I like how people are using this thread to be toxic when the entire purpose of it, as proven by the title and first post, is to generate support for removing the gender lock. Well done, toxic ffxiv fandom.

Anyway, to the actual subject at hand, there was a lore blurb on the Viera even before ShB dropped. And they gave their reasons for why they didn't release two full races.

1. They have stated that after these, there will be no new races in ffxiv. Likely, the higher ups decided this, which the devs didn't seem to happy about. So they made two entirely new races as placeholders, getting both their foot in the door, as it were.

1.a. Fans demanded Viera, and have been demanding for years. We are the customer, and good business means making customers happy.

1.b. the devs wanted to make a more beastly race. They knew this was their last shot to do so, and they settled on another race that already existed in the franchise, the Ronso.

2. No one has stated outright that there will never be male viera or female hrothgar. My opinion is they simply didn't have time to create the entire concepts of both, and given the reaction of the playerbase to the lack of it, it is more than likely this will change in the future.

3. They have stated no new races, which means whatever new things they add will be related to what is there already. It's even possible that this was a marketing ploy to garner more interest. Nothing like creating conflict and then 'cater to demands' to draw more people in. Imagine all the fantasias they'll sell to people who 'finally get what they want'.

4. Character modeling. Just like with the whole headgear situation with the viera and hrothgar, they'd have to go through thousands of models and modify them for the new genders. Tbh, I'd rather they finish that on the female viera and male hrothgar first. This fact shows they rushed it, so they need to finish development on these before they bring the others out.

In closing, tl;dr, there's many factors why we didn't get male viera and female hrothgar. These are the most likely points, and all will no doubt be corrected in the future. It may be 5.25, it may be 6.0, but if they removed gender lock for male miqo'te and female roegadyn, they can do it again for male viera and female hrothgar.