A letter to the Devs, Producers, and whoever else has a say

Hi FFXIV devs, I just really want to voice my concerns that having these two upcoming races genderlocked is a massive step backwards for this game, both in gameplay and general equality. Back when Miqo'te and Roe were genderlocked, fan pressure caused you to rethink it and make them available to both genders, and you promised never to make races genderlocked again, but now you've gone back on your promise.

I just don't understand why you did this. Everyone has been asking for Viera for years, and we were all really excited to see the men after the women were announced, but then you announced the Hrothgar men would replace male Viera, and it really let a lot of fans down. I'm seeing so many people on twitter, tumblr, reddit, discord, the official forums, ect, whose excitement for Shadowbringers has been evaporated by this development choice. Once again in a fantasy game, a sexy beautiful race has been genderlocked to ONLY female, and a strong muscular race has been genderlocked to ONLY male, and gamers are getting tired of it, female gamers especially, as we feel our gender is just being treated as fetish bait. Women always have to be sexy and cute, and men always have to be strong and large, and anything else is "weird". This is what genderlocking races tells us.

We also feel that your excuses for this do not justify it. You say that you can't show the male Viera because of lore, but you MAKE the lore, that's no higher power stopping you from just saying "mostly male viera hide but sometimes they come out". Male miqo'te were the same, you said they were rare but you made them playable anyway and everyone was so happy.

You also say that you left the male Viera out to conserve resources, but you still went ahead and made the Hrothgar anyway, using resources you could have spent on the male viera. Why would you leave two races half-finished when you could have made an entire race with equal resources, disappointing no one? Why couldn't you just choose to do either Viera or Hrothgar?

It's too late now to unmake either race, and I'm not suggesting that, but I am begging you to reconsider and find a way to make both genders available for the races. I'm sure no one will mind if it means the males and females share the same poses, or the female Hrothgar share the same body models as the males, or something.

You guys are capable of more than genderlocking, we know you are. Please bring us male Viera.

/signed
Please, please, Square. Beyond disappointed right now.

Thirded, fourthed, etc etc. This is an insane disappointment.

Excellent post, OP. Very well-worded and well-reasoned. I hope SE sees this.

This thread sums up it very nicely.
Please let your voices be heard to let Square Enix and the development team be known that we want the missing female and male of these two races.
We are beyond 1.0, this makes no sense.

Perfectly said. This is a backwards decision that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Is this really 2019?

Well said, OP!

Genderlocking was a mistake that should not have been considered, and trying to use the lore as a fig leaf over it only served to needlessly make the viera look bad.

The worst part of reading this awesome letter is that I know that SE will just make an apology, leaving the thing as it is.
I hoped to do a Viera family with my wife, I guess Viera can't have one, even if both sides want, we can't be the same race, because of lore reasons, lore that they made and could have changed but did chose to use it to justify this cheap business move. That's dirty.

Signed.
Huge disappointment here.

Going to just throw out that I disagree.

I support the vision of design team in wanting male and female specific races and that many of us are completely content with the decision and won't bother voicing their opinion on the matter.

Please focus efforts elsewhere in the game and keep up the good work.

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Originally Posted by secretsofthelily

Back when Miqo'te and Roe were genderlocked, fan pressure caused you to rethink it and make them available to both genders, and you promised never to make races genderlocked again

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This is a very interesting take on history and I wish to know more about your version of where you came from.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

This is a very interesting take on history and I wish to know more about your version of where you came from.

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I come from Australia, why?

I'm actually okay with the decision. It's not the first game I've played that has gender-specific races. I've never branded these games as backwards, they all had their reasons or whatever you call it. My main concerns lie in the playability of the game with the new level cap and the re-arrangement of skills, fixing existing jobs and seeing how the new ones adapt to the meta.

I highly doubt the majority cares.

Not signing, came here to disagree and say let them stick to the lore as they see fit please.

I'm so disappointed that the assumption I created in my head and hype I followed that was unreliable at best ended up not being true.

Because of that, I'm mad at you and placing the blame solely at you, Square Enix, for not fulfilling any of the unsubstantiated rumors.

Lending my voice in sharing disappointment about this decision. I was looking forward to the possibility of being a male Viera. At least I can save $10.

""Let them stick to the lore"
Is the weakest excuse I've ever heard.
Lore? What lore? We can drive a car in a month, we have tomestone phones, we have multiple things that do not fit Eorzea.
And all you go about is: "MALE VIERA DO NOT FIT THE LORE".
Come back with something better, please.

Speaking as someone who identifies as a Man but also likes feminine fashion and presentation, I dislike the way this pushes default and often harmful gender roles and expectations. I would much rather see one full non-genderlocked race than 2 genderlocked races.

I full endorse the Original Post.

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Originally Posted by Twinsoul

I'm sorry but if you don't think these design decisions are being driven by an unrealized bias then it's clear that you do not understand how these things work. It's extremely blatant. It's right on the surface. There's no nuance at all.

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Both genders get one race. How is that biased? Keep in mind Japan is not in the culture war the west is currently in, so you can't really blame them. (You can blame their localization staff)

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Calling someone sexist is insulting and, imo, not valid criticism.

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So you imagine it is insulting if someone does something sexist and doesn't want to be called sexist, and therefore it is unacceptable call sexist things sexist? That is an entirely unproductive if extremely creative take on the use of language.

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Originally Posted by CarnivalNights

I'm so disappointed that the assumption I created in my head and hype I followed that was unreliable at best ended up not being true.

Because of that, I'm mad at you and placing the blame solely at you, Square Enix, for not fulfilling any of the unsubstantiated rumors.

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I'm offended by this statement.

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

So you imagine it is insulting if someone does something sexist and doesn't want to be called sexist, and therefore it is unacceptable call sexist things sexist? That is an entirely unproductive if extremely creative take on the use of language.

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What if it wasn't sexist and people are blowing this out of proportion?

Most likely the reason we got the genders that we did, is because they will most likely be the last races to be added. People have been very vocal about having Viera and people have been vocal about a more beast like race. They most likely wanted to give the players both races and they probably knew they were going to get a lot of blow back for gender locking it but figured it was worth it to get both races done (it was either this or just one of the races with both genders). This is what I feel like happened I could be wrong but it makes the most sense to me.

Signed. This is just design regression.

I think it's a very bad decision to make only one gender of each of the new races playable. They say they wanted to save on resources but I don't see how making two new races instead of the male and female version of one race is less resources. They could have took the same amount of resources used to make the Male Hrothgar to make the Male Viera, or vice versa. At this point tho I think the only hope we have is to hope that somewhere down the line, maybe 6.0, we get both genders for both races.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Not signing, came here to disagree and say let them stick to the lore as they see fit please.

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I know right, like how they established that male mi'qote are rare and normally stay their villages for breeding and--

Oh..wait a minute...

So many people have been wanting Viera as a race for years and it was so exciting to have them finally announced. It felt good to feel like the devs were listening to the players and giving them what they wanted. But then upon hearing that the race was gender locked it was kind of a punch in the gut. It's like saying "We care about you. but only half of you." Also I believe that the gender dimorphism in the character design is rather disappointing. It's 2019 and the female race is delegated to being slim and sexy while the male race is large and aggressive looking. I hope the developers really listen to the player base and work to unlock the races, there is enough love and passion in the player base to make it worth the wait even if it takes a long time.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

What if it wasn't sexist and people are blowing this out of proportion?

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This is exactly what it is. People seem to forget the differences between our culture and Japan's. They are probably all scratching their heads wondering why people keep calling them sexist.

If they thought Viera shown had to remain female because of lore reasons, they should not have shoehorned in Ronso as the name for Hrothgar on the first.

They'll change Ronso lore and get rid of Ronso females, but they can't change Viera lore?

It does come off as pandering to the girly-girl and manly-man stereotypes, and it is VERY disappointing. There are thread with pages complaining about genderlocked gear. We begged for years for the bunny suit for males.

This is a big awful mistake.

I'm not sure why SE decided to do this (we can guess but let's not get too definitive) and to be honest I don't personally care if Viera or Ronso are gender locked.

That doesn't mean I'm ok with it either. I hope the devs see the importance of having both genders available if the race is not inherently asexual. A wide range of representation in MMOs is important because this is a role playing game, and giving out poor excuses or none whatsoever isn't good enough.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Both genders get one race. How is that biased? Keep in mind Japan is not in the culture war the west is currently in, so you can't really blame them. (You can blame their localization staff)

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Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

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Originally Posted by Twinsoul

Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

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Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

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Originally Posted by Twinsoul

Neither of these races was created for women. They were both created for male consumption. Viera are hot bunny girls. That's for boys. Hrothgar are burly male power fantasies. That's also for boys. These both cater to decades-old stereotypes that society has outgrown for good reason. That and the fact that Hrothgar were created specifically to avoid creating male Viera means that SE believes men should not be bunnies. Because SE sees the the concept of Viera as necessarily feminized and cannot conceive of a masculinity that permits bunny ears. This despite the fact that male Viera do exist in lore in the exact same way that male Miqo'te do exist in lore. Thus they're perpetuating gender paradigms that are damaging to both men and women. It's textbook gender bias. From more than one angle, actually. It's egregious.

Also, the thing about Japan not being involved in a "culture war" is just not true. They have the same problems over there, and it's even worse than we have it here. This event is itself evidence of this.

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Louder for the people in the back.

This genderlock is the first thing that TRULY has made me consider cancelling my sub in July.

Just my two gil on the matter. I am severely unimpressed.

That's right, keep it comin'. Let's see if we can derail this thread until it reaches Timbuktu.

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Originally Posted by Twinsoul

Neither of these races was created for women.

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That's a damn stretch. You can't say that that is the case and you know it.
Also, people need to stop using male miqo's as their go to. For all we know, Male Vieras were never given a damn green light to be fleshed out. Given they are a product of FF12. Not a creation of FF14. And the concept art show is simply that, concept, ideas, expression of a vision, etc. But at the same time, when one thinks of Viera they also know its sources from 12. The Ivalice Lore placed in was done also by some of the FF12 crew, so without a doubt, that was maybe a hint at stating don't count on Male Viera.

People are so wrapped up thinking and making such outlandish excuses, that there can easily be something more simple outside of this so called echo chamber of 'sexist' accusations. Consent to create the first playable visible male viera, how they would react, look, act, etc. And maybe just simply the damn design time it would take for that if they didn't want to be cheep and do asset swaps.

There are more than a good handful of reason and logical aspects to look into, but nah, lets just jump on the 'sexisim' train like everything now and day.


And as for the genderlock, please, it's done in other thriving MMOs and yet no one puts that big a stink up about it in them. This one change isn't going to start tearing down SE's profits in the least bit.

I don't like the concept of picking on people who get disappointed when they're expectations are high due to hype.

Blaming people for misreading hype just seems cruel when the concept of hype is for a company to emotionally manipulate their customers by releasing and controlling information. Square-Enix creates expectations based on their history and public statements. It's very reasonable for people to assume they'd get a male viera race considering that every notable MMO does both genders per race, and Square-Enix has put fourth the effort to add both genders for the previous gender-locked races. So the chance of Square-Enix to do something radical probably surprised a lot of players.

Though, I'm honestly surprised so many people have faith in Square-Enix's decision making. They've got quite a laundry list of terrible choices lately with Stormblood's two DPS classes and Eureka. It doesn't surprise me at all they'd find a way to botch yet another feature. I don't have expectations beyond the bare minimum (they couldn't even give Shadowbringers a name that's not confusing with Stormblood). So this debacle doesn't really bother me much. But I do think it's wrong to get angry at people being upset when Square-Enix is ultimately responsible for setting up the hype train and guiding it to its destination.

If they didn't want people to assume we'd get a male viera they should have mentioned the gender-lock thing months ago. Or at the very least said something against that male viera promo art they released awhile back. Way to set up the community for failure, guy!

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

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No one is saying that no women ever want to feel sexy or play sexy characters. But we don't ONLY want to be sexy. We want the ability to choose how we act and feel, just as men do. I'm a woman, and I'm saying I want that choice, just as many of the women who are replying in this forum are. And you shouldn't be generalising what Japanese women feel if you yourself aren't one. I can't generalise what Japanese women want, but I can't imagine they want to have their choices taken away either.

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

Did you ever pay attention to the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 2? People were saying it's sexist, that the main character is a sexist representation of women... when it was a woman who was directly responsible for that role, lol. Women like feeling sexy, especially in Japan. It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

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Thank you. I'm a woman in real life and darnit I want to be a sexy bunny girl in game! That doesn't make me sexist or repressed. I do understand why people are upset with there being no male bunny race, though. Just getting tired of people championing the whole "the bunnies are inherently sexist, fetish bait etc" trope.