Child-like characters?

[Kacho_Nacho]

My wife and I were talking about this topic after seeing BDO's trailer about Shai. We both thought it would be cool to play a younger character (teenager) going out into the world. It certainly is a popular theme in manga and anime.

Yet, it wouldn't work here. Perhaps, it could have worked if introduced in ARR. That way S.E. could have developed the game with that concept in mind. But, that ship has sailed and we are not going to see playable children for reasons already gone through in this thread.

[AngeliouxRein]

There is no such thing as a "the ship has sailed" in a long-standing game. Too many MMOs have already shown that you can still add whatever you want to the game even after 10+ years of it being active. If SE really wanted to add in more races, be it limited type of races or full-blown one they can. The only thing that's really stopping them is budget and resources. Au Ra, as much as I love it, I know this is a race that did not need to be added to the game but here it is. A grand story for them wasn't added until Stormblood, with only small bits of a story about them in Heavensward.

This same treatment can be done to any race they decide to add to the game moving forward. Heck, the First could be a perfect time for them to introduce a small race that was created in the aftermath of all the light and aether coming together to give birth to them. WoD could travel deep enough out into the middle of the light ridden wasteland and discover an entire underground world full of the new race and any survivors that somehow got out there. See how easy that is? Of course, I'm pretty sure the writers at SE could easily elaborate on that further but it sets it up easily for an entirely new race to be added.

Honestly? I would be ecstatic if they did something like that. It might spark folks to start clamoring for a Lupin or Ananta races to be added (and I don't blame them, I love the Ananta) but it would be easy as heck for them to add as many races as they want. Any type that they want. All they need is budget and resources. And who knows FF7 Remake could bring them that.

[Vidu]

Not sure what to think of their stance on this. If its a decision made due to the ethical reasons stated? Yeah, sure, possibly I can get behind their decision (even if I disagree with it on principle).

However, I have a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, that its just a corporate decision to avoid the western vocal feedback, and they themselves have no real personal qualms about it. Which again... I would understand, but corporate dishonesty is something I deal with (and exercise in) daily in work and annoys the living hell out of me when I cross it in my personal time.

Eh... maybe I'm just too jaded at this point.

While I cant say for sure if its really a purely ethical choice, or maybe even something along the lines of the designers themselves not wanting to design/model sexy gear onto children (while it is in a sense their job to deliver whatever outfits Yoshi-P sees fit for the game, I could understand someone going "Yeah, I'm not comfortable with designing a playboy-bunny outfit for a child").

The reason I mention this is because the solution you're proposing is something they already did or are even still doing: Clothes are getting altered for lalafell.
I have my ARR artbook lying next to me and would like to quote from page 88, a comment made on the Taffeta Shawl by Namae: "I try not to make Lalafells too sexy when designing their gear, and the look here is that of a child's swimsuit."

While we went over the whole "lalafells are adults"-thing before, I'd like to point out that they still have certain features that makes one think more of a child, which are taken into consideration by the design-team, it seems. There are some more comments in the artbook all basically saying "the lalafell gear here was insipired by what a child might wear" and as you can already see in game, most "bikini-type"-pieces get a bit more fabric for lalafell.
Maybe I'm naive, but to me this already shows that at least one person in the design-team wasnt overly comfortable with designing sexy gear for characters that can look like they're a bit young.
Since lalafells are adults in the end and dont actually represent (human) children, its still not much of an issue - opposed to having actual children.

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.
But even besides that, there are things in the game itself that would seem just a little bit weird were the character a child (or at least clearly looked like one, aka used one of the child-models): Haurchefaunt, any other character that might flirt with you, the whole Eternal Bonding ceremony (even if they dont call it a wedding, it damn well hits all the marks of one - and you dont need a sucuubus-glamour to end up with a childs-bride...)... its simply a whole can of worms that I understand them not going anywhere near - wether its a buisness-choice, an ethical one by the team or maybe even just one on a personal level of "yeah, I'd rather not design this" is obviously difficult to say.
But going through that artbook at least gives me the sense of them being aware what they're putting out there and whats appropriate - and what isnt.

[Iscah]

Fun fact A-Ruhn seems to be the Eorzean equivalent of someone on the autistic spectrum given how he is the "strongest" of the Padjal, when it comes to communing with the elementals, but communication with his fellow man is strange and awkward to him.

I still think Urianger is our prime would-be autistic character. Not just "socially awkward" but in specific ways - odd speech pattern, specific interests, highly intelligent but hasn't realised that you don't greet people by quoting obscure prophecy at them...

A-Ruhn doesn't really come off as "odd" in the same way - not that I remember noticing, anyway.

[Nestama]

...and even if they alter the gear: mods are still a thing, that they're probably aware of.

Oh they're definitely aware of them. I think it was even mentioned in this thread that someone was banned for making/using a certain mod on Ryne (a disgusting mod).

[SturmChurro]

..

Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a new* race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope some of the "child-like" crowd have, and are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that "child-like" race.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

[Vidu]

Well, the biggest thing is they wouldn't adapt clothing to be unique to a race, and they wouldn't come out with a new race in the first place. God forbid they ever bring the other genders - the only hope the "child-like" crowd are trying to shoehorn, in my opinion, are to make male viera that.

We don't get headgear for viera, we don't get hairs, we are missing genders on viera/hrothgar BECAUSE adapting just the base outfits to their bodies would slow their patch cycle. There is literally no way in HECK that SE is gonna not only create a new race, adapt certain pieces specifically for this new race, AND deal with potential ethics issues. Just not gonna happen, it won't stop people calling for it though.

On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

[Alacran]

On the grounds of them not having the ressources to even add more races - or lets say "different character-models", to avoid people claiming that adding children of a playable race wouldnt be adding a new race - this whole discussion is pretty pointless already, yeah.
I mainly wanted to point out that even if they could add more races, a child-race (or children of existing races) wouldnt happen for a whole lot of reasons that go beyond the added workload of modeling gear specifically for them.

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.


Make no mistake, I do not condone the use of child like characters by the player base, for many of the reasons others have noted and due to my own personal feelings on the matter. The Hyur Midlanders as a race fit the bill of being young as needs to be. Anything else is just issues waiting to happen, options literally waiting to be exploited.

All publicity may be good publicity, but infamy can kill a franchise.

I still want Male Viera, as much as i dislike the Furry magnets that are Hrothgar, we still need the Females so as to complete the races. The argument that resources are to taxed is laughable at best. You know what your player base wants, and we keep getting another game system as yet to be abandoned due to failure.

[Lersayil]

Not enough resource for new races... Looking at Verminion, Diadem, Eureka...


Glad to see their resources are going to what players really want and focus on.

To be fair those content bits were all pretty much fire and forget types. Adding a race is a resource sink for the rest of the lifetime of the game. I always assume they mean those long term resources when they mention this, not the initial implementation cost (which might also cost a pretty penny considering our ever expanding wardrobe).

At this point I'd be satisfied if they'd manage to expand on the current customization system. I'd really like to be about 10-20cm's higher than its currently allowed for Au Ra...

[SugarPuff]

The issue is the people who are going to inevitably put a succubus glam on their child.

Yeah, that's what I hear. It's just odd to me that someone might get worked up over that but not care about all the player characters that already exist and appear to be teenagers. I would probably still be neutral even if we all looked old enough to legally drink, but the issue would make more sense. As it is, I already see provocative glams on what appear to be kids so the main difference would be making it official and possibly a very slight change to the model. I'm not in favor of that, because it does seem too small to be worthwhile, but due to how most of us would look more appropriate sitting at a high school desk than a bar stool, I wouldn't argue against it either.