I think one key piece of information that might be missing here is that we created the current version of our playable characters to be specific characters, not a blank slate to be molded. So what we’re actually saying is that this one specific person is a rogue and this one specific person is a mage and this one specific person is an acolyte. The acolyte character was originally a disciple of the mage and left him to pursue different types of magic. They aren’t inherently evil magics either. The mages viewed them as unsavory but that’s just their views on it. The Acolyte has gone on to be a very successful master of those different magics and save the world just the same. She is still very much a hero. The Knight character, back in like 2018 before it was changed to be the sentinel, was actually female and she is also still in the game at the End of Time to talk to. I think the biggest disconnect here is that we let you name the character. This immediately gives a sense of creation and ownership to the character. That it is uniquely yours. If you were starting a new “Frank the Sentinel” instead of making “a Sentinel” that you got to name, I think it would probably help this be a lot more intuitive too.
Now, at the same time, we have received a ton of feedback from a lot of different players with a lot of different opinions on the matter. The general feeling that I get from most people is either that gender locked classes is terrible and needs to be fixed or apathy. We do intend to add character customization to the game, including body type selection. It just won’t be a 1.0 feature. The dev time to payoff ratio isn’t good enough to make the cut at this time. That is because the dev time is high, not that the payoff is low. It is a very unassuming feature that would take a lot more dev time than you might think.