Information on why the devs didn't include Viera Male/Hrothgar Female

Source: https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/doc...w/1176157.html
https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201903240006/

Q: When did you decide to implement the female-only Viera and male-only Hrothgar?

A: It was during Return to Ivalice, around 3 months after 4.0. Viera was confirmed then, and Hrothgar came about at the same time when we were discussing plans with Matsuno-san. We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female, and after selecting Viera, work began right away, because otherwise we wouldn't make it in time. As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. It became a fixed model relatively recently. Viera was done right before Paris Fan Fest, and Hrothgar was done recently.

Points to the inference that they were in a time/cost crunch when developing the races.

People freaking the hell out about the lack of counterparts, you can unclench your intestines now.

Honestly, this is much better than 'lore says nah'' - it means most likely the counterparts will be released in the future. Hopefully. I'm not going to jump the gun and get my hopes up, however.

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Originally Posted by ScarboroughFairy

People freaking the hell out about the lack of counterparts, you can unclench your intestines now.

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I won't because the irony of it all is that making a Hrothgar female would've spared us this genderlocked nonsense. Knowing we could've had a full race only makes it more bitter, in a way.

People are still going to be upset or claim these are just excuses. Personally I am glad they went this route.

why didn't they just say "due to time constraints male viera and female hrothgar will be released at a later date"? why?

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

I won't because the irony of it all is that making a Hrothgar female would've spared us this genderlocked nonsense. Knowing we could've had a full race only makes it more bitter, in a way.

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If that happened, then the shitstorm you'd see in the forums would've been absolutely biblical compared to what's happening now.

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Originally Posted by ScarboroughFairy

Source: https://game.watch.impress.co.jp/doc...w/1176157.html
https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/201903240006/

Q: When did you decide to implement the female-only Viera and male-only Hrothgar?

A: It was during Return to Ivalice, around 3 months after 4.0. Viera was confirmed then, and Hrothgar came about at the same time when we were discussing plans with Matsuno-san. We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female, and after selecting Viera, work began right away, because otherwise we wouldn't make it in time. As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. It became a fixed model relatively recently. Viera was done right before Paris Fan Fest, and Hrothgar was done recently.

Points to the inference that they were in a time/cost crunch when developing the races.

People freaking the hell out about the lack of counterparts, you can unclench your intestines now.

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Well if that is the case than it would sure be nice for them to just confirm that they'll be coming eventually rather than coming up with some awful excuse about lore reasons less than 24 hours before confirming the date we can all get our regalia.

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Originally Posted by grinkdaboy

why didn't they just say "due to time constraints male viera and female hrothgar will be released at a later date"? why?

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My guess is that they don't want to promise something and be expected to held to it. Better to just leave it open so there's no further time constraints, because if you say "a later date" then all you'll get is a hounding WHEN WHEN WHEN. It's probably less stress on both sides to just say it is what it is now and leave it be. People can hope or not hope, but without a definitive date/answer like that, they can't blame SE later if said counterparts still end up clipped.

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Originally Posted by grinkdaboy

why didn't they just say "due to time constraints male viera and female hrothgar will be released at a later date"? why?

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It's Square, dawg. Were you really expecting a straight answer?

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Originally Posted by ScarboroughFairy

As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. .

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mmmh wolf? interesting

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Originally Posted by ScarboroughFairy

Points to the inference that they were in a time/cost crunch when developing the races.

People freaking the hell out about the lack of counterparts, you can unclench your intestines now.

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this means something even WORST in itself: the fact that they lack time and people to work on the game development and they scrap out things for this reason.

I don't know about you, but for me this information it's evern worst, it means this games has a doom clock on it.

So... why work quickly on two races then?

Honestly, I would have preferred they released male and female Hrothgar (Yes, even if it meant not seeing ONE Viera in RtI, I would've complained and grumbled, but silently and eventually accepted that it meant they would work on making them playable later) and held off Viera for later. Gender-locks in general tick me off (since PWI when Male Untamed have a choice between Panda, Lion or Tiger head and Females are cute ladies with fox ears, tails, and OH LOOK!).

I wouldn't get your hopes up on them adding females or males to those races. Better to live and let live, tho it is nice they provided a reason. Tho I think they only did cause of the massive amount of salt without fries that happened over the 2 days. I'm just glad we got different looks, I'm staying a miqo jones but it'll be nice to see bunny girls and bara cat dudes. I'mma poke all their noses.

I honestly want the people who were accusing the devs for excluding the counterparts due to sexism and homophobia to come and explain themselves. Like, what do you simps have to say for yourselves?

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Well if that is the case than it would sure be nice for them to just confirm that they'll be coming eventually rather than coming up with some awful excuse about lore reasons less than 24 hours before confirming the date we can all get our regalia.

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You get a car! And you get a car! And YOU get a car! And you can all have motorcycles! And play catboys. But the thing thats less rare than all of those in the lore is a no-go because it messes with the lore we're messing with to have playable female Viera.

The "lore" reason never worked when they change the games lore live on stream regularly, and nobody on either side of the argument actually believed it did. (I still dont care about anything other than "lore" being the stupidest argument ive heard for explaining obvious executive decisions)

Honestly this was pretty obvious just looking at the Hrothgar reveal. They need some more polish (Viera too holy cardboard ears batman) which they'll get by release. Likely what happened is they implimented the gender locks to A) get both races in and established and possibly B) use the gender lock backlash to justify doing more work with them later. I have little doubt we will see the counterparts eventually. I can only hope by the time we do they set it up lorewise ala Yugiri's reveal.

One thing I'd like to point out, assuming this translation is accurate enough: "We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female". The debate was about the females, implying male Viera were never an option to begin with as it makes it sound like the male Hroths were a given, the question is what came with them. So not only did they not consider the first option to be the well requested Viera, but they also opted for the gender locks. I get why, I suppose, given Viera seem to be more popular than Hrothgar with both genders, and seeing Fran in the game would have, as stated before, caused a shitstorm if bunnies weren't playable.
But there's too much behind that decision that I don't like.

Also I'm scared two big mmo's just had major layoffs. I'm worried for the devs at ffxiv

Probably could have pulled off two fully realized races with male and female models if they didn't waste their time with BLU.

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Originally Posted by wylantar

Probably could have pulled off two fully realized races with male and female models if they didn't waste their time with BLU.

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Ahh yes, this arguement. Because the people that design and work on jobs are the same as the people who design and work on races/character modeling and gear.

Thanks for your insight.

So i guess they initially plan to add full Hrothgar race, but then decided to feature Fran in RoI 24-man, and since they will make a female viera NPC model anyway they might as well make it a playable race...

I'm hoping this means they at least had a design, and maybe an initial model, for female Hrothgar before the female Viera decision which open a possibility of adding them in the future.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

One thing I'd like to point out, assuming this translation is accurate enough: "We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female". The debate was about the females, implying male Viera were never an option to begin with as it makes it sound like the male Hroths were a given, the question is what came with them. So not only did they not consider the first option to be the well requested Viera, but they also opted for the gender locks. I get why, I suppose, given Viera seem to be more popular than Hrothgar with both genders, and seeing Fran in the game would have, as stated before, caused a shitstorm if bunnies weren't playable.
But there's too much behind that decision that I don't like.

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Probably someone higher up pushed for Hrothgar but the team already set on adding RoI 24-man.

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Originally Posted by wylantar

Probably could have pulled off two fully realized races with male and female models if they didn't waste their time with BLU.

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probably not. Totally different costs, skill sets and resources needed for making blu vs making a new race. One is heavily art related, and one is battle related. Cant just move a combat designer over to 3d model design and rigging, or editing and adjusting existing meshes, etc

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Originally Posted by Binahel

this means something even WORST in itself: the fact that they lack time and people to work on the game development and they scrap out things for this reason.

I don't know about you, but for me this information it's evern worst, it means this games has a doom clock on it.

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There's always a deadline they have to meet, expectations square sets for the devs. It's standard for any project. Compromises are always being made.

I had a feeling they just didn't have time to add both of the missing genders, coming from how much they've talked about how they always have problems with time when developing content. And why they didn't just add only one race and include both genders, probably for variety? Both Viera and a beast-like race were highly requested and they hit two birds with one stone in a way, but both are half dead lol

There's still hopes they'll add the missing genders in the near future, and I think the dev team should've clarified that sooner, and the playerbase shouldn't have gone ape about it either.

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

I had a feeling they just didn't have time to add both of the missing genders, coming from how much they've talked about how they always have problems with time when developing content. And why they didn't just add only one race and include both genders, probably for variety? Both Viera and a beast-like race were highly requested and they hit two birds with one stone in a way, but both are half dead lol

There's still hopes they'll add the missing genders in the near future, and I think the dev team should've clarified that sooner, and the playerbase shouldn't have gone ape about it either.

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dont know if there is hope, they never said they would develop those later, just that they replaced hrothgar with vierra.

At least they gave an actual reason. So does that mean they're planning on adding the missing genders at a later date?

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Originally Posted by Physic

dont know if there is hope, they never said they would develop those later, just that they replaced hrothgar with vierra.

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Well...they didn't say they won't either (?), from what I recall. They did say they won't make new races anymore but technically making male viera and female hrothgar isn't considered making a new race. The FFXIV playerbase as a whole is disappointed and are asking for them, and the dev team simply can't ignore that, especially when it's the most controversial thing about the game atm. So far the dev team does deliver, but slowly, so I do expect them to happen eventually.

Honestly that interview still does not mean that we will suddenly get the rest of the genders later and even if they do it wont change that this was done badly. If they decide to give us the rest later, why not speak about this? They have a whole liveletter which they seemingly used more for promoting other things.

Also if they had time restraint..why not make a whole race? Why the split between two races? Wouldnt it have been much better to surprise us halfway through the next expansion with another race?

I just dont understand how this was the best course of actions for them.

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Originally Posted by Physic

dont know if there is hope, they never said they would develop those later, just that they replaced hrothgar with vierra.

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They never said they wouldn't. People gotta ask politely, be patient, and enjoy the copious amount of content in the meantime. They probably already have concepts, and if demand and resources are favorable they'll do it no problem.

Maybe it's for the best that they didn't both have two gender options. The Hrothgar females would be female Midlanders with fur, and the male Viera would be male Au Ra/Highlanders/whatever with bunny ears. At least if there's only one for each we don't have to deal with the absurd difference in gender appearances.

They have had concept art of Viera since Before heavensward, they said they were going to do Viera before settling on Au Ra instead.
Why didn't they work on Viera slowly through HW and SB, why this sudden rush at the end, resulting in them and hrothgar only being half done? Seems like poor time management.

They could still add them in a later patch. Who knows...

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Originally Posted by NessaWyvern

They have had concept art of Viera since Before heavensward, they said they were going to do Viera before settling on Au Ra instead.
Why didn't they work on Viera slowly through HW and SB, why this sudden rush at the end, resulting in them and hrothgar only being half done? Seems like poor time management.

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They also stated they only planned on adding 1 race, which ended up being the Au Ra.

Why work on a race you have no plans to implement?

Also, after much feedback from the players, they decided to add a new race. However, as they were split on which race to add, as there was much clamoring for both a beast-type race and also Viera, they decided to do half of each for the current expansion, as they were limited on time due to everything they had to do in regards to the new races, plus all the other usual expansion stuff.

Does this mean:

"We really wanted to make two whole races but didn't have enough time to make both genders. So we made one each... We're very sorry..."

Or:

"We really wanted to make two whole races but we didn't have enough time. So, the male Viera and female Hrothgar will come out at some other point in time."

Either way I'll accept this as an explanation.

Still no indications whether or not they will add the opposite genders. Don't expect anything until they clearly state it.

Like myself and others have been saying in other threads it was a time/resource thing. Which should have been a no brainer imo. More options for the players translates into more player enjoyment, and more enjoyment means more $$$$, and SE loves $$$$.

How does this change anything? All this explains is why the hrothgar models look so rushed and lazy. They still chose to develop a race only 1% of the playerbase will play over male viera.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They also stated they only planned on adding 1 race, which ended up being the Au Ra.

Why work on a race you have no plans to implement?

Also, after much feedback from the players, they decided to add a new race. However, as they were split on which race to add, as there was much clamoring for both a beast-type race and also Viera, they decided to do half of each for the current expansion, as they were limited on time due to everything they had to do in regards to the new races, plus all the other usual expansion stuff.

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After "homophobia/sexism" is gone, I'm convinced that the great community just needs something to rustle their Jimmies, so they need some other dusts to snort.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

They also stated they only planned on adding 1 race, which ended up being the Au Ra.

Why work on a race you have no plans to implement?

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Because forward planning if very important in games, especially MMOs. They surely would have known that after Au Ra they would still be clamouring for Viera (especially after concept art), and other races. Especially with one of their main MMO competitors releasing other races. They would have had ample time to get the footwear, headwear, etc. Sorted out if they started earlier.