Gender locked race?

[Seraphor]

As for the topic at hand.

Most likely, they've been looking at different suggestions over the years, and the two biggest fanservice race suggestions were Viera and Ronso.
They wanted to do both, but only had plans for one more race.
They can't just keep adding races, the biggest resource drain with new races is remodelling all of the existing equipment, and all of the future equipment requiring an additional variant, it's an exponentially increasing workload.

Could there have been less backlash if they just went with Viera and never even mentioned anything remotely like Ronso? Probably.
That doesn't mean this decision was made out of spite against male Viera fans.

[NahuNa]

As for the topic at hand.

Most likely, they've been looking at different suggestions over the years, and the two biggest fanservice race suggestions were Viera and Ronso.
They wanted to do both, but only had plans for one more race.
They can't just keep adding races, the biggest resource drain with new races is remodelling all of the existing equipment, and all of the future equipment requiring an additional variant, it's an exponentially increasing workload.

Could there have been less backlash if they just went with Viera and never even mentioned anything remotely like Ronso? Probably.
That doesn't mean this decision was made out of spite against male Viera fans.

I think the thing that's just the most baffling is that there's literal, calculable proof that male Viera would still be an incredibly more popular choice. They also know that people hate gender-locks. And as far as the established lore, the players had made their peace with the idea of playable characters being more humanoid and the Furries being beast tribes.

I do believe they truly thought this was the best choice... but it feels very much like the dog trying to get the bone from his reflection in the water. They wanted the two things instead of picking one and pushing it to its full potential, and so you ended up with lots and LOTS of disappointed people (and let's not ignore how it's rehashing the obnoxious trope of Pwetty Girl and Buff Male Beast).

[Labyxt]

As for the topic at hand.

Most likely, they've been looking at different suggestions over the years, and the two biggest fanservice race suggestions were Viera and Ronso.
They wanted to do both, but only had plans for one more race.
They can't just keep adding races, the biggest resource drain with new races is remodelling all of the existing equipment, and all of the future equipment requiring an additional variant, it's an exponentially increasing workload.

Could there have been less backlash if they just went with Viera and never even mentioned anything remotely like Ronso? Probably.
That doesn't mean this decision was made out of spite against male Viera fans.

If they didn’t have a problem with male Vieras a Ronso-like race would have never been considered to begin with. Hrothgar right now exists only because they have a problem with male Viera being “too cute”. There is an interview quote, which I don’t have right now but that has been posted many times in these threads (if anyone would be so kind to post it again), specifically stating that if they were to add Viera they would look to make a different male-only race.