Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[MikkoAkure]

When has he actually been upfront about it recently? I just remember him giving people false hope before ShB launch and then not delivering, and now in recent interviews he just seems to dodge the question.

He mentioned it in an interview on Feb 11, 2021. Snipping relevant bits out of the interview related to new races/viera:

It is no easy feat to add new races and if we are to do so, we’d need to prepare it so that the several thousands of items available as gear can be properly equipped, and this is on top of developing the unique motions for emotes, standing by, walking, running and the attack stances. This doesn’t only entail a huge development cost for implementation but also requires us to continually support those races in future updates.

As a result, when considering the addition of new playable races, we have to factor in the how the workload will multiply. As such, this only happens on an extremely limited basis and the deliberations about implementing or not would start only after I place a request and the costs are calculated. We’re already approaching the limits in terms of maintaining a healthy balance between the operational costs and quality of the gameplay experience and so it could be said that adding any more playable races would be quite a challenge. (Of course, I do understand the benefits of expanding the options available to players and their scope for roleplay…)
...
As for the final steps such as the design and emote motions etc., in the case of races that have appeared in the FF series before, we’ll thoroughly do our research before deciding on the race’s physique and preparing several samples of their movement, all the while considering their standing in the lore. From there on, we enter the stage of incorporating all the fine details. As one example, when we were implementing the Viera from FFXII we checked their prerequisites in advance and also had their creator Mr. Yasumi Matsuno kindly provide his support in this regard. After deciding on the physique and lifestyle of this race we then determined their movements. Simply put, the process started from formulating the basic identity of the Viera as an athletic race of hunters.

That's pretty in depth and though he didn't mention male viera, I wouldn't really count that as "dodging the question" since he's already established that we don't have it because the final race "slot" was split between viera and hrothgar, and this explains more on how they do things behind the scenes and the work involved.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I've said before the fact that he's still taking the question in good faith and answering in vague but hopeful terms (see above), and that fact is commendable because if he really wanted to shut the door on it he'd ask interviewers to stop asking him that question, which he can do.

Which means they are listening. They hear you, no one has been ignored.
But he can't say IF its happening or not, till there is something to show for it.
If it just wasn't going to happen, they would have said so, like they outright said NO to Playable Child Characters.

[Shofie]

Unlikely, the modding community already fixed the problems pretty quickly, so I don't think there's much of an excuse for it not being resolved. When the modding community has this stuff down to a science, it's time to take notes and apply what you've learned from them.

I wouldn't say modders "fixed it quickly" as I only heard of the "fix" coming down the line weeks ago, and Viera have existed for years at this point. That was not a quick fix, nor "good" one, as a lot of stuff won't work properly with it. A lot of mods only look good when carefully posed, and without movement, because surprise: they don't have quality control.

It's an enormous undertaking to make thousands of pieces of gear work, plus quality control. Modders are not beholden to SE's quality control, nor do they have to make their code work with anything "nicely" since it's client-side. It's an entirely unfair comparison to say "well modders did it so why can't SE" when these are not level playing fields for many reasons.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Which means they are listening. They hear you, no one has been ignored.
But he can't say IF its happening or not, till there is something to show for it.
If it just wasn't going to happen, they would have said so, like they outright said NO to Playable Child Characters.

I still think they could be a bit more direct. Just a simple they’re working on it or a timeline. No reason to constantly keep us in the dark for so long among many other things.

[BunniEclair]

I still think they could be a bit more direct. Just a simple they’re working on it or a timeline. No reason to constantly keep us in the dark for so long among many other things.

I agree, but that also wouldn’t give them that big reveal moment when they are announced, and I do think they will be. They’ve always saved stuff like that for big announcements, and are super guarded before then, for better or worse.

I think it’s also a case where they want to under promise then over deliver. Giving a solid “yes” and a timeline would put them in an unnecessarily bad PR spot should it for some reason not happen or not be feasible within the time frame. Not that they are in a super great PR spot now with the races....

[WhiteArchmage]

I think it’s also a case where they want to under promise then over deliver. Giving a solid “yes” and a timeline would put them in an unnecessarily bad PR spot should it for some reason not happen or not be feasible within the time frame. Not that they are in a super great PR spot now with the races....

Jumping off this point, we saw what happened when Ultimate got delayed until 6.1 and eventually one Ultimate got cancelled. The bad PR should something unexpected happen again and the missing genders have to be delayed or scrapped would be... something...

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Jumping off this point, we saw what happened when Ultimate got delayed until 6.1 and eventually one Ultimate got cancelled. The bad PR should something unexpected happen again and the missing genders have to be delayed or scrapped would be... something...

Which Emboldens my point...they shouldn't say anything until it is absolutely definitive/they KNOW its happening...and when they have something to show for it.
Cause, god forbid they say its in the works, and then it suddenly doesn't happen.

[Starshower]

I still have hopes they will announce the missing genders on the fanfest. I think it's unlikely, but I really want to have hope because it's very important to me.


And if they don't, I at least expect them to add the new hairs for hrothgar and viera they promises long ago.



If nothing related to viera and hrothgar comes in the fanfest, I'll be really sad and disappointed...

[KizuyaKatogami]

I still have hopes they will announce the missing genders on the fanfest. I think it's unlikely, but I really want to have hope because it's very important to me.


And if they don't, I at least expect them to add the new hairs for hrothgar and viera they promises long ago.



If nothing related to viera and hrothgar comes in the fanfest, I'll be really sad and disappointed...

Unfortunately it seems to be looking likely we wont. I’d expect with all the cut and downgraded content from this expansion, they’re planning on announcing something big at the next fanfest but who really knows at this point.

[RyuDragnier]

Unfortunately it seems to be looking likely we wont. I’d expect with all the cut and downgraded content from this expansion, they’re planning on announcing something big at the next fanfest but who really knows at this point.

I'm really hoping for the announcement, but I agree. I felt originally they cut the dungeons per patch simply to help them play catchup after Hrothgar/Viera, but then COVID hit. We've already seen the problems caused by that pandemic due to how Bozja got pushed back, the ultimate getting delayed, how we missed out on several fanfests and got the expansion trailer late, etc.