Au Ra character creation pictures from Nico Nico!

[Belhi]

There going to go with something they expect to be popular for their first expac. That's just logical business sense, particularly after the disaster that happened with 1.0. Going with something different would have the potential for attracting people not interested in the other races but it also has the risk of being unpopular and in the end a waste of resources.

Au Ra will be popular.

[Adire]

snip.

I don't think anyone is denying that Au Ra as they are now will be popular, only voicing disappointment that diversity is losing out and a race that should be fiercer than some of the present ones given its history is being made the smallest, arguably "cutesyiest" race besides Lalafells. I think you're overestimating the impact that an appearance like in the concept art would have on their profits though.

I'm pretty sure the Charr didn't cost GW any losses in profits for example. I don't imagine many people would see mostly human races, then one mostly bestial race and go "welp, not playing this game". Creating a richer game world is going to help a game in the long run, not be a waste of resources. People aren't going to avoid a game where one race is bestial and the others are mostly human.

[Belhi]

I don't think anyone is denying that Au Ra as they are now will be popular, only voicing disappointment that diversity is losing out and a race that should be fiercer than some of the present ones given its history is being made the smallest, arguably "cutesyiest" race besides Lalafells. I think you're overestimating the impact that an appearance like in the concept art would have on their profits though.

I'm pretty sure the Charr didn't cost GW any losses in profits for example. I don't imagine many people would see mostly human races, then one mostly bestial race and go "welp, not playing this game". Creating a richer game world is going to help a game in the long run, not be a waste of resources. People aren't going to avoid a game where one race is bestial and the others are mostly human.

My point wasn't that beastial races will drive people away but such a race is a high risk to resources. I don't expect SE to be taking risks at the moment. 1.0 isn't that long ago. They are going to play it safe until they feel comfortable that

what they have is secure enough to play with risk. Making a new race that in the end aren't played by many people isn't going to be a good investment and in the end games are products for businesses. They need to produce products people actually are going to use.

So they are going to play it safe at least for now. To be honest the other reason is probably that creating a new race that matches what we see in the concept art probably would have taken a lot more work than the Au Ra did. Those clawed hands, for example, would take a lot more customisation of current armour designs to accommodate for.

[Adire]

snip

Creating any race is a resource cost. The thing is, people don't come to or leave games because of one race. In the end, whether 10 people choose to play Au Ra or 100,000 choose to, the resource cost will be the same, and the same number of people will be playing the game, so the same amount of money will come back to them. Yet the richness of the game world will be increased, increasing its general appeal as well.

Creating a very different race would add to the richness of the game overall, aesthetically and lorewise. These things actually do cumulatively attract players.

I will agree there though, it would have required more work to make work with existing armor. That part of the cost would have been higher. Yet many mmos do it (including many free to play mmos), and do not see their profits drop substantially enough for the practice to become obsolete. MMOs continue to add bestial races regularly, so the practice must not be that detrimental to a company's profits if it's still a standard practice in the gaming industry.

If SE designed their armor system to be so...limited...they should really contemplate redesigning it to be more versatile, and designing it as such was a bad idea to begin with. They are forcing themselves to limit new races to the standard human foundation, and potentially hurting the game in the long run. Designing human-like races can quickly become a process of kicking the can down the road at this rate, and really shows that they're taking the easy way out.

Especially given how similar Au Ra facial options are to Miqote/Hyur facial options, how similar their body shapes are, how similar their emotes are, how tall they are, etc..Bestial or not, this feels like another example of the easy way out. Diversity in these regards could have been achieved without sacrificing "safety". But at this point, it feels even more like a fanservice to the two races that happen to make up the biggest proportion of the playerbase and even more of an instance of copying and pasting. I get the feeling of a less than 100% effort in their creation from several reasons, but the striking similarities to the two most popular races in the game currently is possibly the biggest one to me.