Gender locked race?

[SendohJin]

One of the main issues is their method of revealing the two races. They lead people on, believing Male Viera were coming, since the reveal was shortly after 4.5 launched. Many people presumed that the Male models just weren't complete, which makes sense since Fran was needed for the raid. But why not just release a new race in 5.0 and 6.0 then.

people presuming is not people being lead on.

there are no more new races, they are not making more character models.

[Alacran]

I used this in another thread, Though i feel it fits here as well.

Damning that they waited to get back home to break the news. Made damn sure to be safe among more level headed individuals that wouldn't outright boo'd them while on stage. If Blizzcon has taught us anything, it's that trying to sell tone def, condescending, half baked, excuses, wouldn't be quietly tolerated in an american convention setting. Their cowardliness would have been exposed, their stances challenged.

I personally feel insulted by the low level graphic display the Hrothgar/ Ronso have atm... Their face looks like a rubber mask, unable to make even the most basic level facial animations... Couple this with their horrible postures and body animations... Such sloppy and obviously rushed sub par work is disgraceful. I'm used to more polish from FF series games, this looks atrocious.

I'm sure some out there will find value to them. However, atm when compared to even current player character models they look ridiculously sub par, to say nothing of their comparison against Veira models. I not only impatiently await not only both races losing the ludicrous gender locks but also the graphic fidelity raised for Hrothgar/ Roso.

To be completely honest, when i first saw Hrothgar i was repulsed. In my opinion they bring the overall presentation of the game down. How am i supposed to take seriously MSQ plot points if they should make one of those grocery store Halloween mask rejects, espouse story line or exposition? I hated Lupin for this exact reason, they made me hate the Othard points of Stormblood all the more (apart from the obvious evisceration and subsequent back burner treatment Gyr Abania was relegated to).

However, i understand that is my issue, this game is not made solely for me, and others have wanted bestial races for a long time. Regardless of my own feelings on the matter, at least SE did listen to some of their fans on that account. I will not however concede to the gender locking issue. While i never want to see the furry abominations myself, others may want to make their own female Hrothgar/ Ronso, there definitely those that want their male Viera as well. As has been said multiple times, SE has no defense in not having them included in the game. Not through Lore, not through the excuse of development time/ resources, nor the false narrative of lack of player demand. They intentionally made this hassle for themselves, to themselves. Let them fix this mess of their own making.

[Allegor]

Ok, at least male Viera had an excuse, what about female Hrothgar? unless I missed something, I don't think anything's been given out about why Hrothgars are male only, aside from being a decoy for Viera's absence.

[seros]

The fact that people are trying to tell others how to feel and then saying they're bitchy and annoying. Take a good look in the mirror.

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Just popping in to add my voice to the "Disappointed in Genderlocks"-Camp.
Don't get me wrong, even though I have thrown in my support for the addition of Viera in the past, I was never under the illusion that the male Viera we were going to get would be perfectly to my liking. That said, I definitely expected them to add the males together with the females.
And while I was never expecting them to add a more beastly race race due to early game lore, I'm happy for those that got them. But that makes it all the more baffling, especially since SE decided to play the diversity card at fanfest only to lock it to one gender.

In short, its not the races that bother me, we have plenty of options, its really exclusively the genderlocks. I've said this before in this thread, but its principle: I don't like it when Devs add new aesthetics, but make them available to only part of the playerbase that would want them.
There have been plenty of people asking for male Viera; and those people didn't get them.
There have been plenty of people asking for more beastly race option; and not all of those people want to play male characters.
I just personally think that when new options are added, they should be available to everyone regardless of gender.

Now, I'm fully aware that resource restrictions are a thing, and that in order to make additions like multiple new races concessions have to be made.
But I also do hope that SE acknowledges that this decicion has left a lot of people disappointed and chooses to add the missing genders later.
Until then, I might leave (nothing in the Keynote made me particularly excited about buying the expansion so I might just sit this one out at least until I can get it for cheap),
or I might not, really all depends on wether or not there are positive surprises left.

[Jaywalker]

Chiming in again because while I'm disappointed we don't have both races fully for the Shadowbringers release, someone else articulated what they think is going on and going to happen better than I could and I'd like to share.

Source is here, but quoting:

"I don’t think we have the whole story of what’s going on with the new races. I have some speculations, that others who are either familiar with Square Enix’ C-level in general or who have worked in the industry at some point all sort of are feeling the same vibe.

My speculation is that originally, they were looking to do Viera for whatever expansion landed after Return to Ivalice, which has turned out to be 5.0 (it’s possible they’ve known for ages the exact order of things, but the 10-year plan was never considered set in stone 100%).

They likely started into Viera, only to suddenly have an order from the C-level to nix the male Viera. There’s a couple of things that could have caused that. One is that the RoI team may have pressed to keep Viera more in line with their original lore ideas, leaving them suddenly hanging for a male counterpart. Another may be that the C-level interjected directly, and ordered Ronso for the expansion, based off some crazy statistics they feel are representative of the FF fandom’s desires. The C-level might have done something even more drastic, hard-lining that there will be no more new races after 5.0′s set of content, which forced them to do whichever races they wanted all at once - and likely suddenly. Creating just one race between expansions is tough, but having to create two full races in that time, without an injection of funding, is pretty difficult, if not impossible.

Both model sets aren’t complete, the Hrothgar more so than the Viera. There’s work that needs to be done in the next 3 months to make them a wholly viable race set, especially since it was announced they’d have a lot more customisation (I have other thoughts on that I’ll save for later).

Yoshida-san was the driving force behind making the gender-locked 1.0 races not so for 2.0 and has stated several times that he never liked the idea of the gender locked races. People who pay attention to him and his methods agree that this isn’t along the lines of what he’s been pushing for the game. While he has done things to be contrarian before, nothing has ever really gone against his baseline opinions about the game and its direction.

I’m hoping that this speculation is the case, that Yoshi-P and the rest of the development team were thrown a curve ball, and are doing what they can to deal with it. Were such the case, and I in Yoshida’s shoes, I would do something similar to this (begrudgingly) and then use all the backlash it generates to force the C-level’s hands on the matter - which was quite similar to what he did as they moved from 1.0 to 2.0 six or so years ago. And I suspect the backlash now is going to be greater than anything we ever generated in 1.0 over the Roegadyn and Miqo’te. I would also point out that adding the opposite genders is not the same as adding a new race, were the C-level to get uppity about how the set we’re getting for 5.0 was meant to be the last new races - the races, at that point, would be in the game, so they wouldn’t be new races, technically (and in this industry, if you have to use a technicality, fucking use it).

While this wasn’t what people wanted to hear, I think people shouldn’t lose hope just yet. It’s very possible that the backlash can be brought to bear properly by Yoshi-P, and we could see the additions sometime in the mid to late cycle for 5.0 or possibly even as part of 6.0 - though I would think the aim would be for somewhere in the 5.x patches themselves."

This isn't a very patient fandom, and I know there are contrarians who will be feeling smug about people not getting something they were excited for. But I think this is going to be like 1.0 Miqo'te and Roegadyns where they unlock later.

Also, as someone who was not enthusiastic about a more beastlike/feline race--at the very least I want to say I'm glad the people who were hoping for a more beastlike race get to play that. No sarcasm or anything, I get that games like WoW have options for this and FFXIV has been super humanoid by comparison. I hope this ends up being the aesthetic of your dreams.

I still plan to mess around and see what aesthetics the new races are capable of.

[Fland]

Chiming in again because while I'm disappointed we don't have both races fully for the Shadowbringers release, someone else articulated what they think is going on and going to happen better than I could and I'd like to share.

Source is here, but quoting:

"I would also point out that adding the opposite genders is not the same as adding a new race, were the C-level to get uppity about how the set we’re getting for 5.0 was meant to be the last new races - the races, at that point, would be in the game, so they wouldn’t be new races, technically (and in this industry, if you have to use a technicality, fucking use it)."

This isn't a very patient fandom, and I know there are contrarians who will be feeling smug about people not getting something they were excited for. But I think this is going to be like 1.0 Miqo'te and Roegadyns where they unlock later.

Also, as someone who was not enthusiastic about a more beastlike/feline race--at the very least I want to say I'm glad the people who were hoping for a more beastlike race get to play that. No sarcasm or anything, I get that games like WoW have options for this and FFXIV has been super humanoid by comparison. I hope this ends up being the aesthetic of your dreams.

I still plan to mess around and see what aesthetics the new races are capable of.

I'm hoping that would be the case.
They won't be technically adding new races if they add male viera and female hrothgar later since the races are already in game, and won't be going against the top brass' wishes (if that is indeed true).

I also saw someone posted a tweet from Matsuno that implied he has nothing to do with the decision of not adding male Viera in FFXIV, so I don't think it's the RoI team.

While it's nice that these two new races have a lot of customization options, I wish that we'd get more customization options for the current races as well.
It's been years and all we keep getting is new hairstyles.

[Invictam]

I will not be continuing my support via mog station purchases, and I will be unsubbing and requesting a refund for Shadowbringers purchase if gender inequality is implemented at launch. I will not support a game that takes a step backwards on this matter.

[Astrophysx]

So now we're still arguing over gender ideologies. XD

The SOLUTION regardless of where we stand on our gender beliefs is...

... Develop and implement MALE Viera and FEMALE Hrothgar options.

Lore can always accommodate for these changes, or go the way of the "Miqote". The devs done it before, they can do it again. ;-)

Therefore, keep the suggestions for the unlocking of gender going!

[KaijinRhada]

Really the most annoying thing was them not being forward and outright saying there was no male Viera after Fanfest EU when someone asked the question. They should have just been upfront about it and given the news then, but then add "but we have something cool instead," to build up some mystery and anticipation on what's coming. People were left speculating what Yoshi-P meant (and it was a fairly vague and open answer), so I understand they're disappointed. Again: I'm not surprised, I am still looking forward to the expansion, and in the end it saves me money on Fantasias, but I don't support genderlocking in general.

Also to those saying they could be added later, I somehow doubt that. They're purposefully adding extra customization to Viera and Hrothgar in lieu of them being single-gendered. While it could argued that this is possibly a first step to add further customization to older races, I doubt they'll go through the efforts of retrofitting more options to the six other races.