So... that spiderman shirt... (new job tease)

[DBelmont]

But I'd be against a class even if it was gender-locked to males. Gender-locking classes is just a terrible idea in an MMO.

In my opinion, the best way to deal with classes is to give them an involving theme and mechanics and make it adaptable to many character creation options.

If you lock classes to specific races or genders, you simplify the concept in a bad way. One example where FFXIV is successful: Normally, WAR could have been considered Roe male locked. That would make it the generic berserker/barbarian concept of western rpgs. Instead, by making that theme applicable to all genders and races, it becomes a lot more interesting. It could be an unaturally strong Lala or a rockstar-like Hyur or Elezen. It can still be that Roe buff dude though.

In our current instance, making Dancer female only, it would immediately turn into the obscene waifu archetype.

[Vexander]

If you lock classes to specific races or genders, you simplify the concept in a bad way.

Can't agree with this more. I think it was one of World of Warcraft's greater failings. That, and the archaic two-faction system. And the general downward spiral of the lore as the Heads of Development hit Midlife Crisis and turned the story from a compelling and rich novel narrative to comic book super heroes. A lot of other things too, actually.

Either way, FFXIV does it right. I'd be very upset if a class was race/gender locked, without EXCEPTIONAL LORE explaining in thorough detail WHY, and even then, still a terrible idea. Some classes are inherently going to play better than others.