The cat's (or femhroth in this case) outta the bag

As far as the art goes: it's concept (for a raid boss), so it doesn't really mean anything. We've seen plenty of actual racial concepts that didn't pan out 100% like the races do in-game; au ra being a notable one between the outright dragon-faced men at one point and the somewhat more demonic-looking women.

What matters is the approved final art for the race itself.

So: this is an idea of them, but it's just an idea.


Also I've been seeing the notion around... and I get it! But at least in this case, I'd be surprised if the women didn't end up all furry? The notable character creation features of the hrothgar are their unique faces, and their coat patterns. It'd be breaking precedent to have one half of a race not share the same distinct aspects as the other half.

Male Ronso in this game aren't even full fur in the common sense. It's mostly around upper chest and neck up. And a bit on the forearms. Not much difference to Male Roegadyn other then being hunched over and having a cat head with a tail.

Of which I'm rather disappointed the Hrothgar faces are so derpy looking. I was so hoping for the regal lion faces Ronso were known for.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Male Ronso in this game aren't even full fur in the common sense. It's mostly around upper chest and neck up. And a bit on the forearms. Not much difference to Male Roegadyn other then being hunched over and having a cat head with a tail.

Of which I'm rather disappointed the Hrothgar faces are so derpy looking. I was so hoping for the regal lion faces Ronso were known for.

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Yeah. The FF14 devs mentioned that, though they wanted proper fur, it wasn't feasible with their limitations. So the hrothgar just have a texture outside of the patches to compensate.

Your second comment is a bit subjective though, lol. The hrothgar have more animal-proportioned faces compared to the ronso, which I think makes them cuter. And while I appreciate and respect the ronso, I think their faces run a little rougher compared to the overall art direction in FF14.

https://i.imgur.com/oAhEwJtm.png

https://i.imgur.com/4R5PAXkl.jpg

(Click for full.)

Technically Hrothgar are full-fur, especially if you compare their "skin" to the other playable races.

HrothChest for example.
https://i.imgur.com/DrSGjeq.png

No other race (Roegadyn especially) has this kind of "skin" texture, so I think it's safe to say that this is fur.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

They're not Femhroths, they're Hrothgals

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Hrothgal really does rolls off the tongue so much better.

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Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Why do you have to talk like this?
You're making it sound so negative when you say things like '' generic super sexy model '' I've never understood why people can't talk about this without sounding like they're being so negative about it.
Or that at least seems to be the intent especially in the context of the rest of what you're saying.
Like I dunno why you think that designing '' conventionally attractive '' women is '' easy-mode '' either while what you like is supposedly higher effort, I dunno where you get that from and it seems like it's meant to make what you want sound '' superior ''.
It's a really weird stereotype people have of character design where making '' conventionally attractive women '' is just done out of '' laziness '' and that it's supposedly easy and low effort.
It's not.
In many cases especially for male artists it can actually be harder because you're actually designing things that you don't know.
Things like makeup alone is actually pretty hard to do well in art especially if you don't use it yourself same with hairstyles and softer faces and less sharp lines etc.

The same thing goes for the refrigerator thing, I just don't understand why people can't talk about this without framing things like this.
It always feels like people just have the one thing they want and then they treat everything else like '' lesser ''.
Like as much as you want to talk about pressuring it sounds like you want to do some pressuring here yourself.

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Pretty much all this.
I've been saying for over a year that the topics of Hrothgal's and Bun Boi's appearance just came across as gross because of this hyper-fixation on wanting them to look the way someone personally likes. I've seen people ridicule "generic sexy waifu" images only to go full-on "step on me mommy!" cringe over the buffed out versions they want ... the lack of self awareness amazed me.

That's why I've been going the prognostication path. "What WILL they most likely look like based on what the devs are showing us/ have done in the game before" vs "What I think they SHOULD look like/ what I WANT them to look like". Easy for me to go that path as I think the devs are competent enough and respect their lore/ playerbase enough to not make things like the mural look different from what they want people to expect.

So basically, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time". I've had no reason to doubt the Mural Art and no reason to doubt this Art regardless of my personal wants. I also am not interested in trying to tell the devs what to do.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

I think the art looks good. I am willing to pay SE for a conventionally attractive female Hrothgar that doesn't look like a she-hulk but I will not spend money on the fantasia and potential boost(s) for such an alt if it looks bad. Combine that with hairstyles locked to their faces and you have the perfect recipe for venture that won't make back its development costs. The FFXIV playerbase largely does not gravitate towards huge hulking races. For all the "love" femroe get they are still extraordinarily rare to see in game.

When I think of what a female lioness race should be like, I picture something more along the lines of the artwork which gives could work just as easily for a huntress as well as queen. I do not picture female tauren FFXIV edition or Abby from the last of us part 2. I don't particularly care either for the "diversity" argument because all the "diversity" in the world isn't going to automatically sell fantasias.

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I think people overlook the bolded, which is the weak point in this "morality/ principal" based argument. "I'm tired of seeing Miqote everywhere! I want diversity!" well, if you add something that's only appealing to Femroe's tiny player pool or looks like Dulia-Chai, you're not gonna add much actual visual diversity to the game cause next to no one will play it. These are the type of things the devs would have to think about and consider.
I used to hate on Viera, saying that they didn't add anything to the game ... but I've been thinking about that, and I'm flat out wrong. They're more popular than the other 3 tall females combined, they greatly increase the chances of you seeing a "tall female" in the game. Everything adds diversity in some way as long as it's not a straight-up copy, so I don't see the logic in thinking "only what I want" adds diversity.

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Originally Posted by Qurho

As far as the art goes: it's concept (for a raid boss), so it doesn't really mean anything. We've seen plenty of actual racial concepts that didn't pan out 100% like the races do in-game; au ra being a notable one between the outright dragon-faced men at one point and the somewhat more demonic-looking women.

What matters is the approved final art for the race itself.

So: this is an idea of them, but it's just an idea.


Also I've been seeing the notion around... and I get it! But at least in this case, I'd be surprised if the women didn't end up all furry? The notable character creation features of the hrothgar are their unique faces, and their coat patterns. It'd be breaking precedent to have one half of a race not share the same distinct aspects as the other half.

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very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/14/5b...b7de5af461.jpg
also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/14/5b...b7de5af461.jpg
also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

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That and consistency between the race, like it's such a meme where one gender is a neutered version that retains the skin color and nothing else, FFXIV avoided this so far.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

very true
viera went through a lot of changes in concept even with FF12 as a reference
also said they looked at fan art to get inspiration for male viera and if they did the same for Hrothgals since 95% of the fan art is pretty beastly like males i dont see why they would be miqotes with the fur texture.

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The problem with this is thinking that all concept art is created equal/ the same. It's not, this is early concept art for building a race that was scrapped in favor of Au Ra back in HW, whereas the op art is finalized art of a trail boss.
If I had to guess, given that the op art has a face that's very much inline with the mural that's in the game, I'd say they already knew what they wanted them to look like as a race before making the OP art.

As for the fan-art comment, I think it's important to acknowledge that Viera male's desire/ discussion and fan-art always dwarfed Hrothgals and was among the most requested and discussed things in this game, so I don't really think they're comparable at all given the handful of Hrothgal art/ hype there is. They've completed 4 races by now and only said that about Bun Bois after all. Plus, even the man who created Viera as a race engaged with fan art discussions online and iirc had input on the final design of them.

It's kind of a special case, me thinks.

Paraphrasing but Yoshi’s lines were along the lines of “We don’t know if they will be popular but we hope the players enjoy them for what they are” when defending the implementation of male hroths way back when they were revealed. The females needing to look the equivalent of that one picture with the male orc/troll/demon vs the female being a human one with her skin tone altered for the sake of fanta$ia monies kinda flies in the face of that. The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

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Originally Posted by Rokke

The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

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Thank-YOU
That is literally the point of their Creation...for a whole new option NOT currently playable in the game (Or at least at the time before the Males were made)
Beast Races are Never Real Popular to begin with, they have always been niche. So why go back on that to "TRY" and make them popular to Get more Sales...when that isn't even the point of their creation?

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Thank-YOU
That is literally the point of their Creation...for a whole new option NOT currently playable in the game (Or at least at the time before the Males were made)
Beast Races are Never Real Popular to begin with, they have always been niche. So why go back on that to "TRY" and make them popular to Get more Sales...when that isn't even the point of their creation?

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That was his statement for male if I am not mistaken. Many aspects could have changed especially on the investment side of things. Sure if they make them beast like GG I am not holding my breath. I will be pleasantly surprised if they follow through.

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Originally Posted by Awha

That was his statement for male if I am not mistaken. Many aspects could have changed especially on the investment side of things. Sure if they make them beast like GG I am not holding my breath. I will be pleasantly surprised if they follow through.

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Im sure that statement extends to both Males and Females. But we have to remember that they didnt have time to make Both Male and Female Hrothgar and Fit Viera all at the same time. They apparently barely got stuff finished in time for the Presentations.
And they explained why they did the one gender thing; so we dont need to go into that.

Well originally Hrothgar and Viera were supposed to be same sex races. Until they backpedaled. Just like they backpedaled with Roegadyn and Miqote. Because as humanoids having genderlocked races is kinda stupid.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Im sure that statement extends to both Males and Females. But we have to remember that they didnt have time to make Both Male and Female Hrothgar and Fit Viera all at the same time. They apparently barely got stuff finished in time for the Presentations.
And they explained why they did the one gender thing; so we dont need to go into that.

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Based off the initial response it seems they did not have any intention to complete them so to speak. I am glad fan black lash changed their minds, but we cannot be certain that the statement also was meant for females. As mentioned if they follow through GG, I will be pleasantly surprised, though I am not holding my breath.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Well originally Hrothgar and Viera were supposed to be same sex races. Until they backpedaled. Just like they backpedaled with Roegadyn and Miqote. Because as humanoids having genderlocked races is kinda stupid.

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They were not.
They were at a crunch and had to make a compromise; because they wanted to make something new they believe the game needed (Hrothgar) and a long-made fan request (Viera) They didnt have time to make males AND females for both, and they could have just done one race now, and the other race later, but this "May" have been the last races put into the game, so they gave us a Male, and a Female.
Since we've only ever SEEN a Female Viera it made sense to do Viera for the girls. And then the Hrothgar for the males. And they have said if they could, they would try to bring in the other genders. So far we have Male Viera, and very likely; unless surprised, will have to wait another 2 years for Female Hrothgar. Tho, I guess we can be happy that it was announced "They are Coming"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Awha

Based off the initial response it seems they did not have any intention to complete them so to speak. I am glad fan black lash changed their minds, but we cannot be certain that the statement also was meant for females. As mentioned if they follow through GG, I will be pleasantly surprised, though I am not holding my breath.

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I wouldn't go that far, just they were vague about it because you never wanna make a promise you possibly can't keep.
So "maybe" is the better answer instead of No; then suddenly you Can do it. Or Yes; and suddenly you Cant do it. Cause those answers would make you look like a liar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

Well originally Hrothgar and Viera were supposed to be same sex races. Until they backpedaled. Just like they backpedaled with Roegadyn and Miqote. Because as humanoids having genderlocked races is kinda stupid.

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None of them were intended to be single-gender races within the story; they just had lore explanations as to why you never saw any of the other gender around.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

They were not.
They were at a crunch and had to make a compromise; because they wanted to make something new they believe the game needed (Hrothgar) and a long-made fan request (Viera) They didnt have time to make males AND females for both, and they could have just done one race now, and the other race later, but this "May" have been the last races put into the game, so they gave us a Male, and a Female.
Since we've only ever SEEN a Female Viera it made sense to do Viera for the girls. And then the Hrothgar for the males. And they have said if they could, they would try to bring in the other genders. So far we have Male Viera, and very likely; unless surprised, will have to wait another 2 years for Female Hrothgar. Tho, I guess we can be happy that it was announced "They are Coming"



I wouldn't go that far, just they were vague about it because you never wanna make a promise you possibly can't keep.
So "maybe" is the better answer instead of No; then suddenly you Can do it. Or Yes; and suddenly you Cant do it. Cause those answers would make you look like a liar.

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If I may ask what exactly is your issue with what I said? I fall in the camp that they will most likely look less beastly though if they do look beastly awesome, though I am not holding my breath.

The reality is their initial response and actions made it seem to lean heavily that they were not going to complete them so to speak. As such the comments made at the release of the males do not automatically mean they hold true for the female counter part. I am slightly confused, I get you disagree with the notion that they will be not look beastly. So to speak it is a coin toss right now we do not know either way. Reason I quoted I responded to you was because we cannot use the circumstances around their initial release to judge the grounds of the their counterparts. They are giving themselves more time “hopefully” so they do not run into a crunch when it comes to time. Maybe they will have one tribe be beastly and the other be less so.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Awha

If I may ask what exactly is your issue with what I said? I fall in the camp that they will most likely look less beastly though if they do look beastly awesome, though I am not holding my breath.

The reality is their initial response and actions made it seem to lean heavily that they were not going to complete them so to speak. As such the comments made at the release of the males do not automatically mean they hold true for the female counter part. I am slightly confused, I get you disagree with the notion that they will be not look beastly. So to speak it is a coin toss right now we do not know either way. Reason I quoted I responded to you was because we cannot use the circumstances around their initial release to judge the grounds of the their counterparts. They are giving themselves more time “hopefully” so they do not run into a crunch when it comes to time. Maybe they will have one tribe be beastly and the other be less so.

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.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

I had an issue with what you said? I simply replied to it.
Im kinda confused by this response when the basis of my point was they were vague about it.

SE, I have some spare whey protein if you wanna give it to your hrothgals.
Chocolate and vanilla if you want...

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

I had an issue with what you said? I simply replied to it.
Im kinda confused by this response when the basis of my point was they were vague about it.

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I do not know just seems weird each and every time someone makes a point that does not align with a beastly take on the race you offer a vague reasoning as to why they “will most likely” be beast like with a tone of certainty. At this point it is legit a coin toss as to what they will look like. I do not know hard to put my finger on it or explain it very well just a perception your comments give off when replying to people against beastly version for them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

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I don't do alts. Besides it would be rather difficult for someone to be me. I'm flattered. I don't think the world can handle two MagiusNecros.

The race design is going to prioritize the characters being "cute" rather then "fierce". Because that's what will sell players more. "Fierce stronger monster woman thing" only appeals to a vocal minority such as myself.

If the concept art is a sign of what's to come it's going to just be Egyptian Miqote with different color pallete and hairstyles. And would be an easy way to share model skeleton to fit armor and helmets.

Maybe giving us 1 to 1 rehash of Mithra from FFXI is what they plan on doing where the supposed ancestor of Miqote was full fur and the typical "skin" that the other humanoids have.

The concept art does heavily imply a Miqote/Mithra + Ronso mishmash.

I expect to be disappointed so maybe I'll be surprised in the long term.

To be fair, even male Hrothgar are rather cute. Not necessarily in an attractive way, but come on, they're literally giant cats, who wouldn't want to hug a giant cat?

https://c.tenor.com/rVpPQi7m648AAAAd/pet-lion.gif

As I said before, I'm vehemently against the "Highlander Miqo'te" look, but as long as at least 1 face looks like an actual furry, as it should be, I don't care everyone else goes for the waifu - It's not like some of the races already have 1 face that most use because it's the best/only good one (looking at you, dadlander, female Elezen, Au Ra, femroe and Hroths...)

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Originally Posted by Allegor

To be fair, even male Hrothgar are rather cute. Not necessarily in an attractive way, but come on, they're literally giant cats, who wouldn't want to hug a giant cat?

https://c.tenor.com/rVpPQi7m648AAAAd/pet-lion.gif

As I said before, I'm vehemently against the "Highlander Miqo'te" look, but as long as at least 1 face looks like an actual furry, as it should be, I don't care everyone else goes for the waifu - It's not like some of the races already have 1 face that most use because it's the best/only good one (looking at you, dadlander, female Elezen, Au Ra, femroe and Hroths...)

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Wish that were me.....hugging all that cute deadly fluff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rokke

Paraphrasing but Yoshi’s lines were along the lines of “We don’t know if they will be popular but we hope the players enjoy them for what they are” when defending the implementation of male hroths way back when they were revealed. The females needing to look the equivalent of that one picture with the male orc/troll/demon vs the female being a human one with her skin tone altered for the sake of fanta$ia monies kinda flies in the face of that. The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

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What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Awha

Based off the initial response it seems they did not have any intention to complete them so to speak. I am glad fan black lash changed their minds, but we cannot be certain that the statement also was meant for females. As mentioned if they follow through GG, I will be pleasantly surprised, though I am not holding my breath.

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I agree with the sentiment here that we can't take things said about them when they were meant to be genderlocked and assume it's true for adding the genders now. Like, I keep bringing up Au Ra because it's very relevant ... female Au Ra faces look far closer to Miqote than the males look to male Miqote and that race was meant to be the "most beastly" thing in the game at the time. Since taking over the game from the 1.0 team, they have shown time and time again to make choices in an attempt to make females more appealing to the masses.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

If the concept art is a sign of what's to come it's going to just be Egyptian Miqote with different color pallete and hairstyles. And would be an easy way to share model skeleton to fit armor and helmets.

Maybe giving us 1 to 1 rehash of Mithra from FFXI is what they plan on doing where the supposed ancestor of Miqote was full fur and the typical "skin" that the other humanoids have.

The concept art does heavily imply a Miqote/Mithra + Ronso mishmash.

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Pretty much how I see it, the mural and concept art looks Egyptian like (They may be going for a Bast inspired direction for the females) and seems Mithra/ Miqote-but-taller or Mithra x Viera.
But then again, I use the mural as gospel/ "the word of god", and it's legit easier to make those mural Hrothgals have a generic cat face than the human like 1 they gave em ... so I always took that as a clear massage that they would look more human. Be it Bless Cat girls or Avatar or Mithra or that 1 popular Female Ronso Fan art.

Personally, I'm a self-proclaimed furry and ... I'm perfectly fine with it myself. If they want to make something appealing to the Miqote pop then so be it.
I know furry head comes with its own problems in this game (Like, I'm sure Hrothgar have completely different heads because it's easier to tell them apart that way with that level of animal-face. Too bad that makes it harder to share hair when your forehead/ hair line doesn't match up) and isn't eveyone's thing. If they feel like with the F-TON of female Miqote in this game there's some who would like to be a taller Mithra like cat woman, then cool.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

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Yes, the diversity was for the games health and that their popularity/lack of wasn’t a make or break deal for the animal heads. If they had wanted to just make money and call it a day it would have been far, far easier/profitable to have simply rolled out the m/f viera together lol

I don't see why to go all out for one gender and water down their counterpart. Could you not use your justification of luring over the wow players that use female avatars with a beastgirl instead of taller miqote?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

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The games health in context to the type of race they were making can easily attribute to, Diversity. By adding an option that wasn't in the game, a non-humanoid/human looking race; a Beast Race.
Its abit silly to think or say that this race is to appeal to Westerners and WoW players when a good majority (that Ive seen at least) dont play Hrothgar, or even a Beast Race back in WoW.

Even WoW players don't gravitate towards huge hunchback races. The most popular races in WoW are not beastmen, they're Night Elves, Blood Elves, and Void Elves (discount High Elves). Pretending otherwise is living in an alternate reality.

Now that those players are in FFXIV they're either playing a conventionally attractive race like Hyur/Miqo'te or a meme race like Lalafell. They do not want a race that is objectively more limited than all the other ones when there are better aesthetic and functional options. I'd rather their female counterparts be more humanoid if it means that they look better in glamours and if I could wear my astro and blm hats on a potential female hrothgar alt-or at the bare minimum change my hairstyle without paying for a fantasia.

If it takes them until 7.0 to put out something decent, I hope they take the time to do so and if possible overhaul male Hrothgar customization as well.

Hrothgar weren't meant to appeal to every western gamer.
They were meant to appeal to the niche of rpg players who make beastly characters.

That was a niche that ffxiv wasn't filling before. Here's hoping they can throw us female character players a beastly bone as well.

https://i.imgur.com/VZlYQMC.png
(I know we won't get those glorious clawpaws, but here's hoping we'll have a recognizable snout and a bit of beef, you know, look like the same damn species as the males.)


Just because more players want one thing, doesn't mean they can have every other thing cater to them as well, especially when they're already catered to in abundance/excess. :3

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

If it takes them until 7.0 to put out something decent, I hope they take the time to do so and if possible overhaul male Hrothgar customization as well.

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I cringe and cry at the idea of waiting another 2 bloody years for hopefully a Gender of a Race that I can enjoy.
But, I do hope in those 2 years we do see something great, and it would be amazing if most of the Hrothgar issues are alleviated. For both Males & Females.
God Willing....

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Originally Posted by Roda

I know we won't get those glorious clawpaws, but here's hoping we'll have a recognizable snout and a bit of beef, you know, look like the same damn species as the males.

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SE, Stop letting my Dreams be Dreams ;(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

Even WoW players don't gravitate towards huge hunchback races. The most popular races in WoW are not beastmen, they're Night Elves, Blood Elves, and Void Elves (discount High Elves). Pretending otherwise is living in an alternate reality.

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Again, Hrothgar weren’t made to be popular, Hrothgar were made to be unique. SE made the males knowing full well they were a niche but believed that niche was worth filling. They are more compatible to Vulpera or Worgen in fuzzy form. If they don't suit you...well, then they don't suit you. On the bright side, you have 14 other humanoids that might be more your style :}

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rokke

Yes, the diversity was for the games health and that their popularity/lack of wasn’t a make or break deal for the animal heads. If they had wanted to just make money and call it a day it would have been far, far easier/profitable to have simply rolled out the m/f viera together lol

I don't see why to go all out for one gender and water down their counterpart. Could you not use your justification of luring over the wow players that use female avatars with a beastgirl instead of taller miqote?

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You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas". That IS an attempt to make more money ... because if you can convince, say, 18K WoW players to come play FF14 because Hrothgar reminds them of w/e in WoW, then that's 20K new players who are paying monthly. That's growth and more money.

If we're looking at WoW then cool. I don't want to stereotype WoW as I don't play it, but it's a game with a lot of "ugly/ hard/ goofy/ non-human" races. It's also a Male dominated game, as like 60% of all player characters are dudes last I checked. It's not shocking at all that many WoW converts go to Highlander Males and Hrothgar (They are almost at the same population level last I saw, impressive given how boned Hrothgar CC options are).
But females? Female of those types of races are not as popular as males. Google searched and found these numbers...

The List - Every race along with the percentage of that race that are female (sorted highest to lowest)

Nightborne - 73.9%

Void Elf - 70.7%

Lightforged Draenei - 67.9%

Draenei - 64.9%

Blood Elf - 58.1%

Night Elf - 57.3%

Pandaren (A) - 45.3%

Pandaren (H) - 44.9%

Gnome - 44.9%

Human - 44.2%

Goblin - 36.1%

Troll - 35.3%

Worgen - 29.1%

Mag'har Orc - 27.8%

Dark Iron Dwarf - 25.4%

Undead - 25.3%

Orc - 20.8%

Highmountain Tauren - 19.7%

Tauren - 16.1%

Dwarf - 15%

Can also look at GW2 at a time when it was doing well and see that Male Charr were close to being the 2nd most popular males in the game, yet the females were dead last.

One thing that seems universally true regardless of East or West is that players prefer females to look "cute/ attractive/ beautiful".

So for your last point ... would SE think that there's a market of people who want beast faced females worth going for or appealing to? Everything shows that people are more willing to play "weird looking" dudes far more than they're willing to play "weird looking" females, after all.
That's a question for SE to answer, but it's been clear what type of females people enjoy regardless of game. And again, I am furry and hate looking at these games because all their furry races lean more into "Monster people" than attractive furries ... but I can't find anything that would suggest that an attractive Furry Female would do any better than anything, as no one makes em.

So yeah, long-winded way of saying "people are far more likely to play the dudes than the females" when it comes to non-human faces.

aura concept art was this
http://i.imgur.com/eDNCL9D.jpg
and we got this
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...szi-w&usqp=CAU
concept art has nothing to do with the actual races we get ingame , this happened with almost all the races we got ...:rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas".

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They added Diversity, to add more Playable Options.
Creating a Beast Race does just that. Plain and Simple.

Why would they need to attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas, when they already have a Diverse Market? According to some people, NA is the largest playerbase, and if you claim the Hrothgar were an attempt to draw in these people..why are they already the largest base? And this happened, WAY before Hrothgar were introduced.
This certainly wasn't a powermove to get in WoW players, because most WoW players dont play Hrothgar (the ones I know at least).

And word of mouth is what got these people to play the game as they fled from WoW. Not a Beast Race

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas". That IS an attempt to make more money ... because if you can convince, say, 18K WoW players to come play FF14 because Hrothgar reminds them of w/e in WoW, then that's 20K new players who are paying monthly. That's growth and more money.

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But the numbers for WoW show that your stats are about the same for male characters: humanoid shaped races still outnumber the non humans by significant margins. So no, a beefy dude with a lion head wouldn't be the best lure from XIV's biggest competitor... a beefy human with fangs or long ears, maybe, but not a full blown furry.

In fact, thinking of the big wow streamers that took XIV out for a testdrive, I don't think any picked Hroths. Asmond was a highlander and several others went lala.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lalin

aura concept art was this
http://i.imgur.com/eDNCL9D.jpg
and we got this
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...szi-w&usqp=CAU
concept art has nothing to do with the actual races we get ingame , this happened with almost all the races we got ...:rolleyes:

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This is also Au Ra concept art.
https://i.imgur.com/MmjmDjd.jpeg

The art in the OP is not them trying to "figure out" what they want female Hrothgar to look like, it is finalized art of the Bozja Queen.
It's more ap to compare it to art of other trail bosses like this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rokke

But the numbers for WoW show that your stats are about the same for male characters: humanoid shaped races still outnumber the non humans by significant margins. So no, a beefy dude with a lion head wouldn't be the best lure from XIV's biggest competitor... a beefy human with fangs or long ears, maybe, but not a full blown furry.

In fact, thinking of the big wow streamers that took XIV out for a testdrive, I don't think any picked Hroths. Asmond was a highlander and several others went lala.

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You have me mistaken, I NEVER said non-humans were "Popular" in WoW (I also focused more on "the West" in all my post than WoW only, as it's not the only MMO out there. Like I pointed out with GW2, Charr males are actually fairly popular among people who play dudes in GW2).
Also, WoW and Western players have been coming over well before the streamer floods. Given that in SHB the only male option to drop in numbers was Roebro (at 8% drop iirc) and Hrothgar are more popular than they have ever been, I'm inclined to think that a fair number of them are new to the game and came from somewhere. WoW? GW2? ESO? All the above? IDK, but their numbers are mostly from Western DCs, and they do in fact fill the slot with "Big beast dude" to catch people who like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

This is also Au Ra concept art.
https://i.imgur.com/MmjmDjd.jpeg

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Your Conveniently ignoring the point, that the art we see could be one thing, but the Final Render can be another different thing.
Example, the art they posted, and now the final render we have are completely different from many of the other concepts.
Yes, at the end of the day they chose and finalized the style you posted, but it still proves things can change

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

Your Conveniently ignoring the point, that the art we see could be one thing, but the Final Render can be another different thing.
Example, the art they posted, and now the final render we have are completely different from many of the other concepts.
Yes, at the end of the day they chose and finalized the style you posted, but it still proves things can change

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No, I didn't ignore anything. You all are looking at concept art without context.
MAKING a race requires a ton of "throw *&^% at a wall and see what sticks". That's why early concept art doesn't match the end product. They even knew what Female Viera looked like in past games and still played around with making them more beast like in HW concept art.

This isn't that. The ONLY trail boss art that they put in these books is finalized art. Like, I have one with me right now. They don't show you the creation process for trail bosses, they flat out show you the 1 or 2 finalized pictures that look the way they intended the boss to look.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by reivaxe

No, I didn't ignore anything. You all are looking at concept art without context.
MAKING a race requires a ton of "throw *&^% at a wall and see what sticks". That's why early concept art doesn't match the end product. They even knew what Female Viera looked like in past games and still played around with making them more beast like in HW concept art.

This isn't that. The ONLY trail boss art that they put in these books is finalized art. Like, I have one with me right now. They don't show you the creation process for trail bosses, they flat out show you the 1 or 2 finalized pictures that look the way they intended the boss to look.

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actually the one i posted are in
FINAL FANTASY XIV: HEAVENSWARD - The Art of Ishgard - Stone and Steel - Artbook
----------
here you go
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/e7...df622be02f.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by reivaxe

No, I didn't ignore anything. You all are looking at concept art without context.
MAKING a race requires a ton of "throw *&^% at a wall and see what sticks". That's why early concept art doesn't match the end product. They even knew what Female Viera looked like in past games and still played around with making them more beast like in HW concept art.

This isn't that. The ONLY trail boss art that they put in these books is finalized art. Like, I have one with me right now. They don't show you the creation process for trail bosses, they flat out show you the 1 or 2 finalized pictures that look the way they intended the boss to look.

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Thats not true in the slightest.....the concept art was posted in promotion to HW. Or is that somehow not context?....
You realize you just agreed with the POINT, that concept art doesn't always match the end product. They look at different ideas and chose one in the end, which is Exactly what happened with the Au-Ra. Again...thats the POINT.
Those 2 pictures you just posted are Finalized images; Character Art. Not concept art that is subject to change. The main thing being that they have finalized 3D Rendered Models

And...outside of Fanart I dont think Viera were ever illustrated Beastly. Gonna need to see a picture. They've always had weird feet, but I dont recall a concept art that ever tried to Deviate from their designs from Tactics & XII.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lalin

actually the one i posted are in
FINAL FANTASY XIV: HEAVENSWARD - The Art of Ishgard - Stone and Steel - Artbook
----------
here you go
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/e7...df622be02f.jpg

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Yes, these are pictures of them trying to figure out what Au Ra females as a race would look like.

That is not a trail boss nor do they show the creative process of making a trail boss in these books.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

They added Diversity, to add more Playable Options.
Creating a Beast Race does just that. Plain and Simple.

Why would they need to attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas, when they already have a Diverse Market? According to some people, NA is the largest playerbase, and if you claim the Hrothgar were an attempt to draw in these people..why are they already the largest base?

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First off, like I said, everything that's not a copy adds "diversity". If you don't think that "game health" means more than "I did it outta the kindness of my heart" then that's just your opinion, plan and simple. It can be read differently.

2nd, how popular do you think MMORPGs are right now? MMORPGs are past its golden years as a genre (Hopefully it makes a come back) and there are only a few hugely popular ones, you're far more likely to convince someone who already likes MMOs to try your MMO than you are to convince a Fortnite kid to give it a go. Like, legit, just look at the state of things. The game exploded more so in recent popularity via WoW people leaving WoW and trying out FF14 ... because WoW and its devs have been driving them away. Growth in numbers comes from somewhere, and though not every new player is from another MMO, it's completely common sense to appeal to players who already like MMOs.