Gender locked race?

[Shougun]

That goes against the whole beastmen not being allowed within city states thing, if they do that they'd have to redact more lore than I feel they'd have to just to add in male viera. Since anything more beastial than miqo'te would be really towing the line.

Booo lore stopping fun things from happening, booo lol. Not a fan of redaction but I'm sure they can figure something out. Besides how awkward (imo) races already get added to cities. "BEASTMEN NOT ALLOWED", suddenly we have beastmen and no one has bat an eye.

I guess I'd put it this way, lore made it not apparent HOW a summoner could have better egi but it did NOT prevent it (bahamut egi). There was lore against making it easy, but lore doesn't make it impossible in almost all cases. What makes it interesting is good writing changing the world, like new technology in our science. It can happen, but something clever making it work would be nice.

Lore stopping more beastly races, imo, is a very flimsy defense to stopping a more beastly race. Only thing stopping a beast race is lack of creative writing, imo - not the lore.

I mean, the most played races in that are NE, BE and human, and not by an insignificant margin, either, so if they see it that way, that's rather funny.

Yes but also notably you should consider that no. The most played in total races are the pretty races, and that seems to be true everywhere.

However if you total the beastly races against pretty then nearly half of the playerbase is beastly (non-standard). Also looking at older statistics it looks like this "other group" stays pretty consistent but spreads out as more options are added.

So it is true that pretty is a high demand item but it is also true that there are A LOT of WoW players who play a non-standard "not pretty" race. We already have pretty races, we don't really have ugly / beastly / unusual (lala and roe push that a bit but imo their FFXIV variant is far more standard human than FFXI, so I'd say it barely pushes it).

[Lauront]

Yes but also notably you should consider that no. The most played in total races are the pretty races, and that seems to be true everywhere.

However if you total the beastly races against pretty then nearly half of the playerbase is beastly. Also looking at older statistics it looks like this "other group" stays pretty consistent but spreads out as more options are added.

So it is true that pretty is a high demand item but it is also true that there are A LOT of WoW players who play a non-standard "pretty" race.

It's closer to 30%, and that is in a game where they have very well established background lore. I mean, what are "non-standard pretty" races? Draenei more or less have the same faces as blood elves, who in turn, along with night elves, boast some rather unique features... they are just also conventionally attractive in all three cases. Gnomes are cutesy, like lalafell. Dwarves are not the most beautiful race but neither are they bestial or ugly. If we really dig down as to where the "bestial" races are most popular, it's orcs, tauren and forsaken, which have a pretty strong lore presence in the earlier Warcrafts. I know there's plenty of "muh old Horde" er... "devotees", who have some sort of superiority complex because they don't play a "pretty" race (even though they'll use the prettiest face pick on their troll or orc femme), but it's a bit odd to surmise that merely adding a race closer to what they would play will suffice to lure them to the game, when it's not just the race but its history and lore in the setting.

Au ra are a non-standard pretty race, as it is.

I just question the logic that adding a race will be the incentive to lure such players over. Female Viera will probably do far more in that regard given the average WoW player's preferences.

The other thing to keep in mind is that WoW is still a western MMO. FFXIV is still an eastern MMO at the end of the day. I can't imagine them designing a race that their primary audience isn't going to like very much just to try and attract these "WoW refugees" to the game. I mean, are they that hard up for money? :v

And that's only the subset of those WoW refugees who simply want a more "bestial" race and that's the only thing preventing them from subbing. I think it's a stretch, to say the least.

[Shougun]

And that's only the subset of those WoW refugees who simply want a more "bestial" race and that's the only thing preventing them from subbing. I think it's a stretch, to say the least.

I'd argue that it would be a severe stretch too that the only thing preventing people from subbing is an "even more pretty race" then (Viera).

But that's not really important point to me (not a great point to argue against viera for lol). I believe SE getting new blood is an important resource to tap, because they can then get them into the sub cycle and cash shop cycle. Vs people who would already be buying cash shop and paying their sub. This is why I suggested they might be gender locking on two races rather than making one full "pretty" race though. Here they keep people in the cash shop cycle and subbing/buying expansion for that and then also drawing in new blood because SE has a void when it comes to "weird" (imo).

Also it depends on if you count dwarves, gnomes, and dranei as weird or not. Imo they are weirder than FFXIV's but you may or may not consider them. Either way you get 36%+ or 49% if you count them. That's a pretty good number either way.

36% (or more depending on how you count it) of a group you're not addressing at all is a lot when you consider the other 70% you are addressing very well (FFXIV is loaded with pretty already).

Although I wouldn't suggest that if WoW refugees is why they're going this route is the only reason why. I'd also say its because FFXIV already has a bunch of pretty races, so not just for WoW but for other players who are not represented at all. Adding a race to a void that exists vs adding a race to a very bountiful area.

That doesn't mean people wont switch to it (Viera), I'm sure there will be loads of fantasia money, but it does mean that there is an audience that isn't represented and possibly able to bring in new blood or make FFXIV a better home than before as they weren't represented. Au Ra concept art I think could have met that, but the current Au Ra.. I really don't agree that they're weird, especially the females lol.

To add I'm not saying I want them to bar adding male Viera because of this. I'm just saying that addressing the void, addressing the refugee leak of players who don't have an equivalent race (we have blood elf/night elf equivalent), and also adding more pretty (Viera female), could be a legitimate albeit annoying game plan.

Adding both genders to two very visually different races would be the "epic" game plan.

[Crushnight]

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See i'm fine with adding bestial races it would be very interesting compared to rest of ffxiv races but the big bugbear (thing that annoys me) is;

why do the males have to beastly and the females pretty, why can't both genders be both?

Au Ra males are closer to beastly but then you look at female Au Ra and they went way too overboard on making them cute comparatively it just makes me think even if Hrothgar are more beastly looking their females will be Au Ra females 2.0 because the ffxiv devs can't do it any other way and that shouldn't happen there are people who like beastly women just like there are those that like pretty boys pls devs give us both

[Shougun]

See i'm fine with adding bestial races it would be very interesting compared to rest of ffxiv races but the big bugbear (thing that annoys me) is;

why do the males have to beastly and the females pretty, why can't both genders be both?

Au Ra males are closer to beastly but then you look at female Au Ra and they went way too overboard on making them cute comparatively it just makes me think even if Hrothgar are more beastly looking their females will be Au Ra females 2.0 because the ffxiv devs can't do it any other way and that shouldn't happen there are people who like beastly women just like there are those that like pretty boys pls devs give us both

Agree, full stop. Lol

Although I don't mind dimorphic races, personally, as I really wanted to see the concept art for Au Ra where the females looked very seductive sucubus (demoness) and the males looked like male demons basically. I can imagine the wild horns of the concept would clip but seriously what do you call the cat tails and current horn clipping anyways... ? Not an issue at this point lol.

So I guess I'd add when going dimorphic I like it more when they try to keep both variations to feel special then, rather than "normal" and "actually unique" lol

I think it would be really nice if the females of any weird race get to at least have options to be as non-pretty focused as a male might be. At least the option for it. Like if they made the males a bit hairy and the females were generally less hairy and pretty it'd be great the females can have an option to stray away from that standard pretty woman look.

I wouldn't mind a female race being more weird/beastly than the males in FFXIV but seeing as I want to play a male ... it's hard for me to say that I want the first weird race to do that (assuming Hrothgar is Ronso-lion-pantera/lupis (BLESS)-like). Like at least for an option that I want to play.. It'd be nice that the males to be at least equally imposing. Maybe I'd still play the females if they were switched like that but it wouldn't be my make and eat my cake choice lol.

[Lauront]

I'd argue that it would be a severe stretch too that the only thing preventing people from subbing is an "even more pretty race" then (Viera).

The problem with these kind of statements is that people are comparing apples vs oranges when it comes to bestial races in WoW and FFXIV. For one, I don't count draenei and especially not dwarves or gnomes as bestial. Draenei are a bit out there, but in much the same way as au ra or roegadyn are. In fact, they look a little like a fusion of the two. The other thing is the pre-existing lore Warcraft had, whereas SE is famously light when it comes to any upfront lore for new races added. Viera females are the prettiest and most graceful they've added yet, so yes, I do think they have the potential to capture WoW refugees, but more importantly they were added in response to very strong fan demand for the race.

If SE think it'll be as simple as just adding a race that is a bit more monstrous, and that's that, I'd like to know what they're basing such a decision on, as the far bigger obstacles I've seen to this game drawing WoW players would be its PVP, the lack of content equivalent to mythic dungeons, the non-existent class customisation and the lack of horizontal progression. WoW has headed in this direction, too, but FFXIV is even more rigid where this is concerned. So in truth, how many of WoW's refugees do they think this will capture?

I have to be honest, if they're shafting their loyal playerbase over to appeal to newcomers and planning to not add Viera males on this basis (not just delaying), which is sketchy, it will not cast them in a very good light in my eyes.

Agree, full stop. Lol

Although I don't mind dimorphic races, personally, as I really wanted to see the concept art for Au Ra where the females looked very seductive sucubus (demoness) and the males looked like male demons basically. I can imagine the wild horns of the concept would clip but seriously what do you call the cat tails and current horn clipping anyways... ? Not an issue at this point lol.

I have no idea why they fudged up so badly on auri females. It's not like they would have looked ugly. They were just closer to a demoness, like you say, than a waifu with horns. I'm just glad the males remained relatively true to the art.