Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Anvaire]

Just a thought, but surely, if they keep adding gear and jobs they will reach a point where they have to add more people to the development team, slow down or cut content. If the issue is the amount of time it takes, then that is still true when we consider they have to create new weapons with each expansion. I appreciate what Yoshi P is saying, but eventually we are going to hit a wall where the number of job weapons and different assets will break the formula. Essentially it boils down to the fact that you cant expect to continually add things and keep the same development team size.

That said, knowing the devs, i can fully see them finding a way to add the Male Viera and Female Hrothgar. I just don't think they can commit to it until they see where things are post Shb launch. Part of me wonders whether there was at some point a plan to add both genders, but number of fixes, reworks and amendments to eureka and housing during Stormblood made this impossible. Or they simply plan on adding th other genders in 6.0?

Either way, i think, if they added one NPC of each gender, for me that would be fine. Because i could see what the Male Viera looked like. being Playable could come later. Of course it would also kill any Hype that adding the missing genders could bring, which is why i truly think they do intend to add them.

[SoloWingMetatron]

I know I will get booed for saying this, but I feel that from the start Yoshida has been lying to us or at least not totally honest. I already started to be suspicious when he teased male viera and then released genderlocked hrotgar. I don't really know if the letter he made was to talk about something in hopes it would die down, or if he really actually cared about the subject

I agree with you. Even long before this, back during HW....I noticed red flags in the devs statements....however this is the first time where it has been so blatant...

Same! At the same time, I felt really shafted over the BLM and DRK one. The majority of them were subpar. The amount of resources that went into Eureka are considerable and a lot of the relic weapons were just mediocre. However, I don't think they will drop it. Eureka is assisting them in maintaining elevated sub retention levels. They will design new Eureka with feedback in mind on the pitfalls of its predecessors. Its uptake in JP is pretty high. There is a lot of content which they should ditch, but I don't think Eureka will form part of that, and a lot of it is built off recycled assets.

My question is what do they believe sticking to it is adding to the game? If they think it's required to maintain engagement, would they not be better off separating the dungeon and raid release cycles from all the other content in the patch? They are already sort of doing this in how they deliver Eureka updates.

However, there's a lot of content, like PVP, Blue mage, Gold Saucer mini-games and such which see extremely little use, which continue to have resources poured into them. Sure, some people like them, but are they enough to say these expenditures are providing good value for money? Alternatively, if the cost is a bit less gear, is this the end of the world? There have been nothing but complaints over the gear design in SB, and a lot of it is frankly unimpressive. Putting aside the AF sets and some raid sets, I don't think this game is suffering from a dearth of gear anyway.

I think Eureka sounded great on paper and had real potential, however by rushing it's implementation it lost all of it's luster....I hope that the 5.0 version truly will build open that original potential and trim all that unnecessary fat!

I'm with you on the unrealistic release schedule front....management in the AAA sector want to see the best possible profit with the least possible expenditure, all within an insanely short time frame....it's a trend that is simply not sustainable and causing once great development studious to literally fall apart...

We the consumer are partly to blame for this though...because we keep on buying these unfinished games, keep on placing those pre-orders, keep on engaging with the micro transaction business model....all this is doing is feeding the beast and ultimately it's the devs and consumer that will get screwed over (devs because they will be out of a job if the studio continuously fails to meet fiscal targets...consumer because we are are now paying premium prices for unfinished games)

To touch on the 10k gear assets that would need to be edited to fit the new genders....this number is technically inaccurate. Yes that is the total number, however a lot of gear share the same asset models with a palette swap...so when it comes to adjusting a mesh that is used for multiple assets, it will only need to be edited once and that edit will apply to every duplicate because they share the same mesh. Meaning the actual number of individual gear pieces they'd need to alter is less than 10k

Nevertheless the true number would still be a large undertaking, that goes without question. However there are a number of development solutions that could be put in place here to remedy that. The most obvious being to hire more people to take on that workload either as full time employees or under a fixed contract for the duration of the project. The work could also be outsourced under a similarly fixed term contract.

Another option would be to indeed increase development time of future content updates, which is something I support for much bigger reason than just as a means to get the missing genders!

Another thing to consider would be to just edit gear sets that are crucial and/or unique such as AF, Raid, Dungeon, and so on....there is plenty of gear that just exists as mere padding for leveling and once it's serves it's purpose is not seen/used again...these pieces also tend to be glamoured over anyways....so the devs could just edit a handful of these and replace them with pieces that they feel don't need to be edited at this time....although it is a shout cut, it would help lower the number of assets that need editing.

Well, I'm more inclined to believe the people who actually developed the game, than people who are angry, because they don't like the answer they've given, or people who just play around with the game assets. Even if the models are modified, how do you know if it's going to give the same results as the original models? No one knows here how much time it takes to develop a character model and then make sure everything else in the game is compatible with it. A lot of people seem to still be in the "the developers are lying and they're just lazy" camp. How do you know if cutting off the holes for the Viera are a "quick fix?" Are you a game developer? I just find it ridiculous that even if told why certain choices can't be made, people won't believe it.

And to clearify, I'm only taking about the FFXIV team, here. Not EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft or any other developer

Yes, I work in the games industry and fully qualified to comment on this and the devs statements....and I can tell you right now that there are a number of half truths, misdirection's and straight up lies in Yoshi's statement...

However as I have previously stated they are NOT lazy and most definitely work very hard, just like any and every games developer and I will always defend and thank the devs on their hard work and passion!....however where I take umbrage, is with Yoshi insinuating adding the missing genders is a monumentally impossible task and then speak falsehoods and half truths to help bolster the misdirection....

The reality is adding the missing genders is very possible and very doable. That's not to say it's not a hefty chunk of content to develop because it will require a lot of work to develop it...however this is no more work than any other hefty piece of content. The workload required to implement the missing genders is synonymous with typical development times and workload....it's nothing new or unique that requires special or innovative development logistic or solutions...the work that is required to make the genders possible is bog standard development pipeline stuff....

What this really comes down to is time, money and how much SE is willing to invest in them...nothing more.

[zeylos]

snip

I think that it would take them mode work to add the new genders later, since it will be harder due to there being more gear. I think Yoshi said that to not steal the thunder from 6.0 and we will most likely see the missing genders the

[SoloWingMetatron]

I think that it would take them mode work to add the new genders later, since it will be harder due to there being more gear. I think Yoshi said that to not steal the thunder from 6.0 and we will most likely see the missing genders the

I'd like to believe that's true, but I'm losing faith in SE....I am 100% positive that Yoshi and his team truly want to implement all of these great things, but his hands are tied by SE and he has to operate within the times and budgets he's been allocated....there're only so many hours in a day and right now those hours are filled with polishing up 5.0 and working on content for the 5.x patch cycle and beyond.

This is why I advocate for them to stop the 3.5 month patch cycle and give themselves more time to develop quality content and requested content!

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

I didn't call anybody lazy. I just said that many of the things Yoshida has said are contradicting the others, and I feel like he is lying about many things. I know ppl will say it's a lie, but I think the glasses on the new models were ready long time ago, but they saved the announcement to help ppl cope with them basically not giving any concrete answer at all

It just seems like you didn't like his answer. I don't see how anyone can interpret anything he said as a lie, especially with how direct the language in the letter is.

Yes, I work in the games industry and fully qualified to comment on this and the devs statements....and I can tell you right now that there are a number of half truths, misdirection's and straight up lies in Yoshi's statement...

The reality is adding the missing genders is very possible and very doable. That's not to say it's not a hefty chunk of content to develop because it will require a lot of work to develop it...however this is no more work than any other hefty piece of content. The workload required to implement the missing genders is synonymous with typical development times and workload....it's nothing new or unique that requires special or innovative development logistic or solutions...the work that is required to make the genders possible is bog standard development pipeline stuff....

What this really comes down to is time, money and how much SE is willing to invest in them...nothing more.

What work do you do in the industry? Have you worked on mmos? Have you worked with the FFXIV team at all? Just saying you "work in the industry" doesn't tell me anything. It could be designer, communications manager, or PR. If making models or making helmet edits were as easy as you say, I'm sure they would've done both genders for both races already. They already knew some people won't like their decision. Would they honestly not have male viera or female hrothgar to just to upset their own fanbase? That makes no sense for the FFXIV team and they have no reason to

[Halivel]

It just seems like you didn't like his answer. I don't see how anyone can interpret anything he said as a lie, especially with how direct the language in the letter is.

Not oppose to you, but don't forget that we deal with Japanese company after all. Being 100% honest is not part of their business and they often try to say things in covered form, so you can't believe to all what they say. However, Yoshida usually tries to be as much transparent as possible, so I don't see any serious reasons to not believe him.

[SoloWingMetatron]

What work do you do in the industry? Have you worked on mmos? Have you worked with the FFXIV team at all? Just saying you "work in the industry" doesn't tell me anything. It could be designer, communications manager, or PR. If making models or making helmet edits were as easy as you say, I'm sure they would've done both genders for both races already. They already knew some people won't like their decision. Would they honestly not have male viera or female hrothgar to just to upset their own fanbase? That makes no sense for the FFXIV team and they have no reason to

I work as an artist, based in the UK and graduated with honors from Teesside University, the top university for games development in the country. Throughout this time I have worked and liaised with a number of AAA and indie companies...my work spans a number of asset fields including characters, mobs, environments, props and vehicles....all of which require the artist to follow the core principles of the development pipeline...these principles are set in stone and are used by any and every company....modelling, sculpting, UVW maps, unwrapping, diffuse maps, normal maps, specular maps, displacement and height maps, materials and shaders, topology, geometry, Ngons, skinning, rigging, the list goes on....all of which are procedures that have to be followed by all companies....point blank.

So for the final time.....yes I am qualified and know what I am talking about.....but since we're reading reciepts here....what experience exactly do you have that backs up your defense?....

Furthermore not once did I say creating assets was easy.....see my list of processes above that we have to follow for each asset...all of that is bog standard development workload....nothing new, nothing special and it is only one part of the pipeline.

[Yllania]

Not oppose to you, but don't forget that we deal with Japanese company after all. Being 100% honest is not part of their business and they often try to say things in covered form, so you can't believe to all what they say. However, Yoshida usually tries to be as much transparent as possible, so I don't see any serious reasons to not believe him.

I mean, I dont think thats just a Japanese company thing. Thats just business in general. American companies will lie to their own mothers if it will get them a better deal.

[Halivel]

I mean, I dont think thats just a Japanese company thing. Thats just business in general. American companies will lie to their own mothers if it will get them a better deal.

I have zero idea how American companies work, I'm not American. And not European so can't say for them either.

When I say about covered form, it's more about reading between lines than about lying. For example, let's take his wording about possibility to add missing genders: "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.".

Basically, Yoshi-P said "we will try, but chance is quite low". If we would be in a strictly Japanese game (like, only Japanese servers and 99% of players are Japanese), then it's a "No" with 90% rate. However, it's not only a Japanese game, and because of this they usually prefer to be transparent to not cause too much misunderstandings (as they were with young looking race: there is an obvious "No"). That's what I mean when I say that we deal with Japanese company. There are, sometimes, situations, when you can't be sure that they said things honestly because of the way how they said it. Though Yoshida usually is honest or at least tries to be so.

Not sure if gave an idea of what do I mean.

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

I work as an artist, based in the UK and graduated with honors from Teesside University, the top university for games development in the country. Throughout this time I have worked and liaised with a number of AAA and indie companies...my work spans a number of asset fields including characters, mobs, environments, props and vehicles....all of which require the artist to follow the core principles of the development pipeline...these principles are set in stone and are used by any and every company....modelling, sculpting, UVW maps, unwrapping, diffuse maps, normal maps, specular maps, displacement and height maps, materials and shaders, topology, geometry, Ngons, skinning, rigging, the list goes on....all of which are procedures that have to be followed by all companies....point blank.

So for the final time.....yes I am qualified and know what I am talking about.....but since we're reading reciepts here....what experience exactly do you have that backs up your defense?....

Furthermore not once did I say creating assets was easy.....see my list of processes above that we have to follow for each asset...all of that is bog standard development workload....nothing new, nothing special and it is only one part of the pipeline.

I never made the claim that I was in the industry. I have an issue with people calling the guy a liar, no matter what he says. I don't agree with everything the team does, but they have no reason to lie in that letter