Gender locked race?

[Kupocoubo]

I don't get it. Why is having male rabbit weird?

Maybe some people kind of fetishize rabbit ? Is that a thing in Japan ? If I remember well, Dragon Quest and Bravely Default (both from Square Enix) have also some kind of "sexy rabbit". Is it related to Playboy ?
It would also implies that fetishize girls is ok but to fetishize boys is "kind of weird"

[Shippuu]

I disagree on the grounds that I think the body type difference goes a long way in that department tbh. Personally I would have preferred a more alien spin on Lunarians for tall and slim race as opposed to another animal thing, but if it's going to be Viera the ears add a further vertical impression with height. The narrow shoulders and long legs only emphasize further. Elezen have very different facial structure and body structure (best I can describe it is as lanky, whereas viera look like they'll be narrow) and Miqote are teeny tiny. One of the female miqo'te faces does look really similar to Viera from the previews I agree, but the body types remain dramatically different. Also without mods it's kind of tough to hide the extra ears and all, bunny suit ears look like they are fake imo.

I don't want to assume this is a common knowledge thing so if you already know this sorry! But basically one of the big things in design (among other stuff) is forming distinct silhouettes. Basically if you black out the entire figure and just look at the outline, can you tell what character it is. I think Viera do still manage that because the body type is distinct, even if again I'd have preferred something other than animals again.

Again, all your arguments still can be applied to the opposite of your claims. You just made excuses for why it's okay despite the tons of overlap the female viera we are getting has with existing races, while stating that a completely unknown and theoretically lion like race has too much overlap and couldn't possibly be unique enough from Roegadyn?

It's funny you talk about distinct silhouettes when ffxiv is pretty poor in that regard, especially with female characters. There is very little difference in the silhouette between female miqote and female au ra for example. And the same can be said for female elezen and female viera, the only major difference being more narrow shoulders on viera and bunny ears instead of elf ears. So by your argument, a male lion race need only distinctly different ears and be a more narrow shouldered version of roegadyn.

You're applying a double standard here.

There is a chance this changed though. I mean, he took the creator of Tactics and FF12 into the team. And if Matsuno-san is really the creator of Viera, then he also has the opportunity to create the Male Viera.

People keep bringing up Matsuno being involved as a positive thing for male viera to be included but seem to forget he's the one that purposely made male viera pretty much non existent in the first place. He may actually share Yoshida's old opinion and not want male viera to be shown or playable either. He certainly didn't have any in the game's he made.

[Jaywalker]

I think some of it is because rabbits tend to be seen as soft and cutesy and super gentle, and that's at odds with traditional masculinity. Also the stuff Kupocoubo said.

I'm willing to cut a little slack on the comment because it reminds me of how say, unicorns have a specific overly light and sweet connotation now but they didn't used to. Guy bunnies could be like Watership Down or could be taken in the vein of hares or jackrabbits where there's nothing jarring. At a certain point just gotta get over it imo.

[Kupocoubo]

I find it weird to associate some animals with "masculinity" and "feminity"... meh. Humans are weird

[Anyan]

If we don't get male Vieras, or we do but they're big hulking beasts because P-dude has some issues and problems with male rabbits (seriously wtf is weird about male rabbits?) or cute looking men then I will lose whatever tiny sliver of respect I have left for the man, and I will want him to step down. If he puts his own close minded BS before what would make the playerbase the happiest, then he shouldn't be in this line of work. Absolutely sickening.
If this is what happens, I hope there will be another "is this an out of season April's joke" scenario.

[Shippuu]

And of course, them saying 'this is the last race' makes me wary to the idea that they'd just slap in another with zero hints of another coming. There has been zero hints of Ronso or Rev - and they're already established.

And last but not least and the big stretch question.
If Yoshida doesn't like male rabbits, why wear a Bugs bunny shirt? Why didn't he wear a Lola Bunny shirt - the female counterpart to Bugs? I mean there's bound to be shirts of her - a whole generation of young lads had a thing for Lola - space jam anyone? Heck, why didn't he wear a Tsukuyomi shirt?

They're being very specific in always saying this maybe/likely/possibly the last race. They are 100% leaving themselves open to add more in the future deliberately. They rarely ever state something as being a truly "we will never do X" and it's deliberate.

As for zero hints? In an interview from yoshida at just this fanfest, when specifically asked about t shirt teases for the next job he said he doesn't always want to give hints that he feels there should be more surprises going into the fanfests instead of knowing everything ahead of time. So it really doesn't matter if theres been no official hint or any mention in game. They can incorporate new races without having to lay the ground work before hand.

As for the bugs bunny shirt, who knows, it could have been the pun that it was for a car/race, so bunny race. His shirts have never been anything but obscure or basic references/hints. It feels like you're potentially reading a bit too much meaning into the shirt. Especially when he said he recently watched Peter rabbit (who is also a male bunny) and thought about wearing something like that, but thought it was "too cute" mirroring what he has said previously about male viera technically.

[Jaywalker]

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Naw, I gave a full argument where I was willing to say that there are things I think could be better but there's other stuff I think works. It sounds like you're possibly going into this with the assumption that my claim is that everything is ideal and perfect, which isn't the case for me. I am making the argument that while there are things I'd do differently if I was Square Enix god (which I'm sure is the case for everyone haha), I basically have certain elements I consider higher or lower priorities in evaluating their designs.

For example, I think we have enough humans + animal features. I thought we had enough when it was Miqo'te, and it was definitely enough when we had Au Ra. With Viera I kind of figured it was an inevitable choice because they're popular and people wanted them, but like I said if it was up to me I'd have tried to keep things closer to how Roegadyn, Elezen, Highlanders, and frankly even Lalafells played with facial structure, proportions, and various feature shapes. Sans animal bits.

If however there are going to be more animal bits regardless of my feelings there, I'm not going to throw up my hands and go THEY SUCK GDI WHY MORE ANIMAL PEOPLE. What I'm going to do is look at the various body types and tones we've seen so far and examine whether they do something distinct within that. Which they do. So while it might not be my perfect dream come true, I'd much rather have a tall skinny rabbit people race than say, waifish female lunarians at roughly 5'0 tall. Different elements at different priority levels.

[Jaywalker]

Also, that thing I mentioned on tones? Super, super important imo. When I look at stuff I'm reading into the different impressions various races make as well as body types and facial features. Elegant is different from cute or tough or cool and so forth. Part of why I'm :// about the animal thing is because I think it falls into repeating tones by evoking closer to nature, bestial, etc. At least with rabbits, cats, and reptiles you have herbivores vs carnivores, mammals versus non-mammals, all that. It's more similar than I'd like, but I can kind of deal. If you have two mammal carnivores and they're literally both in the cat family, lions are pretty hulky so it would be more muscle when we already have a lot of big beefy characters, and Hellsguard can literally give the impression of big cats ANYWAY? To me that seems like a tremendous waste.

On silhouettes, I disagree that FFXIV is poor in that regard and would argue instead that it depends on where you look and what you're looking for. It is a thing that biological men and women build muscle differently and have fat deposits in different places. Usually (not universally, but usually) there is a more dramatic range in terms of how big or small a man's body might be compared to a woman's.

I'm also conscious looking at FFXIV that in Asia certain body types are more or less common as well. Have you noticed that a western plus size tends to be dramatically different from an Asian one? It's not because of being mean, it's because there's less demand for larger sizes in Asia.

I've already said I think female miqo'te and female au ra are too similar. I feel a bit on the fence with Roegadyn frankly, because while I like the female frames more than the male ones I think the sheer size of the male roes stands out in a good way. Part of me would like them to be a bit less dimorphic there. Similar kind of thing with highlanders. I think part of why I'm not bothered is because frankly bodies like that are not shown much, if at all, in some of the places I'm coming from. I'm used to femininity, conventional beauty standards, and biologically female bodies being absolutely demonized so my overwhelming sense here is relief.

A very tall, thin, willowy frame is one thing I wanted to help set female figures apart. I don't really expect and am not looking for female races to have the same level of height and bulky musculature as male races both because of Asian beauty standards and because biologically male and female bodies do have some differences in that respect. It's possible to be like "oh but what about the most extreme female body builders" here but those are not functional but show muscles and frankly there's an unhealthily low level of body fat for women on some of them that looks pretty steroid-y.

[Jaywalker]

I would have liked playable dwarves as taller than lalafells, shorter than miqo'te and female au ra. I would have liked to see a short, somewhat fuller frame from SE there and I'd still be interested in seeing how they might approach a body type like that with more definition than lalafells. With Viera having been hit, that's what I'd like to see from them next if Viera have both males and females available.

I'm squinting at you a little on the elezen versus viera thing though. Shoulders, hips, chest/bust, neck, those are all really big proportional differences. I mention the shoulders specifically since it's SUPER noticeable. Legs are different as well, and facial features/facial tone is huuuuugely different. Stuff like eye size/shape, nose size/shape, mouths and particularly mouth definition... I'm looking very, very closely at that. From where I'm standing they're substantially different.

I absolutely do not think a lion race would only need more narrow shoulders and different ears. The reason I mentioned ears for Viera is because they help emphasize height and bring the eye in a vertical direction to a degree other races have not matched the same way. Like I said the redundancy in feline features is a major issue for me, but so is having yet ANOTHER tall, buff race.

You think I'm applying a double standard. I've just explained in great detail and using a perspective you may not have considered (by virtue of not being psychic) why I'm not. To me, it looks a little like you're being disingenuous and neglecting a lot of major elements that to me are givens. I'd like to give you a benefit of the doubt, but I'm mentioning this because sometimes communicating through text can be tricky. If we are just coming at this from different perspectives, I'd rather take this as an opportunity for further understanding than some kind of confrontation.

[Taykawai]

If we don't get male Vieras, or we do but they're big hulking beasts because P-dude has some issues and problems with male rabbits (seriously wtf is weird about male rabbits?) or cute looking men then I will lose whatever tiny sliver of respect I have left for the man, and I will want him to step down. If he puts his own close minded BS before what would make the playerbase the happiest, then he shouldn't be in this line of work. Absolutely sickening.
If this is what happens, I hope there will be another "is this an out of season April's joke" scenario.

I will wait till Tokyo fanfest, but i will be really disappointed if we end up with gender locked races. Such a step back without motive... That only will make ffxiv looks like a generic korean mmo. What is next? Wings?