Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[RyuDragnier]

No one asked for a second cat race. Even those that wanted bestial races wanted something more than a limited race.

But yet people asked for Viera, which has never in its 14 years of existing shown a male. The irony here is intense.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I wouldn’t call it a small ripple. More like a big part in the overall scheme of 1.0 being clarified as bad. So much so that yoshi p himself said he wouldn’t genderlock future races because of it.

Its a pretty small ripple when you actually look at how 1.0 functions.
Gender is not the issue, nor was it a large issue with 1.0

[Yencat]

So much so that yoshi p himself said he wouldn’t genderlock future races because of it.

He never said that, he felt it was important to add them for ARR launch, but he never said they wouldn't gender lock future races again. He literally said if they did Viera they'd do another male only race the same year ARR launched.

I think they should release them at some point but there wasn't any sort of statement that they wouldn't do it again.

[KizuyaKatogami]

He never said that, he felt it was important to add them for ARR launch, but he never said they wouldn't gender lock future races again. He literally said if they did Viera they'd do another male only race the same year ARR launched.

I think they should release them at some point but there wasn't any sort of statement that they wouldn't do it again.

Hard to find the interview with all of the current gender controversy, so i won’t state it as fact but i do remember seeing him mention something alike to it way back when in an interview in regards to the addition of femroe and male miqote. Again, won’t hold it as fact, but as a side note i do find his statements about it kind of weird. He said he found the idea of a male bunny race weird which when we have stuff like giant cat race idk why a male bunny would be weird but xD

[Theodric]

I'm inclined to think it was a risky gamble that failed to pay off. The missing genders were added as part of 2.0 which suggests that they believed it to be a big enough problem to address. It doesn't make much sense to add in the missing genders, later add a full race and then devolve back to single gender playable races.

Of course, we're told that it's a 'compromise' but I don't buy it. For whatever reason, they probably thought that Hrothgar would be much more popular than they actually were - but the game has shown time and time again that conventionally attractive aesthetics are favoured in the vast majority of cases. It still bothers me that they made the female option attractive and the male option ugly - but it is what it is at this point.

Still, I'm inclined to think that the gamble didn't account for the sheer amount of backlash and frustration that arose from both Western and Eastern players.

At any rate, Yoshi-P is a middle aged guy who chooses to play a female lalafell. He's free to do that, though I'm not surprised that he struggles to grasp what those of us who actually play male characters want. He's been pretty quick to shoot down suggestions involving male characters as 'too hard' only to bend over backwards to add things for female characters because he'd use it himself.

The situation is further complicated by the lack of a strong presence from our community representatives. They're supposed to be gathering and sending feedback - and they may very well be doing that - but it's hard to say for sure due to how quiet they are.

[Bright-Flower]

I'm inclined to think it was a risky gamble that failed to pay off. The missing genders were added as part of 2.0 which suggests that they believed it to be a big enough problem to address. It doesn't make much sense to add in the missing genders, later add a full race and then devolve back to single gender playable races.

Of course, we're told that it's a 'compromise' but I don't buy it. For whatever reason, they probably thought that Hrothgar would be much more popular than they actually were - but the game has shown time and time again that conventionally attractive aesthetics are favoured in the vast majority of cases. It still bothers me that they made the female option attractive and the male option ugly - but it is what it is at this point.

Still, I'm inclined to think that the gamble didn't account for the sheer amount of backlash and frustration that arose from both Western and Eastern players.

At any rate, Yoshi-P is a middle aged guy who chooses to play a female lalafell. He's free to do that, though I'm not surprised that he struggles to grasp what those of us who actually play male characters want.

Yeah. Honestly I wish they'd stuck with one race of both genders.

I can see where they're coming, knowing this was probably the last time they'd be able to add a new race, wanting to do a beast race and wanting to do viera for fan demand. But I still feel they should have bit the bullet and picked one.

[Yencat]

Hard to find the interview with all of the current gender controversy, so i won’t state it as fact but i do remember seeing him mention something alike to it way back when in an interview in regards to the addition of femroe and male miqote. Again, won’t hold it as fact, but as a side note i do find his statements about it kind of weird. He said he found the idea of a male bunny race weird which when we have stuff like giant cat race idk why a male bunny would be weird but xD

It's come up several times in this thread, it was more a desire to satisfy player demands than any sort of promise or statement they'd never do it again. It's been a game of telephone for ages with the comment turning into an outright statement of never doing again.

He'd really have to be talking out of both sides of his mouth to promise no more genderlocks for ARR and then go on to talk about male Viera being 'weird' so they'd do something else instead the same year ARR comes out.

But I honestly don't know what he has against them either.

[Lauront]

The ambiguous limbo that the HW concept art left things in also didn't help. Even if they were discarded in favour of Au Ra, it is logical to surmise from those that they at least had a notion of how they'd implement male Viera. Overall, things weren't addressed in a very transparent manner from the outset, but they've at least come clean since then about what is, apparently, the actual rationale and roadblock to their near-future implementation.

[MikkoAkure]

The situation is further complicated by the lack of a strong presence from our community representatives. They're supposed to be gathering and sending feedback - and they may very well be doing that - but it's hard to say for sure due to how quiet they are.

Considering the vitriol spat out towards the devs in this thread and the fact that the first page (depending on your forum settings at least) has someone accusing them of being homophobes, it's no surprise they're avoiding this one. Yoshi P has already said that male viera aren't going to happen based on the current state of the game and development, and that was pre-covid.

If there's no change and no development at all towards this, then what would they have to say? What are you expecting to hear back?

The general feedback from this thread is that we want it. Yoshi P acknowledged it in a blog post and several interviews but they don't really owe us a status update saying the same thing every 3 months.

The ambiguous limbo that the HW concept art left things in also didn't help. Even if they were discarded in favour of Au Ra, it is logical to surmise from those that they at least had a notion of how they'd implement male Viera. Overall, things weren't addressed in a very transparent manner from the outset, but they've at least come clean since then about what is, apparently, the actual rationale and roadblock to their near-future implementation.

What is ambiguous about the HW concept art? The top of the page says: "au ra concepts - the viera". They have already stated that it was based on the forum poll during 1.0(?) asking about new races and viera were an option, among other things. Then it goes on to "au ra concepts - beastly" and it shows the very first art of lupin, who the devs also said were originally an au ra candidate. But until ShB, the viera didn't get passed the concept art stage. Just because they exist in art doesn't mean much. There's art for a lot of things in the art books that never made it into the game. I don't know what part of this is confusing.

[Theodric]

I remember vitriol being spat out towards the development team when the Nier Automata 2B gear bugged out. That didn't stop that particular issue from being addressed.

Personally I've never been one to let a vocal minority ruin things for everybody else. If we're talking about the thread's history, there's certainly been arguments and silly comments thrown around - but many of the regular posters are on record telling those individuals to stop resorting to such claims.

Furthermore, it doesn't really make much sense for the community representatives to avoid this thread or the forum as a whole when it is still much more civil and less dramatic than their usual haunt - Twitter. A place which makes the vitriol spewed here on rare occasions look like a gentle breeze by comparison to the daily maelstrom of chaos over there.