Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

gimme the male buns square, let me be the biggest gayest viera himbo im meant to be, cowards

I found this older Op Ed that Gahoo wrote in 2010, regarding the previous gender locks in this game. It is intriguing to look how things have evolved. It puts perspective on where we are now and it gives me some optimism that later, they can unlock Hrothgar and Viera too.

Op-Ed: Gender Locking of the Races and Clans

I rather support the lore that the males being reclusive and hiding away than support rewriting the lore.

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Originally Posted by VanillaWafer

Viera was requested by players. Viera is not exclusively original, as their race appeared in other games. If the higher ups said no, then there's not much the devs can do about it but follow orders. So I can never blame them.

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So its not ok to adjust Viera Lore to allow for playable males, but it somehow IS okay to change Ronso, both Lore and appearance-wise, to restrict females - which have been shown in FFX - from being playable? Seems oddly selective.
They never needed to add 'Viera', they could have easily switched the Source and First Shard names of the race and called them Viis.
Have the Firsts Viera be the female only, no males allowed Viera from FFXII and the like and the Sources Viis are FFXIVs non-restrictive Viera derivative. There, you now we have a Situation where males are easily justifiable while still referencing the Sourcematerial. Just as they did with the Hrothgar/Ronso, except without writing themselves against a wall.

Oh, and btw, Yoshida by all means IS the Higher-Up here. Not only is he the Head of his Business Division, he's also part of the Board of Directors, and as such he is at least partially to blame for this Decision.

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Originally Posted by VanillaWafer

Personally, I feel a bit indifferent about the news, but I'm kind of glad that the team are sticking to their guns with lore.

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There is no 'sticking to the Lore' here. The Lore is written after the fact to explain the absence of whatever gender they chose to omit during developement, the races are NOT locked because the Lore somehow didn't permit the opposite Gender.

(In case this comes of as harsh, I apologize, my brain is a bit foggy today which usually makes me a bit more direct than I mean to be)

With male Viera, I would be able to go back to being able to recommend this game to my friends.

Agreed - it was extremely disappointing to see both new races genderlocked. I expected better from Square and it’s sad to see the game taking this turn.

I was excited for viera and considering making one as a new main, but now the race feels half-complete and I’m no longer interested in playing a viera (even though I was intending on making a female viera). The decision to genderlock based on lore is flimsy at best, and doesn’t explain why hrothgar/ronso were genderlocked too. It makes hrothgar feel like a poor excuse for a ‘male’ counterpart to the viera, when I feel most of the fan base would be more interested in having one complete race than two incomplete ones.

I just hope that in the future Square adds male viera and female hrothgar instead of leaving this oversight unaddressed and just creating more disappointment.

Someone sat down, drew girls with bunny ears in lingerie and heels, then decided only females of these people are seen. Hmm. I wonder why. But praise the lore am I right?! So deep~~

I’ve never even used this forum before but I’m here now because yes, this needs to be pushed. Male viera and female hrothgar please. I pay monthly for this game because it’s frankly better than cheap or free games like Tera and Black Desert. One of the reasons it’s better is because you can play as a male or female character model from every race and use any class. Not anymore, I guess.

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Originally Posted by YangLie

gimme the male buns square, let me be the biggest gayest viera himbo im meant to be, cowards

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I'll join you and we can skip around Gridania being gay af bunneh bois.
No but really, I'd love for Square to reverse this decision.

Hi SE,

Please make male viera in 6.0. I'm looking forward to it!

Just gonna extend my thoughts a bit more to try to make a proper arguement.

Someone sat down, drew girls with bunny ears in lingerie and heels, then decided only females of these people are seen. Hmm. I wonder why. But praise the lore am I right?! So deep~~
Hrothgar would have been a welcome addition, but not at the cost of Viera being single gendered, or Hrothgar being only males.
I would personally have loved female Hrothgar, tough, bestial females are not represented enough. I love the Charr in GW2 for this reason. But instead we're going into the exact same stereotypes things have been going down for years in these kinds of games.

I remember being so happy when I first played FFXIV because it seemed like they were breaking out of those stereotypes, giving us catboys and female roes, stupid subligars for both genders. I was like oh my gosh, they remembered girls (and lgbt and feminine boys) with these kinds of interests exists.
I know some of you may not have this experience, but it's something to grow up and all the media is nothing but skimpy, sexy women. While any of our interests in males is shot down as gross, weird (as yoshi said), and a joke/silly. And god forbid we dared express our distaste, we'll get called whiny and entitled. Yeah, we might be feeling a little bit entitled, having you know, been shamed and not allowed our interests in mainstream media.
And why, tell me, would they go SO far out of the way to suddenly implement gender locked races again, something they decided to do without from 1.0/FF11, specifically because of Viera?
I'm sorry, but it's not too hard for people to personally interpret that it might be because the devs are personally uncomfortable with having to think about bunny boys in heels. And wanted to backtrack. They realised that the 12 developer spent so much time justifying why these warriors go out in heels and lingerie that the males would have to be the same.

Then there's the garbage arguement about ''''lore''''. The whole thing about us being adventurers is that we left our society to explore the world, otherwise Xaela should never leave the steppes, sun cats never leaving their 'pride', moon male cats just not existing essentially.
drives away in Yo-Kai Mount, fully equipped in Garo gear while I queue for Nier raid
Now that I think about it, female only races are always these skimpy, sexy women. A lot of male only races tend to be stupid looking, or not what most females would personally like. *I wonder w h y*

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Originally Posted by Korihu

Someone sat down, drew girls with bunny ears in lingerie and heels, then decided only females of these people are seen. Hmm. I wonder why. But praise the lore am I right?! So deep~~

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Nearly naked women = a ok! Wholesome fantasy content!
Nearly naked man = Scary uncomfortable and weird, what are you some kind of horrible sexual deviant??
/s
=.=

Maybe in the future they will come out. Will just have to wait and see. Hopefully people won't attack Yoshi at every Q&A with this, but it will probably happen,

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Originally Posted by Wynn_Storm

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I don't want him to be attacked, but I want people to request male viera in every fanfest and q&a lol

also, if you guys have twitter or whatever else, please make sure to share this thread on social media

Please, Square, just give the people what they want. Don't repeat the same mistakes that 1.0 did. There's no reason to genderlock a race when another gender actually exists.

Just want to say I'm impressed by the positive outpouring so far :D Likes may mean little but the fact that so many people are posting for the first (or one of the first) times in here, is pretty telling, love to see the support <3

I think if people cried more about the gender locking for both races it would get more traction. Cause there's literally no reason for either to be gender locked.

Tossing in my two cents of support for female Hrothgar and male Viera. If you want to argue on the grounds of lore -- the lore for male viera is on par with what's said about male miqo'te.

There is, quite simply, no reason to rebuff people by saying 'BUT THE LORE' when just today new lore about Au Ra was made at Fanfest.

Even BDO, after a period of time, made a class that was previously locked to just female characters available to male characters. And I hold BDO to a much lower standard of quality than FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Korihu

Just gonna extend my thoughts a bit more to try to make a proper arguement.
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It really feels like all that openness to not-teen-boys was an accident and they're doubling down hard to like actively drive away those people who felt welcomed by the design philosophies of ARR. :(
(I know, assume incompetence before malice, but this series of fanfests feels like a precision airstrike to my trust in their design intentions...)

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

Just want to say I'm impressed by the positive outpouring so far :D Likes may mean little but the fact that so many people are posting for the first (or one of the first) times in here, is pretty telling, love to see the support <3

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Not gonna lie. I've been playing for a couple years now and I joined the forums yesterday because I didn't know where else to voice my dissatisfaction.

Please add both male Viera and female Hrothgar to the game.

There would be far less backlash if "no male Viera" had simply been announced during EU Fanfest. Like many others, I had long suspected that we would not get male Viera simply because they were absent during the Paris presentation, but it was clear that people wanted male Viera when the females were announced, and it was foolish to have not addressed that expectation immediately. There was no reason to have refused to comment on male Viera when the females were revealed. There was no reason to maintain a coy silence, to tell people to wait until the JP Fanfest. There was no reason to give people hope only to let them down in the end.

Of course, with a playerbase this big, not everyone can be pleased. And I am happy for those who have already decided that they are content with the two races as they currently stand. But that does not negate the voices of the many, many players who are disappointed — especially when those who are disappointed were those who had the most faith in the dev team to begin with. (I tried to convince many of my friends that we would not be getting male Viera; they refused to listen to me, time and time again, because they strongly believed that the developers knew what their fans wanted. I had no such conviction.)

Those who would criticize disappointment surrounding the new races as "drama" over "cosmetic issues" have failed to consider that, miraculously, other people have priorities different from their own, and in fact, for a great many players, "cosmetics" actually constitute the most important part of the game. Furthermore, characterizing widespread player disappointment as "whining" or "toxicity" or "tantrum-throwing" is a short-sighted view of the situation as it currently stands. Characterizing any decision to unsubscribe as some sort of failure of loyalty is frankly absurd. The creators behind this game have made a product that their customers aren't satisfied with, and their customers have every right to complain, or choose to support something else if they do not feel valued.

All of us pay a monthly fee to be entertained. Those who are displeased will take their money elsewhere. Loyalty doesn't factor into this. Subscription loss is not a "threat" but a mere fact of business.

I respect the work that goes into this game, but this response was to be expected. If they are genuinely surprised by any backlash about the lack of male Viera, it only proves that they have listened only to what they want to hear.

Signed! Very well said.

At this point i know they're not going to be able to get the missing sexes in by the time ShadowBringer releases and the most likely case that they'll never bring them in, but i want to know why they refused to make a male Viera and vise-versa.

Signed! Would love to see Male Viera and Female Hrothgar

Signed. This feels disappointingly retrograde, especially since it reinforces the "women must be pretty/men must be buff" dynamic introduced with the Au Ra, and amplifies it. There's no buff bunny or pretty lion option, just gender role stereotypes that are tired in 2019.

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Originally Posted by Rosenoire

or pretty lion option,.

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Miqo'te.
/10char

SE, I am deeply disappointed in your reinforcement of the same old "bulky stronkman, smol sweetgirl" gender images. You know, in addition to there being no "old" face options for females, while there are several for males. I can promise you, more people than you'd think do not resonate with this kind of dynamic. This is a fantasy world, let us have what we all crave and are still paving the way towards in the real world.

You as a multi million dollar company hold the power and influence, and thus the responsibility to consider these things.

Honestly, besides this being detrimental to society, you missed an opportunity to earn big cred (and $$$), as topics such as not conforming, dysphoria, empowerment, lgbtq issues, etc etc (even the aesthetics of it) resonate with a lot of people right now. You have let a lot of people down and I can't see a valid reason for doing so. I hope this isn't some "do half the work now so people can complain and then we'll "fix" it in later patches so they feel we're listening" scheme, which can be an effective strategy but in the given context I'd doubt it's morality. These options aren't just some "niche" or "cosmetic updates" to be added later, they are just as valid and not adding them immediately carries certain implications.

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Originally Posted by Starcallers

The idea that "Lore" is holding back Male Viera, frankly, insulted me. Square, you're the pinnacle of the industry. I dreamed of working for you as a child. Your stories and worlds are imaginative, and you want to tell me that your creative minds couldn't consider the open ended possibilities of Male Viera leaving their forest because it's on fire, or they're under attack and could use assistance to really help ensure survival? Or that a Viera boy left the forest on his own, because of curiosity, violating his community's traditions to seek new frontiers, and forever being banished from his traditions? I can think of so many interesting stories to tell with the sparse information you provided about the boys being taken away as youths to train in becoming protectors of the forest, living in isolation, away from the females, and away from the rest of the world. Just that little snippet, and if I can do it, I have a very hard time believing you are not imaginative enough to do it as well ... Or that you're not savvy enough to let players figure out why their Male Viera left the forest they 'never leave'.

You can do better. Your artists deserve better. Your worlds deserve better. Your players deserve better.
[truncated quote]

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Very well said and I completely agree. I have never liked gender locking races/classes in games and I tend to avoid them. FFXIV is my favourite game so I can't do that this time. Lets respectfully keep the pressure up. Where are the in game can I get the bunny ears head ware? Lets wear bunny ears in support of the removal of the gender locks on the Viera and Hrothgar. Post screenshots to social media. Make video's about this on youtube.

Male vieras would have been bulky stronkmen too, with a body type similar to male au ra, not the crossdressing little boys people here wanted them to be.
They are loners, hunters, crazy killer rabbits that murder trespassers, not househusbands.
Would have still preferred them to the fat furries from GW2 though.

I preordered and will be making a Viera. This is just how it is. I'm making one.
I support making male viera so my fiance can make his bunny too.
...and so I can make an eye candy retainer.
If it's just delayed from launch, fine, but I want it.

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Originally Posted by Francel

Please add both male Viera and female Hrothgar to the game.

There would be far less backlash if "no male Viera" had simply been announced during EU Fanfest. Like many others, I had long suspected that we would not get male Viera simply because they were absent during the Paris presentation, but it was clear that people wanted male Viera when the females were announced, and it was foolish to have not addressed that expectation immediately. There was no reason to have refused to comment on male Viera when the females were revealed. There was no reason to maintain a coy silence, to tell people to wait until the JP Fanfest. There was no reason to give people hope only to let them down in the end.

Of course, with a playerbase this big, not everyone can be pleased. And I am happy for those who have already decided that they are content with the two races as they currently stand. But that does not negate the voices of the many, many players who are disappointed — especially when those who are disappointed were those who had the most faith in the dev team to begin with. (I tried to convince many of my friends that we would not be getting male Viera; they refused to listen to me, time and time again, because they strongly believed that the developers knew what their fans wanted. I had no such conviction.)

Those who would criticize disappointment surrounding the new races as "drama" over "cosmetic issues" have failed to consider that, miraculously, other people have priorities different from their own, and in fact, for a great many players, "cosmetics" actually constitute the most important part of the game. Furthermore, characterizing widespread player disappointment as "whining" or "toxicity" or "tantrum-throwing" is a short-sighted view of the situation as it currently stands. Characterizing any decision to unsubscribe as some sort of failure of loyalty is frankly absurd. The creators behind this game have made a product that their customers aren't satisfied with, and their customers have every right to complain, or choose to support something else if they do not feel valued.

All of us pay a monthly fee to be entertained. Those who are displeased will take their money elsewhere. Loyalty doesn't factor into this. Subscription loss is not a "threat" but a mere fact of business.

I respect the work that goes into this game, but this response was to be expected. If they are genuinely surprised by any backlash about the lack of male Viera, it only proves that they have listened only to what they want to hear.

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Could not have said it better.

While I have desire for either locked race/gender for myself, I am against locking them. I hope we eventually get them. Who knows, if we do one of my alts might become a female thundercat

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Originally Posted by SargentToughie

I don't understand. What makes you guys think that even if they make Male Viera, it's going to be this 'petite' interpretation you guys are so crazy for? I'm pretty sure that in the one piece of concept art that was showing, Yoshida was pretty resistant to the idea. If anything, they'd be just as large, and have just as commanding a presence, as any other male race.

Moreover... You do realize that people get in trouble for demanding the characters in those pictures on the front page, right? That isn't 'petite'... that's a literal child.

That's not cool, man.

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Sorry to burst your bubble but lalafels look like kids as well.

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Originally Posted by EvilAlina

I preordered and will be making a Viera. This is just how it is. I'm making one.
I support making male viera so my fiance can make his bunny too.
...and so I can make an eye candy retainer.
If it's just delayed from launch, fine, but I want it.

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Mhm!
A delay is fine, i don't mind waiting until patch 5.5 or something, I just want the bunnies. I've been a potato for years and i was really hoping i could be a bunny. I don't care if its dainty or tall and strong, either way works.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

They are loners, hunters, crazy killer rabbits that murder trespassers

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That sounds really cool though...lol

I show my full support for Male viera and female Hrothgar

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Originally Posted by Senn

Like this post if you want male viera as a playable character

Please add male viera with Alphinaud's body type or the body type shown in these concept arts

https://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-con.../04/Viera1.jpg

https://i.gyazo.com/f30c674563182f48...7a6cbf93e7.png

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I wish for the tall warrior looking viera, since male miqote are pretty much the popularst race, male viera would be preety popular too. Fantasia sales would rise like crazy.
Hrothgar on the other hand with their animal face look ugly imo and doesnt fit into ff14.

I don't have much to say that hasn't already been said, but I want to at least add my support. I, like many others, was REALLY looking forward to male Viera. When they weren't shown off in Paris and when the subject was danced around, I assumed it was for suspense, because SE knew how much we wanted it... but now it just seems like a big troll.

Please reconsider. I think the Dev Team knows how much their playerbase hates gender-locked anything, ESPECIALLY races.

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Originally Posted by Astril

Mhm!
A delay is fine, i don't mind waiting until patch 5.5 or something, I just want the bunnies. I've been a potato for years and i was really hoping i could be a bunny. I don't care if its dainty or tall and strong, either way works.

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yeah, all they'd have to say that "male viera and hrothgar wont be available at launch but in a future patch"

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