Quote Originally Posted by Emmanellain View Post
"We did consider Male Viera instead of adding an extra race, but we tried to take player feedback on adding a more beast like race as well as the strong desire to receive Viera. We did expect strong feedback on the gender lock. It was a tough decision, but we decided to do our best to meet both the player feedback and our development team’s vision. It will be very costly to add a new race or genders. So I won’t say no, but I would not like to set expectations high."

This makes me wonder, which was developed first? People keep saying Hrothgar was in development first - but this seems like it was the Viera that was built first, would make sense why they'd still be working on the Hrothgar just before the JP Fanfest.
I honestly don't care which was developed when, but there's comments going around on the forum that repeat they initially started with Hrothgar and then opted for a Viera female due to popularity.
Yeah, and the feedback part is sort of wrong because the old poll showing beast race at the top used Viera as an example. Viera has always been one of the most requested race, and part of that is the desire to see male Viera.