Gender locked race?

[Kupocoubo]

Depends on their design. If they're ugly af no one will bother fantasia only the fanatics.

That's precisely why I thought male ronso only instead of male vieras would be a bad idea

[Reinha]

Would the gender lock still be considered such a bad thing if male Hrothgar had been revealed and we were waiting on the female reveal? I think many would not mind a male only race if it meant the possibility of getting female Vieras.

[Melichoir]

Broadly speaking this is what is likely from just all the facets we can factor in:

There will most likely be Male Viera in the game to compliment the female viera
There is no reason not to have male viera because FFXIV Lore is not a copy paste of previous lores. Furthermore, there would probably be more public backlash from having Viera gender locked than from having male Viera be a mainstay in the game. Having male viera, btw, would be a step outside previous FF games and set 14 apart from the others. Other races that were once gender locked were made counterparts, so going back to that system would be out of place. Broadly across most MMOs, the concept of gender locked races is not popular and would ding FFXIV more than help it.

There might be a second race introduced
This one is a bit sketchier but possible. The Hrothgar may be a second race that was unannounced for the xpac. There have been, in the past, speculation of a Ronso like race acting as the male 'counterpart' to viera, but as pointed out above (and by many people) its unlikely that Viera will be absolutely gender locked. The information regarding this race is pretty disparate, and the most we have to go on is a post by leaker and some in game leaked coding that refers to them. But beyond that, there isnt much else besides speculation to the exacts of Hrothgar or if we will get 2 races at all.


Its worth noting that Shadowbringers is shaping up to bring a TON of content as it is. Releasing TWO races ontop of 2 jobs, a Collaborative 24man, 2 new and different zones, among all the usual is quite a lot to expect. Part of me believes that there will only be one new race at launch, and if there is a second, it wont be opened up till later in the xpac. Theres more credibility to the idea of Male Viera because of all the pros of doing them (Consider the fact that this thread exists drums up a lot of hype and discussion about ShB from teh mere chatter of whether were getting male viera or not. That drives interest from a marketing side) along with artwork and the like weve seen in the past. The Hrothgar is something that was revealed, by accident it appears, in the last week or so. All things considered, theyre being hyper tight lipped about a second race, which is weird from a marketing perspective. Imagine they hinted at a second race at the first fanfest. The traffic that would generate fro teh game would be nuts. Keeping it incredibly under guard and key doesnt actually buy your game anything. And I think consideration of business practices is appropriate cause SE is a company at the end of the day. PR and Marketing is going to matter and affect what info is released to us at things like FanFest.

I could be totally wrong and we could get two gender locked races and one of them is essentially a Ronso like race, but I dont believe that to be the case based on what we got so far.

[BillyKaplan]

Would the gender lock still be considered such a bad thing if male Hrothgar had been revealed and we were waiting on the female reveal? I think many would not mind a male only race if it meant the possibility of getting female Vieras.

I tend to agree, but because of this particular reason - people want Viera. And even your scenario likely would've gotten us to the same situation where if people didn't ask for Hrothgar females, they still would've asked for male Viera.

[Melichoir]

Would the gender lock still be considered such a bad thing if male Hrothgar had been revealed and we were waiting on the female reveal? I think many would not mind a male only race if it meant the possibility of getting female Vieras.

Actually it still would generate issues. People want Viera more than anything yes, but its also pretty clear they want male and female vieras. Theres a huge demand for it. In this scenario, ti would hurt the game more not less. The first point most would make would be "Why would you make a completely separate gender locked race to Viera, and not just give us both Male and Female Viera. You know, what people want?" Itd be seen as wasting resources on something less in demand. Again, gender locked races in MMOs are not all that popular (save specific exceptions - like playing a named hero/character). People are gonna look at this and say "Yeah, good to know people get female Vieras, but what about the boys. This sucks."

It's not a really well thought out move.

[Crushnight]

Would the gender lock still be considered such a bad thing if male Hrothgar had been revealed and we were waiting on the female reveal? I think many would not mind a male only race if it meant the possibility of getting female Vieras.

I'd still be against it then i do not like gender locking on races or jobs if we got male race 1st i'd push for females of that race with as much volume as i would the other way round it is something that doesn't sit right with me at all

[Kupocoubo]

I think many would not mind a male only race if it meant the possibility of getting female Vieras.

But no one asked for this, while Vieras were in high demand

[Shippuu]

But no one asked for this, while Vieras were in high demand

No one asked for Au Ra yet we got them instead of Viera. Didn't see the game crash and burn or get negatively impacted at all. And Au Ra are a popular race. Stormblood didn't add any race, still continued its success doing even better than Heavensward.

People are still getting the version of Viera that was overwhelmingly asked for, considering no male viera has ever been shown before. Anyone asking for male viera was doing so based on an imaginary idea/concept of them.

[BillyKaplan]

Anyone asking for male viera was doing so based on an imaginary idea/concept of them.

You mean like the concept art that came from the devs themselves or what not?
I mean, most of us want male Viera to exist as a playable option, first and foremost, regardless of what we'll actually get. But it's not like we had absolutely nothing to base our expectations on within the context of XIV

[Dagget]

Massivelyop has an article speculating about what's going on here, with pros and cons of the various theories...