Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[zeylos]

Obviously you don't but then you don't work for SE and the Dev team. Believe me they're not stupid and didn't make these selections lightly.

I didn't say they were stupid or that they made this decision lightly, I'm just saying I feel its the wrong choice.
A full hrotgar race would have sold a bit of fantasias.
A full viera race would have sold tons upon tons of fantasias
What we got now will sell decent amount for viera but not much for hrotgar
Also press is one of the most important things for a game, and genderlock gives u extremely bad press which means lots of money lost (look at games news reporters and u'll see what I mean)
Male viera will probs make at least 10x times more money than hrotgar
if they made hrotgar males look like ronso they would have also sold a lot more so im not sure why they went the reskinned roegadyn way but not my decision

EDIT: I remind you that this is (like I stated at the beggining of the post) what I feel like, and what lots of players (not a random player lol) feel like.
Also I see that some ppl have literally NO idea on what marketing even means and how important press truly is

[Veis_Alveare]

If we go by xivcensus's data on the two races' most similar representations today, male viera would be played by more than female and male hrothgar combined.

If they wanted to add more racial diversity then this isn't just about volume of players using the thing, but an artistic decision.
And "reinforcing old gender aesthetic stereotypes and restricting player expression is uncreative, boring, and regressive" is a valid criticism to apply to this artistic decision.

You're strawmanning here. It's clear the presupposition that the post you're quoting was based on was that SE knew they were adding Viera and Hrothgar based on the overwhelming demand for a bestial race and Viera.

From that point your graph and that logic literally supports the addition of female Viera and male Hrothgar since (of each race) those are the more popular genders.

As far as "regressive" ideas about gender aesthetic stereotypes we could go in circles all day and never agree but (again) your graph shows that more people play female Miqo and male Roe sooooo... if the statistics show that the playerbase seems to follow a certain set of ideas about gendered stereotypes it seems like a poor business decision for SE to break from that in a situation like this one where they don't have unlimited financial resources to create everything they might want to.

I didn't say they were stupid or that they made this decision lightly, I'm just saying I feel its the wrong choice.
A full hrotgar race would have sold a bit of fantasias.
A full viera race would have sold tons upon tons of fantasias
What we got now will sell decent amount for viera but not much for hrotgar
Also press is one of the most important things for a game, and genderlock gives u extremely bad press which means lots of money lost (look at games news reporters and u'll see what I mean)
Male viera will probs make at least 10x times more money than hrotgar
If they made hrotgar males look like ronso they would have also sold a lot more so im not sure why they went the reskinned roegadyn way but not my decision

This is all conjecture and your opinion. I'm certain SE knows what will sell better than a random player, if there's anything they truly care about in this game it's making money.

[Lauront]

Sorry but I trust their decision making and I'm sure you'll see more Hrothgar than you an shake a stick at come xpac. We'll just have to wait and see now won't we. After all is said and done we've got what we got and you'll just have to keep hoping they add the others. I'm personally very happy with their choice and I also hope we get to see the other genders as well one day.

I also trust that if they make them they'll come up with some interesting models which the majority of the player base will like as well.

Let's check back 6 months into 5.0, and see how that pans out. I really would love to see how many of all these supposed WoW refugees are going to end up playing Hrothgar, or whether the likelier scenario is they cannibalise Roe numbers a bit.

[Roda]

You're strawmanning here. It's clear the presupposition that the post you're quoting was based on was that SE knew they were adding Viera and Hrothgar based on the overwhelming demand for a bestial race and Viera.

From that point your graph and that logic literally supports the addition of female Viera and male Hrothgar since (of each race) those are the more popular genders.

As far as "regressive" ideas about gender aesthetic stereotypes we could go in circles all day and never agree but (again) your graph shows that more people play female Miqo and male Roe sooooo... if the statistics show that the playerbase seems to follow a certain set of ideas about gendered stereotypes it seems like a poor business decision for SE to break from that in a situation like this one where they don't have unlimited financial resources to create everything they might want to.



This is all conjecture and your opinion. I'm certain SE knows what will sell better than a random player, if there's anything they truly care about in this game it's making money.

Here's the thing. Come at me with "they want to appease the most people" and I'll point to the underrepresentation of beast players in almost every game that offers them. Come at me with "they wanted to add something new" and I'll point to the tired trope they are reinforcing. Saying "it's ok to sacrifice diversity and player expression because more people would do this" right before ALSO saying "it's fine that they don't add a popularly requested and represented archetype because they wanted to add different options!" seems hella contratdictory to me.

[Lauront]

You're strawmanning here. It's clear the presupposition that the post you're quoting was based on was that SE knew they were adding Viera and Hrothgar based on the overwhelming demand for a bestial race and Viera.

From that point your graph and that logic literally supports the addition of female Viera and male Hrothgar since (of each race) those are the more popular genders.

Point to this "overwhelming demand", please. That graph does not really support the point you think it's making, because male miqo'te vastly outnumber Roegadyn males. Virtually every other male option does - even male Elezen, with their awkward proportions and animations outnumber them. So if they were really aiming to maximise how many people will play the male gender combo, a Roe-based racial pick is really not the optimal choice... unless, of course, the intention is to simply add the gender that would be most popular for the race based on the most proximate body type first, and then later add the missing gender option.

This is all conjecture and your opinion. I'm certain SE knows what will sell better than a random player, if there's anything they truly care about in this game it's making money.

Which is conjecture and opinion in equal measure.

[Veis_Alveare]

Point to this "overwhelming demand", please. That graph does not really support the point you think it's making, because male miqo'te vastly outnumber Roegadyn males. Virtually every other male option does - even male Elezen, with their awkward proportions and animations outnumber them. So if they were really aiming to maximise how many people will play the male gender combo, a Roe-based racial pick is really not the optimal choice... unless, of course, the intention is to simply add the gender that would be most popular for the race based on the most proximate body type first, and then later add the missing gender option.



Which is conjecture and opinion in equal measure.

Do you read? I mean you're able to quote part of my post then respond with something that's refuted by another part of that same post. That's some kind of skill there.

I said (based on comment from Yoshida himself) that in order to even understand this you first need to understand that they had already decided on doing two races, one to satisfy the Viera demand and one for the beast race demand. You people seem like you can't grasp that or something, I don't get it.

From there the more profitable Viera option is clearly... Viera. As we've known them this entire time, as women. No question there, especially in a game that already has such a tilt towards people playing female characters.

Now they could have ignored the community asking for a beast race and done male Viera. They could have made male Viera super bestial (slap bunny ears on a Hrothgar, it's literally cannonically possible with the amount of "I have no idea" that we have about male Viera - there could even be a thing about their connection to protecting The Wood causing them to develop in such an aggressive and physically imposing manner like some Werewolf mythos) or they could have done what they did and made the male of another race.

I'm glad for the diversity, personally. And also glad that they didn't add male Viera as teen-looking character models. We already have lalas, no need to throw fuel on the pedo fire.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ayable-race%21

I'm posting from my phone but if you want a glimpse at the demand for playable beast races there you go.

Here's the thing. Come at me with "they want to appease the most people" and I'll point to the underrepresentation of beast players in almost every game that offers them. Come at me with "they wanted to add something new" and I'll point to the tired trope they are reinforcing. Saying "it's ok to sacrifice diversity and player expression because more people would do this" right before ALSO saying "it's fine that they don't add a popularly requested and represented archetype because they wanted to add different options!" seems hella contratdictory to me.

It's almost like a lot of the playerbase of videogames are men and the vast majority of men enjoy looking at attractive women.

Such shock!

[LaylaTsarra]

Let's check back 6 months into 5.0, and see how that pans out. I really would love to see how many of all these supposed WoW refugees are going to end up playing Hrothgar, or whether the likelier scenario is they cannibalise Roe numbers a bit.

Yes we can check back in 6 months and a year from xpac release and I'm sure the numbers will be available and then we can make judgements about SE's decision making process. And I might add I'm sure it's not just wow refugees. I'm totally interested in making a male Hrothgar and I've never really played a male character before. Will I stick with it well that depends, I think their reveal trailer was awesome. Now if there were females available too I would have to see how they looked and what their animations were like and then decide.

[Lauront]

From there

Indeed, from there, i.e. having made the decision (note that this was not how the post Roda was responding to had framed it.) Certainly not the most profitable decision in the abstract, but perhaps so given the decision made, indicating they simply wanted to add another race whilst they still could.

As for that thread, I'm aware of demand for beast races - but the only way to get to "overwhelming demand" is to throw that "and Viera" in there.

[BillyKaplan]

It's almost like a lot of the playerbase of videogames are men and the vast majority of men enjoy looking at attractive women.

By that same logic it would've made a lot more sense to introduce male Viera over male Hroths for the ladies (and us men) who enjoy looking at attractive men, too.
We already know why they added male Hroths, and we already know why they added female Viera. Those reasons are in direct contradiction to each other as Viera was the race more asked for and the males likely would've been played more than male Hroths, while Viera bring little to the table aesthetically compared to Hroths, all the more so for females because guys got male Au Ra while the ladies got a Miqo'te clone.
Defending one decision inevitably undermines the 'justification' used for the other genderlock's existence.

but the only way to get to "overwhelming demand" is to throw that "and Viera" in there.

Didn't Yoshida himself admit that one of the reasons why "beastly races" got such high demand in the older poll because they lumped Viera in there lmao

[Roda]

Didn't Yoshida himself admit that one of the reasons why "beastly races" got such high demand in the older poll because they lumped Viera in there lmao

No they were separate options
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/46936