Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[SomeRandomHuman]

What is this Miqote issue that people are talking about? All I remember and can find online is that the dev team said that male Miqote, female Roegadyn and highlanders were something they must have in the game but after calculating the cost of adding them. If they can, they will implement those first and then look into other races like demi humans or dragons. But I don't remember this being a massive issue that they deiced to add them because of it, nor can I find anything about it online at that time. In fact, you can find interviews dating to 2013 where Yoshida hinted that Viera might be female only and another race would be used for the male counterpart. So there was no promise about not having genderlocked races in the game at all.

Maybe I'm wrong, so I'd wanna see sources of said issue and promise.

Of course this doesn't mean I'm against adding them. I'm all for more options. But I don't like it when some spread misinformation just because they want something.

Male miqo'te, Female Roegadyns and highlanders didn't exsist in 1.0 and were added due to popular demand and yoshi p thinking the genderlock was an archaic thing that shouldn't exist anymore. He also promised he wouldn't let it happen again in XIV yet here we are almost 7 years later.

That's the issue: the broken promise. It is only 1 of many that have happened since the disaster of housing.

[Amnmaat]

Which supports my theory that the addition of Hrothgar was a top management decision which Yoshida couldn't say no to. GW2 and World of warcraft were struggling all of 2018; what better way to draw in people from those competitors? Give them a race that looks like something you'd find in those games. They've seen the "everything is cute and anime in XIV, that's why I wouldn't play it."

Viera was sacrificed, the race we've been asking for since 2012....They just took our request for granted/not seriously. They have to right to do so, but we also have to right to criticize it and push back on how bad of a decision that is when you consider the lessons they "learned" from 1.0. Many of those lessons focused on "listen to your fans, not every dev decision should override what the fans wan."
Myself and I dare bet most people here would have preferred male and female Hrothgar to the situation we have now. If Hrothgar mattered so much to them, hey, we would've understood. It happened once with Au ra, why would it be different this time? People would've understood their dislike for Viera and shrug it off.

On that note, I'd love to know if I'm right. Would you guys have preferred full Hrothgar instead of Viera? Genderlock is just that nasty.

[BadLala]

Male miqo'te, Female Roegadyns and highlanders didn't exsist in 1.0 and were added due to popular demand and yoshi p thinking the genderlock was an archaic thing that shouldn't exist anymore. He also promised he wouldn't let it happen again in XIV yet here we are almost 7 years later.

That's the issue: the broken promise. It is only 1 of many that have happened since the disaster of housing.

It is well known that they didn't exist in 1.0. But when did he promise that they wouldn't genderlock any race if he already stated they might do that in 2013? If he never promised that, then there's no broken promise. And if the broken promise was the issue, then there's no issue anymore. And as I said before, I couldn't find a single source of him making such promise. If there was, then my next lines are pointless and I take back what I said.

Now just because it's not an issue, it doesn't mean it's not important. It's a request now from the players and the OP shows that. And everyone has requests that they want to see added to the game and have the right to ask for them. It's up to the dev team to see which request can benefit the game and what would it cost them to implement it. But we shouldn't spread false information to push our requests.

[Amnmaat]

Saying the practice of genderlocking is archaic and they want to fix that is a clear statement. They saw that as a mistake, a mistake they just repeated. Doesn't have to be a promise, a statement/stance on genderlocking is very strong, I'd argue it's stronger than a promise. Everyone knows promises are made to be broken, most often than not they are. Stating that genderlocking is archaic and mistake is actually more condemning in my opinion; it goes deeper into design philosophy and dev to customer understanding.

[Vahlnir]

Saying the practice of genderlocking is archaic and they want to fix that is a clear statement. They saw that as a mistake, a mistake they just repeated.

They also said once upon a time that individual player housing would be separate from FC housing and cheaper. Point is, plans change for better or worse.

[Amnmaat]

They also said once upon a time that individual player housing would be separate from FC housing and cheaper. Point is, plans change for better or worse.

The FC housing change was for the worse.
People have to criticize the change in stance, you have to hold their statements to account. Their statements might drive some people to support the product because they know the game will continue to do this thing you like or not.

A Realm Reborn saved Square enix from teetering into bankruptcy, just like Capcom was in the same situation a few years back; they've been rewarding their big franchises for saving them, namely Monster Hunter and Resident evil. Point being, this game design stance they had against genderlocking was very important to many people and as such they will criticize the change.

This is less a lesson to players/customers, and more a lesson that Square enix needs to re-learn. As soon as good competition arrives it's things like this that might drive some people to jump ship. They need to keep that in mind.

[BadLala]

Would you guys have preferred full Hrothgar instead of Viera? Genderlock is just that nasty.

I personally would have preferred full Vieras instead of Hrothgar. Not because of genderlocking being an issue or not. I'm just not a fan of feline races so it's a personal preference. But I do understand why they went with the choice they made, since it appeals to another demographic in the player base and even new players that didn't play the game due to the lack of these races.

Saying the practice of genderlocking is archaic and they want to fix that is a clear statement. They saw that as a mistake, a mistake they just repeated.

Where/when did they say that? Also, that doesn't make it a promise that they won't do it. If they thought that genderlocking was the best choice for the game, they would still do it. To them, adding these two new races fulfills the request of more players than one full race.

[Amnmaat]

I personally would have preferred full Vieras instead of Hrothgar. Not because of genderlocking being an issue or not. I'm just not a fan of feline races so it's a personal preference. But I do understand why they went with the choice they made, since it appeals to another demographic in the player base and even new players that didn't play the game due to the lack of these races.



Where/when did they say that? Also, that doesn't make it a promise that they won't do it. If they thought that genderlocking was the best choice for the game, they would still do it. To them, adding these two new races fulfills the request of more players than one full race.

To them, yes.
This however has repercussions. It just means they didn't learn from the 1.0 lessons.
Brand and product/service loyalty takes a hit when things like that happens. Hey they want to gamble, we're just here giving them a chance to rectify their bad decision. When ignored people do what people are wont to do; move to a product where the developers listen to them.

[craybest]

I personally would have preferred full Vieras instead of Hrothgar. Not because of genderlocking being an issue or not. I'm just not a fan of feline races so it's a personal preference. But I do understand why they went with the choice they made, since it appeals to another demographic in the player base and even new players that didn't play the game due to the lack of these races.



Where/when did they say that? Also, that doesn't make it a promise that they won't do it. If they thought that genderlocking was the best choice for the game, they would still do it. To them, adding these two new races fulfills the request of more players than one full race.

Sadly it also reinforces the cliched stereotype that females should be sexy and males should be powerful and big.

[zeylos]

Which supports my theory that the addition of Hrothgar was a top management decision which Yoshida couldn't say no to. GW2 and World of warcraft were struggling all of 2018; what better way to draw in people from those competitors? Give them a race that looks like something you'd find in those games. They've seen the "everything is cute and anime in XIV, that's why I wouldn't play it."

Viera was sacrificed, the race we've been asking for since 2012....They just took our request for granted/not seriously. They have to right to do so, but we also have to right to criticize it and push back on how bad of a decision that is when you consider the lessons they "learned" from 1.0. Many of those lessons focused on "listen to your fans, not every dev decision should override what the fans wan."
Myself and I dare bet most people here would have preferred male and female Hrothgar to the situation we have now. If Hrothgar mattered so much to them, hey, we would've understood. It happened once with Au ra, why would it be different this time? People would've understood their dislike for Viera and shrug it off.

On that note, I'd love to know if I'm right. Would you guys have preferred full Hrothgar instead of Viera? Genderlock is just that nasty.

I think that the marketing strategy here was, add egnderlocked races, add them poorly, get bad press, all press is considered good press for bussiness after all. Then, in the next expansion, fix the races and add the missing gneders, get again a lot of press but good one this time, plus they are also selling a solution to a problem they have created, which is one of the most frequent marketing tactics ever.
I'd say viera since it fits mroe int oFFXIV, and hrotgar have such poor quality I'd rather have gotten Ronso or something else entirely over them tbh