A letter to the Devs, Producers, and whoever else has a say

[Xothic]

If you want to play an effiminate male character just play a miquote, let the gay furries have their bara lions for gods sake

[Nominous]

Hard disagree, and I don't care how unpopular of an opinion it might be.

Games have been just fine with gender-locked races, and this one will be too. You know what people have done for YEARS in ALL MMO's, and WILL do when this expansion launches? The same thing they do now.

Guys can, and DO make female characters because they tend to have the best looking hair/equipment/everything.
Women can and DO make male characters because they don't want to play feminine characters, or want to play a more masculine character.

There's an increasing amount of non gender-locked equipment to choose from to also indulge more in the fantasy you choose. Men can wear dresses, crop-tops and fishnets. Women can wear more masculine outfits and armors.

This is NOTHING new. I get the disappointment, I guess. I haven't been able to have actual good facial hair for my character for 6 years, but I'm not about to make some long post about my disappointment with them not confirming it. Or better customization options for Hyur like these new races are getting. We pay, so we should expect nice things, but man, it's hard to believe how difficult it is to please this community on any given announcement. There's always negativity.

[secretsofthelily]

If you want to play an effiminate male character just play a miquote, let the gay furries have their bara lions for gods sake

Did you read the post? I didn't say Hrothgar should be uncreated, i said there should be males and females for both races.

[Twinsoul]

It's disrespectful to women to assume that no woman wants to play as a sexy bunny girl.

It's disrespectful to assume that no man wants to play as a sexy bunny man and no woman wants to play as a burly lion woman.

Post.

The intent of the creator only counts for so much. I did say it was an unintentional bias, but it's still a bias and it's still a problem. Also, I can't think of a single good MMO with gender-locked races. Not that it would be a good argument even if there were. It's a bad idea for other games and it's a bad idea for this game, for all the same reasons, and for many reasons unique to FFXIV. Don't you want FFXIV to be better than other, more mediocre games? I sure do. I want FFXIV to be a great game and I'm invested in its improvement. So saying that other games are making similar mistakes doesn't really work for me.

[OgruMogru]

Lots of different people like lots of different things in regards to character design choices and aesthetics. Limiting these choice for players is frustrating. Everyone deserves to be able to make a character that appeals to them. If they had made the decision to have male and female for both races and made the male Viera lithe and beautiful and the female Hrothgar statuesque and imposing with large arms and hands and big monstrous heads - that would have gone an awfully long way to covering a lot of bases for a lot of people's differing tastes. Instead they've done the opposite and limited everything and it stinks

[CoolDad]

Wonderful post OP. The posts I've seen today have been very heartening and it's nice to see so many people calling this out and asking for change.

[JackHatchet]

My real big pet-peeve about this stuff is the dishonesty from gaming companies.

Blizzard has a similar issue regarding High Elves in World of Warcraft. Players want High Elves, but Blizzard says "oh, it goes against the lore. There's really just not enough of them to justify players playing High Elves." But then they release other races (like void elves) that contridict that statement. Void Elves are canonically lower in numbers than High Elves. So are Lightforged Dreanei. The problem is that a company used an excuse that doesn't make sense. Which means one of two things. Either they're lying about the reason and make up one that they thought the consumers would accept... or they're idiots and spoke without knowledge.

The same concept is happening here in FFXIV. Square-Enix said they can't make male Viera because canoically the male species is rare. However, that's also true for other races as well. Male cats are exceptionally rare. Additionally, Dusk elves are extremely rare, and people can still play those. So it leads back to the original question. Is Square-Enix lying to us about the reason to mask an unfavorable truth? Or are they just being idiots about it.

I don't mind companies making controversial decisions--I just wish they'd own up to them, and be honest to the players. If Square-Enix just doesn't want men playing bunnies--then freaking say that. Don't make up some weak excuse that's instantly invalidated by the existence of male cats and duskelves.

[Xothic]

Did you read the post? I didn't say Hrothgar should be uncreated, i said there should be males and females for both races.

I'd much rather we get two half-races that fill previously unfilled niches in character creation than the devs spend even more time making two full races

[Vejjiegirl]

I agree with everything in this thread. I also did some research and dug up some old interviews about the matter as well.

There is also an interview about au ra not being tall and strong like the men with the excuse of it being unpopular.

[Riusvell]

Using the lore as an excuse not to get Male Viera is weak.
We have tomestone phones, a car in the future, Yokai Watch minions, Rathalos from another dimension, FF XIII glamours, a flaming wheel mount.
There are plenty of things not fitting within the lore of FFXIV, stop using it as a reason.