Gender locked race?

[Seraphor]

Dur. I meant when they announced them.

In fact, they could have done it any time over the years when the topic came up ("if we ever brought in Viera..."), much like how they dealt with BLU being difficult to implement.

They did. Yoshi said he thought male Viera would be weird.

[Lauront]

They did. Yoshi said he thought male Viera would be weird.

Are you referring to the interview pre-dating this art?

[DevilsDontFly]

If they don't release male Viera it'll honestly be a pretty smart and shady move from SE.

> Announce new highly requested playable race, but make one of the genders a "what if" for last fanfest
> Start pre-orders right after
> Make it so pre-orders give you redeemable codes right before the last fanfest starts
> Make sure codes are redeemed so refunds will be impossible
> Officialize genderlock
> Proceed with the stage as if nothing happened

This is something I don't want to see happening, but if it does happen it would explain the tactical money-making decision behind it.

[Seraphor]

Are you referring to the interview pre-dating this art?

Yes, but you just said, they could have said it at any point over the years.

It's very much like Blue Mage.
Years ago Yoshi said he thought a true blue mage wouldnt work, and now we get it as a limited job to much backlash.

These things take years to implement, and they stick to their plans.

[Lauront]

Yes, but you just said, they could have said it at any point over the years.

It's very much like Blue Mage.
Years ago Yoshi said he thought a true blue mage wouldnt work, and now we get it as a limited job to much backlash.

These things take years to implement, and they stick to their plans.

Nah, what I just said was they could've addressed that concept art over the years and ruled it out as a basis for what to expect from Viera. That art is close on 5 years old. Also, that interview is worded in pretty non-committal language:

Q38: In terms of new races, what kind of races are you looking into and will mixed races be introduced?

A38: I don’t think we’ll have mixed races for a while. Since it seems like Viera is popular around the world we have been proactively looking into this, but since having a rabbit male might be kind of weird, maybe we’ll look into having a separate race for the male counterpart.

[Shippuu]

Your views of the matter are so twisted. some blame for why people are angry about it? What?

So I should have used majority instead of some.

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

Yoshida often makes it a point to never commit strong language towards NOT doing something, because things can always change. He has been incredibly transparent when it comes to male Viera, such as flat out saying he would probably do a male only race equivalent as a counterpart to viera, or after showing concept art of viera he still claimed the males looked too cute. People just don't like that he held those beliefs and so refuse to give those comments any merit or consideration.

If he showed it to us then he needs to grow up as a person and as a professional and deal with it.

That's hilarious. No one is saying he shouldn't "deal with it" if it comes to backlash against the race. But as a professional, and the director of the game, if he chooses to do one thing, that's his choice. He doesn't need to kowtow to the playerbase just because he decided to go a different direction over something as trivial as a player race.

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.

You clearly haven't read through a lot of this thread (I don't blame you). Plenty of people have threatened to unsub if they don't get what they want. One individual even demanded Yoshida should resign if they don't get bunny men.
But then I never said SE WAS being held hostage, I was stating it because plenty of individuals here have acted like they SHOULD be. That they should be absolutely required to do something just because of some concept art, that if they don't deliver on that it'd be such a huge negative to the game (it wouldn't be).

What you're labelling as extreme behaviour is actually very tame.

I'm labelling it as an extreme over-reaction to something that absolutely won't be as big of an issue as many here seem to imply. If Viera don't get males, people will be upset and stamp their feet and that's it. Yoshida will probably be pestered about it during some Q&A maybe, and that's it. He may add them later, who knows.

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.

[Citation Needed] on where I said players couldn't, or even shouldn't give their feedback on this? And sure most people don't agree with genderlocking, but it does exist in this game in many cosmetic forms, and just because past racial genderlocking was undone doesn't exclude future ones from happening, especially when the director himself said he might do it for Viera specifically. There was also additional motivation to undo 1.0's genderlocking that is currently not present right now.

Showing concept art =/= it will be added to the game.

[Seraphor]

If they don't release male Viera it'll honestly be a pretty smart and shady move from SE.

> Announce new highly requested playable race, but make one of the genders a "what if" for last fanfest
> Start pre-orders right after
> Make it so pre-orders give you redeemable codes right before the last fanfest starts
> Make sure codes are redeemed so refunds will be impossible
> Officialize genderlock
> Proceed with the stage as if nothing happened

This is something I don't want to see happening, but if it does happen it would explain the tactical money-making decision behind it.

Or, they think everyone will expect male Viera, then 'Surprise! Its even better Hrothgar!'
At least from their point of view.

[cicatriz313]

Nah, what I just said was they could've addressed that concept art over the years and ruled it out as a basis for what to expect from Viera. That art is close on 5 years old. Also, that interview is worded in pretty non-committal language:

First of all, expecting him to be like "oh that art we showed in a small JP community event 5 years back? yeah even though that's only concept art and we only use a small amount of the art we generate, don't base your ideals on this." is pretty far-fetched. People keep linking the picture and propagating this idea that this is what Viera look like, which isn't on Yoshi. It was a panel that was showing concept art, that's it. Wasn't a teaser, wasn't a hint, was just something to show an audience. Also I think as a game director he chose right to give a vague non-committal answer to something that was obviously super far out in development. He gave his views on the issue, but didn't rule anything out. I still think him giving his views is good to keep in mind.

[Lauront]

First of all, expecting him to be like "oh that art we showed in a small JP community event 5 years back? yeah even though that's only concept art and we only use a small amount of the art we generate, don't base your ideals on this." is pretty far-fetched. People keep linking the picture and propagating this idea that this is what Viera look like, which isn't on Yoshi. It was a panel that was showing concept art, that's it. Wasn't a teaser, wasn't a hint, was just something to show an audience. Also I think as a game director he chose right to give a vague non-committal answer to something that was obviously super far out in development. He gave his views on the issue, but didn't rule anything out. I still think him giving his views is good to keep in mind.

It's not far-fetched at all. They should be well aware of the fact that this art has been propagated multiple times in suggesting how Viera might look if added in the game, much like they should have been - and were - aware of the expectations on them if they introduced BLU. Managing expectations is on them. Secondly, let's see what the source you linked said:

Within every MMORPG community, speculation on new races always runs rampant, especially when a game is based on an established IP like Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

Before the announcement of the Au Ra for the Heavensward expansion, the bunny-like Viera from Final Fantasy XII came up quite often in that kind of discussion, doubtlessly because Fran has always been a favorite among fans.

Turns out, as revealed today during a livestreamed panel at Nico Nico Chokaigi, that the Viera were actually considered as an additional race for the game, but ultimately the idea was discarded in favor of the Au Ra.

One of the main objections among fans to the addition of the Viera was the idea that they lent themselves to be a female-only race (at least for playable characters) due to the peculiar looks and lore behind the race’s males, but Square Enix’ concept artist had already overcome that obstacle, creating a concept for a male viera, that you can see alongside those for females just below.

Whether due to the writer of this getting something wrong, or not, it's pretty easy to see why people have been forming expectations based on this art, particularly since this addresses what was ultimately, to most players, an objection raised in a very obscure interview that I can assure you the vast majority are not aware of, couched in extremely tentative wording.

[Anvaire]

i think the issue is they cascaded that male Viera concept art within the Heavensward art books. They have added Female Viera and their design is provocative to say the least, hell they could only be more so if they decided to not bother with clothes at all, and even then it doesn't leave much to the Imagination. To then make the race gender locked gives off an impression that in my view has no place in today's world.

Lore wise you can argue that there are so few male Viera's that they would never leave the jungle, but that doesn't sit right. There is Always someone who will decide to leave for a whatever reason.

If you add Male only Hrothgar - where is the lore to explain the females? What impression does that give? Are they all locked up by the males in a pen somewhere? Sorry it doesn't sit. Obviously this is conjecture at this point, but that impression is not good.

In terms of the number of Viera's in the field, well that's easy, canonically only the WOL you play is actually there and aside from the generic "You and Your friends" mentions, the WOL does everything alone at least from the Lore front and that means by extension there are no other "male Viera's" and even if there were, the numbers would be small compared to the population size. Lets not forget that the Lore we have isn't from a reliable source. Its from a NPC in world, who reiterates what he personally knows. That doesn't make it accurate or true and it could simply be that when he says "For us its as though the male viera Don't exist" what he means is, they don't exist where we would expect to find them.

Male Viera have been accorded a role of protector of the villages but are not part of the village. If we were to go there and not meet one, or worse we meet them as NPC's or enemy Mobs and they still don't add them as a playable race, then in my opinion, it brings the game down and i will be vastly disappointed in Yoshi-P.

It isn't that male viera would look odd, which is probably true, its about having the freedom to choose. After all that is said and done, the appetite for Viera is huge and its never been stated "we want female Viera" it was always Viera, e.g both half's of the race. To not deliver on that, would be foolish at best and there is no legitimate reason to not do so other an a personal choice which, i think in a game this big, should have no grounds.