Gender locked race?

[Theodric]

Beastly looking women are a hard sell. Even when I played WoW, the vast majority of people I saw playing 'monstrous' women deliberately went out of their way to use whatever happened to be the closest thing to a 'cute' or 'feminine' face. Exceptions existed though they were few and far between. The closest thing to 'monstrous' women in this game's batch of playable races would, arguably, be Roegadyn - and they're the least played race/gender combination to my knowledge.

[Lauront]

I'd argue that it would be a severe stretch too that the only thing preventing people from subbing is an "even more pretty race" then (Viera).

The problem with these kind of statements is that people are comparing apples vs oranges when it comes to bestial races in WoW and FFXIV. For one, I don't count draenei and especially not dwarves or gnomes as bestial. Draenei are a bit out there, but in much the same way as au ra or roegadyn are. In fact, they look a little like a fusion of the two. The other thing is the pre-existing lore Warcraft had, whereas SE is famously light when it comes to any upfront lore for new races added. Viera females are the prettiest and most graceful they've added yet, so yes, I do think they have the potential to capture WoW refugees, but more importantly they were added in response to very strong fan demand for the race.

If SE think it'll be as simple as just adding a race that is a bit more monstrous, and that's that, I'd like to know what they're basing such a decision on, as the far bigger obstacles I've seen to this game drawing WoW players would be its PVP, the lack of content equivalent to mythic dungeons, the non-existent class customisation and the lack of horizontal progression. WoW has headed in this direction, too, but FFXIV is even more rigid where this is concerned. So in truth, how many of WoW's refugees do they think this will capture?

I have to be honest, if they're shafting their loyal playerbase over to appeal to newcomers and planning to not add Viera males on this basis (not just delaying), which is sketchy, it will not cast them in a very good light in my eyes.

Agree, full stop. Lol

Although I don't mind dimorphic races, personally, as I really wanted to see the concept art for Au Ra where the females looked very seductive sucubus (demoness) and the males looked like male demons basically. I can imagine the wild horns of the concept would clip but seriously what do you call the cat tails and current horn clipping anyways... ? Not an issue at this point lol.

I have no idea why they fudged up so badly on auri females. It's not like they would have looked ugly. They were just closer to a demoness, like you say, than a waifu with horns. I'm just glad the males remained relatively true to the art.

[Shougun]

Beastly looking women are a hard sell. Even when I played WoW, the vast majority of people I saw playing 'monstrous' women deliberately went out of their way to use whatever happened to the closest thing to a 'cute' or 'feminine' face. Exceptions existed though they were few and far between. The closest thing to 'monstrous' women in this game's batch of playable races would, arguably, be Roegadyn - and they're the least played race/gender combination to my knowledge.

Roe women are not even sort of beastly man lol, as a male roe female are easily attractive XD. But I agree they're less picked than beastly men, there is a reason why we have the stereotype of make the men weird and the women pretty (insert primal, boss, monster, race, etc).

I still think it would be really nice at least if they had a face option or race option to lead back the other way, just for those women (or men) who feel their female characters are never given the option to be weird like men.. I feel like while a minority of the minority that would be exciting to see lol.

For one, I don't count draenei and especially not dwarves or gnomes as bestial. Draenei are a bit out there, but in much the same way as au ra or roegadyn are. In fact, they look a little like a fusion of the two.

36% unrepresented is still a pretty good number though. True Viera are going to be, probably, the most pretty but any of FFXIV's races are pretty much prettier than WoW's so if that was the draw "I want pretty" then FFXIV already succeeded.

That's my point really, it's not perfect but I could see someone with a money mind seeing value in it ("new money, the fans will sit stick around so we can not focus on them for the moment").

For a refugee
Pretty WoW options to Pretty FFXIV options. FFXIV wins by miles.
Weird, unusual, ugly WoW VS.. wait a second I can't even find FFXIV in the files hold on.. lol

I can understand your frustrations and to be clear I'm not saying blocking male is a good thing, I'm just suggesting that new money may have caught their eye. More pretty to attract an already "more pretty" game than WoW I feel is not as powerful a draw.

More pretty races will bring fantasia money, for sure absolutely, but I really don't believe that adding more pretty will suddenly peak someone's interest that wasn't playing before over filling a void the game didn't really fill before.

New pretty race = happy fans of pretty already, likely mostly those who already play the game = loads of fantasia money
New race that fills a hole that hasn't been filled before = new eyes that would have never looked at the game previously, the amount of new players is probably not "huge" but to add them into the cash shop and sub cycle would be really nice and makes them valuable.

I have no idea why they fudged up so badly on auri females. It's not like they would have looked ugly. They were just closer to a demoness, like you say, than a waifu with horns. I'm just glad the males remained relatively true to the art.

The females they released felt.. really.. different to me from what I expected, I was quite shocked lol. I see many like them so that's good I guess but I was a bit sad even when I didn't intend to play them XD.

[Fredco191]

More than likely a mix of both regardless of what we get.
Result 1:
Happy people who wanted male Viera & Mildly upset people talking about lore and stuff.
Result 2:
Lore people going “See? They agree.” & Angry people who wanted male Viera.


Unless...

Result 3 (Least likely):

Everyone’s flipping out because the Viera & Hrothgar aren’t gender-locked and are coming out at the same time.

R.I.P. Result 3.

[seraphmage]

Does it really matter which one was made first if the end result is the same? We could get Burmecian males and female Viera and people would still be upset at the inability to play as the missing counterpart. It's the nature of unnecessary gender locks.

^ This right here. I would rather them simply not implement Viera at all than to go to such lengths as to create a completely separate race to compensate for not making Viera males playable. It adds further insult to injury when one realizes that if they did exclude the implementation of males, it is most likely due to the producer having an odd hang-up (i.e. thinks male Viera would be "weird"). Gender locking alienates folks who want to play the race but do not wish to play a female character and it's simply unnecessary. In a game that requires a subscription to play, I believe folks have every right to be put out over this decision and to hold the development team accountable should the leaks prove true.

[Rokke]

Because it shows it isn't about races being gendered lock, it shows that people just want male Viera. If people don't want gender-lock (This is what the thread is about) some people would advocate for both as most people are.

To quote page 1, post 1

Is this going to be a thing for the Viera? Female only? They didn't show any male Viera and that makes me sad...

However, there are some people thinking that it is Viera being screwed over for a possible "ugly" race when it could be the completely the opposite way and are taking it personally towards people who would prefer something else. Like how apparently I'm a toxic bara cat lover, and this is a Viera thread and to keep normal speculation away that could rain on the parade. (We have show your Viera and the main support for Viera thread if the people don't want opposite opinions on the subject).

This thread is about unwanted genderlocks and Viera. Two separate races are bound to get pushback regardless of which 2 we get, regardless of which order the 2 were conceptualized because Viera have been requested since the original desired racial poll from eons ago and male Viera have been requested since the concept art was shown in the HW press tour.

As I've said earlier in this thread, this new race has gotten no lore, no hints, no hype. To anyone who hasn't been following the leaks, this new race will come out of left field. The Devs have set themselves up for people seeing this new race as the unasked/unwanted alternative to male Viera by keeping them in the dark till the last Fanfest.

[Lauront]

Roe women are not even sort of beastly man lol, as a male roe female are easily attractive XD. But I agree they're less picked than beastly men, there is a reason why we have the stereotype of make the men weird and the women pretty (insert primal, boss, monster, race, etc).

I still think it would be really nice at least if they had a face option or race option to lead back the other way, just for those women (or men) who feel their female characters are never given the option to be weird like men.. I feel like while a minority of the minority that would be exciting to see lol.



36% unrepresented is still a pretty good number though. True Viera are going to be, probably, the most pretty but any of FFXIV's races are pretty much prettier than WoW's so if that was the draw "I want pretty" then FFXIV already succeeded.

That's my point really, it's not perfect but I could see someone with a money mind seeing value in it ("new money, the fans will sit stick around so we can not focus on them for the moment").

For a refugee
Pretty WoW options to Pretty FFXIV options. FFXIV wins by miles.
Weird, unusual, ugly WoW VS.. wait a second I can't even find FFXIV in the files hold on.. lol

I can understand your frustrations and to be clear I'm not saying blocking male is a good thing, I'm just suggesting that new money may have caught their eye.

More pretty races will bring fantasia money, for sure absolutely, but I really don't believe that adding more pretty will suddenly peak someone's interest over filling a void the game didn't really fill before.

New pretty race = happy fans of pretty already, likely mostly those who already play the game = loads of fantasia money
New race that fills a hole that hasn't been filled before = new eyes that would have never looked at the game previously, the amount of new players is probably not "huge" but to add them into the cash shop and sub cycle would be really nice and makes them valuable.



The females they released felt.. really.. different to me from what I expected, I was quite shocked lol. I see many like them so that's good I guess but I was a bit sad even when I didn't intend to play them XD.

But it's not 36% unrepresented. It's whatever fraction of those people who otherwise play the game but for the lack of a race suited to their desire for a more bestial one. Is there any suggestion this is a considerable figure? Also bear in mind WoW allows for alts in a way that XIV doesn't, so again that 36% of characters will include alts of players who would not solely play a bestial race.

I understand the point you're making but Viera are being added regardless due to fan demand. They're not an explicit move to woo WoW refugees, but they also have some distinctive features, including in terms of their physique, which other female options don't. I'm just saying I believe incidentally they will succeed better at this than a race explicitly aimed at it.

[Wolfyboy]

To quote page 1, post 1




This thread is about unwanted genderlocks and Viera. Two separate races are bound to get pushback regardless of which 2 we get, regardless of which order the 2 were conceptualized because Viera have been requested since the original desired racial poll from eons ago and male Viera have been requested since the concept art was shown in the HW press tour.

As I've said earlier in this thread, this new race has gotten no lore, no hints, no hype. To anyone who hasn't been following the leaks, this new race will come out of left field. The Devs have set themselves up for people seeing this new race as the unasked/unwanted alternative to male Viera by keeping them in the dark till the last Fanfest.

A discussion develops the more information that comes along. This discussion isn't solely about male Viera anymore because we've gotten a whole lot of new information (whenever it is true or not) to work with. If the OP wanted it to keep it fully about male Viera it should honestly be called, "Is Viera a gender locked race?" since Hrothgar would easily fit in the current title too since it would be a gender locked race.

[Nestama]

Nah I don't care either way to be honest, I'm just saying from a lore perspective it'd be a bigger shift than adding in male viera, not that it would be a worse or better than the other. Honestly I'd rather they just add in the lupin as playable race rather than a big cat race from nowhere. Seeing as I feel it'd be more interesting anyway, since feasibly we'd just be getting bigger and furrier miqo'te. I'd rather a wholely separate animal race.

But that'd go against FFXIV tradition! Every new playable race must be something that hasn't been seen at all until the very last patch of an expansion!
For real, I hate that SE have done this twice, now. Thrice if Hrothgar are gonna be a new race. They have all this lore for existing races (one of which has been conscripted by the anti-beastmen empire), yet instead they decide to make the new playable race something that didn't exist until 4.5... and it's so boring in design (worse than Au Ra, to be honest. Au Ra at least have weird skin condition, eye glow things, horns for ears and a tail. Viera just have rabbit ears. Unsure if foot gear has been redesigned at all for them outside of RSE).

[Lauront]

Their approach to adding in-game races is partly to blame there. Most of the beast tribes look entirely homogeneous and you can't tell the difference between male or female in most cases. They would have to do a better job differentiating the race's NPCs to make it easy to add it later, but doing that could give away the surprise given the precedent they've set, unless they did it on a broader scale, which would be costlier... adding differentiation later, meanwhile, would be jarring. TBH, I think their way of adding new races leaves a lot to be desired, and I hope they learn from this (and WoW's approach) going forward for their next MMO.