Gender Locks Have Revealed the Worst in Players.

[Lufir]

I definitely agree with your first comment. I think with the BLU pushback, that's on a very different level. They are now getting called sexist, homophobic, and a plethora of other things.

I do also feel a bit for Yoshi. People keep referring his comment where he said it would be "weird" if male Viera were a thing. Unless I'm missing a full conversation, that was just a single one-off remark and wasn't elaborated on in any way, yet people are analyzing the crap out of it and pulling the absolute worst assumptions. The comment was years ago, and in his mind he very well could have just been thinking "male are just about non-existent in XII, that would be weird if we had them", and now it's being turned into he's homophobic, and thinks any part of the LBGT community is wrong.

I know from first hand experience how these forums can twist an incredibly innocent comment into something horrible. While none of us know how he meant that comment, I would give him the benefit of the doubt and I personally feel it was rather harmless. We already have the option to make rather effeminate males in this game, I don't think he'd be shying away from male Viera for that reason.

I definitely feel for him and his team. My point about the BLU pushback is that it was relatively civil. There were heated debates as always, but no crazy insults were thrown at Yoshi and team. The result? No response. Now we have this gender lock catastrophe, outrageous insults were pushed on Yoshi. The result? Immediate response. Will the community now learn that insulting the FFXIV team (as well as other players) with baseless claims the best course of action in order to have your voice heard so swiftly? It appears that way.

Nevertheless, FFXIV has always been far from racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. There are women and men leading resistances against armies. Both genders are leaders of nations. There are feminine men like Alphinaud, and masculine men like Raubahn. It's the same with women characters. For those that believe that gender roles are important, there is a bit of that as well. But no, the absence of a gender from a race usurps all, lol.

[hasana]

With that said, I'm surprised and I find it odd that Yoshi-P acknowledges the tantrum of "no bunboy fetish" in a matter of days after its announced. Yet, the months of overwhelming support of a non-limited Blue Mage job goes unnoticed.

The Viera "issue" is easily fixable and that's why it was acknowledged.
And sadly since everytime they say they can't do something the answer is a tatrum of "I don't care you lazy do it anyway" he probably decided to not acknowledge it.

[Conquistadork]

I find it sad that some people act like spoiled kids every time they don't get what they want from the devs.

[Shougun]

I definitely feel for him and his team. My point about the BLU pushback is that it was relatively civil. There were heated debates as always, but no crazy insults were thrown at Yoshi and team. The result? No response. Now we have this gender lock catastrophe, outrageous insults were pushed on Yoshi. The result? Immediate response. Will the community now learn that insulting the FFXIV team (as well as other players) with baseless claims the best course of action in order to have your voice heard so swiftly? It appears that way.

I hope/think it's because that they're under serious crunch right now so addressing blue when they've got so much to do isn't high on the list, there is /a lot/ of concern/desires here (blue mage) but it's not a true dumpster fire lol. Also solving the gender issue is probably more straight forward than figuring out how to go about an entire job, so again "we don't have time to address that right now".

If it's true they only responded to viera because of outrage, and they have no intention to respond to blue or recognize concerns brought up (without outrage), then they'll have seriously damaging feedback loop if they keep that style.

However, I do not feel SE gave into outrage or had begged for forgiveness which is the first right step into not supporting outrage culture - so good job so far, but definitely hope they can prefer one style of upset nature than another lol. You can see companies who kneel to outrage only get beaten down again more violently later because in essence they've taught and encouraged people that it's the right way to respond. Also strangely you can notice the most extremely loud are usually not even that invested so if you go to satisfy the extreme it's seemingly not even targeting actual players (you don't poop where you eat, at least normal people lol).

There is of course a huge difference from "I'm very upset and sad about this" and "you're a bleep bleep bleep and I hope you bleep, and lose your job" - being negative is not a sign of extremism even if someone who loved the content/decision finds it annoying (people who have been upset but reasonable are worth SE's time to be heard, imo - also imo I'd love to see them unlocked too so I sincerely hope they get what they want).

I don't think it's a sign that blue mage threads need to become more extreme otherwise that SE has no intention of addressing/recognizing/considering what happened, and I think mostly it's just not the right time. In my experience having been on the forums for a while and asking for a lot of stuff (XD lol), either I occasionally accidentally ask what Japanese forums are asking for, or things /do/ get reported to them and it just takes time (also don't expect your exact desire, but it does seem to me that they are aware/take into account people's desires).

[J-Reyno]

Not to be offensive, but I'm just wondering why Japanese need to be the ones to change or adjust their values? We do recognize the culture the game is marketed to, and a very large portion of that market is Asian markets. I know myself and other Japanese, as well as our friends in Korea, Vietnam, and China, share most of the same cultural and societal taboos and norms. So can you explain to me what is the NA culture and values you'd like the Japanese SE team to adjust to? Is this and the other threads wanting gender-neutral or such races and getting so upset about not being as progressive as the NA and USA are indicative of how those cultures think as a whole? In essence, which 'culture' is it that you speak of? The NA/US/EU culture, or the culture as you wish it to be? Because it seems to me, as a kinda outsider, that the responses for and against all of those ideals and such makes it seem like there is no agreed upon 'culture' since everyone is fighting over whether they agree or not even within the NA community itself.

Hi. You've not been offensive and I hope that I won't be as well. The cultural idea that I'm referring to is one of gender parity. Not just among the presence of genders, but also the presentation. It's a subject that, especially as of recent years, has been prevalent in western and especially American culture. As with most things there is no universal agreement, but it has been a heavily influental element of the culture for some years now.

Generally speaking, with the US being a very diverse nation, the inclusion of representation (including that of gender equality) in various forms of media has been on a rise and lack of diversity (when otherwise appropriate) is heavily criticized. Of course, there are people who resent these themes and feel that they are unnecessary. However, and as an example, recent blockbuster movies such as Captain Marvel and Black Panther have championed female and black leads, respectively, and to utterly groundbreaking success despite these criticisms and claims that they would fail.

It's a nuanced discussion, but it is probably the most prevalent discussion we have as a culture. Both of the above movies that I mentioned were hot subjects of debate. It's impossible to miss.

So when I refer to this as being part of the culture, I don't mean "everyone in this culture agrees with me". What I mean is "you can absolutely expect heavy criticism if you market discriminatory views within this culture."

And honestly, equality has shown time and time again to be far more appreciated than not despite arguments to the contrary. Such as with the two examples provided above.

[AxlStream]

Erm... Captain Marvel isn't meeting Marvel's expectations fyi. Also you seem to forget how bad Ghostbuster 2016 bombed. Diversity is fine yes, but forcing it down our throats isn't.

[SendohJin]

Erm... Captain Marvel isn't meeting Marvel's expectations fyi.

Did you know: "Captain Marvel" is the sixth-biggest worldwide film opening since 2002

Top 5 or failure?

[AxlStream]

Compared to financial expectations, it is not reaching it's own goal. It might be doing well as a movie but as a Marvel movie it is disappointing.

[SendohJin]

Compared to financial expectations, it is not reaching it's own goal. It might be doing well as a movie but as a Marvel movie it is disappointing.

2nd biggest Marvel opening of all time is disappointing?

[WaterShield]

Erm... Captain Marvel isn't meeting Marvel's expectations fyi. Also you seem to forget how bad Ghostbuster 2016 bombed. Diversity is fine yes, but forcing it down our throats isn't.

Seconded. Many are tired of the aggressive political agenda being pushed at us in Western media at the moment. It was refreshing to have a place where the dumpster fire hadn't reached yet.