Why so many CATS?!

[unlimited_gil]

I'm excited personally for the new expansion, there's a lot of new stuff I can't wait to try. Though I've been playing only for two years I'm still learning a lot about the game and it's community. Like, what seems, a lot of you the new races have raised a lot of questions, the gender locking doesn't bother me. It's silly, but I see why they did it. No doubt one day in the future Viera will be male and H'rothgar will be female.
But one thing that won't change are the H'rothgar themselves. I was really surprised since I thought the Amalj'aa were inspired by the Ronso.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks it's really strange to add more cat races to the game. I just don't understand why, and I wanted to hear from the H'rothgar supporting people out there.

Why, if this is the last race to be add, did we need even more cats? Why are you ok with more cat people? Why not any other race like the wolf men added in Stormblood? Seems they would have filled the void of a more beast like race.

I guess if I have to say why I feel the Viera are an okay addition it's because they seem like the type of race that would evolve alongside the Miqo'te and Au ra. FFXIV has had lots of references and shared themes with the likes of 3, 6, 11, and 12. With the story the Viera felt rather natural. The H'rothgar not as much, only if because of the existence of Miqo'te. If the Miqo'te had not been around the H'rothgar would have felt more natural and make more sense. Like, say we humans had a second race of large super hairy monkey men running around. :P

Well just my opinion, wanted to vent a bit here and get some opinion. Hoping someone out there can convince me otherwise. Because so far the new H'rothgar race is the only real reason I'm so apprehensive over the new expansion.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

They have different heads, Yoshi-P mentioned one being a wolf, and the ronso head is not really cat-like.

[Vidu]

Personally, I'm fine with the new races being added as is, because I dont care about new races at all. I found the perfect race and the perfect character for me and nothing they can add would make me change Vidu.

As a more general answer: I think they didnt add the Lupin (wolf people from SB) as a playable race because they are to different from humans in some aspects to make all the gear fit - specially the feet, hands and obviously the head, which wouldnt work with any helmets. Now I know that neither Hrothgar nor Viera are going to be able to wear most headgeard in the game, but I'd imagine that not only was the development of a new race out of the question for SB but also that the decision to create races that cant wear every helmet was born out of need and not wish. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but I'd like to imagine that they didnt went into making those races, knowing that they'd cut the headgear but that that was rather a last resort solution ("Okay, if the only way we can get this to work in time is not re-model all the helmets... we'll do it, but we're not happy" - something along those lines)

At that point - or rather past SB - the Lupin were already established as a Beast Tribe race though, they have lore and they're not new and exciting anymore - so not only would they need to retcon and adjust some of the Lupin-lore to make them playable, but their "new race"-reveal would also only be "btw, you can play this race we've established 2 years ago in a totally different way now".

On top of that the Hrothgar are getting various different face-types - and they're far from looking like your kitty-cat aswell. So I dont see much of an issue...

If two cat-like races are to much cat for you, how do you feel about having basically 4 human-like races? Hyur, Elezen, Lalafell and Roegadyn are all basically human after all! (If you compare the Hrothgar to Mi'qote just because they both have fur, a tail and some cat-features, I can safely compare Hyur to Roegadyn because they have basically human proportions and faces)

[Derio]

I actually wanted Lupin but FFX is one of my top favorite FF so I was thrilled to be able to see them in the game. Maybe in the next FF MMO Lupin will be a playable race.

[SenorPatty]

Why so many cats? Because clearly FF14 is masquerading as the broadway musical of the same name, anime style!

[DarkMasamune]

I guess the Hrothgars will have different animal heads ; lion, wolf, perhaps something else too ? Unless one tribe will be feline-like and the other one more canine-like.
(Kind of reminds me of the Barbarian in Perfect World Intertainment... think we'll get to transform in super cool white tigers too? )

[unlimited_gil]

I seem some sense to the arguments for H'rothgar. But it's mostly along the lines of "they might have wolf heads" which isn't much of a reason to support them.
I don't hate the new race, just feel like a much better job could have been done.

Like no H'rothgar at all and instead maybe two new faces per existing race?

As for the human-like races point, I thought that was the entire concept between what separates us form the beast tribes. At least that seemed to be the case with many points made in the game.
Maybe a bit racist but it looks like all the human looking races joined up for that reason. Which as tied into some of the good politics in this game.
H'rothgar seem to go against this, I mean why would the Lupin be considered a beast tribe now? Because the powers that be said so? "These animal men are beasts, these animal men are not."

[CaptainLagbeard]

Because cats secretly run the world as the leaders of the Illuminati.

[Ceridwenae]

I shall answer your thread title thusly: because rodents must be kept down. If rodents were not kept down, most of us would die from disease.

Also, Moar kitteh always needed.

[Kalise]

Because Cats > All.

That and people were asking for a more "Beastly" race to be playable. Thus, the Hrothgar, based loosely on Ronso. Added with multiple head types (One of them being cat-like)

That's the main difference between Hrothgar and Miqo'te - It's less about them both being cats and more that Miqo'te are kind of like people with cat features while Hrothgar are more anthropomorphic cats/wolves/whatever other heads they have to choose from.

Yoshi thought about adding the Lupin as the "Beastly" race, but didn't feel it worked that well and so ended up making the Hrothgar instead.