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(12-21-2014, 07:30 PM)Knahli Wrote: That's where your argument holds no objective merit in my eyes. You are insisting that races should always command some consistent aesthetic across the genders to conform to your standards or interests, and that is your opinion and your preference. The fact that females are not very similar to the males in height and their lack of largely-pronounced features does not make the developers lazy.For the record, I see every race that is clearly and obviously based off of a largely unchanged human base to be 'lazy', which means, yes, ALL of FFXIV's (playable) races are 'lazily designed' in my mind. That also goes for most of Star Trek's aliens, the Asari of Mass Effect, a fair number of aliens in Star Wars, etc., etc. If you decide not to stray far from the human template I am going to say you did not put enough effort into it.
No-one whom likes the race cares enough to be offended that you or anyone else does not feel similarly, nor does the case apply in vice versa; what Ashren was talking about(and correct me if I am wrong, Ashren), is that you are very, unfairly throwing negative comments towards the developers because their chosen design didn't appeal to your standards or expectations. You and many other people were hoping for something that in the end, did not deliver. You have every right to be disappointed and even to be disgruntled by the similarities between Au Ra females and existing female races, but your(plural) dissatisfaction with that does not translate into laziness on anyone's part.
"Laziness" carries a very, obviously negative connotation since it implies that they deliberately didn't put enough time, creativity or effort into the female race. You can never know enough to decide that is the case and make such an accusation. As far as you know, and I am very sure is the case, Square Enix designed a race that would and has successfully appealed to people, just not everyone; and that can never be avoided.
Yes, this is subjective; that is obvious. It doesn't need to be pointed out. It's a semantic diversion that has no bearing on the fundamental argument. Everyone has different standards, and honestly, I would argue that any notion of objectivity is a false one when it comes to matters like these. This isn't rocket science; there's no hard math or numbers involved. It's all opinions.
In truth, I wish we could play as any one of the beast tribe races. I know that will never happen for obvious resource and popularity reasons, but that is how I feel. I'd love for Mamool Ja to be a playable race and would take that option in a heartbeat if presented with it. (The closest I can get to this in any game is Iksar in Everquest, with Argonians from The Elder Scrolls an obvious close second.) That being said, they could easily make a race that straddles the middle ground between 'beast race' and 'obviously human', but for some reason they do not, and that saddens me.
They took the easy way out, plain and simple. I will call it 'lazy' because that's how it looks in my eyes and you are entirely within your right to disagree with that assertion, but there's no point trying to argue that it should not or cannot apply in this instance. I'm not pretending to be 'objective'. I'm just telling you how I feel.