Male Viera (BunBros) - We Want Them - With Heels!

[Enkidoh]

But seriously though, they did initially make Mi'Qote a gender-locked female-only race for quite some time. Wasn't until the community repeatedly asked. It's not outside the realm of possibility that they're waiting for people to publicly request for it to decide to do it, but it is also plausible what you say..

Miqo'te being only female only initially, and for that matter roegadyn and highlander hyur being male only initially was a result of basing those races directly on FFXI's races which also had those gender limitations. And the reasons for those limitations were technical - FFXI's PS2/DX 8 client could only store enough data for four character races, until Tanaka realized they could actually create a fifth race, but a single gender one, if they made one of the four a single gender also.

Hence in FFXI mithra have always been female only and galka male (although a single male mithra npc did appear in the game eventually, it was handwaved that the males are rare and usually kept in the home raising the children, and galka... were written into the lore that they actually reincarnated at the end of their lives into a new form Doctor Who style and didn't even have an actual gender, but were for all intents and purposes were considered 'male'.).

Because Tanaka wanted FFXIV 1.0 to be a spiritual (and initially, literal) successor to FFXI, including the briefly entertained idea of moving all existing FFXI player data into FFXIV 1.0, similar races needed to be used, and thus the gender restriction for miqo'te and roegadyn - they needed to be single race to match up with the planned transfer of FFXI player data as well as give something familar to encourage FFXI players to migrate to the new game when that idea was quickly found to be unworkable. Male highlander hyur being restricted though is still a big question mark - maybe they just ran out of time and didn't get around to adding female models and didn't even bother handwaving it (1.0's development was famously a mess after all).

Either way, as others have mentioned they probably just haven't gotten to finishing off male viera yet, as well as wanting to save it for the Japanese Fanfest next month - have patience and keep the faith a little longer!

[YianKutku]

Someone pointed out that all the Viera shown in the video have the same face. So it's entirely possible SE isn't even done modeling the female Vieras either. Instead they just slapped together whatever they had into a build for fan-fest.

That was explicitly stated during the Keynote, yes. The Viera trailer was a snapshot of mid-development, and they're still working on it.

Which is why I think there is a slightly greater than even chance of male Viera being implemented in game as well. (The reason I don't put it as more than that is that I can't figure out how they will reconcile the lore.) However, the caginess from the devs is a little suspicious, so if it turns out Viera have no males for player characters, I would also not be surprised.

[Kalise]

Lots of people suspect a Ronso derivative, but I think there's not enough room on Hydaelyn for two cat races.

Nuuu...

More cats = best cats :3

Though, more realistically, Ronso type race would be workable, given their more beastlike appearance compared to Miqo'te and larger build (I.e. Similar to Roegadyn)

That said, given the length of time until 5.0, it wouldn't be surprising if male Viera were still WIP. Since, even the currently shown female Viera are still WIP and were likely prioritized specifically to hype people up with bun bun waifus.

[TarynH]

But seriously though, they did initially make Mi'Qote a gender-locked female-only race for quite some time. Wasn't until the community repeatedly asked. It's not outside the realm of possibility that they're waiting for people to publicly request for it to decide to do it, but it is also plausible what you say..

To be fair, the original races were based on FFXI's 5 races. They wanted the original FFXIV races to feel like FFXI, to help those players make an easier transition. Something safe. Something comfortable.

That said, I'm on the "Trollioshida" team for now. Probably not finished in development yet.

But in all seriousness... Would it be so awful to play a female character? Why does it have to be male? Does it have to be male to be good, fun, strong, aesthetically appealing? Your goal is equality, I'm sure, but there's a hypocritical base to your argument.

[Iscah]

But in all seriousness... Would it be so awful to play a female character? Why does it have to be male? Does it have to be male to be good, fun, strong, aesthetically appealing? Your goal is equality, I'm sure, but there's a hypocritical base to your argument.

I'm not deeply invested in getting a Viera character, but I was more interested in seeing male Viera than just females.

The out-of-universe argument against male Viera seems to be that they would look strange, but for me at least, it would be an intriguing character design to put together exactly because it goes against the "standard expectation". I have a few alts and they're all unusual character choices - female Roegadyn, male Duskwight and male Raen. I've seen charts of how popular the different character choices are, and all of those tend to be tiny slivers on the graph. (I made the Roe specifically because I hadn't seen many around, but the others were just designs that appealed to me.)

Bunny girls are going to be all over the place once this launches. Even without being overused, they seem "unoriginal" to me, at least as a general concept. The unusual design of a powerful warrior-type character who is also a bunny person, like in the concept art, is more appealing.

(I gather that Fran is supposed to be a powerful warrior-type too, but her clothes just ruin that impression for me. She looks terribly out of place as a resistance leader in that very impractical-looking outfit.)

It was somewhat the same with Au Ra, I guess. Zero interest in the "cute girl with dragon horns" design for me, but the more unique male design was fun to play around with, and I really like the character that I made.


(All that said, I'll still play around with the female Viera to see how those designs look. And if I hypothetically made a character, I'd be trying to get her as far away from the "bunny girl" stereotype as possible.)

[DarthSanguine]

It's possible they're still under construction, along with the dark-skinned Rava Viera clan. So far in today's trailer all I saw were light-skinned Veena females.

There were 2 Veena, and 2 Rava in the reveal trailer, plus, Fran is a Rava. Their skin just isn't as dark (at least by default) as you're imagining.

[redcurrant18]

There were 2 Veena, and 2 Rava in the reveal trailer, plus, Fran is a Rava. Their skin just isn't as dark (at least by default) as you're imagining.

Rava Viera like Fran have dark skin and ear speckles. The 4 Veena Viera have Tactics Viera ears and light skin. If we put one of them next to Fran the differences become way more apparent.

[Haxaan]

Look at the ears as well, looks like one type has normal bunny ears, the other has tufted ear tips. This could either be an ear/hair option similar to the Miqo ears which changes based on your hair, or they are a sign of the tribe.

[DarthSanguine]

Rava Viera like Fran have dark skin and ear speckles. The 4 Veena Viera have Tactics Viera ears and light skin. If we put one of them next to Fran the differences become way more apparent.

No, two of them are dark skinned, one of them is about the same as Fran.

[DamianFatale]

If male Viera are not in the game as a playable race, I will be so upset. There is no excuse for it.