Gender locked race?

[Crushnight]

Consider all the evidence:

1. Yoshida's old quote about creating a male counterpart race to Viera because "male rabbits might be kinda weird". Again, this goes back to this old-fashioned, close-minded idea of women equaling cute and sexy, and men equaling brutish and savage. Many Asian mmos do this, and FFXIV was one of them at some point. Just because they unlocked male Miqo'te, female Roegadyn, and female Highlander, doesn't mean they're going to not genderlock a race in the future. This can totally happen again.

2. Genderlocking is still happening in the game. Just recently, Alma and Ramza's hairstyles were genderlocked. Clearly the team still has this mentality of "this is for boys" and "this is for girls". Bunny ears are for girls, and bestial facial features are for boys.

3. Female Viera were presented as "The Viera Race" with no male in sight. If they didn't mention genderlocking, it's probably because they're well aware of the potential backlash.

4. The lore created for male Viera is the same kind of lore that was created for the previously unplayable male Miqo'te. It's as if they were preparing us to not expect males.

5. Yoshida danced around questions regarding male Viera. Instead of replying with, "We are going to include male Viera; they're just not ready yet," he simply said, "There's still Tokyo Fanfest." And Yoshi is usually good about telling us when something isn't ready.

6. In the Game Watch interview, when asked about male Viera, Yoshida suggested that players go back and read the lore in the game (the same lore that's hellbent on emphasizing the point on how incredibly rare males are).

7. The blue leaker's information has been extremely accurate. And according to the leaker, we are getting two new races. Considering that creating a new race takes a lot of time and energy, it's unlikely that we are getting two new races (unless they're genderlocked, cutting the time and energy needed in half). Remember, Yoshida himself said they would consider creating a male counterpart to Viera. So if we're getting a lion-like race, it's probably going to be Rev, Revgaji, or Ronso. That would be the male counterpart Yoshi was talking about. And considering that Ivalice might be one of the settings of the game, Rev/Revgaji might just be that male counterpart race.

1. Yoshi has said many a thing in the past which he has gone back on Auto demolition on housing is one example i'm sure if i go through all old interviews i could find more his opinion may have some weight in the game design but he can be overruled by both player demand male bunny suits (took forever but we did get it against yoshi's interests) or by the devs themselves (Yotsuyu was going to have a small pipe but the artist wanted the current one and she won out it's minor compared to a race gender but still a recent point that Yoshi's opinion isn't ironclad to how the game will go)

2. This is true there will always be gender locking on gear and other cosmetics we can keep asking them to be unlock and hope we get to have them my friend wants the butler attire for his female character while i want the thavnarian dress for my male character but i do think gender locking a race is too far and i certainly will be way more vocal about it than anything else and i'm sure i'm not the only person who will gender locking Viera is going to bite them hard they will be hounded at every interview every live letter every event they do and they will be sick of it. My opinion is if your going to gender lock a race so it can be playable don't add it it will just cause more issues than having both genders available.

3. Oh no doubt they are aware of it they would be bigger fools if they weren't backlash was always going to be a thing with every announcement you cannot please everybody the amount of backlash is what you got to try and minimize gender locking is on the big end of backlash this will cause way more discomfort in people than they don't look like how i envisioned.

4 and 6. This is the same lore as miqo'te males in their rarity but its the same lore that also says in the last few generations more and more viera are growing discontent with the wood either through curiosity or maybe outside forces like the empire nothing stopping males alongside females having those feelings and leaving the wood. Also the racial divide for Dalmasca puts that male viera are more populated than any eorzean city state is with male miqo'tes there are more male miqo'tes overall but in an isolated kingdom male vieras are the more plentiful. This lore was also the most recent to be added and could've easily never mentioned males at all they deliberately gave information on both and their roles within their society and as someone earlier in the thread said if we go to the viera wood and never come across a male viera npc it would be bad storytelling and making a male viera npc but not playable is just going to create further discontent than anything else.

5. the interview gave Yoshi a way out by adding "or wait for the next fan festival" (not direct quote but the gist is there) if you are a producer and you get asked a question which you don't want to reveal info on and said question has an or wait and see you'd jump on the wait and see. when it comes to revealing content questions you have to try and back the person as far into a corner as possible where dodging the question would be as bad as no answer or in this case they are gender locked most people won't ask this sort of question as its a bit too abrasive

7. The leaker has been mostly accurate the only thing they've gotten wrong was the type of dps blu was going to be classed as but i do not remember if the leaker ever said we were getting 2 new playable races (any clarification on this will be most appreciated) they just showed a picture of a bunny and a lion people would assume 2 different races based on they are vastly different animals. The thing about the leaker though is they were fine revealing raid bosses/story events in 4.3/4.4 / the viera/blue mage but what the lion picture was too far get outta here if the rest was fine explaining the lion picture is no more over that line of spoilers than the rest of them they were deliberately as coy about it as Yoshi is about male viera atm for less of a reason.

I have many a time i am in the hopeful camp as their is nothing they could add that would be more wanted than male viera is it feels like too big a gamble to try to gender lock them now and try and give another race that has had zero hints anywhere it would be worse than au ra as at least yugiri was present since 2.2 and a new race idea was at least conceived by that point. Male viera are the most in demand for male race wanted nothing is going to top them and the disappointment that will occur if they are not added is going to cause more harm than anything else that gets added could hope to mitigate.