Viera Race "Confirmed" for 5.0! Are you gonna change races?

[SturmChurro]

One thing that I found weird was how they talked about Viera. I mean, if we do get to play as Viera, new players will get to play that race from beginning of the game (unless SE changes something about that). You, as a new player playing a Viera (maybe a male Viera even), advance through everything and then you get to the Ivalice raids, only to talk to a guy who says he never saw a male Viera and everyone talks about Viera as if you were not there. They'll probably change the text a little bit if you are a Viera, but I just thought it was something funny to think about.

Well, nobody can be a viera now, so it makes sense they would talk like that. From the context it was being heavily hinted that there are adventurers as Viera, I assume. Will be cool to see what they say about you being one. I'll be probably changing immediately as they come out, but I won't get to see what/if they change it.

[BillyKaplan]

Sadly, I think we're getting palette swaps for the Viera. During the Ivalice questline, they speak of "the light skinned Veena Viera", and "the darker-skinned Rava Viera". They did not mention any other physical differences.

At least they acknowledged males exist, after several cutscenes in which they used female pronouns to refer generally to Viera, and speaking of "sisters" instead of 'my people' or what not.

So good news, it likely won't be gender locked (really hoping). Bad news? The clans will be palette swaps

[Kallera]

I really don't want this game's "last race" to be 2 separate genderlocked races... so I'm going to hold out hope that the males being incredibly rare is just going to be the in-game explanation as to why male NPCs won't be wandering around new areas en masse come 5.0.

It doesn't sound like males have much of a life in Viera society at all. It sounds pretty bad, to be honest. what sort of "important position" is living alone, being forced to make your own stuff in isolation, only coming back to your hometown for procreation, and not even stay for the kid? You become little more than an object to not even be talked about.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

I think the whole talk about male Vieras being a very rare sight is simply the game importing Ivalice lore regarding Vieras from XII (where you don't see males in Viera society when you visit it), and I'm cautiously positive that we'll get to play as male Viera even if we don't see them as NPCs in whatever Viera village they put in the game, in case they do.

[jameseoakes]

I think the whole talk about male Vieras being a very rare sight is simply the game importing Ivalice lore regarding Vieras from XII (where you don't see males in Viera society when you visit it), and I'm cautiously positive that we'll get to play as male Viera even if we don't see them as NPCs in whatever Viera village they put in the game, in case they do.

I think this is my biggest issue with Viera so far, they're not a 14 race they a ff12 race badly and bluntly shoehorned in.
The male Viera currently sound extreme and pretty feral, and it has confused as to why they would make them that extreme if they are going to be playable. I always took moon kitty males to just not being involved with raising children, they're still around but just don't have much to with family matters.
The Viera lore to me seem to jump between basically saying yes this is the next race to then giving lore reasons why they don't really work and back again.

[Campi]

Viera Race "Confirmed" for 5.0! Are you gonna change races?

[stormygabe]

One thing that I found weird was how they talked about Viera. I mean, if we do get to play as Viera, new players will get to play that race from beginning of the game (unless SE changes something about that). You, as a new player playing a Viera (maybe a male Viera even), advance through everything and then you get to the Ivalice raids, only to talk to a guy who says he never saw a male Viera and everyone talks about Viera as if you were not there. They'll probably change the text a little bit if you are a Viera, but I just thought it was something funny to think about.

I'm kinda hoping they do some fun flavor text if you play as a Viera. GW2 is the first MMO I've played seriously. If you choose the sylvari (plant people, basically the "elves" of that universe) race, you get a whole bunch of unique dialogue. During one of the expansions, you even get a wholly different experience from other races. In another, some human NPCs who never saw a sylvari mention you as a "talking plant" or something. So it would be fun if that happened here. I know on my miqo'te *COUGH*catdaddy*COUGH* there's some lines mentioning his race, but nothing too unique about it.

I think it'll be fun if a male Viera player came to this NPC and he's all dumbstruck or something.

[Aellae]

I think the whole talk about male Vieras being a very rare sight is simply the game importing Ivalice lore regarding Vieras from XII (where you don't see males in Viera society when you visit it), and I'm cautiously positive that we'll get to play as male Viera even if we don't see them as NPCs in whatever Viera village they put in the game, in case they do.

Yep yep.
Miqo'te lore also stated and still says both that the males are rarely found and also that Miqo'te overall is not a very populated race. If we look at the Eorzea created by the players, that is absolutely not true. We do know now that male Viera exist (albeit rare) so nothing speaks against players creating them.

[TheHeavenAbyss]

I think this is my biggest issue with Viera so far, they're not a 14 race they a ff12 race badly and bluntly shoehorned in.
The male Viera currently sound extreme and pretty feral, and it has confused as to why they would make them that extreme if they are going to be playable. I always took moon kitty males to just not being involved with raising children, they're still around but just don't have much to with family matters.
The Viera lore to me seem to jump between basically saying yes this is the next race to then giving lore reasons why they don't really work and back again.

I understand that, but a similar argument could be made about the Au Ra from the Azim Steppe. The Oronir and Dothrarl are pretty feral, and could give the Au Ra a reputation for being savages that spend most of their time fighting, but the WoL (and other not Azim-related NPCs) are simply Au Ra that are not part of that culture anymore. I think the same will be the case with the Viera. There's this native comunity living in the forests (females) or wandering (males) that are very violent, but a WoL Viera is simply someone, like Fran, that is not related to that comunity anymore (either because s/he left or descends from a group that left that culture).

And I actually like seeing other FF races integrated into FFXIV. Final Fantasy has always been a series that recycles elements from the previous games and it's part of its charm imo. I like that this is a Final Fantasy game where, when Shadowbringers launches, you can play as a Viera with a gunblade, dressed like Cloud Strife, who goes to fight Exdeath, and after that runs with Vivi into the sunset just before taking off in a Magitek Armor lol

[Clover_Blake]

Yep yep.
Miqo'te lore also stated and still says both that the males are rarely found and also that Miqo'te overall is not a very populated race. If we look at the Eorzea created by the players, that is absolutely not true. We do know now that male Viera exist (albeit rare) so nothing speaks against players creating them.

This, and also the fact that male Viera has been designed for FFXIV in the early Viera concept art. There's no reason whatsoever to even consider that males won't be implemented.

The lore is simply trying to justify why we haven't seen male Viera before, just like they did with male miqo'te back in the day (male miqo'te didn't exist in 1.0, so they had to make an excuse for 2.0).