Gender locked race?

[Roda]

Obviously I don't know what would happen but if say they had a height slider that went short enough what that be good? In that way the males and females might have closer min/max but both reach up and down in larger variance than other races might.

Also I wonder if players can control their heel height too or if that's set in stone. Short, high heeled, bunnyfu lol.

Personally, I want the max of the female to be higher than the max of the males, and the min of the males to be shorter than the min of the females. By how much, I couldn't say without like actually getting my hands on some art. But if the sliders were set to identical heights, that would be... neutral for me, not something I'd really celebrate over, but I'd still accept without much more than mild disappointment at the lost potential.

As for heel height, that's... probably gonna be a big fat no. Not unless they rework the animation systems in-game to allow IK to be used for the limbs (which I really REALLY wish they would do, because it adds a lot of animation polish to the game and there are already a lot of animation errors that would be fixed by allowing IK to be used on the arms and legs)

[Rokke]

If you look at the old concept art (the one i've posted probably like 4 times in this thread by now @@;;; ) you'll notice that they are actually shorter! Not as much as the Au Ra of course (because that height difference is hella weird and I hate it) but they're about a half a head shorter than the female in the picture.
#teamshortervieramalesbutstillhavethemtallenoughtobeleggytoughbois

I think Fran came up to my max heigh male Au ra's nose, and he's 7'1"ish. We don't know if she's max, min, mid, or custom sized buuut going off her height, they'd still likely be plenty tall as far as playable races go.

[Melichoir]

I will actually be disappointed if we get another race and not male viera. Also, lowkey gonna be disappointed if they only look like this:

I'm not so secretly in favour of something like this:

If one of hte sub races comes out like that but the other one has them more cutesy, Id be more for that personally. I think we got enough of hte big macho male stereotype in the game, but thats just me.

In any case, what the heck is Hrothgar? Are we getting a 2 for the price of one thing here much to everyones surprise?

[Lauront]

I think if they go with two full blown races, two dimorphous subraces for Viera are even less likely.

My guess as to where the Viera males would be in terms of their size is between a male midlander and elezen, assuming that the race isn't too dimorphous between the genders.

[Roda]

I think Fran came up to my max heigh male Au ra's nose, and he's 7'1"ish. We don't know if she's max, min, mid, or custom sized buuut going off her height, they'd still likely be plenty tall as far as playable races go.

Yes! I was so happy at how they retained her height! It eased a lot of fears as to what they would do to the females (after what they DID to female Au Ra!!!!)
Now those anxieties have shifted to the other sex. @@ (Gosh, I wish SE would be more open with their communication... I hate having to discuss critiques on guesses and hints, but if I don't now, that's even less time to display my concerns to the company I'm giving money to about the quality of their product and blah blah blah..)

[Daralii]

I will actually be disappointed if we get another race and not male viera. Also, lowkey gonna be disappointed if they only look like this:



If one of hte sub races comes out like that but the other one has them more cutesy, Id be more for that personally. I think we got enough of hte big macho male stereotype in the game, but thats just me.

In any case, what the heck is Hrothgar? Are we getting a 2 for the price of one thing here much to everyones surprise?

The original, reliably trustworthy leaker said that there'd be a race other than viera and that there was a hint in his avatar, which is a picture of a lion and a rabbit next to each other. There are strings for a GLD quest referencing hrothgar having "Majestic manes," and are named after a figure from Norse myth that has a name derived from the word for "Famous spear." As far as we know, they're ronso in everything but name.

[Lauront]

The original, reliably trustworthy leaker said that there'd be a race other than viera and that there was a hint in his avatar, which is a picture of a lion and a rabbit next to each other. There are strings for a GLD quest referencing hrothgar having "Majestic manes," and are named after a figure from Norse myth that has a name derived from the word for "Famous spear." As far as we know, they're ronso in everything but name.

Yes, and add to this that the name is "Hroar" in some versions.

[Tharne]

The Hrothgar are "lions" all right but not the ones you think about. Here is the male in all its glory :

[Roda]

Oh, so hornless charr with a back brace '3'

[Shippuu]

There's nothing that can be done with a previously unseen, male-only lion race that can not be done with previously unseen male Viera. Other than opening the floodgates for calls to fill out the now missing counterparts.

I can't see any sensible reason to add two half-done races instead of a completely done one, other than to get a foot in the door for doing them later, which they have the ability to do anyway because they're the devs.

More creative freedom is what they are afforded by going with a new race over Viera. Viera have a history from past games, and choosing to include them as a race comes with issues. You either toss their lore and appearance out the window, which will piss off fans, or you're restricted by the pre established elements. The more freedoms you take with the design/implementation the less like their original incarnations they become.

So sure, they could make male viera look like anything, but to say everyone would be happy with how they turned out is just not true. You already saw plenty of people complaining about the female viera and they're hardly different from 12's.

With a new race, they aren't bound by these potential restrictions, and actually get to make something new. If I was a director of a big final fantasy game I'd want to put brand new stuff into the IP to make my mark too.