The cat's (or femhroth in this case) outta the bag

[Awha]

They were not.
They were at a crunch and had to make a compromise; because they wanted to make something new they believe the game needed (Hrothgar) and a long-made fan request (Viera) They didnt have time to make males AND females for both, and they could have just done one race now, and the other race later, but this "May" have been the last races put into the game, so they gave us a Male, and a Female.
Since we've only ever SEEN a Female Viera it made sense to do Viera for the girls. And then the Hrothgar for the males. And they have said if they could, they would try to bring in the other genders. So far we have Male Viera, and very likely; unless surprised, will have to wait another 2 years for Female Hrothgar. Tho, I guess we can be happy that it was announced "They are Coming"



I wouldn't go that far, just they were vague about it because you never wanna make a promise you possibly can't keep.
So "maybe" is the better answer instead of No; then suddenly you Can do it. Or Yes; and suddenly you Cant do it. Cause those answers would make you look like a liar.

If I may ask what exactly is your issue with what I said? I fall in the camp that they will most likely look less beastly though if they do look beastly awesome, though I am not holding my breath.

The reality is their initial response and actions made it seem to lean heavily that they were not going to complete them so to speak. As such the comments made at the release of the males do not automatically mean they hold true for the female counter part. I am slightly confused, I get you disagree with the notion that they will be not look beastly. So to speak it is a coin toss right now we do not know either way. Reason I quoted I responded to you was because we cannot use the circumstances around their initial release to judge the grounds of the their counterparts. They are giving themselves more time “hopefully” so they do not run into a crunch when it comes to time. Maybe they will have one tribe be beastly and the other be less so.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

If I may ask what exactly is your issue with what I said? I fall in the camp that they will most likely look less beastly though if they do look beastly awesome, though I am not holding my breath.

The reality is their initial response and actions made it seem to lean heavily that they were not going to complete them so to speak. As such the comments made at the release of the males do not automatically mean they hold true for the female counter part. I am slightly confused, I get you disagree with the notion that they will be not look beastly. So to speak it is a coin toss right now we do not know either way. Reason I quoted I responded to you was because we cannot use the circumstances around their initial release to judge the grounds of the their counterparts. They are giving themselves more time “hopefully” so they do not run into a crunch when it comes to time. Maybe they will have one tribe be beastly and the other be less so.

.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

I had an issue with what you said? I simply replied to it.
Im kinda confused by this response when the basis of my point was they were vague about it.

[Awha]

.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

I had an issue with what you said? I simply replied to it.
Im kinda confused by this response when the basis of my point was they were vague about it.

I do not know just seems weird each and every time someone makes a point that does not align with a beastly take on the race you offer a vague reasoning as to why they “will most likely” be beast like with a tone of certainty. At this point it is legit a coin toss as to what they will look like. I do not know hard to put my finger on it or explain it very well just a perception your comments give off when replying to people against beastly version for them.

[MagiusNecros]

.....are you secretly MagiusNecros? rofl Joke aside.

I don't do alts. Besides it would be rather difficult for someone to be me. I'm flattered. I don't think the world can handle two MagiusNecros.

The race design is going to prioritize the characters being "cute" rather then "fierce". Because that's what will sell players more. "Fierce stronger monster woman thing" only appeals to a vocal minority such as myself.

If the concept art is a sign of what's to come it's going to just be Egyptian Miqote with different color pallete and hairstyles. And would be an easy way to share model skeleton to fit armor and helmets.

Maybe giving us 1 to 1 rehash of Mithra from FFXI is what they plan on doing where the supposed ancestor of Miqote was full fur and the typical "skin" that the other humanoids have.

The concept art does heavily imply a Miqote/Mithra + Ronso mishmash.

I expect to be disappointed so maybe I'll be surprised in the long term.

[reivaxe]

Paraphrasing but Yoshi’s lines were along the lines of “We don’t know if they will be popular but we hope the players enjoy them for what they are” when defending the implementation of male hroths way back when they were revealed. The females needing to look the equivalent of that one picture with the male orc/troll/demon vs the female being a human one with her skin tone altered for the sake of fanta$ia monies kinda flies in the face of that. The race as a whole exists for diversity's sake.

What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

Based off the initial response it seems they did not have any intention to complete them so to speak. I am glad fan black lash changed their minds, but we cannot be certain that the statement also was meant for females. As mentioned if they follow through GG, I will be pleasantly surprised, though I am not holding my breath.

I agree with the sentiment here that we can't take things said about them when they were meant to be genderlocked and assume it's true for adding the genders now. Like, I keep bringing up Au Ra because it's very relevant ... female Au Ra faces look far closer to Miqote than the males look to male Miqote and that race was meant to be the "most beastly" thing in the game at the time. Since taking over the game from the 1.0 team, they have shown time and time again to make choices in an attempt to make females more appealing to the masses.

If the concept art is a sign of what's to come it's going to just be Egyptian Miqote with different color pallete and hairstyles. And would be an easy way to share model skeleton to fit armor and helmets.

Maybe giving us 1 to 1 rehash of Mithra from FFXI is what they plan on doing where the supposed ancestor of Miqote was full fur and the typical "skin" that the other humanoids have.

The concept art does heavily imply a Miqote/Mithra + Ronso mishmash.

Pretty much how I see it, the mural and concept art looks Egyptian like (They may be going for a Bast inspired direction for the females) and seems Mithra/ Miqote-but-taller or Mithra x Viera.
But then again, I use the mural as gospel/ "the word of god", and it's legit easier to make those mural Hrothgals have a generic cat face than the human like 1 they gave em ... so I always took that as a clear massage that they would look more human. Be it Bless Cat girls or Avatar or Mithra or that 1 popular Female Ronso Fan art.

Personally, I'm a self-proclaimed furry and ... I'm perfectly fine with it myself. If they want to make something appealing to the Miqote pop then so be it.
I know furry head comes with its own problems in this game (Like, I'm sure Hrothgar have completely different heads because it's easier to tell them apart that way with that level of animal-face. Too bad that makes it harder to share hair when your forehead/ hair line doesn't match up) and isn't eveyone's thing. If they feel like with the F-TON of female Miqote in this game there's some who would like to be a taller Mithra like cat woman, then cool.

[Rokke]

What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

Yes, the diversity was for the games health and that their popularity/lack of wasn’t a make or break deal for the animal heads. If they had wanted to just make money and call it a day it would have been far, far easier/profitable to have simply rolled out the m/f viera together lol

I don't see why to go all out for one gender and water down their counterpart. Could you not use your justification of luring over the wow players that use female avatars with a beastgirl instead of taller miqote?

[reivaxe]

Yes, the diversity was for the games health and that their popularity/lack of wasn’t a make or break deal for the animal heads. If they had wanted to just make money and call it a day it would have been far, far easier/profitable to have simply rolled out the m/f viera together lol

I don't see why to go all out for one gender and water down their counterpart. Could you not use your justification of luring over the wow players that use female avatars with a beastgirl instead of taller miqote?

You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas". That IS an attempt to make more money ... because if you can convince, say, 18K WoW players to come play FF14 because Hrothgar reminds them of w/e in WoW, then that's 20K new players who are paying monthly. That's growth and more money.

If we're looking at WoW then cool. I don't want to stereotype WoW as I don't play it, but it's a game with a lot of "ugly/ hard/ goofy/ non-human" races. It's also a Male dominated game, as like 60% of all player characters are dudes last I checked. It's not shocking at all that many WoW converts go to Highlander Males and Hrothgar (They are almost at the same population level last I saw, impressive given how boned Hrothgar CC options are).
But females? Female of those types of races are not as popular as males. Google searched and found these numbers...

The List - Every race along with the percentage of that race that are female (sorted highest to lowest)

Nightborne - 73.9%

Void Elf - 70.7%

Lightforged Draenei - 67.9%

Draenei - 64.9%

Blood Elf - 58.1%

Night Elf - 57.3%

Pandaren (A) - 45.3%

Pandaren (H) - 44.9%

Gnome - 44.9%

Human - 44.2%

Goblin - 36.1%

Troll - 35.3%

Worgen - 29.1%

Mag'har Orc - 27.8%

Dark Iron Dwarf - 25.4%

Undead - 25.3%

Orc - 20.8%

Highmountain Tauren - 19.7%

Tauren - 16.1%

Dwarf - 15%

Can also look at GW2 at a time when it was doing well and see that Male Charr were close to being the 2nd most popular males in the game, yet the females were dead last.

One thing that seems universally true regardless of East or West is that players prefer females to look "cute/ attractive/ beautiful".

So for your last point ... would SE think that there's a market of people who want beast faced females worth going for or appealing to? Everything shows that people are more willing to play "weird looking" dudes far more than they're willing to play "weird looking" females, after all.
That's a question for SE to answer, but it's been clear what type of females people enjoy regardless of game. And again, I am furry and hate looking at these games because all their furry races lean more into "Monster people" than attractive furries ... but I can't find anything that would suggest that an attractive Furry Female would do any better than anything, as no one makes em.

So yeah, long-winded way of saying "people are far more likely to play the dudes than the females" when it comes to non-human faces.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas".

They added Diversity, to add more Playable Options.
Creating a Beast Race does just that. Plain and Simple.

Why would they need to attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas, when they already have a Diverse Market? According to some people, NA is the largest playerbase, and if you claim the Hrothgar were an attempt to draw in these people..why are they already the largest base? And this happened, WAY before Hrothgar were introduced.
This certainly wasn't a powermove to get in WoW players, because most WoW players dont play Hrothgar (the ones I know at least).

And word of mouth is what got these people to play the game as they fled from WoW. Not a Beast Race

[Rokke]

You're missing what I'm trying to say, it seems.
They didn't add "Diversity!" for diversity's sake, they added them for "game health" and my assessment is that that's another way of saying "a calculated attempt to draw in people who play MMOs overseas". That IS an attempt to make more money ... because if you can convince, say, 18K WoW players to come play FF14 because Hrothgar reminds them of w/e in WoW, then that's 20K new players who are paying monthly. That's growth and more money.

But the numbers for WoW show that your stats are about the same for male characters: humanoid shaped races still outnumber the non humans by significant margins. So no, a beefy dude with a lion head wouldn't be the best lure from XIV's biggest competitor... a beefy human with fangs or long ears, maybe, but not a full blown furry.

In fact, thinking of the big wow streamers that took XIV out for a testdrive, I don't think any picked Hroths. Asmond was a highlander and several others went lala.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

What you're paraphrasing is YP saying that they added Hrothgar because he felt they were important for "game health". What does that mean? I think it means they added them to make the game more appealing to Western MMO players. Tis why they have that stupid WoW hunch, even though they were inspirited by a race of proud straight backs. I'd say they succeeded at it, given how many WoW converts like to play Hrothgar because they remind them of w/e WoW race.

The games health in context to the type of race they were making can easily attribute to, Diversity. By adding an option that wasn't in the game, a non-humanoid/human looking race; a Beast Race.
Its abit silly to think or say that this race is to appeal to Westerners and WoW players when a good majority (that Ive seen at least) dont play Hrothgar, or even a Beast Race back in WoW.