Gender locked race?

[Lauront]

Honestly, unsubbing is the only way to really get SE's attention. Even if it's only for a couple months it's the most powerful tool consumers have.

Yup, but that's the course Redcurrant is proposing to take. For me, it's not something that would push me over the tipping point, but I think it's a very negative design direction. Even BDO is starting to shy away from the gender locks.

I don't even mind the fact that the devs imbue the game with their more traditional Japanese mindset... I honestly find some of the "progressivism" in the US market to be cheapen games, as it's not what I turn to fantasy games for. However, I don't see how gender-locking Viera and introducing Hrothgar fits into this all, especially when they caved in and gave bunny outfits to both genders. At least with male Viera, they have full artistic direction so as to avoid making them cutesy. Why is it an issue now, after you can design very cutesy catboys with bunny ears? Hence, I don't take the 2013 remarks by Yoshi-P particularly seriously as an objection to male Viera.

I think if they are introducing Hrothgar, they will end up having to later on put in both genders. If that's the intention and they will simply "complete" each race later on in time, I've no real issue with it.

[ErysNight]

Yup, but that's the course Redcurrant is proposing to take. For me, it's not something that would push me over the tipping point, but I think it's a very negative design direction. Even BDO is starting to shy away from the gender locks.

I don't even mind the fact that the devs imbue the game with their more traditional Japanese mindset... I honestly find some of the "progressivism" in the US market to be cheapen games. However, I don't see how gender-locking Viera and introducing Hrothgar solves this problem, especially when they caved in and gave bunny outfits to both genders.

Honestly, with the number of documented times they've talked about development cost constraints (SE treats FFXIV as a cashcow and draws a ton of profit from it without giving them much of an increased budget for development), why even make a second race? It has to be considerably easier to just make male and females, avoid all the ire from the vocal minority and develop gear for the male counterpart to the females.

So I am really interested in their reasoning at this point. I need the JP fanfest now lol.

[Lauront]

Honestly, with the number of documented times they've talked about development cost constraints (SE treats FFXIV as a cashcow and draws a ton of profit from it without giving them much of an increased budget for development), why even make a second race? It has to be considerably easier to just make male and females, avoid all the ire from the vocal minority and develop gear for the male counterpart to the females.

So I am really interested in their reasoning at this point. I need the JP fanfest now lol.

To be fair to them, they do re-invest in it; they quadrupled the budget for SB if memory serves, and I imagine ShB will benefit from an increased budget, too. The fact that Yoshi-P felt he could even mention a graphics overhaul on the panel with Ayumi (albeit they're still holding off on committing to this) makes me think he's confident the game will get continued funds as long as it makes SE money. So much so that they aren't even considering talk of another MMO just yet.

As for why they would toy with two races, it could just be that they see it as a good marketing tool to attract new players, especially nostalgic WoW players. I'm not yet 100% convinced about whether Hrothgar will be included, and I am sure if they are they will keep the design tame, but I could see it being a handy tool to draw more players. They have the opportunity to figure out why people don't play Roegadyn as much and factor it into their design.

[ErysNight]

To be fair to them, they do re-invest in it; they quadrupled the budget for SB if memory serves, and I imagine ShB will benefit from an increased budget, too. The fact that Yoshi-P felt he could even mention a graphics overhaul on the panel with Ayumi (albeit they're still holding off on committing to this) makes me think he's confident the game will get continued funds as long as it makes SE money. So much so that they aren't even considering talk of another MMO just yet.

As for why they would toy with two races, it could just be that they see it as a good marketing tool to attract new players, especially nostalgic WoW players. I'm not yet 100% convinced about whether Hrothgar will be included, and I am sure if they are they will keep the design tame, but I could see it being a handy tool to draw more players. They have the opportunity to figure out why people don't play Roegadyn as much and factor it into their design.

Source for quadrupled budget?

[Lauront]

Source for quadrupled budget?

That should be tripled, I thought I might be mis-remembering. I'll see if I can find it, I had a link saved for it but it's pretty much dead. It was based on figures that allegedly appeared in their JP financial reports, revealing c$36m as compared to HW's $10m. I know that it's been confirmed at the least that they poured money from the cash shop into the EU data center upgrade.


Regarding whether two races will be too much content to put out, I think it depends on what else is happening and how efficiently they're utilising their funds. So far, they haven't revealed anything that would be out of the ordinary for an expansion - they've teased 3 zones (the past 2 expansions have released 6, and I would not be surprised if this went up a bit), there's 2 jobs on the horizon (in line with SB - more is unlikely) and at least half a new race and 9 dungeons (as opposed to 8.) We know of the cross-over raid and also the world visit system and new game+. I don't recall much else of significance. So perhaps the special "feature" of the expansion is the two new races.

[Theodric]

I like cats. I want to play a big, beefy cat man.

By all means, add male Viera too - my beefy cat man will need something to chase around!

[WhiteArchmage]

I like cats. I want to play a big, beefy cat man.

By all means, add male Viera too - my beefy cat man will need something to chase around!

Hey, now! Chase me and you'll get a few arrows for your trouble! >:P

[redcurrant18]

I like cats. I want to play a big, beefy cat man.

By all means, add male Viera too - my beefy cat man will need something to chase around!

Roegadyn and all future bara cats get to chase me when I become a male Viera dancer, wearing my black summer evening swimsuit...