General disappointment with new races added

[Jamesy]

Ok hear me out I'm excited for shadowbrings, but on the other hand severely disappointed since Yoshi-p went against his own word from 2.0 saying he wouldn't gender lock races moving forward and in shadowbringers instead of releasing the insanely hyped Male viera everyone wanted we got two races. Not saying two new races aren't welcome, but some of us like bunnies or being a bunny and are Male as well some females may want a hulking unicorn cat race as female. I believe by locking them to a specific gender is doing the community of inclusiveness a huge disservice.

As well it kind of diminishes trust we had that yoshi was listening to the fan base.

[PogueX]

Yea , SE sort of shot themselves in the foot though cause they built up the lore that Viera men aren't seen that often, so it would have gone against lore to have Viera men Let they also had concept art that showed a Viera man, so at one point they thought about implementing Viera men . So very weird indeed.

[KylePearlsand]

Okay... so... What exactly does this have to do with lore?

[Cilia]

Take this as a lesson that you should temper your expectations in the future. Male Viera and female Hrothgar were never promised - you were betrayed only by your own expectations. (Those expectations were themselves betrayed by the developers, but my point stands.)

There are a lot of factors going into it, but I foresaw this outcome back when Return to Ivalice was announced. It's nice to have my thesis proven correct, but also boring.

Am I the only one who feels sorry for the Hrothgar, since no matter how good and interesting they may or may not be they will forever go down in infamy as "the Ronso rip-offs who denied us the much-desired bunny husbandos" to a good chunk of the fanbase?

[polyphonica]

Does anyone have the actual Yoshi-P quote about genderlocking? The one I found was from 2012 where he commented they considered adding the missing genders a "must have" before they added any other races, which is consistent with what they ended up doing (as we know). I'm not sure he would be in a position back in 2012 to make any sort of definitive statement like "we will not now, nor will we ever in the future, release a genderlocked race in this game." Regardless of intentions at the time, there's no way for someone to know the future that far in advance.

I personally think that they will add the other genders later, as they added the missing genders in 2.0 for past gender-locked races. I think it's possible to keep the healthy pressure up without insinuating that it's breaking some perceived promise from years ago.

[Duskane]

Take this as a lesson that you should temper your expectations in the future. Male Viera and female Hrothgar were never promised - you were betrayed only by your own expectations. (Those expectations were themselves betrayed by the developers, but my point stands.)

There are a lot of factors going into it, but I foresaw this outcome back when Return to Ivalice was announced. It's nice to have my thesis proven correct, but also boring.

Am I the only one who feels sorry for the Hrothgar, since no matter how good and interesting they may or may not be they will forever go down in infamy as "the Ronso rip-offs who denied us the much-desired bunny husbandos" to a good chunk of the fanbase?

Cant entirely blame people's expectations when someone asked yoshi about male viera and goes "maybe at tokyo fanfest"

[Anonymoose]

I foresaw this outcome back when Return to Ivalice was announced. It's nice to have my thesis proven correct, but also boring.

You'll be right less often (and things will be more exciting) if you don't take every position at once beforehand and declare victory after, lol. /rib /rib

Honestly, I don't see them not introducing playable male Viera... but I don't care about the introduction of Viera at all, so whatever.

I honestly do not see them pulling a male-only/female-only race debacle.

But would there be enough to constitute them being playable? I'm not so sure. <snip> I seriously doubt male Viera won't be a thing regardless of what a bit of internal data derived from a bug shows (and what the lore supports). I'd be more surprised if they weren't playable (and extremely amused - this game really needs to betray my expectations more to keep itself entertaining), but I honestly don't see that happening purely based on the outrage that would result if it did.

The lore is a possible excuse (since they can write the lore however they like), but remember that the Viera aren't original <snip> but given there are already plenty of attractive male PC options, I seriously doubt they wouldn't add male Viera because it "weirds them out."

For the record I don't agree with gender-locked races either... but whether it's due to being bound by previous Viera lore or simply a creative decision, I can respect the choice not to have playable male Viera. It's a fantasy setting - things won't necessarily be realistic by definition. (Were things this uproarious when Viera were first introduced? Their society's been blatantly sexist all along...)

If the Viera don't have playable males (and in my opinion that's a very, very big if), whatever reasoning they give is... well, what you get. Whatever the reasoning, if they choose to not make male Viera playable (or even to not have any in-game at all) that's what they choose, and it's up to them to live with the consequences. (Which will, of course, be a veritable shitstorm.)

They are the exact same people from Ivalice - just like people wanted. If that leads to the males being unplayable, well... careful what'cha wish for, I guess.

I still don't think that's the case, but whatevs...

I, too, am in the, "I have little personal investment, but am surprised they'd go back to genderlocking, and more surprised they wouldn't nip it in the bud in Europe." boat.
(I'm guessing they deliberately waited for Tokyo because it's Japan and no one would want to risk being the first person to boo.)

That said, please see this post for advice on how you can rectify the matter if you really feel it's worthwhile. If you're right about the level of disappointment in the community, convince them the demand merits the resources. That approach is more or less the only one with historical precedent for getting SE to embrace redressing a "mistake."

[Theodric]

I'm not a fan of the gender lock, though I'm even less of a fan of the unfortunate fact that Viera men have been hijacked by a vocal group of players who wish for them to be extremely androgynous, feminine and young looking. Add to that their desire to dress them in suggestive glamour, I think it would be a very bad decision for the developers to design them in such a manner.

So, in short...I'm only interested in Viera men being added if they're designed to be the fierce defenders of the forest that they're implied to be. Anything else would simply be pandering in my eyes. I do think the entire situation could have been avoided/mitigated by simply announcing the gender lock earlier.

[Lauront]

I'm not a fan of the gender lock, though I'm even less of a fan of the unfortunate fact that Viera men have been hijacked by a vocal group of players who wish for them to be extremely androgynous, feminine and young looking. Add to that their desire to dress them in suggestive glamour, I think it would be a very bad decision for the developers to design them in such a manner.

So, in short...I'm only interested in Viera men being added if they're designed to be the fierce defenders of the forest that they're implied to be. Anything else would simply be pandering in my eyes. I do think the entire situation could have been avoided/mitigated by simply announcing the gender lock earlier.

I'm in agreement on this point. I think a wider height scale could accommodate preference for variable heights, but I'm quite adamant in that I'd like something along the lines you described.

Also, for those against the genderlock, check out my sig.

[Cilia]

Cant entirely blame people's expectations when someone asked yoshi about male viera and goes "maybe at tokyo fanfest"

Maybe means just that - maybe. Take it from someone who's very noncommittal... it doesn't mean "not yet."

You'll be right less often (and things will be more exciting) if you don't take every position at once beforehand and declare victory after, lol. /rib /rib

Consider all possibilities and weigh them based on the available evidence - that's how I do it. Can't miss the target if you use a shotgun!

Ahem. I hoped it wouldn't come to this, but wasn't hopeful... if that makes sense. With the evidence, Japanese conservatism, and Viera cultural history, ahh, things were weighted against it... though I hoped the males would still be playable, if only to avoid this mess.

Now let me go finish reading The Dynamics of an Asteroid... I feel like the villain in this scenario for not being outraged like everyone else after all... and feeling sorry for the "dead on arrival because they aren't bunny husbandos" Hrothgar nobody seems to care about beyond that fact...

I do think the entire situation could have been avoided/mitigated by simply announcing the gender lock earlier.

Nah, not possible. The Western world's politically correct climate virtually ensured outrage from the moment they decided to go with gender-exclusive races. Yoshi-P's vague answer in Paris might have made it a bit worse, but this was bound to happen.

Anyway, according to this article, male Viera were not included because they weren't in XII and they wanted to adhere to that portrayal. Reverence for Ivalice isn't always a good thing~

... at the end of the day, there simply wasn't enough resources to do everything and they had to budget. Would youse guys sacrifice playable Viera for a full Hrothgar race or vice versa? Why?

In the meantime, please be patient and wait for a full response from the Devs. They have to have noticed, if they weren't aware this would happen beforehand - it's all over the internet. The sites that cover this game anyway.