Gender locked race?

[Crushnight]

Is Viera a female only race in FF12? Yes, they are. Is there a problem with that at time FF12 release? No, there is none. Why are we bend over for social justice warrior now?

their not though males existed just never shown in ff12, heres the thing female highlanders, catbois and femroes were added with ARR or 2.0 thus any gender locking on races abolished the devs at the time thought gender locking races was stupid so adding a new race 3 expansions in which would be gender locked is stupid and backwards on how they felt in 2.0

[Tsumdere]

Is Viera a female only race in FF12? Yes, they are. Is there a problem with that at time FF12 release? No, there is none. Why are we bend over for social justice warrior now?

They were never a female only race. Also, FFXII was not an MMO where you make and customize your own character. Any RPG or MMO that has fully customizable characters that are supposed to be a stand in for you, the player, are more often than not held under the lens of scrutiny if there is only one gender or gender locked races/classes. This is not new.

[DevilsDontFly]

Is Viera a female only race in FF12? Yes, they are. Is there a problem with that at time FF12 release? No, there is none. Why are we bend over for social justice warrior now?

Because there is a difference between you seeing the story from the perspective of a pre-estabilished character you have no control over (Fran) versus having the freedom to fully customize your character and playing it according to your judgement.
A lot of people are using the whole "But Final Fantasy XII don't have male Viera" argument and forgetting that the only reason that's the case is because apart from Bangaa, every other race that isn't a human on XII is close to not existing. We haven't seen female Garifs or Revs just as much as we haven't seen male Vieras, and that's because the stry telling of the game didn't find it necessary to introduce them just because.
However that is the complete opposite of an implementetion of the race on a multiplayer create-your-own-character fantasy game. Yes, we had Mithra and Galka being gender locked, but please take into consideration that there's a difference between a game that is already designed to have that feature from day 0 and a game that started with the idea of every race being able to have both genders.
I wouldn't classify this as "social justice warrior", and I'm curious to know if all the people with those arguments -weirdly enough all coming from female character players- would still be all "that's how's supposed to be" if there was only a male race option to be talked about on the matter.

[Jaywalker]

Is Viera a female only race in FF12? Yes, they are. Is there a problem with that at time FF12 release? No, there is none. Why are we bend over for social justice warrior now?

Look. I get you're worried. This reaction, even when people are commenting that double standards are dumb and we shouldn't have them, is seriously nowhere near SJW stuff. Part of why I'm here is because it's next level bad in other fandoms to the point that extremists are threatening peoples lives and livelihoods over fiction. Japan does not care about the extremist moralizing stuff that happens and is not giving power to those people, thank god. Fans being frustrated and wanting equal opportunity is within the realm of normal.

FFXII was showing a narrative that followed a limited cast with fixed playable characters and party members. Locations you had access to were also limited by storylines. FFXIV has a character creator that allows you to make in theory any humanoid race, so exceptions would stand out like sore thumbs. I know that I explained in another post before seeing this so not going to go over the whole "people want creative freedom" bit again, but I really do want to stress that this conversation people are having is small stuff.

To folks in the forum in general also, even if you get annoyed at each other or think someone's being a jerk--the fact that you can argue with someone on the internet about a game and not live in fear that you'll lose your job, your ability to finish school, your entire social circle... that's a luxury. I'm not kidding. I've seen multiple people attempt or get pushed to the edge of suicide over it. That's what's going on outside JRPG, anime, and some additional videogame fandoms. It's literally dangerous to speak right now in other circles. So if you want to argue back and forth that's fine and all but please try to remember that you're incredibly lucky to be able to do that.

It's why when I see someone making comments like "oh I hope you don't get what you want" or "SQUARE ENIX IS GOING TO SCREW US ALL" it reads as very childish to me. You can actually make conventionally beautiful characters in this game and not get accused of hating anyone not conventionally beautiful for it. You can have fanservice and not get accused of enabling rape.

...I'm actually getting upset typing about this, because FFXIV is the fandom I came to specifically to escape and try to find something that's still positive. I've seen a lot of innocent people hurt over this, and honestly I still get scared to talk sometimes even here.

So argue if you want to, but when you start accusing anyone with any kind of social criticism of being an SJW it makes you look naive. You're very, very lucky you haven't experienced that kind of terror.

[SigilBaram]

I hope SE sees that there is a 40+ page long forum thread about this issue and, if they were planning to make it gender locked, that they rethink their plan. Considering that they backed out of gender locking Mi'quote and Roegadyn and that they haven't explicitly said it's female only yet as far as I've seen or heard, they might just be milking the attention and suspense that this issue is generating.

As for the lore "excuse" people keep throwing around, that male Viera are rare and reclusive so players shouldn't be able to play them? The WoL is exceptional. Cultural norms shouldn't limit the WoL's race. Any lore reasoning for gender locking a player race is just an excuse by developers who don't wanting to bother making two models and animation sets. Having one male viera who has the power to change the world leave the Great Wood doesn't break lore. Because remember, lore wise there is only one player character with other players being refereed to, if at all, as adventurers (as in generic members of the adventurer's guild) that help the WoL, not other Warriors of Light.

(Sorry if these things have been said before, but this thread is 40 pages long... @.@)

[Satarn]

I don't even care a whole lot, but I just find the argument of "they should be locked because of the lore" so incredibly ironic. That is given the fact that this lore has clearly been originally written for Viera/Mithra/Miqo'te, for the exact purpose of excusing the female-only cat/bunny-girl races, without it being seen as weird.

[DamianFatale]

In a recent interview, male viera were hinted for the next fanfest.

[Beckett]

In a recent interview, male viera were hinted for the next fanfest.

In that interview, the question of male viera was side-stepped and the interviewer was told that there will be another fanfest. That doesn't hint at male Viera any more than it hints at a male-only race.

[Kupocoubo]

In that interview, the question of male viera was side-stepped and the interviewer was told that there will be another fanfest. That doesn't hint at male Viera any more than it hints at a male-only race.

Yes, it can mean anything, I don't understand how those people think male vieras were hinted. To me the answer was just "you will see if there is male or not in the last fanfest", nothing else.

[Final-Fantasy]

Remember when they showed Viera and Au Ra concept art and said they wouldn't have female only Viera and showed concept art including Male Viera.
Either they are holding back showing the male version because they haven't even created them yet, but do intend on showing them later, or they're holding back showing them because they want to see the communities reaction and possibly skip them if they think you'll let it fly because someone doesn't like male rabbits... !