Quote Originally Posted by Efrye View Post
Modelling and animation is definitely a concern with adding new races (and genders). However, creating the Hrothgar isn't any easier than creating male Viera. It's overall harder, in fact. They could've just as well added male Viera instead, but they think that not enough people would want to play them (or female Hrothgar). It's a pretty simple cost vs. profit calculation and obviously doesn't have anything to do with lore.

Whether that calculation is correct and makes up for alienating a large chunk of the community is up for debate.
It depends on what they'd do to make a male Viera VS Hrothgar.

Just even taking a look at the Hrothgar, half of the bone/skeleton rigging is already done for them since there's a massive chance they'll be re-using Male Roegadyn modelling assets to create it. Whereas they might need to create unique skeletons for the male Viera from the ground up; it's really hard to say whether one or the other would be easier at all. You second point about projected cost vs profit is pretty guaranteed to be the true reason behind their decision, given how they've talked about how underplayed Female Roe + Highlanders are in comparison to other races being a crux to why female Au Ra turned out so cute than their concept art initially showed.