Quote Originally Posted by Shippuu View Post
It's good to see this, however it should be noted that the situation regarding 1.0 into 2.0 was drastically different than the current situation we have. Back then, 1.0 failed so hard it damaged the entire brand, they were in a bad position and were basically correcting every complaint they feasibly could because they needed to garner tremendous favor. This is a strong motivator to do things you might not think is necessary.

Fast forward to today, things are very different. The game is a rousing success and it opens them up to experimenting. Not releasing male viera isn't going to cause the game to abruptly fail, it probably won't even significantly damage shadowbringer sales. This context matters a bit.
The genders were introduced because players asked for them. Regardless of the status of the game, regardless of experimentation, the feedback was noted and acted on. One of the quotes specifically mentions Yoshi being surprised by the amount of people who wanted a playable Femroe. Today, Femroes are the least popular played race and yet the game is better for having them for those that, for one reason or another, want to be a big muscular chick.

Im not going to imply that gender locked races will cause the game to crash and burn. But if the devs are willing to let us have more Ishgard content after listening to players repeatedly ask for it, I think its hypocritical to imply that races should be held to a different standard.