Letter from the Producer LXII

[RicaRuin]

You know, I give up. Come back for a discussion if you learned proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. As you like science so much, that shouldn't be a problem.
Also, it derives the topic.

I'm just glad about small things like glasses being avaiabale. It's the little things.

[Dustytome]

the character team took it upon themselves to use their spare moments to make it possible—without telling me. More than five hundred and forty such items were carefully modified by our designers so that all would display correctly with our new face models. /salute

/salute indeed. Someone needs to send them a pile of cookies shaped like rabbits with fancy frosted hats.

[Alucard135]

Female viera were changed a lot too, and I don't really think SE cares about that kind of things. Also, au rain also didn't have any reference yet we have them. Same with hrotgar (arguably Ronson, but that's just one face)

How did female Viera change? They still resemble their XII appearance. As for Au ra, they don't need a reference since it's an XIV exclusive race. They can make it up however they wanted. In Hrothgar's case, there are those that still didn't like that they don't look like kimahri's body shape (because a reference existed and they didn't make them similar to it). Which brings us back to male Viera, since they're not XIV exclusive race, they need a reference for that (Yoshi P stated that).

[NessaWyvern]

The devs that secretly did the headgear for Hrothgar and Viera secretly in their own time are true MVPs.
I am no longer crying in 4-eyes

[Jaywalker]

Huge applause for Yoshida and the devs who decided to develop headgear on their own, incredibly admirable on their part. I wouldn't be shocked if gender unlocking happened down the line but unsurprisingly it sounds like a massive amount of work. They know there's desire for it, best way to encourage the option at this point is to help with resources by putting money toward Shadowbringers. If they do it, it'll be in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of resources at their disposal. Not promising seems very fair too, but again just acknowledging the desire is a good thing imo.

[Shougun]

/salute indeed. Someone needs to send them a pile of cookies shaped like rabbits with fancy frosted hats.

I'm impressed with their independence, I've never led anything aaaaannnywhere near that scale (for me it was like 6 people tops lol) so it's not that good of a comparison but... some days it was like trying to help a thirsty horse find the water in front of their nose .

I can think of a few items for FFXIV that just came to be because of passion outside of what they were told to do, that's nice as it means it's not just a job to them it's something they care for! Happens in other companies too but it's a great thing to see, especially vs some soul devouring environment lol.

Good team .

[Emmanellain]

As you play through Shadowbringers, you’ll learn that both male Viera and female Hrothgar exist. While you won’t meet any in person, if we developers can find a way to address the various problems which are preventing us from implementing them, then perhaps someday you’ll be able to see them for yourself. I want to be clear that this does not mean it will eventually happen, and that I cannot make any promises at this time. I hope you will understand and bear with us.

Although this made me sad, because I had really hoped for a "we'll consider it" I feel like I can have some semblance of closure on this topic. I still hope they one day will implement them, but I understand their reasoning.

Man I had really hoped to be a bishounen male Viera warrior and go all vorpal bunny on my enemies, cause I've never been a fan of the hunched stance and markings on the male miqo'tes. I suppose I'll stick to my female Highlander, or test out the Viera females then.

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Ah, yes. As you may remember from the Tokyo Fan Festival keynote, I mentioned that due to the special design of the Hrothgar and Viera heads, equipped headgear would not display.

Glasses and so forth would not display either at first, but after seeing how many people called for us to do something, anything, to address this after the announcement, the character team took it upon themselves to use their spare moments to make it possible—without telling me. More than five hundred and forty such items were carefully modified by our designers so that all would display correctly with our new face models. /salute

I know I'll probably get hate for this but this sounds like a result of lowering our expectations pretty low with the "Don't expect much in terms of headgear" on launch to make making around 1/3rd of gear seem praise worthy. I have no reason to praise this at all, shouldn't the completion of said race in terms of all its visual assets including the armor it'll wear not be expected as a standard? Especially from an MMO made by a AAA devteam? This is the part that is baffling me the most, to the point that I now question why they did not just hold off on either Hrothgar or Viera for one more expansion and just make the Male/Females of one if the "Headgear" was such an issue. They'd probably get more praise in that regard while still playing up that "possibly the last race" card.

As for the rest regarding the genderlocks I really can't say I'm surprised but given Yoshida's pattern of marketing and wording things he'll be saving this for the next expansion to generate more applause and praise out of something that people thought "wasn't possibly coming".

I'm already assuming many people will start to "Appeal to Authority" with their many rebuttals of "Where are your credentials" or "Modeling background" but think about this clearly. If this was the case for WoW or any other MMO that XIV competes with would you be praising them if they said "Oh we'll have a 1/3rd of some visual gear work for this new race by launch"? or would you logically question why a MMO standard isn't being met? Why is FFXIV given a free pass in this regard?

[Dualblade]

So it would probably be best to stop talking to Morbolv, at best they are just being a troll and as they say don't feed em. and thats the best case scenario.

Plus this thread will probably at best see a lot of posts disappearing when the mods finally see it. If not locked.

[Fredco191]

My hype for the Hrothgar has increased. That guy looks so cool!