Quote Originally Posted by Joven View Post
With the rumor/hopeful mill abuzz with the potential addition of Viera as a playable race one would think that I would be more excited. I mean, I like women and I like bunnies so combining them should be an all around win-win right? I'm not against them being playable, but it got me thinking about why we can't have a distinct non-humanoid race. If you're gonna pick a race from Ivalice to use then why not the Bangaa or even the goofy looking Nu mou or moogles?
This question comes up in the forums regularly, and there's pretty much three big reasons why an "inhuman" race is unlikely to happen:
1. Redesigning all of the existing gear in the game to fit a model with a radically different shape would be very expensive and time-consuming. Adding a race that's pretty much a variation on human is much easier, both for modifying existing gear and creating future gear.
2. The storyline for this game has the conflict between humans and beastmen as one of the central themes. The storyline would need some significant changes to make room for what is, essentially, a playable beastman race.
3. Once you've done both of the above, was it worthwhile? How many people will actually play the new race? Most likely, the playerbase that would choose to play it would be pretty niche. That means it's a lot of effort to satisfy very few people. Part of the reason Au Ra worked out was that it provided an additional option for two existing popular character types: huge, imposing men (competition for Roes and Highlander Hyur) and small, cute women (competition for Miqo'te and Midlander Hyur).

If we do get an additional race (and yes, Viera seems like a strong candidate), it will almost certainly be humanlike. If we were to get Viera, in fact, they would likely be even more humanlike than their original designs - just look at what they did to Roegadyn and Miqo'te when they imported them from FFXI's Galka and Mithra!