Speculation on player races

[Nestama]

During the 11 crossover event with Shantotto she specifically stated that she plane-hopped. So no, we're not on a thousands-of-years-later Vana'diel.

To add, there's no mention of Altana anywhere in FFXIV (instead, we have The Twelve)... and the devs have confirmed that Vana'diel (or was it Ivalice) is not on Hydaelyn.

[Enkidoh]

To add, there's no mention of Altana anywhere in FFXIV (instead, we have The Twelve)... and the devs have confirmed that Vana'diel (or was it Ivalice) is not on Hydaelyn.

During the 11 crossover event with Shantotto she specifically stated that she plane-hopped. So no, we're not on a thousands-of-years-later Vana'diel.

These are the answers you seek - FFXI and FFXIV are set in totally different worlds, as are all FF games. The developers confirmed this in a past 'Letter from the Producer LIVE' video back in 2013 (the transcript for which has since disappeared sadly, but this was the link):

Q55: There are a lot of names from Ivalice such as Dalmasca, Belias, and Zodiak that have been mentioned, is there some connection between Hydaelyn and Ivalice?

A55: To be absolutely clear, there is no connection between FFXIV’s Hydaelyn and FFXII’s Ivalice. Likewise there is no connection with FFXI’s Vana’diel. Each are their own individual world. Based on this, there are connections between the things that appear in the world, and we’ll be revealing more in the future.

As for why FFXIV shares racial similarities with FFXI, it comes down to the fact that when the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0) was still early in the design stage circa 2005/2006, there was a very early concept to actually have FFXIV succeed FFXI and thus move existing player character data between the two games, and thus the races had to be similar.

Naturally this idea was quickly discovered to be virtually unworkable and the whole concept was abandoned very early on, but the development team (led by FFXI's producer Hiromichi Tanaka) decided to continue to use FFXI's races in FFXIV but tweaked slightly and given different lore to provide some 'familiarity' for players while making them unique enough, hoping to attract FFXI players into the new game.

This is why like in FFXI in FFXIV 1.0 players could not play as a male miqo'te or female roegadyn, just like their FFXI cousins also being 'one gender'. That's it in a kuponutshell anyway.

[Cakekizy]

To add, there's no mention of Altana anywhere in FFXIV (instead, we have The Twelve)... and the devs have confirmed that Vana'diel (or was it Ivalice) is not on Hydaelyn.

Ivalice was FF XII.