Gender locked race?

[Lauront]

I'd argue that it would be a severe stretch too that the only thing preventing people from subbing is an "even more pretty race" then (Viera).

The problem with these kind of statements is that people are comparing apples vs oranges when it comes to bestial races in WoW and FFXIV. For one, I don't count draenei and especially not dwarves or gnomes as bestial. Draenei are a bit out there, but in much the same way as au ra or roegadyn are. In fact, they look a little like a fusion of the two. The other thing is the pre-existing lore Warcraft had, whereas SE is famously light when it comes to any upfront lore for new races added. Viera females are the prettiest and most graceful they've added yet, so yes, I do think they have the potential to capture WoW refugees, but more importantly they were added in response to very strong fan demand for the race.

If SE think it'll be as simple as just adding a race that is a bit more monstrous, and that's that, I'd like to know what they're basing such a decision on, as the far bigger obstacles I've seen to this game drawing WoW players would be its PVP, the lack of content equivalent to mythic dungeons, the non-existent class customisation and the lack of horizontal progression. WoW has headed in this direction, too, but FFXIV is even more rigid where this is concerned. So in truth, how many of WoW's refugees do they think this will capture?

I have to be honest, if they're shafting their loyal playerbase over to appeal to newcomers and planning to not add Viera males on this basis (not just delaying), which is sketchy, it will not cast them in a very good light in my eyes.

Agree, full stop. Lol

Although I don't mind dimorphic races, personally, as I really wanted to see the concept art for Au Ra where the females looked very seductive sucubus (demoness) and the males looked like male demons basically. I can imagine the wild horns of the concept would clip but seriously what do you call the cat tails and current horn clipping anyways... ? Not an issue at this point lol.

I have no idea why they fudged up so badly on auri females. It's not like they would have looked ugly. They were just closer to a demoness, like you say, than a waifu with horns. I'm just glad the males remained relatively true to the art.