Quote Originally Posted by ErysNight View Post
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.