Lupin - make it a playable race!

[Nariel]

Who in his right mind seriously want a race as bland as those Lupin ? '-'

They are dog that walk on two feet, look all the same even Namazu have more unique feature and they are basicaly talking cat-fish.

At best they are a good plot tool for the future of Eorzean tribe, a perfect exemple of what they could aspire to become, living in peace with human, a step ahead of those peacefull tribe we work with as a link between them and other human, could be a great quest-chain opening a path to the final demise of the treat of the primordial, a path where beast-tribe live hand to hand with humanity.

But a playing race ? Not a snowball chance in hell that happen.

Customization possibility nowhere close enough of the already existing feature minus the tail.

Lore wise it will be a disaster, how can you even explain the warrior of light to be a beastmen who start his aventure in racist-land where a good beastmen is a dead beastmen ? Civilized or not, to the eye of Eozean when you begin you are dead meat before you even see the gate. Pop Team Epic would have a better plot.

[MOZZYSTAR]

Why? It is a world where a turtle is flying, a Rex is swimming in the air, a small race can take on something that is way bigger without any problems. Just look up Worgen of WoW. They dont have the biggest customization but there can be different styles.

Sure, let's go full-on anthro in FFXIV. Not like it wouldn't make sense with all the prejudice toward beast tribes that actually resemble humans a little more. Ignoring the "foot" argument that is ages old, why would they make Lupin a playable race and not the Ananta when they're basically the same amount of beast, just flipped (more beast in the upper half [lupin], more beast in the bottom half [ananta])? Yes, they're seen as citisens in Doma. Does that mean they work for the Lore all together without retconning certain elements? If you consider the story from the moment you were on that wagon, the answer would be "No."


P.S. This is not WoW, so I don't see why you would make the comparison.

Forgive me, English is not my first language and I really could word my points better! You're right, I use to say that regarding more... "beastly" features, yes yes!

No worries, my friend. I get what you mean and I also agree with you. xD

Edit:

Lore wise it will be a disaster, how can you even explain the warrior of light to be a beastmen who start his aventure in racist-land where a good beastmen is a dead beastmen ? Civilized or not, to the eye of Eozean when you begin you are dead meat before you even see the gate.

Exactly this ^

[ArcaneCarbuncle]

Fine, I'll bite, if only to adress a few short points.

Then let's make sense of it. Why are Beastmen not allowed into the cities (mainly Ul'dah. Gridania I think only have issues with the Ixal and Limsa Lominsa don't seem to care all too much. Goblins, Qiqirn and Mamool Ja are present within the city)? From what I can recall, it is mainly because they can summon Primals (and once tempered, Beastmen became a bigger threat in one way or another) and before Shiva and Phoenix, only Beastmen had summoned them. That gave weight to arguments on why Beast-like races couldn't be playable. Now that we know (very well) that anyone can summon a Primal (Thordan and Shinryu especially), that argument shouldn't hold too much weight (and again, Garleans had Lupin their army).

I think you're underestimating Eorzeas racism problem.
I also feel you're missing my point that a new Race would have to work within the story from the start. All of those revelations that only happen throughout the Story. If the Lupin would start their Story after those revelations, sure, they wouldn't be (much of) a problem. But I don't see SE letting people start in the middle of the narrative or even changing it wholesale.

That just leaves story progression and the beginning... and thinking about that makes me realise just how horribly SE wrote themselves into a corner. I don't believe Au Ra were even treated slightly differently at all in their cutscenes until HW and only in Ishgard(?).

I actually agree with you on this and - I think I even said this before, in the Viera thread perhaps? - if this was different I'd likely be right there with the 'we want beastrace' squad; not necessarily Lupin, because i find 'Werewolfs' overused. But in general. I'd also most certainly love if races were referenced more. (Not treated crazy differently, as they'd still have to be able to go through the same Story, but a bit more acknoledgement would be nice)

On the off chance Lupin and Viera wind up being playable, I feel SE will need to make a new intro for those two races (and maybe even Au Ra as well, since they're all natives from Othard). Otherwise it's just jarring to have either of them become playable and not one Eorzean NPC batting an eye lid as to why this wolfman or weird-footed bunny-eared person is interacting with them.

Have them start in a low level Kugane and then have them go to Eorzea somehow... or make them only start in Limsa Lominsa.

Well, we'd have to agree to disagree here. I think I've explained often enough why I believe the overall way the Au Ra were introduced was fine and would be fine for Viera also; and why I don't believe it would be as easy for the Lupin.
I also doubt SE would create a whole new starting area for any new race, especially since New character aren't distributed into the citystates by race, but by starting class. So they'd have to either introduce new ones or change the way the distribution is handled, which (from SE's likely point of view) would be another con for Lupins - more work than absolutely necessary.
I also don't see them limiting new character to a single citystate either.

While I think it is possible to make faces a little more bestial without breaching FFXIV's lore, I also agree in that I doubt SE would ever "compromise" like that (not too human, not too beastly), which is unfortunate. FFXIV's races are largely less creative than all the other Final Fantasy races and it makes FFXIV as an FF title... really disappointing.

They're already approaching that point with the Au Ra though, at least with the males.
There are quite a few FF-Games with no racial variety whatsoever; most FF games have a mostly - if not entirely - human cast. Earlier FFs had the occational dwarfs and elfs, but later games usually had the odd non-human cast member at most, even if there were multiple races. The only exceptions are usually spinoffs.
I guess I'm trying to say that I don't understand the disappointment, super-crazy-creative races have hardly been a staple if looking at the whole franchise. (Though I admit then when there where different races, they were usually notable.)

- Both are beastly, with the Lupin having the head which is a bit more than normal races.

I want to adress this point first.
I don't knw what kind of Viera you're referring to, but the type of Viera I know aren't much more beastly then any of the races we have now. Let's posit Viera are added as they appear in FFXII; they'd be distiguishible from most of the races we have, yes, but they wouldn't appear to be more of beastman variety then the average male Au Ra - in fact, I'd even argue said male Au Ra to look a little bit more beastial.

Oh I did read your long post, I just dont agree with it. You might see it as big retcons of lore and this is fine because opinions are subjective but for me it would not be more of a retcon than just introducing Viera:

- Both come from a country that had no real contact to Eorzea at the start of ARR.

We do not know this. For all we know there was always trade between Eorzea and Ivalice (especially given Ivalice' relative proximity to Thavnair), at least before Garlemald came into the picture.

- Both dont have an appearance right now in the city states


So they also need to put the Viera in a world that before that had no visible Viera. The same with the Au Ra in HW or any other new race. So we as the player just completely have to ignore that we know, that they were not part of the countries before that.

Neither did the Au Ra, and they still were relatively smoothly slotted into the game (outside of some Yugiri weirdness).
Here's the thing: I get that just magically slotting the race into the games lore requires some Suspension of Disbelief, but my point was never that it wouldn't. My point is that Viera are much less likely to cause a 'ripple effect' within the games lore; as in the devs having to change backgroud information about places that already exist rather then just creating lore for places that don't have much yet.
Viera are humanoid enough to not cause any awkward moments.
Lupin on the other hand would; If you just said they've always been there you'd have to explain how they are allowed within Ul Dah despite their ban on beastmen in general. And, if they're not allowed, why not despite obviously being friendly?
And this is not the only example I could give of things they'd need to adress, and likely also not the weirdest one.

But they also lay the ground for both. Viera are name dropped in Dalmasca and the first Lupin was already in Eorzea. All I am saying is that they could just use that to write both of them in it and since Garlemald uses Lupins they are seemingly not considered as beast tribe. So at least a bit less of a problem than for example the Ixal. (And lets not forget that some scholars still wonder if Au Ra might have dragons or void sents as anchestors, yet nobody is afraid of us)

The cursive part: Never base a lore argument on a seasonal event. They are usually semi-canon at best (and completely nonsense non-canon at worst; or do you suppose the story should start to worry about bugs taking over the world?)
The rest: The funny thing here is this: In their own, weird way, Garleans are less racist then Eorzeans; they think beastmen (or anyone not garlean) are beneath them, yes, but they don't actually kill them if they're not a threat. We also know other beasttribes that are not a 'threat'; that never summoned a primal and live in relative peace with the spoken races but are still coonsidered beast tribes. I don't see how the Lupin wouldn't be considered to be one, albeit a civilized one.

In the end this is a wish thread.

Wish all you want, just don't expect much.

It does not mean that it has to happen and honestly like other said: Fantasia, glamour, flying turtles and things like that are already breaking the immersion.

I really hate this argument. Just because there are already things that break immersion doesn't mean it's okay to take a sledgehammer to it. Not everything has to work within canon; Gameplay/Lore Segregation is a trope for a reason.
Races and such however kinda do, as they are the very backbone of the world that's being built.

Honestly before we get just another race which are mostly humans with some animal parts, I would have more customization for the existing races, thus they truly wont need any change of the story at all.

Overall I agree with this ^^. That said I feel like a new race would be the most likely way for them to introduce the kind of customization I'm looking for; which is bodytypes. (Seeings as different bodytypes seem to be reserved for different races/subraces)

Lore wise it will be a disaster, how can you even explain the warrior of light to be a beastmen who start his aventure in racist-land where a good beastmen is a dead beastmen ? Civilized or not, to the eye of Eozean when you begin you are dead meat before you even see the gate. Pop Team Epic would have a better plot.

Ah, someone who sees my problem.

(And I ended up adressing more then a few points... whoops :/)

[MOZZYSTAR]

They're already approaching that point with the Au Ra though, at least with the males.
There are quite a few FF-Games with no racial variety whatsoever; most FF games have a mostly - if not entirely - human cast. Earlier FFs had the occational dwarfs and elfs, but later games usually had the odd non-human cast member at most, even if there were multiple races. The only exceptions are usually spinoffs.
I guess I'm trying to say that I don't understand the disappointment, super-crazy-creative races have hardly been a staple if looking at the whole franchise. (Though I admit then when there where different races, they were usually notable.)

Overall, I appreciate your opinion & points.

To point out: I never once commented on Au Ra, and lore wise I find them to be very interesting (especially with the fact that their culture has actually been a vital point in the MSQ). Design-wise, I do prefer their original concepts over the ones SE but for other reasons other than "slapping scales on a hume" (I am so sick of tiny, teenaged or younger looking girls as much as I love the Au Ra girls), though I do think they could have pushed the Au Ra a little more, like in their original concept designs. However, I'm not really talking about Au Ra, I'm talking about our other races which may or may not serve as the base for new races. Elezen, Roe, Lala, Hyur, et cetera. They're all very "hume." And while - yes - there are a lot of very "hume" races throughout the FF franchise (Dwarves, Cetra, Al Bhed, et cetera), there are still lot of "fantastical" ones scattered across multiple titles. Many titles title (not every title, let me emphasise) of FF does have more "fantastical" races like Yukes & Lilty (CC), Mermaids (FF1), Werewolves (FF5), Shumi+others (FF8), Qu+others (FF9), Ronso+others (FF10), Nu Mou+everything (TT, FF12), et cetera. They don't need to be super-creative-and-totally-original-to-FFXIV, but it would be nice if they they were a little more than just different phenotypes of humans (like Elezen, Roe, Lala, and Hyur). For example, I think it would have been better if Lalas had been lilties design-wise (but even then, maybe lilties would've been considered as beasts, along with Yukes and mermaids and Shumi and Qu and Ronso and so on). While I understand it's part of the lore for FFXIV, I find it a bit disappointing because what appealed to me in other FF games were the more fantastical elements. I still like it for the story and the new areas are gorgeous, but it's lacking something the other titles have.

Edit: it probably shows, but my favourites were 8, 9, 10, 12, different CC's, so with those being my favourites I think that's where the disappointment comes in.

The only thing that we see different from Lupins and the other races are their heads....

The face is the first thing people see. If you're on a wagon and Amal'jaa or Sahagin or whatever show up to blast the wagon away, do you think people in Eorzea are going to respond well to a wolf face? Like... how can you possibly rationalise a fanged animal face on a miqo'te's body when a fanged animal face on a roe-like body is terrifying? (Edit: let me emphasise: we didn't start in Doma. We started in Eorzea during a time where beast clans/beast-like figures were truly terrifying even if they were innocuous.)

[Viera] have the only avantage of being an already existing race in the FF franchise.

Werewolves exist in FF5

[Nestama]

Werewolves exist in FF4

You mean FFV, right? Kelger (one of the original Dawn Warriors) and the village (Quelb) of Wolfmen?

[Draikir]

What I don't understand is, the devs could have made the Lupin more beastly and more animal-like but instead chose to make them more humanoid. And why go through the trouble of introducing a Lupin in the first place with a event to then have a him decide to travel Eorzea and befriend its populace? If I recall correctly, it was the first time a "beast" was part of a seasonal event.

Lupins run like all the playable races, have some the same gestures/emotes as the playable races. And I know the expressions on their faces look bland but it could be worked upon. It looks like they are slowly integrating them in. With Kelgar too, being a part of Eureka, it just seems like the Lupin have more potential to becoming a new playable race than Viera even though fans want them more.Yes, the Viera is mentioned within 4.3.

New races will mostly likely always be a problem. This is a game and people want to play a fantasy where they can enjoy themselves. But whatever the case, it'd be nice to have a change to the playable races. It'd be new to see this happen. And it'd be somewhat unique to XIV. I'd enjoy it and hope it happens.

And, if Amaterasu does appear in the game, she will probably be a mount for collecting all the dog mounts from the extreme trials. But I feel as though Yatagarasu will be a thing in the future.

[MOZZYSTAR]

You mean FFV, right? Kelger (one of the original Dawn Warriors) and the village (Quelb) of Wolfmen?

Yes, thank you~. Not sure why I got 4 stuck on the brain.
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(Sorry for the late edit, net keeps dying every 40 seconds.)

New races will mostly likely always be a problem. This is a game and people want to play a fantasy where they can enjoy themselves. But whatever the case, it'd be nice to have a change to the playable races. It'd be new to see this happen. And it'd be somewhat unique to XIV. I'd enjoy it and hope it happens.

While I agree that it would be cool to have more "interesting" races on FFXIV (and I did thought it would be cool to have playable Lupins at first), a part of me now hopes Lupins don't become a playable race (I'm sorry, guys!) because the more I thought about it the less it made sense to me. In the end it doesn’t really affect me or my game, so I don’t really care if they do implement Lupin as a playable race (I wouldn’t change my character to Lupin so it wouldn’t affect my character’s history), but I think it might make FFXIV & SE look bad if they… can’t even follow their own lore. Yes, they work in Doma. Yes, they may work in Eorzea now with people trying to find alternate solutions to dealing with tempered people and actually trying to negotiate with beastmen, etc., but they don't work with our history.

What I'm curious about is why do you want Lupin of all things? Sure, they've been shown in FFXIV, but there's got to be more to it than that. Of all the more bestial species you could demand and fight for, why Lupin? They're not exactly the most interesting (for lack of a better word). Aren’t there any more bestial species you would rather see and play?

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P.S. Trixie, emojis/emotes have nothing to do with age. They’re a tool to convey tone and expression through informal written language, like /joy in game.

[Nestama]

What I'm curious about is why do you want Lupin of all things? Sure, they've been shown in FFXIV, but there's got to be more to it than that. Of all the more bestial species you could demand and fight for, why Lupin?

To me, it's because they have the best chance of being playable out of all the Beast NPC's in the game. They can wear 'human' clothes, they live amongst humans (not segregated), they don't exactly have a tribe (that we know of) and aren't killed on sight by Garleans (instead are/were a part of their army). They were also considered to be a playable race in the past.

Heck, quite a few races were considered.

[Nariel]

Werewolves exist in FF5

Yup, and in the FF franchise they were :

- Recurring ennemies

- minor character

- Summon

Never was playable, probably never will.

Viera :

- Fran, main character of FFXII (or at least a secondary but playable character)

- Playable race in all FF tactics game.

Its not that much a fight about Lupin VS Viera, its about Lupin being a huge problem to deal with to being a playable race, technically, lore wise and money wise.

Whatever float your boat, fuel it with delusion but I'd put my head to cut that Lupin will never be the next nor a playable race EVER because logic apply and logic say its too much work for sh**ty return on investment.

One of the main problem with the Viera are their feet as said by director Yoshida himself, with this information in mind can you even imagine the number of problem Lupin will cause for being playable ?

[Alleo]

Who in his right mind seriously want a race as bland as those Lupin ? '-'

I have nothing against Viera but how would they for example be better? (For me they just look like another human race with bunny features) In the end its not necessarily the Lupin that I want but at least something different. The first versions of the Au Ra would have been perfect for me but they made them another really humanoid race. Viera like the one that people wants are really humanoid too. If they cant give us different, then a third tribe with each race ore deeper customizations would be nice.

Sure, let's go full-on anthro in FFXIV. Not like it wouldn't make sense with all the prejudice toward beast tribes that actually resemble humans a little more. Ignoring the "foot" argument that is ages old, why would they make Lupin a playable race and not the Ananta when they're basically the same amount of beast, just flipped (more beast in the upper half [lupin], more beast in the bottom half [ananta])? Yes, they're seen as citisens in Doma. Does that mean they work for the Lore all together without retconning certain elements? If you consider the story from the moment you were on that wagon, the answer would be "No."


P.S. This is not WoW, so I don't see why you would make the comparison.

The only thing that we see different from Lupins and the other races are their heads. They wear normal shoes, normal clothes. Give them a hood that hides their head and you would not see them as beast tribe, while most of the real beast tribes (we are not even sure if they fall under that label) have even different body forms.

Their feets are also not really arguments since they are wearing normal shoes. And lets not forget that the feet were a problem for the Viera race too (one of the reason why SE did not introduce them as playable until now) that never hindered people from wanting that race either.

We have seen Lupins in Doma as normal villagers, as soldiers in the Garlean army, as visitor to Eorzea (and honestly there will be a time that people realize that he is not wearing a costume) and at least one Lupin with the one group of Eureka. (And if I have to consider the story from point of the wagon I would say no to Au Ra too because at that time none existed yet my character is one right now and nobody would bat an eye if you start as one too even if they at that time are barely even in the story. Any new race will have to bend our belief because they simply did not exist in the states before they were created and are suddenly there and accepted)

I gave the example with the Worgen to show that you can have braids and stuff without being not fantasy.

In the end I just want either more options for the exiting race or another new race that is much more different to the existing ones otherwise I just dont see a reason for them to exist. (But thats just my opinion and I know that there is a much higher chance that we will get Viera or something else simple but that doesnt mean that I wont post my view on what I wish to have)

Edit:

@ArcaneCarbuncle (I am not going to use all the sentences or this would be getting way out of hand.

The problem with racism is that the WoL is completely out of it. You will always be threated as a simple outsider in Gridania no matter the race.

And how would Viera work from the start when we might only meet them in Dalmasca which is part of the SB and thus far away from the start too? I mean both Lupin and Viera have their places in the world so they would not be coming out of nowhere so next to maybe the Lupin being count as beast tribe (which is debatable) they have the exact same story problem.

I meant with beastly that even the Viera is not completely human. They are different from the normal Hyur thus they should grab the attention. Au Ra were said to be from dragons or even void sents just because of their look. Yet none fear them, none react to it. And if for example a Viera WoL would sit in the carriage at the beginning, shouldnt they at least react a bit? Yet with a high chance they will just ignore it too. (And lets not forget that they would also clash later with the story because right now we have never seen a Viera before so if they are introduces in the Ivalice race we would probably be shocked or surprised..how will that be if you are a Viera yourself or if Viera are suddenly common in Eorzea?)

We do not know if there is a trade between Dalmasca and Eorzea but its in the hand of Garlemald for at least 30 years, so any trades should have been gone for quite some time. Yet if they had trades for so long, how can there be no Viera in at least Limsa? (The city states with quite a bit of beast tribes running around) Even here they will have to bend the story again and try to make us believe that they are somehow already known.

And who can say that they are not already trading with Doma at the time that we get the new race thus have contact with Lupins? Again Viera and Lupin have the same problem (and Au Ra too) that they are not existing until the expansion demands it. They could change some bits of the story enough or simply ignore it (like with the Au Ra).

Garleans have threatened the Ananta even though they never summoned a primal either. Varis himself has said that the beast tribes have to go and would have probably killed even the good Vanu Vanu if we did not come to their aid, so no the lupins remain the only example of really working with them and having them in their army. Next to having them being the only beastly race that are living directly with the villagers and wearing their clothes and are important just shows that they are different enough from most beast tribes. Thus as long as we dont get the facts ingame we simply cant just assume that they are truly beast tribes and not just another race like the Au Ra or Lalas.