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

[Daniolaut]

I come from Australia, why?

I kind of get the feeling you were being asked where you get your information about version 1.0.

You said "fans pressured you to make races available to both genders" and "you promised to never make races genderlocked again."

Which to my knowledge neither are true. The 1.0 playerbase had many concerns and unlocking Miqo'te and Roegadyn was, I promise you, very very very low on the spectrum of requests. Also 2.0 was about fulfilling promises, not making new ones. Such as bringing XIV to PS3 since they literally sold PS3 versions to players, yet released no version of it on PS3.

[Nominous]

Not making male viera because "a rabbit male might be kind of weird" is a valid reason? Lol

There's census data they comb through to see most played/created races. People play cute races. Nothing saying Male Viera can't be, other than lore, but people don't like that "excuse".

The census data only really holds up for Fem Hrothgar though, since I think Femroe is the least created/played race in the game. It follows to reason that even having that option would be a waste of resources for expansion launch, not to say anything of the future necessarily. Male Viera less-so, since Male Mi'qote is pretty popular. Even then, I genuinely don't think Male Viera would have looked good, based on what Male Mi'qote look like.

[Senliten]

The intent of the creator only counts for so much.

This I suppose we will have a good bit of differing on. As to me, the creators wishes should always be respected, be it through homage, collaboration, or something else. Given how Japan is heavy on morals and being a good Samaritan and respect for one another, it would not cross my mind twice to think that during the creation of the Ivalice raids, words were exchanged to state, "Here is what we wish to create", "This is what we wish to be avoided", "These are some ideas to use to quell any possible issues to arise."

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.

Good is defined differently by one another, for what you consider a bad MMO I can see it to be a diamond in the rough. At best, it seems you simply have a disdain for gender lock races overall. To be frank, these things were done with classes also, shocker, i know right? Not really, as seeing those were not mistakes. Those were decisions based on design. Which oddly enough, even then said MMOS made record profits, as there was none of this crying about stuff being locked going on then, and only now has become a product of manufactured issue in an overly hyper sensitive society. To be honest, asking for everyone to do anything, and play everything is what I would call a mistake. As it boils down to what this game currently already has, nothing but a glamor end game, a Dollie simulator, and rinse repeat jump rope raids. which makes it looks like a game like this that won't take risks, which is something that cannot ever get better and will drown out to be exactly what you don't want. A Mediocre game.

As for Uniqueness, this game has not done any true innovation that no other mmo has done before. The only 'unique' aspect is a different coat of paint. If you want the MMO to be unique, then SE needs to be able to take risks again. This is perhaps a risk they wanted to try due to the demanded for both Viera and Bestial types in the game, but calling them out on unfounded accusations will bring no such innovation or uniqueness. Do I want FFXIV to get better? Yes, but to harp on them for trying to take two steps out of that safe spot that they kept doing for ages only makes them feel like it will always simply be better to stay this same cookie cutter route, and take 5 more steps back in.


Also people have been here for how long? And have been through the PR Hype that SE does, Does no one remember the housing backlash? That there should have been the first wake up call to be cautious of how SE says and words things. And not to ever take their hype, unless they themselves 100% confirm, but history seems to always repeat itself.

@Reneee: Also how nice of you to twist a comment to your own agenda, please share the entire statement Yoshi-P made. Especially where they said were looking into a separate race for a male counter part. Actually here, let me do it for you.




Even then from this QA it could be surmised to believe the weird aspect could be design and road hazards along the way with said design. ESPECIALLY with Viera being a race of FF12. Not to mention Males never having any visible representation, but no, lets just assume he said weird in some hurtful way cause there could be no other way on this god given earth weird can mean anything else, cause our rage and sensitivity must take place before logic.

[Xothic]

Thinking about it wouldn't making two gender locked races be more resource intensive than making one, two gender race since you now have to make lore for both races?

It sounds like Hrothgar were going to be a race we encountered in 5.0 regardless of their playability, so the lore for them was going to exist regardless.

Its like those Turtles in Yanxia, they've got plenty of lore despite being unplayable.

If a race exists, its almost certainly going to have some kind of lore related foothold regardless of its status as an NPC or PC race.

[Nijaki]

Making my first ever forum post to agree with the OP. I fully believed this game had moved passed gender-locked races. To see that they're not only back but they're once again the sexy woman race and the beefy man race is immensely disappointing.

I love this game, and I think the quality that has been delivered up to now lead me to expect better. I really hope that the team takes the massive negative reaction seriously, this is a huge blow to a lot of people.

[Sapphire_Dianta]

Thank you. I'm a woman in real life and darnit I want to be a sexy bunny girl in game! That doesn't make me sexist or repressed. I do understand why people are upset with there being no male bunny race, though. Just getting tired of people championing the whole "the bunnies are inherently sexist, fetish bait etc" trope.

I'm with you. I'm a girl too, and while I think that gender-locking races sets a bad precedent (looking at you, Tera and BDO, who've even gone so far as to race-lock classes), I'm finding it hard to complain 'cause I really like being a small and cute Au Ra, and I'm looking forward to maybe becoming a bunny when 5.0 rolls out. I just hope that one of the Viera's clans ends up being small and cute as well.

[esspee]

Signed up for the forums to voice my support.

My friend group just recently started playing FFXIV, and the announcement of gender-locked content killed the excitement that we had. It is immensely disappointing that the FFXIV developers would make such a regressive decision.

Most of us, including me, have cancelled our pre-orders and subscriptions until this gets rectified. The game has been great fun so far, but I can't in good faith support this type of decision.

[cipherthevideo]

I sincerely hope someone from SE sees this thread. I'm tired of being restricted to hypermasculine races for men. Please, please reconsider giving us male viera.

[AethValar]

totally agree with the op

[manickitty]

Hi FFXIV devs, I just really want to voice my concerns that having these two upcoming races genderlocked is a massive step backwards for this game, both in gameplay and general equality. Back when Miqo'te and Roe were genderlocked, fan pressure caused you to rethink it and make them available to both genders, and you promised never to make races genderlocked again, but now you've gone back on your promise.

I just don't understand why you did this. Everyone has been asking for Viera for years, and we were all really excited to see the men after the women were announced, but then you announced the Hrothgar men would replace male Viera, and it really let a lot of fans down. I'm seeing so many people on twitter, tumblr, reddit, discord, the official forums, ect, whose excitement for Shadowbringers has been evaporated by this development choice. Once again in a fantasy game, a sexy beautiful race has been genderlocked to ONLY female, and a strong muscular race has been genderlocked to ONLY male, and gamers are getting tired of it, female gamers especially, as we feel our gender is just being treated as fetish bait. Women always have to be sexy and cute, and men always have to be strong and large, and anything else is "weird". This is what genderlocking races tells us.

We also feel that your excuses for this do not justify it. You say that you can't show the male Viera because of lore, but you MAKE the lore, that's no higher power stopping you from just saying "mostly male viera hide but sometimes they come out". Male miqo'te were the same, you said they were rare but you made them playable anyway and everyone was so happy.

You also say that you left the male Viera out to conserve resources, but you still went ahead and made the Hrothgar anyway, using resources you could have spent on the male viera. Why would you leave two races half-finished when you could have made an entire race with equal resources, disappointing no one? Why couldn't you just choose to do either Viera or Hrothgar?

It's too late now to unmake either race, and I'm not suggesting that, but I am begging you to reconsider and find a way to make both genders available for the races. I'm sure no one will mind if it means the males and females share the same poses, or the female Hrothgar share the same body models as the males, or something.

You guys are capable of more than genderlocking, we know you are. Please bring us male Viera.

Seconded. But not just male viera, female ronso.