Needs to be asked.....on Male Viera

[WhiteArchmage]

From what I have seen it looks to fall into the spectrum of double standards and feeling under represented. Many LGBT ( not all ) people feel like the exclusion of male viera was an attack on a more fem male model or at the very least the fact that girls are allowed to be sexy but boys have to be a burly and manly. Along with comments about male bunnies being "weird" in a interview, the dev team feeling uncomfortable making the gold saucer bunny outfit for men and using "lore" as an excuse at fan fest but then immediately admitting it had more to do with time and variety. It helped push those feelings of being mislead and not valued as a demographic along. I am not going to quit but I can see why they may feel that way but Yoshi has stated the reasons and I truly believe he wanted to make everyone happy.

This right here. During those first few moments during the presentation, we had no idea what was going on. When Yoshi-P said "If you paid attention to the Lore..." which made it seem like they were using the Lore excuse for the gender-lock, and the only thing we had to go by back then was his comment that Viera men might be "weird"... about a year before they actually revealed the male Viera artwork, leading us to think they actually gave it some thought (A very Au Ra-esque build, as well). Fast-forward and suddenly all we have to go on is that women are tall, slim and beautiful, while men are rough and bestial... because tall, slim men are "weird". This angered a lot of people who felt like it was an attack on their own appearance or tastes (I showed a friend of mine all the race and clan renders, she was most put off by the Hyur as the men were very different from each other but the women were, and I quote "It just looks like she has bigger boobs").

It was until next day that it came out that, no, lore was not the reason, but it was already too late: some detractors latched into the "lore-wise they're too rare!" that's still thrown around every so often; and supporters were salty that the lore excuse was still kind of weak. When mentioned that it was HROTHGAR that was actually considered as the full race of the expansion... well, some (myself included) preferred a full race even if it wasn't the one we wanted, rather than deal with the "Beastman/pretty woman" trope. We were more willing to agree with them that they were trying to please as many people as possible, even if it meant displeasing others (male viera supporters and bestial female supporters).

And even then, a few posters who said they were going to quit (either as the final straw or not) are already not posting so they really can't talk for themselves now (my sub still has about 3 months, you're stuck with me for a while ;D), for those that it was the last straw, it came after another "rebalancing" of the healers (I know people still like WHM but I found it really uninspired in SB, to the point that their skill showcase featured Rescue: A ROLE skill all 3 healers can use), the "limited job" controversy, doubling down on Eureka for 5.0... you name it.

Personally, I'm put off by the absence of bun bros and lion ladies (and other things like the doubling down of Eureka-type content), will take a break during x-pac launch (I will buy it later because DNC has me hyped, but don't want to contribute to initial sales numbers), but, at the end of the day, NOW I can recognize that the dev team IS trying to please everyone but can't for a number of issues (manpower and budget seem to be the main ones), but I can still disagree with their choices respectfully and keep pushing for the ones I want.