Is there ever going to be Female Dwarves?

[DreadfulBride]

Haaa haaa haaa, funny post. MAY WEST! MAY WEST! MAY WEST! (may I have some more plz)
While I am sure the correct response has been give to this post, its my turn.
You would have to know Tolkien's description of female dwarves to understand why the dwarf in your create panel is only one, niether male nor female... and both

[PANZERBUNNY]

Instead of applying some form of modern real world equality to a work of fantasy and fiction you should piece together the tidbits we know about dwarves and their women and come to terms with the fact that they simply don't leave the Dwarf Holds.

Middle Earth is a dangerous place. Hell, the MEN of their race rarely leave the safety of the Dwarf Hold, so that doesn't leave much hope for female adventurers...at all.

Look what happened when the Ents let their women folk wander abroad.

So in the end....let it be.

[Qhouri]

I found in Moria a Female Dwarf Axe, I found a building their for Female Dwarves, Male Dwarves can tell the difference so the foundations for Female Dwarves by lotro are in place if they should in the future want to introduce Lady Dwarves openly. Males a square in built and Females are curvy,Think of it as a Short May West Figure with a thin beard type.

Male and female dwarves are visually not distinguishable. Period, nothing Turbine can change on that. In this regard, they're like humpback whales, from which biologists have to take cell samples to determine their gender. As genetics aren't yet introduced in Middle-earth, you will have to live with this insecurity.

BTW, one of the dockworkers in Celondim (a deserter from Kheledul) tells you that his wife is at Thorin's Hall visiting the barber. So, one of the dwarf NPCs in the underground bar is female, that we know for certain.

[Neumi]

For other species, dwarves are not distinguable, but I think it would be very bad for their population if they could not tell the difference.
But even if not ...

It would be nice if there actually WAS a female option ... without visual effects, just for the sake of it and only dwarves can tell if another dwarf is male or female.
It's true, dwarves never tell "us" if they are male of female. But who's this "us"? Elves, men and hobbits? Are dwarves not part of "us"?

Dwarves among them should well see who's male and who isn't.

[stargazer2009]

As a female player, I would love to be able to play a dwarf. I know males like to play females but the reverse is rarely true. I assume that there can be females in lore and males dwarves don't spring from the ground.....

it would be really nice if they made a female dwarf without the beard but according to tolkien lore, gimli stated that dwarven women were few. if they did make a female dwarf w/out the beard. i'd roll one today!

[DreadfulBride]

For other species, dwarves are not distinguable, but I think it would be very bad for their population if they could not tell the difference.
But even if not ...

It would be nice if there actually WAS a female option ... without visual effects, just for the sake of it and only dwarves can tell if another dwarf is male or female.
It's true, dwarves never tell "us" if they are male of female. But who's this "us"? Elves, men and hobbits? Are dwarves not part of "us"?

Dwarves among them should well see who's male and who isn't.

Dwarves can distinguish themselves and I dare say unless you plan to cross breed, its all good.

[DreadfulBride]

For other species, dwarves are not distinguable, but I think it would be very bad for their population if they could not tell the difference.
But even if not ...

It would be nice if there actually WAS a female option ... without visual effects, just for the sake of it and only dwarves can tell if another dwarf is male or female.
It's true, dwarves never tell "us" if they are male of female. But who's this "us"? Elves, men and hobbits? Are dwarves not part of "us"?

Dwarves among them should well see who's male and who isn't.

a dress would help

[Khafar]

it would be really nice if they made a female dwarf without the beard

Unfortunately, that's simply not how Tolkien dwarves are: the females cannot be distinguished from the males to outsiders, and that includes beards, voices, and how they dress (when outside their homes).

Presumably the dwarves themselves can tell . But the game basically just leaves it up to the players, letting them RP the gender. One touch that would have been nice is if dwarf NPCs would use the correct pronouns when referring to other dwarves, but I realize that would have been lots of additional work...

Khafar

[Neumi]

Dwarves can distinguish themselves and I dare say unless you plan to cross breed, its all good.

That's exactly my point .. in LotRO dwarves can't. There is not even an option to chose between male and female.

Edit: the pronounciation actually would not be much of a problem. In fact the dwarf logic would not have to be altered, the other races logic would have to be changed.

There is probably a method in the char description which returns the gender. Ths method would have to ask for the race of the caller, and only return the correct value if the race is dwarf.
Of course I can't tell for sure, as I don't know the source code used in Lotro, but it would make sense to have it implemented in such a way. After all the emote texts (for example) don't get transmitted to other clients (except the ones created by players), the other clients create the messages themselves (I use a english client and still others don't see my english text for standard emotes, but their german text).

[Sapience]

During the original development of the game, players (correctly) pointed out that putting "male" on the Dwarf character creation screen was wrong. According to Tolkien, it is virtually impossible for outsiders to tell the difference between a male and female dwarf. In part because they look so similar and both sexes have (and are proud of) beards. Also, Tolkien pointed out, less than 1/3 of all dwarves are female and they rarel venture outside their homes. When they do, they dress exactly the same as the males.

This is why there is no option for either sex on the creation screen. There are no plans to change this.

[DreadfulBride]

Ummm ppls, was... *coughs...Gimli a girl?
With all this chatter about fem dwarves I fear I maybe loosing it.

[Qhouri]

Ummm ppls, was... *coughs...Gimli a girl?

Looking at his relation to Legolas, he must be. Everybody knows that real friendship between men and women is a myth.

[Macfeast]

Ummm ppls, was... *coughs...Gimli a girl?
With all this chatter about fem dwarves I fear I maybe loosing it.

I guess he (well, she) could have been, although I guess it would depend somewhat on the situation at Erebor; Would the gathering of the Easterlings and the words from Sauron's messenger have made it enough of a "time of need" for her to leave Erebor, or would she have been safer remaining at Erebor?
It is true that he did refer to himself as "son of Glóin", but I wouldn't consider that conclusive evidence of his gender, since it is highly unlikely that, if he actually was a girl, he would refer to himself as "daughter of Glóin"; Why go through the effort of hiding your true gender if you're just going to drop the act and reveal it every time you greet someone?