New Races

[Shougun]

This was before ShB. Viera and Hrothgar were never supposed to happen. However since SE dug themselves into this hole, they have to get out of it. So they will add the other genders.

I still wonder if they planned this from the beginning. I love Hrothgar but as people are wont to point out beast races are not as popular as super model races. This isn't a confirmation that they've no value, again I still strongly believe that there is value in having diversity of options (even if the more popular ones are repeated more often because, eeeey they're more popular).

So.. picture an expansion where they announce just a beast race. People will still have some interest of course because new FFXIV content, and for some the beast race is hype, but just general statistics would show not a majority amount of players will switch over. I do think more will switch over to hrothgar in the larger scope of things if two elements are added, a. females and b. lack of barber hair issues (so I think in the end hrothgar has high potential to be more popular than Roe).

Picture just Viera. Of course popular, it's the super model race. Just like Blood Elf for WoW. Hugely popular option for WoW. Sexy may get some hate, but sex still sales anyways lol.

Now.... picture you split it. But no seriously picture it, don't think 'yah but hate'.

FFXIV is a good MMO but it needs people to talk about it, this got the game into people's radar more so than if it was just expansion news (as people plastered forums and articles about the gender split, although most articles I saw weren't that aggressive which is nice for SE and plays well back into that 'no such thing as bad publicity'). Maybe some might be like 'oh no I won't play it because of X' but many will hear about it more and so now it's on their radar which is a lot more to say than before when it wasn't. Furthermore if they implement the other races for those who were like 'oh no' are now 'oh yes' and put on their radar from the previous issue, so when they see the article that it was added they would be more likely to engage than previously.

Ontop of this it allowed them to create a race that adds high diversity (hroth), while also adding a race with high desire (super model Viera), at the same time of milking this twice. They get to release super models twice, get twice the notice publicity, they get to solve a problem they created (and people love seeing companies solve problems, it feels good), it's actually not half bad of a deal.

Those who quit before, which I doubt was that many having seen many who threatened to leave didn't lol, will have a decent chance to return, those who stayed away have less of a reason so, and they get articles about adding the other gender as extra free publicity, they get the articles about expansion features because that'll happen of course, they get diversity and value.

I'd argue they get more value splitting like this than if they hadn't. Now I'm not defending the character creation limitations about having to fantasia to change your hair.. you might argue value in fatansia sales because if that as intentional that just feels like short sided gains.. but if they intentionally split the races like this for what I said above... I could see it being the long game, and actually intentional.


Of course alternatively they really do just have massive memory/character creation problems and the head gear situation really is just a near insurmountable task, and it is what it is because it is lol. Yet because of some key wordings and timings that are coming up recently I'm very interested to see how they advertise 6.0 and how 5.0 closes. I am lightly gambling (metaphorically) that either a big change is coming to FFXIV or the next MMO is in production, which I would also feel would lend to them not tackling the memory issues as direly (changes to be done in the future). So I'm not entirely sold that it's being purely waived off even then, even if it was just memory problems.

Kind of conspiracy but I feel it exciting, and plausible enough, to share lol. Also not saying people have to like the split just because there might be a marketing reason for it haha, just suggesting it may be intentional. Controlled chaos can be a good thing, and we've seen it used before (by other companies, and governments really).

More publicity and balanced desire this way, in some ways also makes them more sympathetic, and a problem solving oriented company, than if they had just done it from the beginning.