Yes, two decades, thank you. PoE is actually getting close to the decade mark.
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While the gender locking in this game isn’t a deal breaker for me (the class I most wanted to play (Sentinel) is male and as a male I prefer male characters) it would be nice to be able to, even if we can’t customize the way our characters look, have a choice between male and female. I would be content with just a random, default model to be quite honest.
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What I find so interesting about this topic is how polarising it actually seems to be.
I have never cared one iota about the gender of a roleplaying character or what any game character looks like… Its never made any difference to my enjoyment of a game. I dont care if I am forced to play a chubby little purple alien, green haired amazon, armoured gorrilla or weedy hunchback with a face that could melt a mirror. I always care about the actual attributes/skills/background/history of a build - i.e. everything that actually matters in the gameplay / story immersion - infinitely more than what my char looks like…
Sure, if I CAN spec the visuals of a build, I tend to cosmetically chose something I like the look of, but at the end of the day it means nothing to me - even less than nothing if the game is engaging enough.
But for some, this is so important that they refund the game in disgust or praise the developers for a class being a gender/visual they prefer…
I honestly dont have any point of reference to begin to understand this perspective on the issue…
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I did ask that question several years ago & got an answer, but can’t find it.
The PoE Discussion is interesting… and very long so I skimmed past all the arguments about MTX & game character gender integrated into the story design etc and tried to find some real substance that could enlighten the issue for me… did more research (its a hobby of mine, thanks Internet) and had to stop when I ended up on a website explaining Freuds Id, ego & superego… pressed the back button after getting that deep…
From what I can gather, the majority of players dont seem to care that much about gender in game characters… but for those that do, its a very important decision - literally a yes or no/fight to the death/hill to die on kind of choice.
Ignoring the trolls who are just in it to poke fun, it seems like the reasons behind this range from:
- peoples upbringing/background/cultures
- gaming experience
- age
- being comfortable enough in yourself to where assuming other genders in games causes no discomfort
- deeply rooted psychological reasons
- real-life gender identity and the concept of being forced into genders they dont associate with
- peoples sexual preferences (?)
- the concept of a game avatar being a virtual facsimile of the real person
- …
and I am pretty sure there are a bunch more…
Whatever each individuals personal reasons / preferences, it is fascinating to me how important something that has zero affect on me personally has for others… especially something that, imho, means nothing in the greater scheme of important things in real life…sure there are always things that I could care less about in real life that may have someone else frothing at the mouth but this is just a game and for me at least, its very easy to separate games from the real world where things like gender identity can be really important…
The TLDR is that those people that are bothered by the gender locked characters are usually the ones that personally identify with their character & it bothers them that they can’t play as character of the gender that they identify with.
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True…
Not to open up a new can of worms, but honestly that kind of deep rooted personal attachment to what is essentially fleeting virtual entertainment is worrying… makes me remember the pastors in my youth who councilled my Methodist parents that I would be going to hell if I didnt stop playing D&D or reading fantasy books… and reminds me of all those old adverts that professed violent computer gaming turned people into serial killers…
Those were crap imho, but then again, the idea of forming that level of personal attachment to a game character has never occured to me…
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Why? I know when I’m chatting about stuff that happens in a game I’ll usually use a first person pronoun (I died) rather than a possessive pronoun (my character died). There’s nowt so queer as folk.
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Shouldnt have strayed from the original topic but I did… 
Sure… but semantics aside, even if I say “I died” during a boss fight, I never associate that in any way with anything other than the char… To me, this example, would be no different to “my char died”. Imho, if someone invests beyond a healthy level into a game character to where it spills over into thier own real life identity, then thats what would be worrying to me…
for me:
in-game character is not equal to me in real life in any shape or form.
At most, I would see a char as a possession, in no way linked to my personal identity in any way beyond a preference (like preferring one colour over another and having no functional purpose)… and I would “feel” about something happening to “my char” in the same way as if a possession broke or got lost… but it has zero impact on me personally and has no relation to me in any other way. A gaming character has no link to me personally - probably why I never bother with cosmetics and why, unlike my kids, I never chose a char in any game based on what it looks like…
Perhaps I am just totally abnormal here… and why this kind of thing (including the OP topic) means nothing to me in the context of gaming/entertainment…
me play manly man character ooga booga
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I am disturbed that people in this thread believe there are only 2 Genders 
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I’m pretty sure I suggested that the male/female voice from the male/female model.
I can’t even believe a topic like this exists to be honest.
People take everything in life far too seriously these days imho.
It’s a bloody game, who cares what sex/race/colour/species the character you play is? Honestly, do people really run around killing everything in sight frantically and also looking intently at their character? I couldn’t even tell you what my character looks like. It’s about as important to me as what the weather is like on Mars…
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Since you felt the need to rage about this, you clearly care a lot about this.
Here you go! Mars Weather | Mission – NASA's InSight Mars Lander
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Ah, thank you for that 
I will sleep much better tonight with that weight off my mind lifted, lol
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Nice balmy 34F/1C today… hey kids, wanna go dune surfing in Gale Crater? ah Dad… I hate getting sand in my crotch… why do you always force us to out when its so warm… we just wanna play Fortnite & CS:Go in the airconditioned hab…
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A lot of games don’t support character gender/appearance customisation, and l’m totally fine with that.
In the end, the game character does not represent who you really are in real life. You are still you no matter what character you are playing as. You are just experiencing the game through the eye of the game character.
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If you’re on Mars, you’re not going to be using Fahrenheit. Using anything other than SI units 'causes issues where Mars is concerned.
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Just keeping our 'merican friends happy… and NASA shows F on their webpage so I didnt have to do the necromancy required to work it out… 
I couldn’t really care less about being locked into gender specific classes. I care more about gameplay and less about appearances. There are plenty of enjoyable games that would be absolutely atrocious if someone were to pick apart the little things like gender-locked classes. I feel it’s a good idea overall, but definitely something that should be pushed far down on the to-do list.
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