Add a non binary race to FFXIV

[Fyrebrand]

Axolotl people.

That would be adorable! If I ever play a Dragonborn in D&D some day I want to model them after an axolotl.

[DragonFlyy]

Hear me out. Add a race after female hrothgar are added, but not a race with a gender. That way people can't complain.

Instead make them non binary and gender ambiguous.

Except the entire dialog in the game is programmed around he/she, so sadly this wouldn't be possible without A) re-writing all the text dialog and B) re-recording all the spoken dialog. Not gonna happen. Also, they already said no new races.

[Anonemoose]

Hear me out. Add a race after female hrothgar are added, but not a race with a gender. That way people can't complain.

Instead make them non binary and gender ambiguous.

No. I will not elaborate further.

[Volgia]

Hrothgars are non binary they only have one gender.

[Halivel]

That way people can't complain.

People will find a way to complain anyway. XD

That being said, we kind of have two already (intentionally or not) that are as close to it as we could get probably if that's what you're genuinely looking for:

1. Lalafells due to their looks.
2. Viera due to their looks to some extent + due to their lore mentioning that you can't tell them apart at all until puberty even when naked (according to Matsuno, who created the race). Their unique biology specifically puts them apart from other playable races we have, even though it's not something you get to directly experience as a player, since all Viera we encounter are adult by default.

If they were to add something what would be outside of the specter - personally I wouldn't be opposed to that (provided they resolve all the issues we have with Hrothgar and Viera at the moment). Would be also very interesting to see if executed properly. But given it's very unlikely to happen, if you need something to work with - there're two options that at least somewhat fit.

[Anvaire]

Except the entire dialog in the game is programmed around he/she, so sadly this wouldn't be possible without A) re-writing all the text dialog and B) re-recording all the spoken dialog. Not gonna happen. Also, they already said no new races.

This is actually simple to rectify, the tags look for "male" or "female" so they would just need to add a choice so the player chooses and then over time update the game to add the option for "they"

Adding "they" could also be added to the other races as a choice.

The biggest issue isn't "can" they do it, but rather "should" they.

For me that's a resounding yes. Though I would never use it as an option myself. But I think this is a separate issue to the one OP is asking for.

For the question of a non binary race, I think that could be really interesting or awful depending on the design and implementation - but for me its a no simply because I think they should sort the Hrothgar and Viera Issues before adding another which would face similar issues.

In place of new races, i would advocate new clans, faces and customisation options instead.

So I guess my position is:

- No to nonbinary race (While current issues remain unresolved)
- Yes to non binary / trans identification
- yes to more current race customisation

- Yes to nonbinary race once current issues faced by Hrothgar and Viera are resolved and only if the new race would not have similar issues.

[MistakeNot]

This is actually simple to rectify, the tags look for "male" or "female" so they would just need to add a choice so the player chooses and then over time update the game to add the option for "they"

Adding "they" could also be added to the other races as a choice.

Uh-huh. And will that work for Japanese? Or German or French? Do they have a corresponding word for someone of unknown gender?
I don't know, but it is quite possible they don't.

[Halivel]

Uh-huh. And will that work for Japanese? Or German or French? Do they have a corresponding word for someone of unknown gender?
I don't know, but it is quite possible they don't.

It can work pretty seamlessly in Japanese, as the grammar there tends to lean towards gender neutral speech to begin with - not always, but most of the time. To be honest it would be much easier to make Japanese text ambigous than it would to make English one ambigous. By a lot.

German can get complicated in this sense - there are ways to make the speech more neutral, but it's a generally heavily gendered language.

Can't speak for French as I don't know it.

[Anvaire]

Uh-huh. And will that work for Japanese? Or German or French? Do they have a corresponding word for someone of unknown gender?
I don't know, but it is quite possible they don't.

I guess they would need to consult the relevant localisation team for other languages as they do for well the rest of the game.

As non binary / trans people exist everywhere, they will likely have localised terms for them, in which case the localisation team can make suggestions that can then be implemented (its the point of a localisation team after all) So i don't think differing languages poses a significant barrier to their inclusion... But i don't speak those languages fluently (or at all) so I don't want to make a call on that bar the use of localisation as I would most certainly be wrong.

Language issue aside, I just don't think its a problem to include more ways to define the characters we play as and adding "they/them" is a small thing to do. They are already removing the gender lock on clothes after all.
understandably this is will be an addition for a very small number of players (Although we can't really know that for sure as it could be a high proportion of players of this game are trans - unlikely but possible and unless there's a census on it, we can only assume it is a small proportion to reflect the usual statistics. ) But either way, I don't think it affecting a small part of the player base should be a barrier for inclusion. (After all Ultimate's exist despite a small part of the player base engaging in them, different as its content i know, but still consistent to argument contextually.)

As i said though, its an aside from the addition of a race which was the threads primary topic.

[CNitsah]

Like the dragons?