Gender locked race?

[Eoko]

This is true. If male viera does get implemented into the game, I want it the way Yoshi P described them. Too many people want different things. At the end of the day, the design should be left up to the devs. I'll be happy if we get them at all.

At the end of the day a design contest would be finalized by the dev team, meaning they could hand pick the ones they most wanted to do anyway, and the finalists would be voted on, meaning the majority of the community that cares about the addition would be the ones deciding which one is most desired. Who cares if people cry that their version didn't get picked? We do the exact same thing for hair, and armor. Why should it be different for a race? Having the majority of people's voted winner be what goes into game results in an actual, factual number of how many people will undoubtedly be happy.

Do I think they could screw up the Viera males? Not really. Do I think they would screw up the Hrothgals? Pretty sure they would. If Yoshi P is worried that the fans will not like their idea of Viera males, or is concerned with how people would feel about the other gender in general, majority rules is the way to do it. Employ some democracy and show the fanbase how seriously you take their feedback and their commitment to a cause.

One of the major problems people are bringing up is that these decisions have gone against player feedback, and their own statements in the past. The development team is pulling away from player input, and people are seeing it in a very negative light. A design contest, which already has precedent, over a feature that is clearly very important to people, is not something to be tossed aside because someone's feelings is going to get hurt. You could have the contest have zero other "prizes" and people would still contribute because this is an important cause.

I know I would certainly enter it on the Hrothgal side. Would I be miserable if we got some miqo'te clone with an animal head because that's what most people wanted? No. Because that's literally what most people wanted. The people that cared enough to vote for it. The development team messed up, because they wanted to appease two massive player requests and didn't have the resources to pull them off in full. These sorts of threads are the consequence of that decision. Every time they are asked why they did it, or when they are adding the other genders, is a consequence of the decision they made. It doesn't matter how many times they answer anything other than "we are going to" or "we are never going to". Until they commit to a decision about implementing the other genders, they will never escape the questions. People still ask about the egi glamour. And this is far, far more important than egi glamour.

If he's concerned about how people will take a decision, then he needs to ask the people. It's that simple.

[Beki_Bayaqad]

Snip

There are always complainers, and the western audience are really really vocal whiners. Why else is our fourm the one with multiple race lock threads blu complaining threads, insane/silly class update threads, and general moaning and complaining threads opposed to other language boards. Not pointing any fingers honestly.

[Senn]

...

Yoshi P already has a vision for male viera. I think we should respect that design decision should male viera ever be added to the game. That's all.

[Eoko]

There are always complainers, and the western audience are really really vocal whiners.

Yes, Westerners are complainers and vocal. But it's a lot harder to complain that you don't like something when you have nothing to back it up. In an arbitrary world you can imagine and assume that many others are backing your opinion. You have this conceived strength in your conviction. If we put 5 final designs to a vote, it doesn't matter where your personal vote falls. You end up knowing exactly how popular it was compared to the others. There is no more imagined majority lending strength to "your personal rightness".

If miqo bodies with animal heads get 70% of the votes it's impossible to argue that people didn't want that. If 60% of votes go to a muscular, ferocious Hrothgal, sure, it's a bit less of a majority, but it's still the majority. And the development team would still reserve all rights to make changes needed to assist with gear modeling. If someone makes something with amazing digitigrade legs and it gets the most votes, we know we wouldn't get that because the whole issue with Viera was their rabbit feet.

But just because people are going to dislike the result doesn't mean it's worth tossing aside. Many people would be impressed with the desire to take player input into such a major decision, and it would show the fanbase that they are really open to going outside their design box, if that's what people want. Yes, our society is incredibly vocal, whiny, and at times, very entitled. But at the end of the day, having indisputable proof that a majority of players is behind a decision is a solid counter attack to those that don't like the decision.

[Eoko]

Do I really think that FFXIV will have a gender design contest? No. Do I think they should? Yes. Because clearly they need some feedback and numbers and images are pretty easy to disseminate. However, I do, 100% think that they will release Hrothgals and Viera males. And from every interview that's already come out, it's very clear that resource management was the biggest issue here, along with trying to appease two groups. It's a classic case of wanting to eat their cake and have it too. And if they had double the resources to handle remodeling thousands of gear pieces, they very likely would have handed us two playable races in 5.0. Everything just snowballed into a messy, messy release.

And at the end of the day any company worth their salt is going to take something like a gender design contest and push it in their favor. They are going to pick finalist that suit their needs and vision best, while also allowing enough variety for us to feel like we got a say and made a difference. And they will still change things if they need to. I know a more differentiated design makes armor harder. It's why Garleans are Hyur faces on Elezen bodies, more or less, and why Hrothgar are very, very similar in body to the Roes; because that makes modelling the armor on them exceptionally easier. And I completely understand that is the main reason they did what they did in this instance. They tried to appeal to both requests and didn't have the resources to model thousands of gear pieces on 4 new frames, as well as give us a major new story, content, etc.

I wholeheartedly believe Yoshi P and the development team were trying to give as many people what they wanted as they could, under the restrictions they were under. I still think everything about the result was done wrong. They should have released the Viera with both genders since they really felt they needed to release Viera, and they should have released the Hrothgar in 6.0, or maybe 5.4, whenever the resources were there. I highly doubt there would be even close to as much drama if there had been no bestial race. People may want it, but based on our existing characters, they would not have been surprised not to get it. And sure, the Viera enthusiasts might have had a bit of spit and fire left, but people have been debating that whole can of worms for weeks, and at the end of the day, they already crushed the Miqo'te lore for it, so why not Viera lore too? These Viera are not the Viera of FF12 or Tactics anyway. They are the Viera of Eorzea, of Hydaelyn. But I still think they are going to see the mistakes they made and do something to fix it. And I'll hope that they truly do something to really, really understand what the player base wants with these two races.

[reivaxe]

Do I really think that FFXIV will have a gender design contest? No. Do I think they should? Yes. Because clearly they need some feedback and numbers and images are pretty easy to disseminate. However, I do, 100% think that they will release Hrothgals and Viera males. And from every interview that's already come out, it's very clear that resource management was the biggest issue here, along with trying to appease two groups. It's a classic case of wanting to eat their cake and have it too. And if they had double the resources to handle remodeling thousands of gear pieces, they very likely would have handed us two playable races in 5.0. Everything just snowballed into a messy, messy release.

People continue to think this is some kinda one shot and be done non-sense. Making a new race in THIS game requires not just the time, resources and man power to make them (Including going back and retro fitting every armor and emote and hair style released to work on them) but also supporting them moving forward. More body shapes for them means every thing that can be applied to a player's toon is now harder to make moving forward. There are currently 6 races (7 if you count Highlands as their own thing) and adding 2 more would increase the work load for ALL glam and emotes and jobs and so on by 1/3.

THAT'S why they say that this is it. According to them this is all they can handle and still give us content at the pace they have been. There is no "wellllll, just make Viera 5.0 and then do Hrothgar in 6.0!" cause there is no promise that they can make more than 1 new male and female model after 5.0.

Also the reason we're in this position is because the HROTHGAR are the ones that they planned to do. After the release of the Wolf Headed people and their concept art in 4.0 a beastly race option was highly demanded. I should know because many Viera fans like myself saw these fans and told them to STFU cause there's no way we're getting something like that from SE. But they did see the desire for them and they also knew people have been wanting Viera since before Draggos were revealed. Between the 2 ... Hrothgar are what the game needs. The devs wanted it, the fans wanted beastly race and it adds so much to the game. In Yoshi's own words "We thought: “Why add more handsome races… even if we do, the biggest difference will be the ears…” ". But people have been wanting them for over 4 years and they did the best they could to honor the most people they could. This path DOES make the most people happy well also adding something to the game.

There's no profit in adding a new race, it's purely to give us more ways to express ourselves.
I don't foresee them changing anything personally. The western English speakers have a loud minority on this forum but the other OFs don't care nearly as much and by large most people don't feel strongly about this.

[Ashyra]

There's no profit in adding a new race, it's purely to give us more ways to express ourselves.
I don't foresee them changing anything personally. The western English speakers have a loud minority on this forum but the other OFs don't care nearly as much and by large most people don't feel strongly about this.

New races bring players in, so there is definitely profit in that. More players, more profit. It also helps to prevent lost subs from those who get bored with the same thing and need a change.

I'm not arguing the fact because I don't know, but I am curious... how do you know "by large most people don't feel strongly about this"? I think most gamers only want to play their games and not involve themselves in forum discussions and ultimately it's very hard to know what they want or don't want until the numbers come in after the expansion is released. I am hoping the expansion will be a huge success for Square Enix and for us who play it but I think the gender lock issue is a bigger issue than they projected and will reflect in those numbers after it's release.

[reivaxe]

New races bring players in, so there is definitely profit in that. More players, more profit. It also helps to prevent lost subs from those who get bored with the same thing and need a change.

I'm not arguing the fact because I don't know, but I am curious... how do you know "by large most people don't feel strongly about this"? I think most gamers only want to play their games and not involve themselves in forum discussions and ultimately it's very hard to know what they want or don't want until the numbers come in after the expansion is released. I am hoping the expansion will be a huge success for Square Enix and for us who play it but I think the gender lock issue is a bigger issue than they projected and will reflect in those numbers after it's release.

No, content brings players and keep players. Content means things you play or do. New Jobs/ DNGs/ Raids/ events/ MSQ keep players from being bored and help make this game a quality choice for fans of MMOs. I'd like to know how you think people go about getting into this game. Think people are holding off on playing until they add "just the right new race"? Think players are going "ya know, I'm not bored with the jobs or dngs or raids or story ... but I AM tired of these races and my character! I wanna be something different than the 6 races we have, Imma unsub until they add new races I may or may not like"?

As for "How you know" you answer it in the next sentence. Unless they're banned any active player can sign up to the OF to voice their opinion. If you're an active player chances are you follow some news about this game and know about it. If someone feels strongly about this they have paths to express those feelings. Truth of the matter is that only a small % of the player base bother to come to this forum. On these very forums the Jpn side's thread on the matter is far FAR smaller clocking in at 25pages. In other, less censored spaces to talk about this game people don't bring it up nearly as much and actively buck against this whining more openly (like how Male Viera threads on reddit get down voted to hell because people who don't care have had it with this topic and the whining). Many of the same few people flood the topics for this to bump those topics and keep it visible.

This has all the makings of "vocal minority".

[BillyKaplan]

I'd like to know how you think people go about getting into this game. Think people are holding off on playing until they add "just the right new race"?

It's funny you say that, because we've seen various posts through the various threads on the matter of people who have, in fact, picked up the game after the announcement of playable Viera (and were subsequently disappointed by the locking of males).
It might not be why you specifically pick up a game, but it's more than a valid reason for others.

[Melichoir]

snip

Hmm, its more accurate to say that Content in the game keeps players busy, but if the aesthetics are limiting, content is irrelevant.

If everyone was teh exact same player model, there would be far fewer players. Part of MMOs and their appeal is that part that we tend to leave off. You know, the RPG part. This entails broadly an aspect of role playing, and races fill that necessity. It actually is a turn on or off for some players if they dotn find any of the playable races aesthetically appealing. As an example, I never played the original GW cause the race aspect didnt appeal to me. Game couldve been fine, but I liked WoW for that character diversity.

And yeah, if people unsub over the gender thing (which some people have already) that is their choice. You can think its stupid, but if SE isnt providing the player what they want, why should the player continue paying for it. Lastly, it's threads like this or the Viera threads or what not that got Male Miqotes and Fem Roes/Highlanders in the game in the first place. So its a bit rich to dismiss these boards as being insignificant. What you also fail to understand is that a silent majority doesnt inherently mean they disagree with the vocal minority (nor are in favor of it). Theyre just silent. However, If you could poll most players, most would probably side along the idea of "Yeah, Id be cool with those in the game." Also, as a point, the 'whales' tend to be also pretty vocal, so this vocal minority is probably people who are willing to dish out money for SE.