They already had unpopular races in the game (Roegadyn/Elezen); I don't understand why the game needed another one with hrothgar. They really didn't need to sacrifice Viera, it has no precedence, FFXI never had a beastly race (Galka is as beastly as male Au ra, so don't come to me with that BS). Beastly races are ok in single player FF games because it's not an mmo, in an mmo it's a service expanding many years where you need to listen what your stakeholders (customers/subscribers) want first and foremost; your own preferences coming second; when it comes to core systems: races, battle system, accessibility of content.