Gender Locks Have Revealed the Worst in Players.

[Alucard135]

Making new races at this point in the game was a waste of resources to begin with. SE made the choice to do so, so you can't blame people for wanting the new races to have both genders. We were originally going to have 1 new race with both male and female options, but due to fan demand they changed course and canceled the Hrothgar females to make Viera instead. If they take fan demand seriously enough to do something like that, they should take it seriously enough to remove the genderlocks too.

Exactly that, they were doing it for the fans to please as many as they could when they had the resources. But instead of being considerate of that, some vocal minority decided to call them sexist/homophobes and threaten to unsub even after the dev team explained why they did that (honestly it will serve the community well if these types are gone). And now we have things like this because of them https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/...ia-and-sexism/

Good way to show support to the dev team that tried to listen to the playerbase demand.

[reivaxe]

I like the lore-based implications of different races and gender-locked characters in terms of lore. I would rather have lore of how these races continue to exist amid having only one gender, and how it’s effected their culture in game, rather than having every race be inclusive and mirror gender dynamics in the real world.

I think people are extremely quick to label and enrage because there are no dude bunnies, but what if the Viera are essentially Lesbians, and Hrothgar are gay? We don’t have these lore details yet, but you have men and woman rushing anger and judging on what little information we do have.

I get that inclusion is important to people, but I have to say - I’m far more interested in the story being told than fighting to make every story mirror a reality I play games to escape from.

I really like the concept of different and unique ways for cultures to work around reproduction.

Like the plant people in GW2, they come from a mother tree, don\\'t have the ability to reproduce and are basically all pansexual.

HROTHGAR could legit produce only males and reproduce through sex with other races females for all we know. Like the race in LoZ.

[Lacan]

Exactly that, they were doing it for the fans to please as many as they could when they had the resources. But instead of being considerate of that, some vocal minority decided to call them sexist/homophobes and threaten to unsub even after the dev team explained why they did that (honestly it will serve the community well if these types are gone). And now we have things like this because of them https://boundingintocomics.com/2019/...ia-and-sexism/

Good way to show support to the dev team that tried to listen to the playerbase demand.

I don't know if I'd give them that much credit with this decision though. I get that it was well-intentioned on their part, trying to give the most people what they want, but at the same time the dev team should have been well aware of the fact the community doesn't want anything to do with genderlocks. We literally went through this exact same situation with 1.0 and one of Yoshi's first real big achievements with ARR was undoing the genderlocks. So now we're supposed to applaud him for doing the same thing we applauded him for reversing originally?

I remember the excitement people had when they showed us the first male miqote character models back when ARR was in development. It was a huge, huge deal. Now... 6 years later we're supposed to grateful they're genderlocking the new races?



See? Look how proud he was. How things have changed...

[Alucard135]

snip

I'm sure they anticipated that the backlash was coming. But if the backlash was not large enough and there was not enough demand, then they would keep them gender-locked. They said before this would be the last time they will add a new race. So giving the players Viera as they wanted (we all know female Viera was the most wanted) and male Hrothgar would satisfy a lot of players' demand. If they were to choose one race only, then those that wanted the other would be left out and their hope of getting their race would be forever gone. In fact, now due to this gender-lock, there is hope of getting the other genders and they will have to do it given enough demand. If they only gave us one race, then no matter how high the demand, they wouldn't bother doing it and will repeat the same excuse "we said that was the last time we'll add a new race. The process is time consuming etc".

What wasn't anticipated though, was the ridiculous accusations that were thrown at them from the minority here and how they blew it out of proportions. Even Matsuno, who had nothing to do in this matter, wasn't spared their tantrum (What's funny is that OP was insulting Matsuno on another thread because he thought Matsuno didn't want male Viera in the game). The problem with this kind of behavior is that it can easily overshadow legit feedbacks and responses, which is one of the reasons why they mostly listen to JP rather than us.

[reivaxe]

I don't know if I'd give them that much credit with this decision though. I get that it was well-intentioned on their part, trying to give the most people what they want, but at the same time the dev team should have been well aware of the fact the community doesn't want anything to do with genderlocks. We literally went through this exact same situation with 1.0 and one of Yoshi's first real big achievements with ARR was undoing the genderlocks. So now we're supposed to applaud him for doing the same thing we applauded him for reversing originally?

I remember the excitement people had when they showed us the first male miqote character models back when ARR was in development. It was a huge, huge deal. Now... 6 years later we're supposed to grateful they're genderlocking the new races?



See? Look how proud he was. How things have changed...

The team was clearly aware of the reaction they were gonna get. But they were also aware of a lot more things...

Like how people HAVE been asking for a beast race. How the HROTHGAR fill a void in the race/ body type line up and how both the devs and the community wanted something less human. They legit enhance the players possible choices in a whole new way and are dearly needed.

But they were also aware of the crazy amount of demand the Viera had going for them. They felt like they HAD to do it to please the fandom because ... this is it. They only saw themselves being able to make and support 1 more race with the way they work and still be able to crank out content and goodies at the rate they are now.

So they made the best choice for both types of fans cause otherwise we'd have this forum full of people whining about no Viera at all and we'd simply never get viera moving forward.

Like he said, the game 6 years ago was much smaller than it is today and their worries then are much different today.

*I can't tell anything from your picture lol

[Imuka]

I really like the concept of different and unique ways for cultures to work around reproduction.

Like the plant people in GW2, they come from a mother tree, don\\'t have the ability to reproduce and are basically all pansexual.

HROTHGAR could legit produce only males and reproduce through sex with other races females for all we know. Like the race in LoZ.

I really like such Ideas. It created the feeling, that they creators did not just drop the second Gender and make another "Males/Females stay home and hides" Story.

This is how Warhammer 40k Orks reproduce and I like this, because it does not feel like female Orks are missing.
Orks release spores that gestate in the soil and emerge as Orks when they mature. They also release spores that become Gretchen, Snotlings, Squigs and mushrooms (these in turn can release spores that become Orks). Although Orks (and other Orkoid subspecies) release spore passively throughout their lives, they release a huge amount when they are killed.
This makes it basicly impossible to really get rid of them.

[Cilia]

On the one hand, I agree that gender locks are not a good thing. On the other, I understand why they did what they did, respect the temerity it took to do such a thing in this day and age, and appreciate the diversity adding two races offers - even if it is gender limited. (Since when was diversity unenviable?)

A lot of what I've seen out of the community is cries of sexism and homophobia, particularly over the male Viera... which makes no sense at all. There are characters of all races and ages performing a massive array of roles - hell, women make up a majority of the setting's political leaders, all of them top-tier badasses. There is also no limit on race or sex when it comes to weddings, so... how... can the developers be homophobic?

At the end of the day, what led to this is a pretty simple issue of creative vision vs. fan demand. The developers wanted to put in Hrothgar first and foremost, but knew there would be backdraft if they didn't put Viera in. As this was the last time they intended to introduce new races, they had to make a compromise, and since people wanted Viera to be similar (if not identical) to their XII incarnations and they had no frame of reference for the males and didn't want to disappoint anyone, gave up on male Viera to put in the Hrothgar males (which consequently locked out female Hrothgar). The developers sacrificed part of their creative vision for the sake of fanservice.

The work to put in a new race is massive and only increases as the game runs on. That's why they might not introduce more races after this point, so it was a "now or never" moment. Whether they should or shouldn't have is kind of a moot point.

While there is legitimate grievance to be had with Yoshi-P reneging on his promise not to gender lock future races (though I'd like a reference for that promise verbatim), a lot of the vitriol being spewed shows a massive lack of understanding, respect, and appreciation for the hard work the developers put in to bring us this wonderful game and world. The cries of homophobia and sexism are, in my opinion, nothing more than entitlement and self-centeredness masked behind outrage.

The worst part is that I'm not at all surprised people reacted the way they did... but still gravely disappointed. /sigh

There are limits to what the developers can do...

[Lacan]

The team was clearly aware of the reaction they were gonna get. But they were also aware of a lot more things...

Like how people HAVE been asking for a beast race. How the HROTHGAR fill a void in the race/ body type line up and how both the devs and the community wanted something less human. They legit enhance the players possible choices in a whole new way and are dearly needed.

But they were also aware of the crazy amount of demand the Viera had going for them. They felt like they HAD to do it to please the fandom because ... this is it. They only saw themselves being able to make and support 1 more race with the way they work and still be able to crank out content and goodies at the rate they are now.

So they made the best choice for both types of fans cause otherwise we'd have this forum full of people whining about no Viera at all and we'd simply never get viera moving forward.

Like he said, the game 6 years ago was much smaller than it is today and their worries then are much different today.

*I can't tell anything from your picture lol

Wouldn't you say that backfired on them though? Now they've got two different races people are asking for instead of just one.

[LaylaTsarra]

Wouldn't you say that backfired on them though? Now they've got two different races people are asking for instead of just one.

I'm not sure it's backfired. Whether or not they'll do the other genders remains to be seen but there are certainly a lot of people who are happy with their decision. I'm personally very happy with the choices given their resources and financial restraints. We'll have to wait and see if they decide to create the other two missing genders. I suspect we'll get an official response to the issue soon. If they do that's fine it'll further enrich the community.

[Ilan]

The only thing that interests me with all these threads is one thing: Why the freaking hell do we have to drag shit like beeing sexist or homophobic into a fantasy game, which plays in a fantasy world, with fantasy races? Keep these things in the real world where the real issues happen and don't bring it into a game just because the developers did somethin you didn't like and before you claim something is sexist or homophobic...go and learn what these two words mean before you throw around with them.

What i find very interesting, like others here already mentioned, is that there is a huge outrage over male viera but almost nothing about the other race and the fact that there won't be another healer. I honestly thought the com would be more vocal about the fact that there is no new healer class, guess i was wrong and people rather stand around the whole time and look at their character.