Gender locked race?

[Lacan]

Lore as an excuse is nothing short of a flimsy excuse when the WoL is an outlier in so many ways beyond this. If the developers really want to throw that as the reason we cannot have these genders, then why can we play Keepers of the Moon Miqo'te, Duskwight Elezen, and even Raen Au Ra? Why are there multiple jobs that are written in the lore stating as there only being one such as Dragoon, White Mage, and Scholar? The developer is only lying to us and using lore as the excuse when they have been known to bend and allow for things such as this time and again.

yea, the lore excuse is real BS. The lore reason we couldn't play as male mithra in 11 is pretty much exactly the same as the lore behind miqote in XIV. Yet Yoshi wasn't bothered by that and still made male miqote playable. It is weird for Yoshi to suddenly be so concerned with what is logical based on the lore when it never stopped him before. Smells like lies to me. :v

[Daralii]

yea, the lore excuse is real BS. The lore reason we couldn't play as male mithra in 11 is pretty much exactly the same as the lore behind miqote in XIV. Yet Yoshi wasn't bothered by that and still made male miqote playable. It is weird for Yoshi to suddenly be so concerned with what is logical based on the lore when it never stopped him before. Smells like lies to me. :v

From a 2013 interview:


It's his preference. Maybe if you campaign hard enough and get him fired, you'll get your bishounen rabbits.

[Brightmore]

Okay, peeps, let's do a formal manifesto. Change all headgears to Bunny chief and let's gather at Gridania aetheryte at 10:00 PM (of each time zone, so we will fill it all night!)

[Imuka]

If this is true the Game made another step back in time.
Gender locked Gear already felt lazy and unnecessary restrictive. Like something we should have left in the past, especially for Gear that is gender neutral, like Gosetsus Samurai Outfit, Amerycs Armor, Yshtolas Outfit, etc.

[Metsonm]

Very disappointed in the genderlock, especially regarding Hrothgar, as it's a step backwards for no good reason. In this case I would rather have nothing.

I'll probably still change to Viera because I've been looking forward to them, but I'll still keep pushing for males as there's really no justification in this day and age to avoid making them just because "male rabbits are weird".

[Kailea_Nagisa]

I'm back. I prepared this in advance, and posting it as they are clapping for these ridiculous cat race. Let me first say this: I hate Hrothgar because they came at the cost of male Viera and I'm not going to forget this ever.

Well it seems that they’ve gender-locked Viera and Hrothgar after all.
How disgusting, sexist, and homophobic - still uncomfortable designing male bunnies huh? You know I’ve really come to see this all as an attack on my identity especially after several of my posts in this thread were reported and I was banned because apparently someone is upset that I was very vocal about why I want male Viera and the fanart I was posting? I’m not sorry about what I said back then and this attempt at silencing me failed.
You know what would have been nice? Not being so secretive and being up front with us from the start, but no, they just had to cash in on everyone’s preorders before throwing this in our faces. This is why you cannot trust preorders these days at all. Thank god I had the foresight to not buy Shadowbringers. I can’t imagine that they would have refunded me. After all that I’ve seen I’ve come to the conclusion that this was a predatory tactic that took advantage of people’s trust, and they will go out of their way to silence anyone who speaks out against them. They are being anti-consumer and anti-player with the way they are behaving.
So in the end, they lost the money I was about to spend on the expansion, my recurring subscription which I have canceled, and any other Mog Station related purchases I would have made for fantasias/outfits/mounts. I refuse to be taken advantage of and I refuse to blindly follow this game into the abyss it’s going to sink into at this rate.
Good riddance and goodbye.

I see that this game has shifted sides and is now against who I am and what I stand for so in response I see no other option but to abandon FFXIV. Since they’re using the lore to justify this, then so will I. If the lore states that male Viera aren’t playable, then I guess that means my character will just have to disappear.
Goodbye.

the amount of entitlement in your post is amazing, the world does not revolve around you. Its not sexist, its a VIDEO GAME get over yourself.

[Lacan]

From a 2013 interview:


It's his preference. Maybe if you campaign hard enough and get him fired, you'll get your bishounen rabbits.

Don't want him fired, that's just silly. I do think getting him to see that his preferences aren't the same as the playerbase's preferences is possible though.

[Lhasya]

This seems to be the thread for feedback about gender-locked races so lemme add my two gil here:

I'm extremely, bitterly disappointed.

One of the things I liked so very much about the 2.0 beta, where I started playing, was that they were actually moving away from the awful 'girl races are tiny and cute/male races are big and hulking' thing. You could play a giant Roegadyn lady! You could play a tiny Miqo'te male! Highlanders for everyone! It was a good time, the time where those pictures with "FFXIV is all-inclusive because everyone looks equally ridiculous" and then a male and female model in the harness/subligar set, you know the one, was circling around and hell, it was true.

Then eternal bonds happened, and Square Enix listened and made same-sex weddings a thing that could happen. Then they listened to feedback and opened up a few pieces of formerly gender-locked gear so that both genders can use them. Excellent! And then they kind of dragged their feet on unlocking more pieces, which was less so.

I dunno when I first got the feeling that FFXIV was back-sliding from the inclusive game I knew and loved; it might have been with the Astrologian AF reveal for Stormblood (which, you know, AST main, and it was also one of the first bits of detail we had on the new expansion). The male and female outfits were so different. It's only gotten worse since then; even the flower crown from the Little Ladies' Day event is wildly different for males and females. There's no real reason! But it happened! And I'm frustrated!

This... this isn't helping. Nothing about this was good. The fact that gender-locked races are still a thing, six years after they gave us female roegadyn and male miqo'te due to massive outcry hurts. The fact that the announcement itself was handled so poorly (what seemed like a soft confirm + "wait until next fanfest wink wink nudge nudge" on male viera from EU fanfest to let people build up hype before "yeah no no male viera" at Tokyo fanfest) hurts. The fact that this happens right on the heels of FFXIV sponsoring a float at Sydney Mardi Gras, presumably making a statement about their stance on inclusivity, hurts.

The thing that hurts the most, though? That this doesn't feel like the game I was so excited to play back in 2013 any more. This feels more like the game that game evolved from, both in terms of content and in terms of being receptive to community feedback.

Sure, it's about not being able to play a rabbit dude, but it's also about the fact that I thought Square Enix knew better than this.

They did, at one point.

[Kailea_Nagisa]

Don't want him fired, that's just silly. I do think getting him to see that his preferences aren't the same as the playerbase's preferences is possible though.

Playerbase's preference? speak for youself, I can account for many players that are happy with the new races

[Titor]

I would also like female hrothgar. Gender locking in 2019 is a bit backwards and disappointing.