The Last Races

[Iscah]

A friend told me they will have more face options than previous races. She also said that was because they could offer these additional features because there were no opposite gender counterparts. I can't say if that is true but I think that was discussed on Reddit where she spends a lot of time. We should find out about the additional options if they exist soon.

I'm going entirely off memory here, but I think that was in conjunction with the lack of headgear, not the gender lock - and they didn't specifically say we'd get more options, just something to the effect that "not being constrained by headgear means that we can include options we couldn't include otherwise". Which coukd be interpreted as a larger number of choices, but I think it's more likely that they just meant they could give them facial features that wouldn't work if they had to stick with the standard helmet designs.

If they've found a way to actually fit more options into the character data, I would greatly hope that new choices would be added for ALL character designs.

I suppose the one possibility is if they've somehow rigged the gender data to instead carry some other design element - assuming they're not data-wise two genders of one race - but that would completely cut off the possibility of releasing the other genders for the sake of maybe one more on/off design choice. If such a thing is even possible for their program, which it probably isn't.



In any case, it's best not to go with the "a friend of a friend said...." kind of info about upcoming game features, especially when it's promising something that would then be disappointing if it doesn't come to pass.

[Kaedan]

A friend told me they will have more face options than previous races. She also said that was because they could offer these additional features because there were no opposite gender counterparts. I can't say if that is true but I think that was discussed on Reddit where she spends a lot of time. We should find out about the additional options if they exist soon.

More head options, yes. That's what they said at Fan Fest. More accurately, they said "unique" heads with more options.

As for why they didn't do male Viera and female Hrothgar, it wasn't because of the unique heads. It was because they simply didn't have the time. They started development right after Stormblood was released, and they knew they would only have time to make one race... meaning a male and female of a single race. But since they wanted to make both Viera and Hrothgar, they split the difference and did one gender of each.

If they have the time and resources, they might finish the remaining genders, but he isn't making any promises.


As to the OP... no, I don't think they really need to add any more races. Sure, finish off the genders if they want, but I would rather see effort gone into improving existing races.

[Theodric]

Yes. We arguably should not have seen Viera and Hrothgar added. Instead, the existing playable races should have been given enhanced customisation options. We're reaching a point where the NPC's look so much better and well designed compared to player characters.

[Shougun]

They mentioned they are playing with the body morphs when they did the Fat Cats, so they might be coming out with a few #currentyear (at least it's not WoW's lol) model features which could be really cool. New character creation options would be nice (highlander eyebrows yes yes).

I think they could add some side races later, a bit like Allied Races. For example in another thread I made a short blurb of how the Sil'Dih (sister city of Ul'dah) had to move their bodies into advance mammets (Vivi) because of the messy halls of endless nights full of zombie hordes attacking them. Vivi race uses lalafell animations, just looks like vivi when cloaked and looks like one of the fancy mammets we already see in game when fully naked.

Or a race of Au Ra trapped in an Allaghan machine that tore part of their mountain into the void and over the years their scale and horn like features exaggerated to the point they look closer to their concept art (female Au Ra using a fuller/plumper Viera model and animation set with tweaks to only specific animations, male model just becoming a bit thicker and new more extreme scale options).

We're reaching a point where the NPC's look so much better and well designed compared to player characters.

NPC are cheating, typing in some hax to get the unlocked character creation kit. Give me that mod! :3.

[Iscah]

They mentioned they are playing with the body morphs when they did the Fat Cats, so they might be coming out with a few #currentyear (at least it's not WoW's lol) model features which could be really cool. New character creation options would be nice (highlander eyebrows yes yes).

I was wondering whether the "fat cats" might not actually be a separate or altered body model, but just the NPC-equivalent of a fat suit - so all the body shape is built into the gear, and it all animates on the same standard Miqo'te skeleton. I assume we'll have to wait until the game comes out and see what it looks like in the character data.

Otherwise it just seems strange to put effort into this different body model for NPCs over all the other graphical update possibilities that are likely to be more popular.

[Shougun]

I was wondering whether the "fat cats" might not actually be a separate or altered body model, but just the NPC-equivalent of a fat suit - so all the body shape is built into the gear, and it all animates on the same standard Miqo'te skeleton. I assume we'll have to wait until the game comes out and see what it looks like in the character data.

Otherwise it just seems strange to put effort into this different body model for NPCs over all the other graphical update possibilities that are likely to be more popular.

This is all I could find on it :3

Itaru-san requests for more character customization options like making their character older (wrinkles). Yoshida answers by saying that the technology at tha time wasn’t advanced enough to include a lot of options for customization. Second, the body customization (fat or slim) may cause the body polygon to go haywire if they allow such option and us players will not be pleased about it. However, as said in the keynote they ARE currently challenging in allowing more options in body optimization. Not much at first but they want to gradually solve the challenge

Q: We saw the plumped Miqo’tes in the trailers. Is there a possibility that players might be able to become like that, too? Also, will the Dwarves say “Lali-ho!”?

Yoshida: This has nothing to do with the previous “handsome and beautiful” I talked about earlier. Of course, there are different body types around the world. However, the fact is that due to the budget, we didn’t make those kinds of variations. This time we gave ourselves some freedom with the budget and it all started from the thought that maybe we should make a different body type for an existing race. I think we were able to make great characters. There are characters that are involved with the Main Scenario, so please, after you see them in the MSQ, please give us some feedback.

As for “Lali-ho”, I think it would be more interesting if I don’t say anything in that regard (laugh).

[Kalise]

"should" these be the last races SE adds with how difficult it is to add races to the game?

That depends entirely on what perspective you're looking at things from.

If the dev team gets no additional resources and thus is incapable of keeping up their quality with other aspects of the game AND designing new playable races. Then yes, these SHOULD be the last new races. Since, while yes, more races is more customization, at the end of the day, it's the core content of the game that keeps us playing (Even if the real end game is glamour... We still need new pretty clothes to wear). Besides, we already have femko'te why would we need any other races

If the dev team does get additional resources and thus becomes capable of adding new races alongside other content... Then maybe? It's hard to say. New races can be cool, but at the same time could those resources be spent somewhere else - Such as developing the current races customisation? Adding more depth to the Glamour system (Such as dying different parts of gear!)?

I think if they do have the possibility to add more races, they should do so sparingly as well as make a point to do so as a way of developing the world and lore - Such as if Tonberries became a playable race I'd want to see the lore about how they became accepted by others, how they prevented the sickness from spreading, what is to come out of the research into the cure for the sickness, how they managed to get their ability to control aether up to a high standard again etc.

As opposed to slapping a race in because it looks cool and then just writing a bit of lore about where they came from/where they fit into things (Especially 2.0 MSQ timeline...)

[Fredco191]

I feel like after they add the male Viera and female Hrothgar (If they even do that.) they’ll be done adding new races.
Then they can focus on making the original 5 look better.

[FoxyAreku]

I refuse to believe any race is the last one until the day we get Lupin.

They're already rigged with most animations just with how they function as enemies in the story, come on SE.

[Eriane_Elis]

Assuming we get Male Viera and Female Hrothgar, hopefully someday in the future, "should" these be the last races SE adds with how difficult it is to add races to the game?

It probably isn't difficult to add a new race to the game but having to add compatibility to said races is what's difficult. They can't add old armor to new races without first changing asset appearances for them, which adds to the game's size, rendering, and they really have to test just about everything in every circumstance. But what they probably end up doing is place said races in a few different test levels to make sure it works under most circumstances and then give it a whirl here and there until they feel confident enough. Players can report bugs and they can fix it later.

But, if there are 20,000 outfits, they would have to add 20,000 new outfits to said races. This is a lot of work and probably a good reason why they won't add new races. I'm sure most people can understand how much it would cost to do this and why it's better to just focus on other parts of the game. 5.0 is their biggest expansion yet and afterwards it's going to be 6.0 in maybe 2-3 years which I'm guessing will be the last major DLC.