Greetings, everyone.

As there have been a lot of feedback surrounding Hrothgar and their hairstyles, we wanted to share a recent update from Yoshida during the recent patch notes reading. On the stream he discussed the specifications of Hrothgar and the difficulties regarding adding hairstyles for them.

Since we’re talking about adding Hrothgar hairstyles, I’d like to take this opportunity to once again explain the specifications of Hrothgar.

The head shape we use for Hrothgar is designed completely exclusively for the race. It’s precisely because of this fact that we’re able to create their facial appearances, and their current quality is only possible because the faces and hair are created together as a set.

Originally, I had announced at the outset that we would be unable to add more hairstyles for them. However, we continued to receive comments asking for more Hrothgar hairstyles to be added somehow. In order to address this feedback, we went with a plan where we would maintain the shape of the head and have the ears “hidden” in the hair, which would allow us to implement new hairstyles in due time.

But as we’ve seen, there have indeed been many comments questioning the lack of ears…

This is something I’m currently torn over. If we were to maintain the style we went with in this update, we would still have to adjust hairstyles to match the shape of Hrothgar heads…

But if every hairstyle update is going to be met with large communities of players saying, “That’s not what we want,” then perhaps we can reconsider. Though it would mean new hairstyles would be added far less frequently, perhaps we could somehow create hairstyles dedicated to those head shapes. But I think that would lower the number of hairstyles we can implement…

It’s difficult to address, since Hrothgar was only made possible because we drew a clear line about this point back then. Honestly speaking, it’s very difficult to create hair in-game, as you might expect. As such, I’m torn over how we should proceed.

Having said that, I understand that players are asking for us to do something about it quickly, but it’s something that will take a long time to address. To this end, I’d very much appreciate it if you could share your feedback with us on the official forums. I’ll have the Community teams compile your feedback and provide a report.

But I’d like to reiterate, the current implementation of Hrothgar heads is only possible because we’re using some very unorthodox methods. Hrothgar are the way they are because we’d like for our fans of beast-like characters to enjoy them, but I would also like to emphasize that they are made in a completely unique way compared to the other races.

We’d like to continue doing our best to address your feedback, so please continue to let us know what you think.