Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[VirusOnline]

As ridiculous as this might sound the one thing that outright killed my interest in playing FFXI years ago was the fact that male Mithra were not available. It would have been the same with FFXIV since I noticed they "reused" the races here until I learned that Miqo'te had playable male counterparts. I have no idea what I was missing out on with FFXI, but I don't play female characters and none of the other races really interested me so I didn't touch it. Character customization can be a huge make or break component in games for me.

This isn't a ridiculous notion at all. This is an mmorpg. 'RPG'. I mean think D&D and such tabletop games from where this all originates from. We create these complex characters in all stats, story, background, race, gender, how they look. We customized characters from every single aspect and some go down to every single nuance. In such games, we can become that rare elusive race. The GM doesn't say 'no, impossible', SE here being the GM that does. As testament to this thread, many hundred or the hundreds of thousands playing mmo and rpgs will agree that customization and gameplay often go hand in hand.

I also exclusively play male characters only. I was ecstatic when I found this game in HW and found no gender restrictions.

SE sorta jumped off the narrative here and sailing straight into hmmmm territory.

[Iscah]

This isn't a ridiculous notion at all. This is an mmorpg. 'RPG'. I mean think D&D and such tabletop games from where this all originates from. We create these complex characters in all stats, story, background, race, gender, how they look. We customized characters from every single aspect and some go down to every single nuance. In such games, we can become that rare elusive race. The GM doesn't say 'no, impossible', SE here being the GM that does.

That's not a fair comparison to make.

Your D&D GM doesn't say "no" to your wild ideas for character customisation because they have no reason to do so. The process is restricted - and the character defined - only by your imagination.

This game is starting from an entirely different point. Each basic character has to be pre-conceived and modelled by the programmers before you can play as it. There will always be restrictions whether male Viera is within them or not - you can't just dream up any character idea and expect to be able to play as it.

It's more like if your GM had a box of pre-made figurines and said you could only play as a character based on them.

[VirusOnline]

That's not a fair comparison to make.

Your D&D GM doesn't say "no" to your wild ideas for character customisation because they have no reason to do so. The process is restricted - and the character defined - only by your imagination.

This game is starting from an entirely different point. Each basic character has to be pre-conceived and modelled by the programmers before you can play as it. There will always be restrictions whether male Viera is within them or not - you can't just dream up any character idea and expect to be able to play as it.

It's more like if your GM had a box of pre-made figurines and said you could only play as a character based on them.

Sure you can say it's starting for a different point, but the concept remains the same.
SE starts from here where races are not locked to gender (they made a point to unlock genders and continue it with AuRa). They added AuRa with counterparts as well. Can we not assume that they will keep with the status quo ? Or is the GM to throw us a curve ball ?

Start where you want. Only requirement is be consistent or your playerbase will start to press x.

[zeylos]

Sure you can say it's starting for a different point, but the concept remains the same.
SE starts from here where races are not locked to gender (they made a point to unlock genders and continue it with AuRa). They added AuRa with counterparts as well. Can we not assume that they will keep with the status quo ? Or is the GM to throw us a curve ball ?

Start where you want. Only requirement is be consistent or your playerbase will start to press x.

The devs didnt say anything though. They never said male viera but they also didnt even hint we werent getting them (if anything, it was the other way arround) so this was just not done. Lying can also be done by avoiding to put some information out

[Iscah]

Sure you can say it's starting for a different point, but the concept remains the same.
SE starts from here where races are not locked to gender (they made a point to unlock genders and continue it with AuRa). They added AuRa with counterparts as well. Can we not assume that they will keep with the status quo ? Or is the GM to throw us a curve ball ?

Start where you want. Only requirement is be consistent or your playerbase will start to press x.

Your GM apologised - they could only afford to buy two more character figurines, and they figured more of the group would like to use the female Viera than the matching Hrothgar.

The consistency (if we can extrapolate consistency from two instances) is that every second expansion has introduced one new male and female character design. It might be different if another male-and-female race was released alongside Au Ra, and they announced two races here and only later admitted to it being a "split race" with a total of two new designs instead of four.

They handled the announcement poorly. They should have communicated better. There are reasons why they 'should' be added (and apparently reasons why they can't). But it's still not the same as arguing male Viera should have been included "because we'd be free to create them in D&D where we can invent any character concept we like" - the logic doesn't hold. It's a moveable goalpost. If they introduced male Viera and female Hrothgar tomorrow, you could say "why can't I play as a Lupin? Or an escaped Allagan experiment? My D&D GM would let me do that."

The game will never be able to give you the freedom of creating whatever character you want, so it's not a good argument for why male Viera should be available - regardless of whether they should be or not.

[VirusOnline]

Your GM apologised - they could only afford to buy two more character figurines, and they figured more of the group would like to use the female Viera than the matching Hrothgar.

The consistency (if we can extrapolate consistency from two instances) is that every second expansion has introduced one new male and female character design. It might be different if another male-and-female race was released alongside Au Ra, and they announced two races here and only later admitted to it being a "split race" with a total of two new designs instead of four.

They handled the announcement poorly. They should have communicated better. There are reasons why they 'should' be added (and apparently reasons why they can't). But it's still not the same as arguing male Viera should have been included "because we'd be free to create them in D&D where we can invent any character concept we like" - the logic doesn't hold. It's a moveable goalpost. If they introduced male Viera and female Hrothgar tomorrow, you could say "why can't I play as a Lupin? Or an escaped Allagan experiment? My D&D GM would let me do that."

The game will never be able to give you the freedom of creating whatever character you want, so it's not a good argument for why male Viera should be available - regardless of whether they should be or not.

Therein lies the problem that the GM indeed figured more of the group would prefer Viera. And they aren't wrong, and nothing is wrong with this calculation.

I think you might be taking my comparison a bit too literal. The context is followed from the person I responded to originally, more in relation of how character customization is incredibly important to us, perhaps a bit more so to those who enjoy playing an exclusive gender. But I don't mind explaining my thought process. In a known universe, where players are given as you say a static set of personnes to play, this is fine. We know our world, both its limits and its openness, and we begin to form inferences on future expansion of said world from thereon. We are only talking about the current state of races available to play in our known world, not the hypothetical of "when Lupin", but instead "we have viera, why not male ?". My comparison is more in relation to the context of lore and available genders, the two factors being manipulated here. Manipulated for the sake of an excuse essentially. In a tabletop, the excuse of a race being unavailable because said tags rare and elusive is like deleting an entire stack of hq robe lettuce salad. Yet the several WoL Miqo'te Male (btw I am the true WoL ;P) are lounging about in Limsa.

For those of us who play exclusively one gender, it can be extremely underwhelming and disheartening. Character customisation matters to people if the threads in general are anything to show for.