Just A Heads-Up: Gamer Escape Interview with Koji Fox (Fan Festival 2018)

[Fenral]

Again, hopefully, it’ll be the end for one piece…and we’ll finally find out what the one piece is… …(whispers) It’s friendship.

My money's still on his hat, but I think what matters most is that it was with him all along.

[WhiteArchmage]

Excuse me while once again go into a corner and yell "KOOOOOJIIIIII!!!"

Also, I made up that joke about Moose with the spreadsheets and it turns out it kind of DID go like that! :P

[Rongway]

My big take-away from this:

I hate how games just give you 100% correct information all the time. That never happens in the real world. There’s always a little bit of misinformation in there. You hear it and believe it; then all these people are saying it’s this though, maybe this is wrong, and this is this

[ObsidianFire]

That is one of my favorite things about this game as far as the lore goes. It's entirely possible for NPCs to be wrong, whether it's because they're mistaken or actually trying to mislead you. The only other game series I remember doing that a lot with it's lore is The Elder Scrolls.

[Vidu]

Sooo, I just read the interview and wanted the express my thanks for this very intresting and delightining read!

And the question about the Mi'qote reminded me of some discussion we had a while back that was originally about naming-conventions after a marriage, but evolved into something more intresting for me.
The question that has been on my mind basically is: Are the Seekers of the Sun on constant breach of extinction?

To give a bit of context here:
We know that there are 26 Seeker-tribes and that there are probably any number between 10 and 200 Mi'qote in each tribe (which 200 being a rather large tribe with several Nuhns - something that would be uncommon). If we assume an average of 100 Mi'qote per tribe, that puts them at 2.600 individuals - a number that would land them on the endangered list in the real world! And keep in my mind that Kojis answer of "We're not showing you all people that are there" doesnt fit, because this isnt limited by enginge or "we dont want to many boring NPCs" but by the very lore itself!
My personal "explantion" has always been that there are more than 26 tribes, with several tribes sharing their letter - branch-tribes, so to speak. But I have absolutly no evidence or proof or even real reason to believe that except that it made the most sense to me.

So... I'm curious now: Are the Sun-Cats really that small in number? Is my theory "correct"? What happens when a tribe gets wiped out (it should be something that can easly happen with small tribes - all thats needed is a flu that they cant recover from) - or is that something that never happend?

Also, in addition to that: The post about Mi'qote-lore mentions how a Tia can become a Nunh by forming his own tribe and even though it also mentions how difficult that is (because apparently catboys are only attractive to catgirls if they have a harem...), what would the tribe-letter be? Is this my evidence for branch-tribes or would a new letter be made up - or just no letter at all?

[SannaR]

Hmm. How many would you need to make up a harem? As the only non tribe one that I can think of is the bandit catboy "king" in South Shroud.

[sciencebot]

Also, in addition to that: The post about Mi'qote-lore mentions how a Tia can become a Nunh by forming his own tribe and even though it also mentions how difficult that is (because apparently catboys are only attractive to catgirls if they have a harem...), what would the tribe-letter be? Is this my evidence for branch-tribes or would a new letter be made up - or just no letter at all?

I can't speak to the actual numbers of miqo'te or their tribes, but this bit I do know about. There's an old Koji-Fox post on it from 2013:

When the Seekers of the Sun came to Eorzea from their homelands, there were only 26 tribes. Since that time, there have been some males who, instead of defeating their tribe's nunh and becoming a breeding male by normal means, opt to leave the tribe and form their own. However, it is rare for female Seekers of the Sun to follow these males, so these newly formed tribes almost always die out.

This does not mean that it doesn't happen.
If a male leaves to form his own tribe, he will replace the letter from his original tribe (for example, the "Y" in Y'shtola) with a new one. Since the 26 letters of the Eorzean alphabet are already taken, the new tribal prefix will be often be two letters (Ma -> Ma'shtola) which are of the tribe-forming male's choosing (and all people in his tribe will use that same prefix).

[Fenral]

Hmm. How many would you need to make up a harem? As the only non tribe one that I can think of is the bandit catboy "king" in South Shroud.

I think anime sets the low bar for a "harem" at three female-units, and one of them can be your actual sister.



The Coeurl King is a mooncat, though, and a terrible pervert for trying to emulate those terrible pervert suncats.

[SannaR]

I think anime sets the low bar for a "harem" at three female-units, and one of them can be your actual sister.



The Coeurl King is a mooncat, though, and a terrible pervert for trying to emulate those terrible pervert suncats.

He also is an abuser at least emotionally as at least with the postmoogle quest that deals with him highly hints at it. So, do all Tias that want their own tribe have to go to Costa and ask a certain pervy but also very rich Lalafell how does he do it? XD Sorry.

I am glad that we'll be getting some big questions answered soonish. Now the big question is will the answers we get make anyone happy?

[Iscah]

Yoshida-san has said in some interviews where you get this question, “Is the lore set first and then you build quests off that?” While we have the core lore, Yoshida’s thing is that writers should be able to do whatever the [heck] they want and not have to worry about the lore. Then they take that to the lore team and it’s the lore team’s job to make it fit with the rules we have.

Yoshida-san wants to give complete freedom to his writers to be able to create anything they want and not be restricted. They won’t want to think, “I want to do this but there’s this weird rule about aether…” It’s the lore team’s job to make that fit with the rules that we have.

That just sounds like a bizarre and backwards way of creating a consistent story-world. I would cringe as a writer having to do that. Knowing the 'rules' of the world and coming up with interesting ways to work within them (or occasionally around them) seems like a far better way of developing the story.