Gender locked race?

[Lihtleita]

They absolutely set it up so that people who would be angry about the genderlocks wouldn't be able to cancel their preorders.

either this or they were buying time in the hopes that somehow they could cobble something together

[Taybat]

Honestly it is kinda sad to see gender locked races after 2.0 and everything. 14 has it's own world and it's own lore. There is no excuse

[Eoko]

The other night I had thought, basically to smack lore in the face. Or maybe it's to smack people in the face with lore. I can't decide. In FFXIV we play _the_ Warrior or Light. As much as we know we play with thousands of other "Warriors of Light", the canon lore of the story in FFXIV is we are the one and only WoL. Even with other people that have the Echo, they aren't us. We are the be all and end all. When we do collect "other adventurers" that is how the canon of the story treats them, adventurers. We know that the FFXI, FFXV, Yokai Watch, and other various cross over events are not canon to the actual story of FFXIV. Shantoto doesn't exist on another shard in canon FFXIV lore. It's fanservice pandering and fun. Having a Cloud bike or the Regalia isn't game lore. It's bloody well crack for our amusement. Ivalice does cross this line however, making our own version of the places and people. Now, I'm not even saying to mess with the lore already given (as others have said, Miqo'te). What I'm saying is... what is canon?

If every other player on the game is not the Warrior of Light in the canon story, despite what we know as players... why would any other bunny boy be canon either? Why not only have the single playable character you are playing be just as much the "only canon bunny boy" as being the "only canon Warrior of Light"? Now, I know that wouldn't actually work for people because they still freak out because "I made Fenris sleep with a male Hawke (le GASP) and how dare a random stranger's personal choice in their personal game play be anything other that what I desire the world at large to be". However, it makes as much logical sense to how the story and game canon work. Maybe that's why it's not actually weird to have any single race or gender running around the world. Because in the canon of our world, they aren't. You are. The WoL is. It doesn't matter if he's the one rare Duskwight, or some abandoned Keeper of the Moon. Because it's just that one oddity. Yes, we collect "adventurers" for raids, for dungeons, for 24-mans. But so much of that is either in contradiction to the facts we know (they are all also WoL in their own game), or is a literal lie and the canon is we are doing it by ourselves. So, there's another argument for, or against?, lore reasons. Canon. If canon can say the person playing the game is the only existing WoL, theeeen canon can also say that said WoL is the only oddball race/gender running around. NPCs mark the canonical state of the world and the rest of it is just random, non-canonical, multiplayer based fun.

[Insertcoins]

I'm just going to say the reason we have the locks or whatever you're going to call them is because the Lion bros were posed to be the last race. NOT the bunnies. But since Veira are asked about too they had to cut cost and time to add them, and ofcourse they were going to add the Female ones cause thats easy and already shown in various games. I just wanted to point out that if they didn't do that we wouldn't have them and only have buff male cats and super model cat females. They was going to lose no matter what they did, I think this was the best choice honestly cause yeah.

[Angelov-Mercy]

Honestly it is kinda sad to see gender locked races after 2.0 and everything. 14 has it's own world and it's own lore. There is no excuse

I think it was a good idea. There is no excuse for the way a number of certain players have been acting though! That's what has been making me sad....

[Eoko]

I'm just going to say the reason we have the locks or whatever you're going to call them is because the Lion bros were posed to be the last race.

I do want to clarify that Yoshi P said, in interview at Tokyo Fanfest that it was always "may be the last" races. I agree that Hrothgar were the intended race, and Viera were the fanforced fanservice ones. They figured that if this was the last race they were going to do, they had to do the Viera as well. Everything else comes done to resources and time. And I don't blame them at all for cutting things down to two models. However, it would have caused much less drama to release the Viera in 2 races as the expected and fan-demanded race, and sit on the Hrothgar until they decided if they were going to add another race or not. It would have been the same amount of work to release a single race with both genders, as it was to release two genderlocked races, and this decision, while trying to satisfy both parties ended up having people lose their minds.

And I agree, some people are losing their minds over it. It's not effective, or useful to the problem. Losing ones temper does nothing more that convey that one is angry. Which, okay. But no one is going to pay head to that sort of anger, or people throwing around horrible names and calling Yoshi P things he absolutely isn't. It's very clear what he wanted to do was make as many people happy as he could. He felt he had to give people Viera. He felt he had to give people a bestial race. He did not have the resources to model, in his words, "tens of thousands" of armors. He made a tough decision to release the female Viera, which may have been a bit easier with a likely plan to have Fran in the Ivalice story anyway, and the intended male Hrothgar.

Yes, I disagree with Yoshi P on the decision he made. I would have put the Hrothgar on the back burner because... leather and lace wearing rabbit people is a draw, a demand from players that pressured the team to decide to release them. And the sheer work load of adding the other two genders is nothing, nothing to sneer at. I know Yoshi P rarely likes to put his foot down. They like to throw out "maybe"s and "can't say for sure at this time"s. He doesn't want to say no to the other genders right now because he needs to see where his resources are, see how things go with these releases, and see what tools are available for making the other two genders a reality.

[Eoko]

As I mentioned in the Hrothgal thread, the easiest solution for male Viera, based on the old concept art, is using male Au'ra models. Gear would transfer seemlessly for the majority of the armor with only potential work needing to be done on helms and feet. (And throwing on tail guards?) Overall, a lot easier than a full new model. (Faces would obviously be new).

Hrothgal have the easiest, and most likely result of using fem!Roe bodies with new heads. Not only are the Hrothgar clearly using the Roe bodies already (with possibly slight alterations), but the female Ronso in FFX already look a lot like the fem!Roe. In this case, all armor except some helms would work without needing to be adjusted at all.

Yes, it's a bit boring to reuse models, but... it's not new. Garleans are Elezen with Hyur faces. Hrothgar are Roegadyn. I swear Viera are mainly Elezen legs with broken ankles and Hyur bodies. Using these models would allow for conversion of armor much, much more easily. The ideal utopia of it might be brand new models for both male Viera and Hrothgals. But if that doesn't happen, there are avenues that FFXIV can take that would accomplish the desire for each gender without destroying their resources in the process.

I do not want them to sacrifice their vision or time in Shadow Bringers to bring us the "missing" genders. All I can do is hope that they have the resources over the next two years to make it a possibility.

There is also a much less appealing option of severely limiting the initial release gear. By that I mean they would generally focus first on Job Specific, "Glamour" (aka, the level 1 stuff", and Raid specific/24-man. The new genders would release with a "progression set" that is dyable, but not umpteen levels of basic leveling gear that you throw on and toss every other level. And yes, I fully realize many leveling pieces and such are used in glamour. The point is, it's another option to release sooner and update when the resources allow for it. Hell, make Hall of the Notice dyable and use that.

It's something I've seen voted on and used on a browser based game when it came to items and new breeds. At the end of the day, people would rather have the new breed (/gender), than have every piece of gear under the sun right at release. As items were re-released/recolored, or were redone completely, they slowly became part of that new breed's available items. And sure, not all the items on that game so intricately fit a character model like in FFXIV. But a severely limited gear collection (visually, you could still equip all the gear as normal) could be a potential way to get a new gender out faster as well, giving a lot more time to slowly work on the more basic gear as time allowed.

[Insertcoins]

I do want to clarify that Yoshi P said, in interview at Tokyo Fanfest that it was always "may be the last" races. I agree that Hrothgar were the intended race, and Viera were the fanforced fanservice ones. They figured that if this was the last race they were going to do, they had to do the Viera as well. Everything else comes done to resources and time. And I don't blame them at all for cutting things down to two models. However, it would have caused much less drama to release the Viera in 2 races as the expected and fan-demanded race, and sit on the Hrothgar until they decided if they were going to add another race or not. It would have been the same amount of work to release a single race with both genders, as it was to release two genderlocked races, and this decision, while trying to satisfy both parties ended up having people lose their minds.

And I agree, some people are losing their minds over it. It's not effective, or useful to the problem. Losing ones temper does nothing more that convey that one is angry. Which, okay. But no one is going to pay head to that sort of anger, or people throwing around horrible names and calling Yoshi P things he absolutely isn't. It's very clear what he wanted to do was make as many people happy as he could. He felt he had to give people Viera. He felt he had to give people a bestial race. He did not have the resources to model, in his words, "tens of thousands" of armors. He made a tough decision to release the female Viera, which may have been a bit easier with a likely plan to have Fran in the Ivalice story anyway, and the intended male Hrothgar.

Yes, I disagree with Yoshi P on the decision he made. I would have put the Hrothgar on the back burner because... leather and lace wearing rabbit people is a draw, a demand from players that pressured the team to decide to release them. And the sheer work load of adding the other two genders is nothing, nothing to sneer at. I know Yoshi P rarely likes to put his foot down. They like to throw out "maybe"s and "can't say for sure at this time"s. He doesn't want to say no to the other genders right now because he needs to see where his resources are, see how things go with these releases, and see what tools are available for making the other two genders a reality.

THe only problem with that is the fact that we don't know how far back this choice was made. I bet Viera wasn't even an option until AFTER they were making the Hrthgars and they choose to add the female vieras in. Which meant holding them off wasn't an option to begin with. And to be fair I wish they just made the beast race first and THEN added viera later cause we don't have playable beast races. People wanted something different right? That'll been the best way to go. imho.

[Fland]

The issue is with the Ivalice 24-man, when they decided to add Fran as NPC.
If they decided to add just Hrothgar first (both genders), but we also get a Viera NPC without being able to play as one, people will rage as well.

[Eoko]

The issue is with the Ivalice 24-man, when they decided to add Fran as NPC.
If they decided to add just Hrothgar first (both genders), but we also get a Viera NPC without being able to play as one, people will rage as well.

This is exactly right. We may not know the timeline, but Yoshi P did say that if this might be the last race they had to do Viera now. He made a point of that in the interview. So he knew they had to add Viera, and they put Fran in the 24-man. And once Fran was in the 24-man they already had the model for her. Either they were going to do Viera, so they added Fran. Or they added Fran, so they were going to do Viera.

If Viera are Hyur tops and Elezen legs, Hyur female gear fits them on the top and hands, and Elezen female gear fits them on the legs. Boots would have to be messed with, and head hear, and tailguards.... But overall the two are synonymous. You do not have one without the other. Otherwise, riots. And, let's be fair. They decided to put Fran in because they had decided to release Viera with Fran as the teaser. So before she was released in that content, they had made the decision. The second Ivalice was announced as the 24-man people were demanding Viera. Even if the concept for Hrothgar had been an idea before that, they knew people wanted Viera before Au'ra came out. It's been a long, long time where the Viera race has been desired and they were making content that tied directly to them. For them to have decided to genderlock Hrothgar, either they had to have made the decision as far back as when they were designing the 24-man story, or they have a female Hrothgar model (since it was the planned race) and the only thing holding them back is the literal tens of thousands of armor pieces.

If it's the latter, the difficulty is in whether they did the same with the males and used the Roe base, or if it's a unique model. A unique model would be much, much, much more work. Also for the Viera male. The model may well exist too. Dressing that model is where everything goes to explosion inducing crunch panic. Chances are they made the decision to release both at least 2-3 years ago. And yes, I completely believe it could take that long to get the gear all working on them. Especially if the feet on the Viera are all very clearly edited, as they do look to be with present visuals.

As soon as they decided on Ivalice, they were locked into Viera, regardless of what their other plans were. They made the decision to do both for 5.0. And things exploded. Not releasing Viera would have probably exploded just as much, if not more. Not releasing Hrothgar would likely not have even been noticed at large, and only the people wanting a bestial race would once again be disappointed, by something that we clearly had no expectation for and thus, the disappointment would have been quieter.