Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[MikkoAkure]

What I and others have pointed out, though, that the thing holding them back is the antiquated engine for characters. If they were to just sink the energy and resources into updating it to be on par with more modern MMOs, theyd be killing a flock of birds with a stick of dynamite. Itd give the people who want more customization what they want, help insulate the game against showing its age, fix a lot of the issues associated with adding races, and correct issues with Hrothgar and Viera that exist. Considering the lack of updates on Hrothgar and Viera along with other things, there is a ok possibility that this is what theyre intending to do. No guarentees though, just cross your fingers.

Yoshi-P already addressed this years ago and said that the level of effort to go back and fix everything wouldn't be worth the result. He said that at that point, they might as well make a new game. Even if Yoshi-P wanted to overhaul the code, it's SE that would make the call and provide him the budget and other resources in order to make that a reality and I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't believe there is a reason for SE to think that would make sense and lead to them getting more paying customers or higher retention rates that could cover all of the costs required for this.

Also, I think the state of viera and hrothgar is due to rushing, compromising, and believing that the players would accept their decisions for having 1 gender per race and no hats. It doesn't make sense for them to have any secret objective.

[Melichoir]

Yoshi-P already addressed this years ago and said that the level of effort to go back and fix everything wouldn't be worth the result. He said that at that point, they might as well make a new game. Even if Yoshi-P wanted to overhaul the code, it's SE that would make the call and provide him the budget and other resources in order to make that a reality and I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't believe there is a reason for SE to think that would make sense and lead to them getting more paying customers or higher retention rates that could cover all of the costs required for this.

Also, I think the state of viera and hrothgar is due to rushing, compromising, and believing that the players would accept their decisions for having 1 gender per race and no hats. It doesn't make sense for them to have any secret objective.

I dont think there is a hidden agenda. YoshiP stated what he did because at that time, that was the case. FFXIV has been known to run a shoe string budget and yet turned out fairly successful. So not having the resources to do a lot of what we want was the norm. But that model likely will have to change, particularly with how successful ShB was. The simple fact FFXIV:ARR was released in 2013 with a character engine that was already outdated by its launch, and has not received all that much attention since launch. Things they should be able to implement fairly easily are incredibly difficult for the devs. Not to mention weird quirks within the engine (lalafell breast sliders?). And spending time to update the engine so they can streamline other processes (like the issue with armor and glamour) would mean spending money and time now to save costs later. This is incredibly common in virtually every business enterprise. Every so often, spending a hunk of cash to streamline internal processes for more efficiency and long term benefits. Also, if they were to do it, they could potentially give us those off sexes that people want.

So addressing the character creation engine resolves a whole slew of requests and issues that lie specifically with that part of the game, and will help extend the games lifespan and remain competitive on the MMO market.

Now as I said before, this isnt a guarantee. They may just stick to what they have and continue to struggle with it no matter how they proceed. But it makes more sense long term to update the engine as that would give them a lot more flexibility going forward and would likely pay for itself a lot quicker than you might suggest. It also explains why there has been almost no movement on fixing hrothgar/viera, would enable the possibility of off sexes, and be a selling point for the next xpac.

It's also worth noting that flying in ARR realms was once upon a time "Never going to happen". Yet devs took time to do that. And that is a pretty hefty thing to do because there are huge areas in the ARR maps that needed fixing. Taking on heavy tasks to update the game and keep it fresh is not unheard of.

[Vahlnir]

I dont think there is a hidden agenda. YoshiP stated what he did because at that time, that was the case. FFXIV has been known to run a shoe string budget and yet turned out fairly successful. So not having the resources to do a lot of what we want was the norm. But that model likely will have to change, particularly with how successful ShB was. The simple fact FFXIV:ARR was released in 2013 with a character engine that was already outdated by its launch, and has not received all that much attention since launch. Things they should be able to implement fairly easily are incredibly difficult for the devs. Not to mention weird quirks within the engine (lalafell breast sliders?). And spending time to update the engine so they can streamline other processes (like the issue with armor and glamour) would mean spending money and time now to save costs later. This is incredibly common in virtually every business enterprise. Every so often, spending a hunk of cash to streamline internal processes for more efficiency and long term benefits. Also, if they were to do it, they could potentially give us those off sexes that people want.

So addressing the character creation engine resolves a whole slew of requests and issues that lie specifically with that part of the game, and will help extend the games lifespan and remain competitive on the MMO market.

Now as I said before, this isnt a guarantee. They may just stick to what they have and continue to struggle with it no matter how they proceed. But it makes more sense long term to update the engine as that would give them a lot more flexibility going forward and would likely pay for itself a lot quicker than you might suggest. It also explains why there has been almost no movement on fixing hrothgar/viera, would enable the possibility of off sexes, and be a selling point for the next xpac.

It's also worth noting that flying in ARR realms was once upon a time "Never going to happen". Yet devs took time to do that. And that is a pretty hefty thing to do because there are huge areas in the ARR maps that needed fixing. Taking on heavy tasks to update the game and keep it fresh is not unheard of.

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

[ItMe]

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

Not to mention that they might be planning to ration out big additions over the course of those 10 years.

[zeylos]

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

While I will admittedly be sad, even a rather disapointed (because it means we will have to wait a minimum of 4 years to ge tthem) if male viera and female hrotgar arent announced in the next fanfest for 6.0, I really, really highly doubt that if the game is gonna go for 10 years they will stay 10 years without updating the engine or just adding the missing gneders (and likely a new race in some expacs) as selling points of future expansions, that given how the game shows no intention to truly mix it up with each expansion they will need as many selling points for each of them, as just 'more of the same but new story' is unlikely to keep players invested for 10 years.

[MikkoAkure]

While I will admittedly be sad, even a rather disapointed (because it means we will have to wait a minimum of 4 years to ge tthem) if male viera and female hrotgar arent announced in the next fanfest for 6.0, I really, really highly doubt that if the game is gonna go for 10 years they will stay 10 years without updating the engine or just adding the missing gneders (and likely a new race in some expacs) as selling points of future expansions, that given how the game shows no intention to truly mix it up with each expansion they will need as many selling points for each of them, as just 'more of the same but new story' is unlikely to keep players invested for 10 years.

Final Fantasy XI is still going as a paid service despite the ancient graphics, Abyssea being a controversial addition, no new races ever added, and no new jobs in 8 years. FFXIV has wider appeal than FFXI ever did and was never a grindfest so I think it has staying power.

[zeylos]

Final Fantasy XI is still going as a paid service despite the ancient graphics, Abyssea being a controversial addition, no new races ever added, and no new jobs in 8 years. FFXIV has wider appeal than FFXI ever did and was never a grindfest so I think it has staying power.

Look at how many players play FFXI, if FFXIV wants to continue as one of the most popular MMOs for 10 years they will need some serious upgrades to be able to compete with the newer, shinier, more advanced mmos of a similar niche, such as for example blue protocol, pso2 ngs and many others that are likely to come (not to mention the league mmo is likely gonna be a force to be reckoned with and it will most likely be rerleased before 10 years into the future).

[Lauront]

Yoshi-P already addressed this years ago and said that the level of effort to go back and fix everything wouldn't be worth the result. He said that at that point, they might as well make a new game. Even if Yoshi-P wanted to overhaul the code, it's SE that would make the call and provide him the budget and other resources in order to make that a reality and I don't think that's ever going to happen. I don't believe there is a reason for SE to think that would make sense and lead to them getting more paying customers or higher retention rates that could cover all of the costs required for this.

Also, I think the state of viera and hrothgar is due to rushing, compromising, and believing that the players would accept their decisions for having 1 gender per race and no hats. It doesn't make sense for them to have any secret objective.

What he said then and what is the situation now can change. They intend for the game to last quite some time, so I think Melichoir is right about what they say and more than that, they've indicated they're actively looking into it here.