Gender locked race?

[Shougun]

The comment regarding Ronso was just speculation that he debunked by saying 'close' - so it's not Ronso at all if this guy is to be believed.

He never said playable race, he just said 'New Race' and when questioned about the other race he didn't want to spoil the story. This guy already just spoilt a huge portion of the story/savage content/events - I don't understand how all of a sudden speaking about the 'lion' is too far.

I've begun to say Ronso-like a lot to help clear up confusions people may have since I've never thought they were going to literally make Ronso (but something like it or "close" to it ). Ronso is SE's most iconic lion race, which is why I say it (but I've added -like to most of my posts now to help). If I say Lion and someone says Rev a part of me just wants to go "please not the naked cat" lol, also if Ronso is close then Rev is probably not close .

As for new race / non-playable. It is true that is possible but that's why I covered that I think they would know better. They knew how to fairly well describe most things and how they didn't describe all the other new races (pixie, numou, etc) and how they put the lion right next to the rabbit I feel means that the lion reference is more than just some new beast tribe. Of course we wont know for sure until next month, /cry /panic /pysche /cheer lol.

So while I think you're right that it's possible its not playable I think it's more likely the person who reported this stuff knows the difference enough not to put them together unless it was meaningful.

Thank you for making this and for trying to be very fair in it, think you did a pretty good job of capturing the different stances! I've been watching the back and forth a little, the only thing I want to add is that in terms of Yoshida personally not being into the cute spin on male viera--in my experience that kind of thing can get weird when it's franchises, large creative teams, and customer demand is overwhelmingly in contrast.

Aside, honestly I wish there was some kind of poll for predictions on this subject. For all the debate going on it might be really funny to track expectations as we get closer to Tokyo fanfest then compare with what actually comes out.

<3 thank you~ Definitely even though I've wanted something else for a long time (warmed up to a more feral viera) I always recognized the sheer unity for Viera demand. I still think there is good value in making weird races (like WoW, GW2, EQ, etc has) but it is without a doubt easy to say there are a lot of people who want specifically Viera. I'm curious about is if we had both genders what the gender ratio would be.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens at fanfest for sure, gotta get ourself some fake internet points and put them on a fake prize lol.

Nothing wrong with presenting opinions at all so don't feel like it's devil's advocate but more like a counter argument

With that said while the idea of Ronso does have merit i think it is unlikely due to a few reasons;
1. Player demand. I believe that male Viera is on more players wish list than male Ronso this isn't to say it shouldn't be included if possible just that if we was asked which we prefer i expect male viera to win
2. No appearance or mentions in or out of game. While au ra had sparce lore if any before HW we did have yugiri who was around since 2.2 which shows how long they were planning a new race not necessarily au ra but definetly a new race was concieved at that point whereas Ronso has had nothing no npc no mention in either lore book, lore book 2 being the more prevalent as if wanted to hint potential Ronso single line in that book be good enough hint
3. Business sense. This is probably most baffling to me as not adding male Viera is probably a bigger gamble than anything else why take that risk when they know the biggest profit is in the Viera as a whole rather than just female Viera and an unknown race.

If Matsuno and Yoshi are both set against male Viera then i would feel it more of a mistake to add Viera in general as no matter what gender locking will create a negative stigma that a lot of kmmos have of pandering too much to a specific audience, cause more discomfort with the community than adding them but with a different look to what each individual person wants.

I know i am basically wishing at this point as i do really want to be a bunboi but adding a second gender locked race is probably going to create more issues than just adding male Viera would. SE has full creative freedom with male Viera whereas adding any other race in ff would be as restrictive as female Viera are if it was a new race completely the next question is was it worth it over male Viera?

1. I'd agree demand for Viera is high, but I'd counterpoint that demand for Eureka is low but they're still doing it :P (5.0 like content even iirc).

2. I've got nothing for lore, if they happened as a seperate race then they're going to be coming out of no where lol. Although I guess my only supporting to that idea would be recently Yoshida mentioned he thought it would be more interesting to keep people in the dark more (rough wording, not exact). I think if ronso like is a thing it'll mostly appear as a dimorphic viera, but that's just me based on the idea that no other race is really available in lore (as you said).

3. Two whole (both gender) races would be awesome because I believe that SE has an ever growing void for "weird", imo all the current races are pretty standard (human being stretched up and down, I know there is anti-beastmen lore but that lore is being weakened drastically over time to the point of beastmen inside Ul'dah lol). Meanwhile other MMO offer some weird choices (like being undead, Charr, etc). I would agree that splitting a popular demand race is not the way to get to a weird race though. Like if you said no undead, orc, troll, etc in WoW then people would be like "blizzard, you've lost it!!" but if they said only female blood elf no male but we're adding male goblins.. then I think people would be even more upset. There is definitely a balance. I don't think neglecting the male viera slot is the solution to the void that I strongly believe should be filled, but fill it I want lol.

I definitely think that one of the ways we get female but not male viera is if both designers are against male viera, which is possible (imo) since Yoshi-P is already against it in some fashion and the tactics universe never had them which suggests he didn't care for them either..... Just to be clear to those reading I'm not saying this will happen, but that if it does it might be because of that (just so I don't get mistaken as "this will happen").

I agree with your suggestion it makes it appear they're pandering to a specific audience. In their defense that is a very large audience and makes them money, its like if you made adult entertainment.. you obviously pander.. but I would also suggest that under the same logic I use for the void that is beasts you should be careful with voids elsewhere, also to be fair mmorpg are not as simple as adult content where the audience type is as narrow haha (never thought I'd use that as an analogy lol). So I'm saying there is strength in pandering, but if you're not careful it makes you very lopsided and you'll fall over. I agree it can be an issue but just that I think some people demonize the idea of knowing and serving your audience accordingly - there is a balance (not suggesting you were making that argument, I just worry sometimes when it's brought up).