Just make POE 2 not gender locked, simple.

No. It should continue like this. Old-school is always good. It is always the best, the most beautiful, the most logical, the most appropriate. I hope GGG never feels the need to make such innovations. Believe me, these kinds of innovations accumulate and everything turns into a freak.
Less modernity, more quality. Old is always better.

I didn't even notice the genders at the selection screen. Who cares. I want to know what part of the talent tree I'm starting on so I can build effectively and efficiently. I want to know what my ascendancy talents are. You can make it a stick figure in armor because gender, age, height, skin color, religion, political affiliation, astrological sign, credit score, the car they drive or anything else just doesn't matter.

I sincerely hope this will be the last of their concerns in the first 2-3years around release. Seriously, there are much more important things that have to be made right.

D4 has all genders, yet both the game and mtx in there are horrible.

Lorewise a female Warrior doesnt make much sense to me. Also, a male Witch? Come on guys lets not get carried away here.

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Rod wrote:

I sincerely hope this will be the last of their concerns in the first 2-3years around release. Seriously, there are much more important things that have to be made right.

D4 has all genders, yet both the game and mtx in there are horrible.

Could be worse like Last Epoch.

Even shittier game AND gender locked.

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SinANger wrote:

That is what a big part of the communitiy is asking. It will increase the amount of cosmetics buyers, no downside. You said urselves that the engine now allows you to make kind of stuff much easier.

In the very first PoE 2 / ExileCon it was mentioned that the new rigging would allow introducing new genders for classes as paid MTX.

Not sure if that still holds true but i expect the new game will allow for gender changes in one way or another after some time.

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gandhar0 wrote:

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SinANger wrote:

That is what a big part of the communitiy is asking. It will increase the amount of cosmetics buyers, no downside. You said urselves that the engine now allows you to make kind of stuff much easier.

In the very first PoE 2 / ExileCon it was mentioned that the new rigging would allow introducing new genders for classes as paid MTX.

Not sure if that still holds true but i expect the new game will allow for gender changes in one way or another after some time.

Kinda hard to take things GGG says at face value after these past couple years tbh.

I personaly apreciate that poe as it is now has no character customization options. Hopping strait into the game not having to adjust a bunch of booba sliders is just a better experience for me. To be honest it does not even make sense thematically to me, at least in the current poe skilltree.

Gender as a social construct can be anything. You can imagine that your character is a helicopter, tank, baloon or UFO. You're not limited with your fantasies. It's a lot of work to add thousands of new models (with animations and sound) for the each gender. Not worth it.

Why everything is always about identity nowadays. Can't people just be happy that the gameplay is awesome and that they have a game what they want to play just to have fun.

Would I like to have possibility to play male necro or a ranger, sure why not. Is it so important that the devs should sacrifice time from polishing the gameplay to the greatest level they can get it? Oh hell no.

You can see what happens when the devs focus on other stuff than gameplay (Including being able to run as male sorc in womens clothes), just open D4.

The main thing for GGG is to make great game with awesome gameplay. Having possibility to play as male and female on all classes would just bring the costs up without any real impact to the game like many mentioned before. It is just extra costs and time which would be taken away from other things which are more important.

PoE characters have their backstory and how they fit into the lore itself. Having non gender locked characters and make them fit to the lore is just extra cost with no real impact to the gameplay.