Gender locked race?

[Shippuu]

We literally have a 150+ page thread of people asking for male Viera.

No, we have a 150+ page of a lot of the same people going back and forth having discussions/debates. Even then, the official forums, reddit, etc. are not the entire playerbase.

People want this so bad they go out and make fan art, photoshops, mods, whatever, to realize their dream.

People make mods/fanart/photoshops for a lot of things, many of which should probably never be implemented into the game.

It's still not something anyone should have to do to get to play the game that they deserve from the developers.

Woah, deserve? Player's deserve to have stuff they want put into the game? Might want to pump the brakes on that entitlement. Guess I'll just start making fanart of Hrothgar so I can deserve them too.

Some variant of male Viera is better than no male Viera, which I'm sure we can all agree with.

For those who want Viera. I, for one, would rather get something else. Viera was a low hanging fruit and SE is capable of more interesting concepts.

[Penthea]

Woah, deserve? Player's deserve to have stuff they want put into the game? Might want to pump the brakes on that entitlement. Guess I'll just start making fanart of Hrothgar so I can deserve them too.

Either you're forgetting or you're unaware that SE released concept art for both male and female viera for HW. Because of this players feel like they're only getting half of what they have been waiting for for years since seeing that only female viera have been announced.

[Shippuu]

Either you're forgetting or you're unaware that SE released concept art for both male and female viera for HW. Because of this players feel like they're only getting half of what they have been waiting for for years since seeing that only female viera have been announced.

Either you're forgetting or you're unaware that the vast majority of concept art winds up on the cutting room floor and is not indicative of something's final inclusion into the game. Even the female Viera we are getting are not accurate to any of the previous concept arts shown, with only one of them being close and even then has some major anatomical differences from body type and lacking tails.

Just because they showed concept art and people decided to take it as confirmation something is going to happen doesn't mean it will.

[Penthea]

Either you're forgetting or you're unaware that the vast majority of concept art winds up on the cutting room floor and is not indicative of something's final inclusion into the game.

I am completely aware of this but there is a massive difference between unrevealed concept art leading to nowhere, and concept art you revealed to your audience leading to nowhere. When you reveal something to your audience you are giving them expectations.

It's SE's fault that there is backlash over gender locking, not the players. If SE never showed the players male viera the controversy surrounding them would be a lot smaller. Though players would still be asking for them because those that are okay with gender locked races appear to be in the minority.

[Shippuu]

I am completely aware of this but there is a massive difference between unrevealed concept art leading to nowhere, and concept art you revealed to your audience leading to nowhere. When you reveal something to your audience you are giving them expectations.

It's SE's fault that there is backlash over gender locking, not the players. If SE never showed the players male viera the controversy surrounding them would be a lot smaller. Though players would still be asking for them because those that are okay with gender locked races appear to be in the minority.

And yoshida has commented that he didn't really want to show everyone the Viera concept art because of exactly what is happening now.

I'm not saying SE doesn't shoulder some blame for why people are angry about it, but they shouldn't be held hostage just because people are angry about something. In the end it is SE's decision to make, just like it was their decision to make Blue Mage as a limited job even though they knew it would make people angry too. People in this thread continue to grossly overstate the blowback and impact this will cause if it happens.

[BillyKaplan]

And yoshida has commented that he didn't really want to show everyone the Viera concept art because of exactly what is happening now.

Your views of the matter are so twisted. some blame for why people are angry about it? What?
If the concept art was really such a taboo for Yoshida then he should never have shown the concept art in the first place. It's almost as though being transparent with your playerbase implies you're committing yourself to what you're showing them, alternatively be transparent all the way and say, out right, it will never be used - which, as far as I know, was never explicitly stated. It's like how he promised that the bunny outfit would be gender unlocked and then acted all suffering and self sacrificing whenever it kept being brought up again. That's what happens when you show your players something, let alone promise it as was the case with the bunny outfit.
If he showed it to us then he needs to grow up as a person and as a professional and deal with it. And if it was always meant to be a pointless, meaningless tease, he shouldn't have shown it. Given that he did, he should own up to it. It's not that complicated.

[Penthea]

And yoshida has commented that he didn't really want to show everyone the Viera concept art because of exactly what is happening now.

I'm not saying SE doesn't shoulder some blame for why people are angry about it, but they shouldn't be held hostage just because people are angry about something. In the end it is SE's decision to make, just like it was their decision to make Blue Mage as a limited job even though they knew it would make people angry too. People in this thread continue to grossly overstate the blowback and impact this will cause if it happens.

Being held hostage? That's a massive overstatement. It's not like people are unsubbing in protest, or intentionally creating problems in the game to get SE's attention. Not even the forums are in disarray. Sure there is a lot of controversy surrounding viera, but it can't compare to the storm of discontent Shirogane's launch brought. The forums were FULL of super active threads complaining about it. What you're labelling as extreme behaviour is actually very tame.

The forums exist for feedback and players saying they want male viera is feedback. And it's not baseless feedback either. Genderlocking has been frowned upon by the playerbase for a very long time to the point that any that was present in 1.0 was removed in 2.0, and SE have already shown us male viera.

[WhiteArchmage]

And yoshida has commented that he didn't really want to show everyone the Viera concept art because of exactly what is happening now.

I'm not saying SE doesn't shoulder some blame for why people are angry about it, but they shouldn't be held hostage just because people are angry about something. In the end it is SE's decision to make, just like it was their decision to make Blue Mage as a limited job even though they knew it would make people angry too. People in this thread continue to grossly overstate the blowback and impact this will cause if it happens.

And it IS our decision to stop supporting a company that doesn't do right by its playerbase. You seem to be under the impression that people are saying that SE's stock will go down further than it did with 1.0 when most are only speaking for themselves. I personally support that if they do something as astoundingly dumb as gender-locking Dancer (which would be even harder to do development-wise since they'd have to block you from using the job if you Fantasia to male, so they'd have to actively be <kupo> to do it), I'll cancel my sub right there and then, not to mention I haven't pre-ordered ShB until Tokyo Fan Fest because I want to know I'm getting my money's worth, be it with Dancer as a playable job and/or male Viera.

But Yoshi-P said... Must we point to Alleo's signature about housing? Which, I may remind, the timer was only instituted after player blowback (And that whole "Personal housing will be separate from FC housing!").
But we can't take the artwork for granted... Well, no but it does point out that they were actively working on it and it's not making a whole bunch of assets from scratch.
But there's no way everyone will like the final design... So since not everyone will be content, then no one should? Even the people who are ok with (what we assume about) the Hrothgar think it's off to have two gender-locked races.

And even if the official forums don't represent the majority of the fanbase, it does represent quite a few. They're talking about this in English Forums, French and Japanese (I don't read German, can't know it it's an issue there, too), on Reddit, on JP Twitter! It may not be the controversy surrounding, say, EA after Star Wars Battlefront II, but it's not as small as you make it out to be.