Gender locked race?

[Dyvid]

I'm disappointed about no male Viera because it would have been unique to have. They had some good concept art so I'm shocked they didn't just run with it.

[Lauront]

With the First around the corner they can kind of tweak the lore though. I mean, lala's are a beast tribe and you're trying to restore darkness instead of light. They should switch it up in the first so that females are rare instead of males.

The lore isn't a particularly strong reason not to have them, as it applies to male moon cats as well, and various jobs limited in number, like WHM. It's a rather weak excuse.

[Numino]

I should like to voice my opinion on the matter, because this decision made me cancel my subscription just now.
I am extremely disappointed from the decision to gender lock the races. I was looking foreword on to playing male Viera, because i like how the race looks. If i chose to play i have to play as a female.... SE claims to stand for doing things the right way, making everyone happy (by putting new polices and stuff) and yet forcing you to do something you don't want to. And before someone says "No one is forcing you to do anything", they are forcing not all but some of us by giving us no choice. When you take the ability of someone to chose you are forcing them to do something.
SE seems to follow a ongoing trend from all other gaming companies, why do things the right way when we can make something and then waste time on fixing it.
As a main healer who has no interest on playing anything else the news of dancer being dps was crushing enough, but to add to it that i cant change my race to what i want is too much.
And to those of you who a are unable to see the logic behind my words here is why....
To me whenever something becomes repetitive i change my race and move to one of the other healers. This way it feels like i am playing the game in a new and fun way. And yes i do play female characters but only because again i am forced to do so. Females have a lot more outfits after all....and yes... playing dress up might not be the main point of a game, but creating an illusion and having fun is.
Fun for one is not fun for another but eliminating the fun for some isn't fun at all.

I admit me unsubscribing might be an extreme move, but that's how i feel at the moment.

[craybest]

besides we already have a race that is suuposedly almost only females, why add another one with the exact same idea?

[Illianaro]

I've only just started to post on the forums; lurked in this thread for a long time, just observing the back and forth. I'd like to say a couple things here for which I may get a lot of flack. But I'd like my voice heard, so here goes:

If folks have seen the keynotes and live letters, and their hype has continued to increase for the expansion, that is awesome. I had a ton of hype for the expansion - was even considering going back to tanking following Gunbreaker. I haven't been particularly thrilled with Stormblood - neither the story, environments, nor the content has resonated, and development has felt anemic.

The initial reveal of ShB and the first few zones really excited me because it felt like a return to form. So I can get that people are pumped. Your excitement and eagerness to play the expac is totally valid.

But many people, as this thread shows, have also had their hype crushed for Shadowbringers - some are blindingly furious, others are disappointed. Others still may be lurking, and maybe they're going to stick around, or maybe they'll quietly leave the forum and game without a word. Those feelings are valid too, even if we might not feel the same.

I can only offer my perspective. Genderlocking comes on the tail of a series of design and direction decisions that I personally find objectionable. This is just a sampling of my biggest issues:

• A growing sense that the devs no longer care about community feedback - a trait that earned them a lot of praise in ARR
• I've disliked Eureka from minute one
• BLU was the job I wanted to main, and that came out 'Limited,' and community protest went ignored
• The content being released per patch cycle has been reduced (to allow for things like Eureka), despite increased budget
• Viera is genderlocked, as is Hrothgar, again despite community protest. On principle I can't get behind genderlocking.

It might just be me, but it feels like stuff is missing from Shadowbringers. There's still time for more stuff to be teased, but for the moment I am planning on sitting out the expansion and I plan to let my sub end.

Basically, I am not satisfied with the product for which I have been paying - I don't think I'm entitled to one thing or another, but the fact remains that a lot of good will I've had for this game and SE has eroded, and I am no longer satisfied.

The only way I know to make my dissatisfaction heard is with my wallet, as I would with any other product or service with which I am no longer satisfied. There are other games on which I can spend my time and money, so I'll do that. No big deal for me, and I know SE won't miss me, random customer No. 12345678.

Again, if you're hyped for Shadowbringers, that's great! I hope you enjoy the expansion, and I hope I will be back to enjoy Eorzean journeys with you.

[Lauront]

The only way I know to make my dissatisfaction heard is with my wallet, as I would with any other product or service with which I am no longer satisfied. There are other games on which I can spend my time and money, so I'll do that. No big deal for me, and I know SE won't miss me, random customer No. 12345678.

Yup, and to those people saying there's not much competition in the MMO market, it doesn't even need to be an MMO. They compete for a slice of your time over a whole range of activities, the biggest substitute for which is other games.

[cicatriz313]

Definitely expect them to cave eventually or maybe even they had this planned to get the other sexes all along but I would look to 6.0

[craybest]

I'm very pro gender equality, i think it's one of the big fights we're having in these years (starting a good while ago) and I think adding 2 genderlocked races, and the way it's done, it only perpetuates the stereotype that males should be powerful and females should be sexy. It goes completely against this big fight we're having right now, it also feels veyr limited and like I said I'm not happy playing a game in a fantasy world ruled by such limited, outdated and sexist ideas.
For now, I'll finish the story and then probbly unsub when I'm done with it. We are in all our right to show our disconfort with a really backwards and cheap move by them.
for now I'll go back to play ESO and dragon age 3, where I can play as any race in any gender and i don't have to follow outdated policies.

[Wijnand]

I'm very pro gender equality, i think it's one of the big fights we're having in these years (starting a good while ago) and I think adding 2 genderlocked races, and the way it's done, it only perpetuates the stereotype that males should be powerful and females should be sexy. It goes completely against this big fight we're having right now, it also feels veyr limited and like I said I'm not happy playing a game in a fantasy world ruled by such limited, outdated and sexist ideas.
For now, I'll finish the story and then probbly unsub when I'm done with it. We are in all our right to show our disconfort with a really backwards and cheap move by them.

How about we separate the real world with which is obviously a videogame. The choice of SE has nothing to do with oversexualizing females or making males all powerful. The characters your referring to are all equal in strength. The only difference is that males look like garbage in most outfits and females don't. I am all for gender equality in the REAL world. But if a race that doesn't exist in the real world and inhabits a digital world we should be able to allow it to have different culture. It is unbelievable that people think SE is sexist for not having a male bunny in a videogame. They didn't announce anything anti gender or said it had to be done this way. This is the way the lore has made them out to be.

We are playing in a fantasy don't force this fantasy to be equal in everything because it removes a lot of possible fluff and social critiques we would be otherwise unable to portray. The fact of the matter is why are the male bunnies so completely driven to live separate from the tribe?

[Lauront]

How about we separate the real world with which is obviously a videogame. The choice of SE has nothing to do with oversexualizing females or making males all powerful. The characters your referring to are all equal in strength. The only difference is that males look like garbage in most outfits and females don't. I am all for gender equality in the REAL world. But if a race that doesn't exist in the real world and inhabits a digital world we should be able to allow it to have different culture. It is unbelievable that people think SE is sexist for not having a male bunny in a videogame. They didn't announce anything anti gender or said it had to be done this way. This is the way the lore has made them out to be.

We are playing in a fantasy don't force this fantasy to be equal in everything because it removes a lot of possible fluff and social critiques we would be otherwise unable to portray. The fact of the matter is why are the male bunnies so completely driven to live separate from the tribe?

Eh, a lot of this "gender equality" stuff has mutated away from equality before the law, into "women must be men", so I am not even for that, especially since it's often premised on false narratives and garbage interpretation of statistics. I'd rather not see it seep over into game design decisions.

At the same time, I am firmly opposed to the gender lock.