Gender locked race?

[wereotter]

Don't forget that if the Viera is genderlocked; then Hrothgar would have simply been added due to the developers - or rather Yoshida and possibly Yasumi - not wanting male Viera seen because of the idea that rabbit men are weird; a backwards viewpoint in this day and age. So, we're going to have a race right off the bat - unlike Viera; where males were considered and we have evidence of this - that was created to be genderlocked straight out of the gate. Any lore they add for Hrothgar is going to have them be with that imagery in mind.

That's what really boils my parsnips - creating a 'limited' race because of one archaic view that needs to bugger off. I'd be less steamed if Hrothgar wasn't genderlocked - least it's less half-arsed and not some sort of repeat of Gelka.

I think this is the real thing. Imagine, if you will, if at the launch of Heavensward we got female Viera and male Au Ra. No female Au Ra, and no male Viera. People would feel burned, not because they don't like Au Ra, but getting something people were looking forward to, but only for one sex, and getting something completely new and unheard of for the other feels unfair. And, that will be the real issue. If there is a seperate, male-only race being added, no matter how great it is, people will be angry that they're not getting something they've been looking forward to for many years.

[Lacan]

I strongly disagree with that assessment. This thread, for instance, has over two hundred pages and yet most of it is just back and forth debate between the same handful of posters. This forum isn't a great representation of the overall community since only a small portion of players actually post here in the first place. Many more players post on the FFXIV Reddit page, yet there's no active threads there regarding the issue. All the discussion there surrounding Viera men died down pretty quickly. It's not the make or break scenario for as many players as is being implied here.

As I've said earlier, I think gender locked races/jobs are a silly design approach. Yet I also think people are setting themselves up for disappointment given how Viera men are described within the game itself. If they aren't added, Hrothgar will mitigate the backlash significantly. With any luck, they'll be designed nicely - and may even be much more interesting than Viera men altogether.

And I have to disagree again. There are some things the playerbase cares about more than others. For an example of this, look to the BA feedback thread. Something that appeared minor to a lot of people got personally addressed by Yoshi and that was complaints about the additional story cutscenes of Eureka being locked behind BA. Yoshi even apologized for it in his post there and made a point to state he wouldn't to it again. Consider the fact that managed to get a response from Yoshi and consider how many more people are going to be upset by genderlocked viera.

How many people were invested enough in eureka's story to care about that cutscene? Enough to reach the dev leader apparently. Now imagine it over something even bigger than that, a brand new race. I don't know what else I can say to convince you this is a bigger deal than you think so you'll just have to wait and see.

[Lauront]

I think the principle error they have is that the 2015 concept art at the least gave the impression that they had found a way to implement male Viera in a way that would be palatable to them. They'd have done well to have headed this off ASAP if they had no intention of following through with it, because other than that art, there is really nothing official from SE regarding how male Viera might look.

[Lauront]

And I have to disagree again. There are some things the playerbase cares about more than others. For an example of this, look to the BA feedback thread. Something that appeared minor to a lot of people got personally addressed by Yoshi and that was complaints about the additional story cutscenes of Eureka being locked behind BA. Yoshi even apologized for it in his post there and made a point to state he wouldn't to it again. Consider the fact that managed to get a response from Yoshi and consider how many more people are going to be upset by genderlocked viera.

How many people were invested enough in eureka's story to care about that cutscene? Enough to reach the dev leader apparently. Now imagine it over something even bigger than that, a brand new race. I don't know what else I can say to convince you this is a bigger deal than you think so you'll just have to wait and see.

There is a difference between things where they're fundamentally opposed to taking the game in a specific direction (e.g. BLU for the time being), and issues resulting from miscommunication (which Eureka falls under, mostly.) They won't necessarily treat all player demands on the same footing. They undid gender-locks in the past because they said they had underestimated how strongly desired the other gender option was for those races. However, if they're opposed out of reasons of principle (the gender/race combo does not fit their vision of the game), and consider that what they're instead proposing to do is add a male-only variant of another race as adequate to compensate for the lack of the opposite gender, you're dealing with a fundamentally different attitude.

At an extreme, unless this significantly hurt the game's profitability, I don't think they will back down, provided this is the underlying issue.

[cicatriz313]

And I have to disagree again. There are some things the playerbase cares about more than others. For an example of this, look to the BA feedback thread. Something that appeared minor to a lot of people got personally addressed by Yoshi and that was complaints about the additional story cutscenes of Eureka being locked behind BA. Yoshi even apologized for it in his post there and made a point to state he wouldn't to it again. Consider the fact that managed to get a response from Yoshi and consider how many more people are going to be upset by genderlocked viera.

How many people were invested enough in eureka's story to care about that cutscene? Enough to reach the dev leader apparently. Now imagine it over something even bigger than that, a brand new race. I don't know what else I can say to convince you this is a bigger deal than you think so you'll just have to wait and see.

I mean, I think Eureka was actually somewhat popular. I expected hardly anyone to get an ozma mount but so many people on my server have it now. In the same vein, considering there's been no response to this thread despite multitudes more pages on it, goes to show that page count means squat.

[Lacan]

I think this is the real thing. Imagine, if you will, if at the launch of Heavensward we got female Viera and male Au Ra. No female Au Ra, and no male Viera. People would feel burned, not because they don't like Au Ra, but getting something people were looking forward to, but only for one sex, and getting something completely new and unheard of for the other feels unfair. And, that will be the real issue. If there is a seperate, male-only race being added, no matter how great it is, people will be angry that they're not getting something they've been looking forward to for many years.

Exactly this. It isn't a problem with Hrothgar itself. The problem is the situation that they've created around them. I don't understand why Yoshi would intentionally sour the waters for Hrothgar like this when he had to know this would be the result. That's why I've still got hope there is more to it than the leaks would have us believe. :v

[cicatriz313]

I think the principle error they have is that the 2015 concept art at the least gave the impression that they had found a way to implement male Viera in a way that would be palatable to them. They'd have done well to have headed this off ASAP if they had no intention of following through with it, because other than that art, there is really nothing official from SE regarding how male Viera might look.

Based on the panel at EU fanfest, it seemed sketches done by the art team are super early in the development cycle. Them having art I don't think necessarily means they were able to overcome their distaste of the idea of male Viera. For all we know, that art got to Yoshi and he just said nah, gross. Like we saw the same little bunny art at this past fanfest, but I don't see many people jumping for joy that it's indicative of a vastly different subrace.

[Lauront]

I personally don't put too much weight on the 2013 comments. I'm just going to play it by ear until Fanfest, without getting my hopes up one way or another.

Based on the panel at EU fanfest, it seemed sketches done by the art team are super early in the development cycle. Them having art I don't think necessarily means they were able to overcome their distaste of the idea of male Viera. For all we know, that art got to Yoshi and he just said nah, gross. Like we saw the same little bunny art at this past fanfest, but I don't see many people jumping for joy that it's indicative of a vastly different subrace.

Weren't those simply Viera children? You're right that they did seem to be very early in the cycle.

[Alesone]

Just like he's claiming we won't "believe" it's a big deal until it happens, I hope he's open to how if it does happen, he'll be wrong and it won't be anywhere near the issue he's claiming it will be. A cosmetic race choice is far from being anything of a major issue to this game, and it affects players just as much who would have rather had some other race than viera in the first place. The male Viera crowd feels like they've got a bit of an inflated sense of self worth if they think them not being catered to is a bigger issue than Eureka and Blue Mage.

[Lacan]

There is a difference between things where they're fundamentally opposed to taking the game in a specific direction (e.g. BLU for the time being), and issues resulting from miscommunication (which Eureka falls under, mostly.) They won't necessarily treat all player demands on the same footing. They undid gender-locks in the past because they said they had underestimated how strongly desired the other gender option was for those races. However, if they're opposed out of reasons of principle (the gender/race combo does not fit their vision of the game), and consider that what they're instead proposing to do is add a male-only variant of another race as adequate to compensate for the lack of the opposite gender, you're dealing with a fundamentally different attitude.

At an extreme, unless this significantly hurt the game's profitability, I don't think they will back down, provided this is the underlying issue.

If they didn't think male viera fit their vision of the game, they wouldn't have included them in the lore at all. They went out of their way to give us information about male viera from the dramaturge. We actually learned more about male viera there than we ever did in FF XII itself. They could have just as easily left the situation completely ambiguous and they didn't. If they were able to go all of XII without a single mention of them, I don't see why they even bothered to tell us about them in XIV if they knew we weren't ever going to be able to play as one.