Letter from the Producer LXII

[reivaxe]

First of all, a leak isn't something you can know. It's only something you can believe. And second, the amount of people who it was "well known" among is a tiny fraction of even the forums, which is a tiny fraction of the playerbase.

I'm not even limiting it to this forum, I'm saying "people who bother to talk about this game online".

First a leaker who got everything right says Viera are coming ... then says not just Viera but a 2nd new race are a coming (strongly hints at the 2nd being lion/ ronso like). This happens months before Viera are revealed by SE and it spread across the webs like fire. People already start talking about "gender lock" because how else are we getting 2 new races?

Sure, you could simply "believe" at that point or not. But then 10 days after the Viera reveal Hrothgar are leaked in the French Dub, right with Viera. How did I personally find out about this? In a discord ... for Eureka. It pops up on reddit and makes it's way here with a 14 page thread that split off from a gender lock thread because to many people it was clear from the Viera reveal that males were not coming.

So yeah, if you're on this forum actively you would have known about Hrothgar shortly after Viera as that was a legit in game screw up that came to light.

"All those people who wanted a beast race" weren't all that many people. .

Uhhh, no.
I am someone who has been screaming for Viera for as long as I've been playing this game. The ONLY request I've seen that isn't Viera and is close to as requested as Viera are "beastly races". Lupin, Ronso, Burmecian and so on. And I as well as many other Viera fans would shut them down because no way SE would make a beastly race. Many people wanted it but thought it was unlikely to happen because of the nature of this game's aesthetics.

And your logic makes no sense ... people didn't want a beast race but NOW want a beast race female? Wut?

[MomomiMomi]

And your logic makes no sense ... people didn't want a beast race but NOW want a beast race female? Wut?

It makes perfect sense. The same way people didn't know they wanted a smartphone until it existed, and now over 90% of the population has one.

A lot of people don't know that they want something until they see an example of it.

[reivaxe]

It makes perfect sense. The same way people didn't know they wanted a smartphone until it existed, and now over 90% of the population has one.

A lot of people don't know that they want something until they see an example of it.

Yeah I guess those 1665 likes are just from dummy accounts or something. I'm pretty sure that's a forum record, by the way.

And just for comparison, the amount of people who liked the thread for getting Viera at all (not female Viera, just Viera) was 403. 4x as many people want male Viera as people who wanted Viera. It's a paradox!

You seem so happy about that number. Do you think everyone who clicked a like wants to be a bunny boi? Do you think that Female Hrothgar are also popular? They have 1164 likes ... but wait, you say no one wanted a beast race.

Also it's not a paradox, people are more likely to speak up in protest against something (in this case monogender races). Does not mean they themselves are interested in becoming that race or gender. It's easy AF to say "That would be cool/ I'd like to see that in game/ this doesn't seem fair!" without wanting to roll that thing. I'd LOVE for Namazu to be a race ... I'd never play one so I'd gain nothing from their inclusion nor does it bother me that it's never gonna happen but I'd "like" a Namazu support topic and say "This would be cool".

The official poll for a new race disagrees.

That poll is 6 years old ( back then the game was much MUCH smaller than it is now)
It's outdated and doesn't represent the current player base.

Also there's the fact that, ya know, they credit interest in a playable beast race to people's response to Lupin.

[Eloah]

Your example is terrible :/

Let me try to move it around ...

You're already at a joint, you enjoy it! It's got beer and whine and food and games and TV screens to watch the game on and even a karaoke stage! It's basically David Busters or Chucky Cheese. You get your favorite dish all the time (Potatoes I guess) and enjoy all the things you can do there. Now, they offer you 2 NEW dishes ... one's Shrimp and the other some kinda bird. You never came here before for shrimp because it was never offered and you don't eat that kinda bird ... you also enjoy your favorite dish and other activities here or else you would have stopped coming by now. They never promised you a shrimp dish before and when they showed the shrimp in an ad it was only shown cooked 1 way (Fried breaded shrimp). But now you're thinking of going someplace else because they don't make shrimp burgers?

Yeah, this is nonsense.

You missed the point entirely.

[MomomiMomi]

You seem so happy about that number. Do you think everyone who clicked a like wants to be a bunny boi? Do you think that Female Hrothgar are also popular? They have 1164 likes ... but wait, you say no one wanted a beast race.

Yes, I said very few people wanted a beast race. Wanted. Past tense. NOW they do. That's... the whole point of what I was saying in my first post you replied to. They didn't want it before. NOW they do. They have disappointed more people than would have been disappointed had they not created Hrothgar at all. Because now they want it, and they aren't getting it.

[SerLuke]

Yes, I said very few people wanted a beast race. Wanted. Past tense. NOW they do. That's... the whole point of what I was saying in my first post you replied to. They didn't want it before. NOW they do. They have disappointed more people than would have been disappointed had they not created Hrothgar at all. Because now they want it, and they aren't getting it.

I don't think that many people are disappointed

[reivaxe]

You missed the point entirely.

The point is you're trying to explain someone's "I didn't read!" post with a terrible, nonsensical example.

Guess I'll answer that guy's post to show how silly it is ..

I acknowledge the reasoning behind the choice of what races to add as truthful and legitimate, but I still don't accept it as the right decision. Me: That's opinion. Objectively this gives people who wanted Viera the depiction of Viera that's been in the games and it gives us a beast Race. Going all into either completely screws over the other group. If this truly is the last opportunity they had to add new races then they really just painted themselves into a corner by doing two half-races. Did they expect that people would be satisfied and not ask for the missing half? Me: ... He literally talks about how yes, they expected this out come. They talked/ thought long and hard about this before making the decision. They really ought to have just picked one or the other and saved themselves the headache. They definitely wouldn't be suffering the same criticism they are now if they had. I don't buy the reasoning of "there was a lot of demand for a beast race" either when past polls have shown that a mammalian beast race was by far the -least- popular choice for a new player race option. Me: He clear as day points to player's response to Lupin as the demand for a beast race. Get outta here with your outdated poll from around the time when this game was doing so poorly it was in danger of getting canned. O_o

Yes, I said very few people wanted a beast race. Wanted. Past tense. NOW they do. That's... the whole point of what I was saying in my first post you replied to. They didn't want it before. NOW they do. They have disappointed more people than would have been disappointed had they not created Hrothgar at all. Because now they want it, and they aren't getting it.

Ya see, there's a fundamental problem here. You seem to think "likes" mean something they don't.

let me get this straight, you refuse to accept Yoshi's study on the demand for a beast race in favor of pointing to a 6 year old outdated poll from back when this game was tiny and trying to recover from failure ... right?

BUT you think that the addition of Hrothgar makes people "want" a female beast race because of some "likes", because you think these people intend on playing it when all it takes is some lite reading on either of those threads to realize that people don't actually want to convert to them?

And you also seem confused on how "likes" for Viera can be so out numbered by "likes" for Viera male ...

On a side note this is why I like Reddit.

[Kaedan]

Ya see, there's a fundamental problem here. You seem to think "likes" mean something they don't.

let me get this straight, you refuse to accept Yoshi's study on the demand for a beast race in favor of pointing to a 6 year old outdated poll from back when this game was tiny and trying to recover from failure ... right?

BUT you think that the addition of Hrothgar makes people "want" a female beast race because of some "likes", because you think these people intend on playing it when all it takes is some lite reading on either of those threads to realize that people don't actually want to convert to them?

And you also seem confused on how "likes" for Viera can be so out numbered by "likes" for Viera male ...

On a side note this is why I like Reddit.

Well, she thinks that self-select forum polls are statistically valid, so it would reason she would also think that "likes" on a forum are valid data as well. It's unfortunately a pretty common misconception people make. What I dislike the most are the people who like to say things like, "but it has a sample size of 1000+, so it's valid", but that only goes to show they slept for half of their statistics class rather than the entire class. Large sample size is great and all, but it's worthless when your sampling method is terrible.

[zeylos]

You seem so happy about that number. Do you think everyone who clicked a like wants to be a bunny boi? Do you think that Female Hrothgar are also popular? They have 1164 likes ... but wait, you say no one wanted a beast race.

Also it's not a paradox, people are more likely to speak up in protest against something (in this case monogender races). Does not mean they themselves are interested in becoming that race or gender. It's easy AF to say "That would be cool/ I'd like to see that in game/ this doesn't seem fair!" without wanting to roll that thing. I'd LOVE for Namazu to be a race ... I'd never play one so I'd gain nothing from their inclusion nor does it bother me that it's never gonna happen but I'd "like" a Namazu support topic and say "This would be cool".





That poll is 6 years old ( back then the game was much MUCH smaller than it is now)
It's outdated and doesn't represent the current player base.

Also there's the fact that, ya know, they credit interest in a playable beast race to people's response to Lupin.

The point is, there is a huge amount of ppl who want male Viera. There is a huge amount of ppl who want female hrotgar, and we have literally no idea on what a majority is since this forums are about 3-5% of the playerbase. If no Viera was added, no one would be complaining about no male Viera, and if no hrotgar was added, no one would be complaining about no female hrotgar. Regardless of what they did, it was going to get some backlash, but what they did was the worst possible option in terms of backlash and press, considering if they stuck to wht they wanted to do and did only full hrotgar, there would have been drama for 1 month and done. There will be drama about gender lock until the end of the game

[Kaedan]

The point is, there is a huge amount of ppl who want male Viera. There is a huge amount of ppl who want female hrotgar, and we have literally no idea on what a majority is since this forums are about 3-5% of the playerbase. If no Viera was added, no one would be complaining about no male Viera, and if no hrotgar was added, no one would be complaining about no female hrotgar. Regardless of what they did, it was going to get some backlash, but what they did was the worst possible option in terms of backlash and press, considering if they stuck to wht they wanted to do and did only full hrotgar, there would have been drama for 1 month and done. There will be drama about gender lock until the end of the game

You're forgetting the other side of that equation:

If no Viera were added, you would have people complaining about no male Viera, you would have a rabid swarm of people complaining about no Viera at all.
Conversely, if no Hrothgar were added, you wouldn't have people complaining about no female Hrothgar, you would have the same rabid swarm of people complaining about "oh, another human with animal ears attached".

Face it, they took the path of least resistance that would satisfy the most amount of people they could. As a company, their bottom line is money, so you can be VERY sure that they did the proper research to find which would satisfy the most people.