps (or people bothered by them) to dictate what race they should add, in order to avoid creeps as much as possible, we would probably only have Hyur and even that's questionable.

If SE has a certain image of characters that they want in their game and want to strictly follow that then fine. I'll respect it. But it begs the question of where is this line being drawn for another short race to be added? Can they not just whip up a lore and give them a non-child related presence? Could they not just give them features that clearly differentiate from a normal kid like they do Lalafell?

Au Ra is a race that is completely unique to this series and I would love it if they kept it going by adding another unique race that's short. I'm not asking for a child race, I'm specifically asking for another short race, that does not have a teddy bear-like body. Lala's have that covered lol

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Tbh by consequences I mean more potentional blacklash than creeps. Creeps are pretty much everywhere, so it's impossible to avoid them completely - you can have the game full of bulky monsters and it still will have its creepy part of community.

But in regards to people just in general, those who don't even play the game but will see a short cute race combined with humanity's love to jump on disgusting conclusions can start their crusade against the company just because they can. I mean... Some people in other game (Granblue Fantasy if it matters) assumed I'm a creep few days ago just because I like cute characters, and some of them are minors. People are... well, they are people.

I am agree that we should either have bigger height slider or one more short race, but I also can see potential problems behind this, sadly. At this point I'm glad I was able to set my irl height on my character at all, which is 160cm. It would be good if it was possible to make shorter than average male character not only for Lalafells and Miqo'te, and partly Midlanders. I could go with female character of course, but I don't play female characters even though I am female myself, so welp... good for me that I like male Miqo'te, otherwise there is a chance I wouldn't have suitable race in the game at all.

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Originally Posted by Omymy

Wrong. Its a 3000 years old vampire in a childs body.

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https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6f/f6...f30682ea97.jpg

I blame anime culture for it and i am honestly sick of it, i like Anime but i hate certain cliches like this with passion.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Tbh by consequences I mean more potentional blacklash than creeps. Creeps are pretty much everywhere, so it's impossible to avoid them completely - you can have the game full of bulky monsters and it still will have its creepy part of community.

But in regards to people just in general, those who don't even play the game but will see a short cute race combined with humanity's love to jump on disgusting conclusions can start their crusade against the company just because they can. I mean... Some people in other game (Granblue Fantasy if it matters) assumed I'm a creep few days ago just because I like cute characters, and some of them are minors. People are... well, they are people.

I am agree that we should either have bigger height slider or one more short race, but I also can see potential problems behind this, sadly. At this point I'm glad I was able to set my irl height on my character at all, which is 160cm. It would be good if it was possible to make shorter than average male character not only for Lalafells and Miqo'te, and partly Midlanders. I could go with female character of course, but I don't play female characters even though I am female myself, so welp... good for me that I like male Miqo'te, otherwise there is a chance I wouldn't have suitable race in the game at all.

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You bring up an interesting point with backlash, much like a while back someone brought up their reputation could possibly be put on the line. I get where you are going with that.

For me when I read their statement about why they did not want to add in this option it instantly made me think of all the other games that already have a small race that we're asking for. I'm pretty sure they received backlash but it most certainly is not stopping them from expanding their games and even launching them on more platforms. When I see things like this it almost made me think SE just whipped up an excuse and called it a day. Backlash can't possibly last for that long with the number of players that love and defend this game. And then there's all the rewards and recognition they keep receiving that easily sweeps any backlash off a cliff.

And, lol I can't agree enough that people will always be people. I think I am almost to the point of being immune to people being people because I see it so often. I just can't give any more flying birds about it.

But characters in this game could use some serious variety. The amount of male characters that compete with skyscrapers in this game is starting to become staggering. Female characters have a little variety with height and cutesy to non-cutesy type but it still leaves some out there wanting of either something more ferocious or something like what I want. If they could redesign the character customization to something impressive that allows way more options I'll be all for it. But if they decide that adding races is easier than we need way more variety to work with.

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Originally Posted by AngeliouxRein

For me when I read their statement about why they did not want to add in this option it instantly made me think of all the other games that already have a small race that we're asking for. I'm pretty sure they received backlash but it most certainly is not stopping them from expanding their games and even launching them on more platforms. When I see things like this it almost made me think SE just whipped up an excuse and called it a day. Backlash can't possibly last for that long with the number of players that love and defend this game. And then there's all the rewards and recognition they keep receiving that easily sweeps any backlash off a cliff.

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Well... it is an excuse. Pretty much everything what company will say to justify something they don't want to do is an excuse. Main question here is how reasonable it is from players perspective.

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But characters in this game could use some serious variety. The amount of male characters that compete with skyscrapers in this game is starting to become staggering. Female characters have a little variety with height and cutesy to non-cutesy type but it still leaves some out there wanting of either something more ferocious or something like what I want. If they could redesign the character customization to something impressive that allows way more options I'll be all for it. But if they decide that adding races is easier than we need way more variety to work with.

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The fact we need more variety is out of question. I don't think they will add one more race, though... even adding missing counterparts for Viera and Hrothgars is under guestion, designing one more race is probably almost impossible. Seeing the rework for character creator would be nice and has more chances to be done, although probably still guite low. I quess we can only continue to ask for it without much hope for success.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Possible at least in height. We still have the gap of about 50 cm between minimum female Au Ra (148 cm) and maximum Lalafells (90+ or near to this) that isn't touched by any race.

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The perfect size for a manlet viera!

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Tbh by consequences I mean more potentional blacklash than creeps. Creeps are pretty much everywhere, so it's impossible to avoid them completely - you can have the game full of bulky monsters and it still will have its creepy part of community.

But in regards to people just in general, those who don't even play the game but will see a short cute race combined with humanity's love to jump on disgusting conclusions can start their crusade against the company just because they can. I mean... Some people in other game (Granblue Fantasy if it matters) assumed I'm a creep few days ago just because I like cute characters, and some of them are minors. People are... well, they are people.

I am agree that we should either have bigger height slider or one more short race, but I also can see potential problems behind this, sadly. At this point I'm glad I was able to set my irl height on my character at all, which is 160cm. It would be good if it was possible to make shorter than average male character not only for Lalafells and Miqo'te, and partly Midlanders. I could go with female character of course, but I don't play female characters even though I am female myself, so welp... good for me that I like male Miqo'te, otherwise there is a chance I wouldn't have suitable race in the game at all.

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I dont think the issue is so much the height as much as it is the form. If we wanna make some comparisons, Goblins and Gnomes from WoW dont receive the criticisms that lalafells in FFXIV (Or harvin from GB) do simply due to design choices. It is very clear that they're 'shrunken' adults vs something that could swing both ways in the eyes of the public. If anything, I think that lalafells get an even worse end of the stick compared to Harvin due to subtle design differences between the two. But I digress.

Point is it's not about the height, its about the build. If they redesigned lalafells to have more 'adult' figures at their current stature and some of the criticism will disappear. Of course, expect some responses to be "Well now youre trying to sexualize children for sure!" simply because it doesnt matter how theyre designed, some will argue theyre 'children' no matter how they look.

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Originally Posted by Saix027

*comparison picture*

I blame anime culture for it and i am honestly sick of it, i like Anime but i hate certain cliches like this with passion.

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Different styles depict age differently. But in this case, it really was a situtaion of "Oh, lets draw a lady with the body of an 18-21 YO and call them 14". It's a wierd lore choice that really doesn't make to much sense because it offers nothing story or lore wise other than "Check it, this girl is 14!" Unless that was a running joke, but its been a while since Ive watched Gurenn Lagenn

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I dont think the issue is so much the height as much as it is the form. If we wanna make some comparisons, Goblins and Gnomes from WoW dont receive the criticisms that lalafells in FFXIV (Or harvin from GB) do simply due to design choices. It is very clear that they're 'shrunken' adults vs something that could swing both ways in the eyes of the public. If anything, I think that lalafells get an even worse end of the stick compared to Harvin due to subtle design differences between the two. But I digress.

Point is it's not about the height, its about the build. If they redesigned lalafells to have more 'adult' figures at their current stature and some of the criticism will disappear. Of course, expect some responses to be "Well now youre trying to sexualize children for sure!" simply because it doesnt matter how theyre designed, some will argue theyre 'children' no matter how they look.

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Agree with this statement pretty much, with maybe only addition that it also depends on community itself. In case with Auri and also Miqo'te, who have pretty obvious features of adult women, there are still people who says that they look like teens. So as you said - redesign Lalafells and there will be comments about children again. So well, in conslusion I quess we can say that everything matters - build, height, and how broken community mindset is, with last factor being probably the biggest one.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Agree with this statement pretty much, with maybe only addition that it also depends on community itself. In case with Auri and also Miqo'te, who have pretty obvious features of adult women, there are still people who says that they look like teens. So as you said - redesign Lalafells and there will be comments about children again. So well, in conslusion I quess we can say that everything matters - build, height, and how broken community mindset is, with last factor being probably the biggest one.

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Yeah, theres a lot of factors that go into it. I think if they looked closer to harvin than lalafells, youd have less commentary, and closer to gnomes from WoW than harvin, youd get even less. But youll still get it no matter what because there are gonna be 'nay-sayers' no matter how you cut it. At some point you gotta say "Well this is good enough". But this is all academic in the end, as FFXIV wont change lalafells unless there is some legal issue that arrises where a government in one of their markets says "Hey, change these characters or we blacklist your game." But dunno if that would happen or if itd be good.

I think the only irony ends up being is the "Oh my god Children analogues" in one thread and in other threads its "Its just a game bro" when someone does the push up emote on another person. While Im not suggesting anything should go, I think that the 'line' tends to shift incoherently at times.

Honest question. Why is this even a request? Why would you want to play as a child?

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Originally Posted by Lium

Honest question. Why is this even a request? Why would you want to play as a child?

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I'm not in the squad who wants to play as a child personally, but for the same reason people want to play specific races or genders: just because they want. Maybe that's how their character's lore is.

There are also most likely teenagers (the game is 12+ after all, even though in my country it's actually 18+ but meh) who would like to be able to create a character more appropriate to their own age, though I doubt they sit at this Forum. At least when I was 13, and that's when I started to play MMO games, I tried to make young looking characters because that was appropriate for me then.

Also, and it's not really an argument, but I quess it can affect the demand somwhere in its core, FF14 is a Japanese game and not the small part of its playerbase is into Japanese animation industry, where main characters are often middle or high school students so it just doesn't look like something unnatural to have such an option.

But these are just thoughts of why some people would want to play as younger character, I can't say for sure what different people think.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

I see a catgirl here, pretty sure cats age faster than human it should be the same for a catgirl.

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That's from Clannad judging by the 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR EYES' facial proportions. So not a catgirl, plus you can see the headband the cat ears are attached to. Anime just likes trotting out the 'mother who looks like a teen' trope.

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Originally Posted by Lium

Honest question. Why is this even a request? Why would you want to play as a child?

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The first time I encountered Padjal I wanted to play as one. I still would if it were an option but there's no reason, any more than there's a reason why I choose Elezen, Lalafell, and Miquote over the other races.

My husband was surprised when I mentioned it (about the Padjal) and said something about how they're kids but I was surprised in turn because I don't understand why that makes any difference. For the sake of clarity I do get some of the arguments people pose against playable children of the existing races (and don't believe it's a worthwhile endeavor) but that's another subject altogether.

When I started writing this I had it in my mind that I'd provide some sort of enlightenment. The more I think back on that conversation with my husband the more I'm reminded the one thing I took away from it is that you're either bothered by the idea or baffled as to why anyone sees it as strange.

Well, so much for my plan of adding anything substantial....at any rate, I like small, cute characters regardless whatever lore they come up with to explain their existence. I'm mostly indifferent to that, as it pertains to player characters anyway.

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Originally Posted by SugarPuff

The first time I encountered Padjal I wanted to play as one. I still would if it were an option but there's no reason, any more than there's a reason why I choose Elezen, Lalafell, and Miquote over the other races.

My husband was surprised when I mentioned it (about the Padjal) and said something about how they're kids but I was surprised in turn because I don't understand why that makes any difference. For the sake of clarity I do get some of the arguments people pose against playable children of the existing races (and don't believe it's a worthwhile endeavor) but that's another subject altogether.

When I started writing this I had it in my mind that I'd provide some sort of enlightenment. The more I think back on that conversation with my husband the more I'm reminded the one thing I took away from it is that you're either bothered by the idea or baffled as to why anyone sees it as strange.

Well, so much for my plan of adding anything substantial....at any rate, I like small, cute characters regardless whatever lore they come up with to explain their existence. I'm mostly indifferent to that, as it pertains to player characters anyway.

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I understand where you are coming from, but I guess the reason why it bothers me is because I know how the internet is. Take one walk through Limsa Lominsa and look at all the ERP going down (at least in NA, not sure how it is in EU or JP).

Playing as a child is different than playing as a different race or gender because I feel like they will be used in sexual situations and often dressed provocatively. And the RP will just be really weird.

I have no doubt that this will be a very small minority as most people that want to play as children probably just want to for aesthetic reasons and nothing more. But all it takes is one or two doing something tawdry, someone posts it on social media, and just like that SE has a PR nightmare on their hands.

I will say that in all my years playing MMOs I have never seen this request until I started playing FFXIV. So, admittedly, this is very weird to me.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

Well it depends on what people mean by child.
Iirc Padjal in game have special feature like horn and have quite high responsability (I believe the one we met where entrusted with responsabilities not meant for children) so I do not see them as child/teenagers but kinda like lalafell.
But if by child they mean Khloe, then yes the question has every reason to be asked imo.

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Padjal stop aging at a certain point in their life (usually pre-teen, though Kan-E apparently made it into her early 20s, going by her look) - they can be several hundred years old, though. I vaguely recall the conjurers-guildmast being over 300.

...but the point would still be that they look like children, despite their being an explantion why they're not. And while that explantion is intresting and fair enough for an NPC and the whole lore, it would make for a poor one to allow players to play characters that look like children - kinda the thing a lot of animes an other asian MMOs do. Just claiming that a character who very obviously looks like a child isnt one because they're actually an immortal being of some sort (vampire, demon, angle, padjal... whatever) doesnt make them look any less of a child and therefor a questionable choice for a playable race, at least in my opinion.

While I can understand the fascination SugarPuff would have with the whole padjal-concept, the whole problem what people might do to/with their child-looking characters still exist. Even if they'd claim "Oh no, thats not a child! They just look like one!" (Its bad enough that we have that for lalafell already... but in that case it actually seems more like they re-used the adult-models to show lalafell-children, not the other way around, aka: They claimed that adults are a lot younger with lalafell, not that an obvious child is a lot older than he or she looks).

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Originally Posted by Sesera

Being a child a looking like a child is very different.
Yoshida do not want us to play children but he plays a lalafell because they aren't.

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In regards to lalafell I expressed myself not quite right, I apologise - as has been discussed in this thread before, lalafell dont actually look like (human) children.
What I meant to say was that the "problem" here is that they're using the same model for lalafell adults and lalafell children, given people who'd like to be able to play like a character thats using an obvious child-model (like Khloe, the hyur, elezen and au ra kids - and yes, the Padjal, too) the option to claim "They did it with lalafell!" or "We can already play lalafell, who look like children! Even the lalafell children look like the PCs we can create!"

And I do believe that in this context the difference between playing a character whos actually 13 years old and looks the part and playing a character whos 130 years old but still looks like 13 isnt that big - in terms of writing a character it might be intresting to have a child whos wise like and old man etc. - but given a child-looking character into the hands of a player still carries all the negative... possibilities and ethical concerns, even if you claim "Oh no, members of this race are actually all well over 100 years old!"
SE could still end up with someones twitter being filled with screenshots from their game, showing a character who very, very much looks like a pre-teen in questionable poses, outfits and situations. And I doubt the response "Oh, thats not a problem! That character is by lore 150!" would help much.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Padjal stop aging at a certain point in their life (usually pre-teen, though Kan-E apparently made it into her early 20s, going by her look) - they can be several hundred years old, though. I vaguely recall the conjurers-guildmast being over 300.

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Kan-E didn't make it into her 20's, she is in her 20's, she 28 according to the lore book. It's just that she resembles an older teen, and makes herself look older than her appearance would indicate. Raya-O and A-Ruhn are only 21 and 18 as well. So their youthful appearances aren't that far off from their actual ages.

Fun fact A-Ruhn seems to be the Eorzean equivalent of someone on the autistic spectrum given how he is the "strongest" of the Padjal, when it comes to communing with the elementals, but communication with his fellow man is strange and awkward to him.

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Originally Posted by Sesera

Sorry I thought my sarcasm was as obvious as it was obviously not a catgirl.

But Joke aside when you see that kind of picture, yes it seems weird. However when you start to compare Sanae and the other girls like Nagisa you'll find Sanae looking way more older.

In GTO they are 14 or something but they look like they are 20+, same for JoJo they look like 20+ when some are actually 15 like Giorno.

And to be honest I'd rather have the Sanae type than the "I look like i'm 10 but I'm actually 20"

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Apologies it's been a long week so my sarcasm detector is broken beyond all hope. :<

https://i.imgur.com/qR5DgtO.gif?1

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Originally Posted by Lium

I understand where you are coming from, but I guess the reason why it bothers me is because I know how the internet is. Take one walk through Limsa Lominsa and look at all the ERP going down (at least in NA, not sure how it is in EU or JP).

Playing as a child is different than playing as a different race or gender because I feel like they will be used in sexual situations and often dressed provocatively. And the RP will just be really weird.

I have no doubt that this will be a very small minority as most people that want to play as children probably just want to for aesthetic reasons and nothing more. But all it takes is one or two doing something tawdry, someone posts it on social media, and just like that SE has a PR nightmare on their hands.

I will say that in all my years playing MMOs I have never seen this request until I started playing FFXIV. So, admittedly, this is very weird to me.

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I don't put much thought into what other people are up to...like the erp you mentioned in Limsa...I'm aware people are doing something there but as long as it's not being broadcast in chat (which it normally isn't when I'm there) I don't really notice.

Many of the female player characters I see in the game look about sixteen, if I think about it, but I guess I'm supposed to assume they're older. That's what strikes me as strangest about the whole thing, there's already an abundance of very young girls of unknown age everywhere in the game. My mom plays and her Au Ra girl looks about the same age as my daughter! Of course I know her character is an adult because I was teasing her about the apparent age difference between her and my dad's characters. Lol

Anyway, aside from how it sounds "on paper" to people who will never actually play, I don't get the big deal over having "official" underage characters when anyone could be playing a fifteen or sixteen year old. That's why I keep reading these threads, knowing full well people will never agree!

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Originally Posted by SugarPuff

Anyway, aside from how it sounds "on paper" to people who will never actually play, I don't get the big deal over having "official" underage characters when anyone could be playing a fifteen or sixteen year old. That's why I keep reading these threads, knowing full well people will never agree!

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No. Some people want to play as actual children, not something that might look young. A child. As in, literally. A human-like child. So not the lalafell weird produce toddler aesthetic, but human.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

No. Some people want to play as actual children, not something that might look young. A child. As in, literally. A human-like child. So not the lalafell weird produce toddler aesthetic, but human.

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I meant I don't get the big deal the other way around. I guess you could also argue that it's not necessary since we can already make underage characters but my intended point was the opposite, that I don't see why making it official is upsetting. I guess it kind of works both ways, that would restrict it to just teenagers though which seems silly.

It's an issue that SE really don't want to deal with. They weren't all that enthused when asked about the ERP situation back in last years Fan Fest and I doubt they'd be happy about asking questions about how they're dealing with the underage character situation, if they were playable. PR nightmare and such due to laws depending on the country.

For me personally, I just don't like kids (and other reasons explained here or there some pages back)

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Originally Posted by SugarPuff

I meant I don't get the big deal the other way around. I guess you could also argue that it's not necessary since we can already make underage characters but my intended point was the opposite, that I don't see why making it official is upsetting. I guess it kind of works both ways, that would restrict it to just teenagers though which seems silly.

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The issue is the people who are going to inevitably put a succubus glam on their child.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

The issue is the people who are going to inevitably put a succubus glam on their child.

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While a hassle, they could do alternative armor models for the child like race. As for players? Not sure why anyone should care. Creepy? Yes. But it impacts no one in particular negatively.

Damned if I ever understand people having issues with (age rating appropriate) suggestive content in video games.

Anyways, yeah, I can still see why SE would want to steer clear of this can of worms.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

While a hassle, they could do alternative armor models for the child like race. As for players? Not sure why anyone should care. Creepy? Yes. But it impacts no one in particular negatively.

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They could, but even if they did you would have much of the very same people advocating for "child-like" races in an uproar. They would probably make faux argument like, altering items they paid real money for, grinded for, etc.

It is definitely not something SE wants to deal with, and I support them on that front.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

They could, but even if they did you would have much of the very same people advocating for "child-like" races in an uproar. They would probably make faux argument like, altering items they paid real money for, grinded for, etc.

It is definitely not something SE wants to deal with, and I support them on that front.

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Not sure what to think of their stance on this. If its a decision made due to the ethical reasons stated? Yeah, sure, possibly I can get behind their decision (even if I disagree with it on principle).

However, I have a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, that its just a corporate decision to avoid the western vocal feedback, and they themselves have no real personal qualms about it. Which again... I would understand, but corporate dishonesty is something I deal with (and exercise in) daily in work and annoys the living hell out of me when I cross it in my personal time.

Eh... maybe I'm just too jaded at this point.

My wife and I were talking about this topic after seeing BDO's trailer about Shai. We both thought it would be cool to play a younger character (teenager) going out into the world. It certainly is a popular theme in manga and anime.

Yet, it wouldn't work here. Perhaps, it could have worked if introduced in ARR. That way S.E. could have developed the game with that concept in mind. But, that ship has sailed and we are not going to see playable children for reasons already gone through in this thread.

There is no such thing as a "the ship has sailed" in a long-standing game. Too many MMOs have already shown that you can still add whatever you want to the game even after 10+ years of it being active. If SE really wanted to add in more races, be it limited type of races or full-blown one they can. The only thing that's really stopping them is budget and resources. Au Ra, as much as I love it, I know this is a race that did not need to be added to the game but here it is. A grand story for them wasn't added until Stormblood, with only small bits of a story about them in Heavensward.

This same treatment can be done to any race they decide to add to the game moving forward. Heck, the First could be a perfect time for them to introduce a small race that was created in the aftermath of all the light and aether coming together to give birth to them. WoD could travel deep enough out into the middle of the light ridden wasteland and discover an entire underground world full of the new race and any survivors that somehow got out there. See how easy that is? Of course, I'm pretty sure the writers at SE could easily elaborate on that further but it sets it up easily for an entirely new race to be added.

Honestly? I would be ecstatic if they did something like that. It might spark folks to start clamoring for a Lupin or Ananta races to be added (and I don't blame them, I love the Ananta) but it would be easy as heck for them to add as many races as they want. Any type that they want. All they need is budget and resources. And who knows FF7 Remake could bring them that.

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Originally Posted by Lersayil

Not sure what to think of their stance on this. If its a decision made due to the ethical reasons stated? Yeah, sure, possibly I can get behind their decision (even if I disagree with it on principle).

However, I have a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, that its just a corporate decision to avoid the western vocal feedback, and they themselves have no real personal qualms about it. Which again... I would understand, but corporate dishonesty is something I deal with (and exercise in) daily in work and annoys the living hell out of me when I cross it in my personal time.

Eh... maybe I'm just too jaded at this point.

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While I cant say for sure if its really a purely ethical choice, or maybe even something along the lines of the designers themselves not wanting to design/model sexy gear onto children (while it is in a sense their job to deliver whatever outfits Yoshi-P sees fit for the game, I could understand someone going "Yeah, I'm not comfortable with designing a playboy-bunny outfit for a child").

The reason I mention this is because the solution you're proposing is something they already did or are even still doing: Clothes are getting altered for lalafell.
I have my ARR artbook lying next to me and would like to quote from page 88, a comment made on the Taffeta Shawl by Namae: "I try not to make Lalafells too sexy when designing their gear, and the look here is that of a child's swimsuit."

While we went over the whole "lalafells are adults"-thing before, I'd like to point out that they still have certain features that makes one think more of a child, which are taken into consideration by the design-team, it seems. There are some more comments in the artbook all basically saying "the lalafell gear here was insipired by what a child might wear" and as you can already see in game, most "bikini-type"-pieces get a bit more fabric for lalafell.
Maybe I'm naive, but to me this already shows that at least one person in the design-team wasnt overly comfortable with designing sexy gear for characters that can look like they're a bit young.
Since lalafells are adults in the end and dont actually represent (human) children, its still not much of an issue - opposed to having actual children.

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.
But even besides that, there are things in the game itself that would seem just a little bit weird were the character a child (or at least clearly looked like one, aka used one of the child-models): Haurchefaunt, any other character that might flirt with you, the whole Eternal Bonding ceremony (even if they dont call it a wedding, it damn well hits all the marks of one - and you dont need a sucuubus-glamour to end up with a childs-bride...)... its simply a whole can of worms that I understand them not going anywhere near - wether its a buisness-choice, an ethical one by the team or maybe even just one on a personal level of "yeah, I'd rather not design this" is obviously difficult to say.
But going through that artbook at least gives me the sense of them being aware what they're putting out there and whats appropriate - and what isnt.

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Originally Posted by Eloah

Fun fact A-Ruhn seems to be the Eorzean equivalent of someone on the autistic spectrum given how he is the "strongest" of the Padjal, when it comes to communing with the elementals, but communication with his fellow man is strange and awkward to him.

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I still think Urianger is our prime would-be autistic character. Not just "socially awkward" but in specific ways - odd speech pattern, specific interests, highly intelligent but hasn't realised that you don't greet people by quoting obscure prophecy at them...

A-Ruhn doesn't really come off as "odd" in the same way - not that I remember noticing, anyway.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.

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Oh they're definitely aware of them. I think it was even mentioned in this thread that someone was banned for making/using a certain mod on Ryne (a disgusting mod).

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Originally Posted by Vidu

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Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a new* race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope some of the "child-like" crowd have, and are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that "child-like" race.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope the "child-like" crowd are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

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On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

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Originally Posted by Vidu

On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

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Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.


Make no mistake, I do not condone the use of child like characters by the player base, for many of the reasons others have noted and due to my own personal feelings on the matter. The Hyur Midlanders as a race fit the bill of being young as needs to be. Anything else is just issues waiting to happen, options literally waiting to be exploited.

All publicity may be good publicity, but infamy can kill a franchise.

I still want Male Viera, as much as i dislike the Furry magnets that are Hrothgar, we still need the Females so as to complete the races. The argument that resources are to taxed is laughable at best. You know what your player base wants, and we keep getting another game system as yet to be abandoned due to failure.

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Originally Posted by Alacran

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.

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To be fair those content bits were all pretty much fire and forget types. Adding a race is a resource sink for the rest of the lifetime of the game. I always assume they mean those long term resources when they mention this, not the initial implementation cost (which might also cost a pretty penny considering our ever expanding wardrobe).

At this point I'd be satisfied if they'd manage to expand on the current customization system. I'd really like to be about 10-20cm's higher than its currently allowed for Au Ra...

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

The issue is the people who are going to inevitably put a succubus glam on their child.

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Yeah, that's what I hear. It's just odd to me that someone might get worked up over that but not care about all the player characters that already exist and appear to be teenagers. I would probably still be neutral even if we all looked old enough to legally drink, but the issue would make more sense. As it is, I already see provocative glams on what appear to be kids so the main difference would be making it official and possibly a very slight change to the model. I'm not in favor of that, because it does seem too small to be worthwhile, but due to how most of us would look more appropriate sitting at a high school desk than a bar stool, I wouldn't argue against it either.