Lack of "black" hairstyles

[jrollins89]

For example, for Miqo'te male, the hairstyle I have in my profile picture is pretty the only hairstyle which looks slightly believable for a black character (Kind of braids? Kind of dread-lockes?).

Since the birth of RPG character customization, creating a character that bears resemblance to the user has been a popular option. Every patch there seems to be new hairstyles added but never for players of African descent who like to roleplay as themselves in the FFXIV world.

It'd just be nice to see more variety added to the hairstyles added every patch.

[Merylx]

I wish they'd add a hairstyle for male miq'ote that actually has the braids hanging down. It would look magnificent.

[kyuven]

Please keep in mind the majority of this game's development team is Japanese. The lack of "black hairstyles" is highly likely to be due to the fact that the development team can probably count the number of black people they've ever met on their hands. It's hard to conceive of or design for something you have no regular contact with.

[Gralna]

they mentioned in a previous live letter that they may add dreadlocks for males, and are working on an afro hairstyle.

[Ryans]

Please keep in mind the majority of this game's development team is Japanese. The lack of "black hairstyles" is highly likely to be due to the fact that the development team can probably count the number of black people they've ever met on their hands. It's hard to conceive of or design for something you have no regular contact with.

Their job is literally to design new things. They conceive things that don't actually exist. I think they can spend 5 minutes googling popular hair styles.

[kyuven]

Their job is literally to design new things. They conceive things that don't actually exist. I think they can spend 5 minutes googling popular hair styles.

I took 5 minutes to do just that in English and Japanese.
There was ONE dreadlocks hairstyle and ONE cornrows style in the first 200 results in English. Scrolling down a few more pages you see an "afro mohawk" style and just plain "afro" style. They have announced they're working on an afro.
In Japanese, there was even less.
All of the results I saw in five minutes of searching and over 1000 images were styles that are already in game, and over a dozen non-"black" ones that aren't, with nary a uniquely "black" style unless you count a shaved head.

[jadan2000]

as a black person, i like to make characters that look like me. I pretty much never get to do that in ff games.. It would be nice to have some hairstyles that are more ethnic, and not always stringy hair.

[Black91CRX]

Not really a "black" race in the game. It would be different if Eorzea had their own version of say, Redguard's like The Elder Scrolls lore has.

[Ghastly]

Please keep in mind the majority of this game's development team is Japanese. The lack of "black hairstyles" is highly likely to be due to the fact that the development team can probably count the number of black people they've ever met on their hands. It's hard to conceive of or design for something you have no regular contact with.

I'm sorry but that's the dumbest argument I've ever read.

[QiLymePye]

I'm sorry but that's the dumbest argument I've ever read.

exactly. maybe 40 years ago, but not in today's world, where we have a ton of sports figures, actors, singers, etc. Hell they have had "Black" characters in previous ff games. It wasn't hard for them to "conceive" fairies and demons and "cat people", etc. Im sure they never met them but conceived them nonetheless.