Gender locked race?

[InkstainedGwyn]

People are reading way too much into that "young elezen" thing considering it very likely was just referring to hairstyles. Even if it wasn't, it was likely just in reference that the Viera in general look like elzen already, as well as appearing to have a pretty good diversity in terms of height differences available to them (similar to how Female Roegadyn have a much larger range of heights than other races).

They've already talked about having to do extra work for potentially both their feet, ears, AND more variety in hairstyles by having optional bangs/no bangs versions of their racial hairstyles. They aren't going to pile on twice the work making some drastically different variant unless there's some other sacrifice, as in no male version or male only race at all.




Honestly, all things considered. D is probably the most likely. We have Yoshida saying before that if they'd implement Viera he would probably do a different male only race, then later they created concept art in an attempt to get a version of male Viera that he would accept and he still said they seemed "too cute" showing that he likely still wasn't sold on that idea. Combine it with lore that substantiates males being an incredible rarity (justifying why we would never even see male NPCs, meaning they don't have to even make the models.) Add onto that the complete lack of them during the race reveal, with official art showing multiple female viera, and yoshida's unwillingness to even confirm they are in the works, doesn't paint a very positive light on them being made available to players.

He has consistently shown a reluctance regarding male viera (and male bunny stuff in general). And given how they implemented Blue Mage, we know he follows through with things he talks about even if they're very old, or things that he knows would be controversial and unpopular among players.

Honestly I've been feeling as if the "young elezen" comment was getting out of control myself, but wasn't sure if someone heard something I didn't. To me, it's just as easy to hear "it's not like they're young elezen" as it is "they'll be like young elezen."

Do you remember when YoshiP said that about a separate male race? I don't want to quote it at people without a source but that's very interesting.

[CoolDad]

Honestly I've been feeling as if the "young elezen" comment was getting out of control myself, but wasn't sure if someone heard something I didn't. To me, it's just as easy to hear "it's not like they're young elezen" as it is "they'll be like young elezen."

Do you remember when YoshiP said that about a separate male race? I don't want to quote it at people without a source but that's very interesting.

From 2013 (where he says they might consider a separate race): https://www.siliconera.com/2013/02/2...jg8o6pCcXIo.99

From 2015 (after showing concept art): https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the...n-sense/.91021

Somebody else pulled these out earlier in the thread so credit to them for finding these.

[RoroCookies]

Do you remember when YoshiP said that about a separate male race? I don't want to quote it at people without a source but that's very interesting.

"The issue with the Viera is that, if you look at them, they're basically humanoid save for their long rabbit ears and their heels. We already have a mostly humanoid race with animal ears in the Mi'qote. When we looked at those initial Viera concepts, it just seemed like a Mi'qote with bunny ears instead of cat ears. It simply wasn't different enough. Especially when we did the male designs… they didn't look beastly enough, they were just a little too cute. We wanted to make something that was original to the Final Fantasy series, and to do that, we decided to step away from the Viera.

I was actually strongly against showing the Viera concept art at the event we unveiled the Au Ra at. I knew that people would be like “why didn't you include them?!” [laughs] We feel we have a good thing with the Au Ra, though. If you don't like them, though, let us know and we'll take it into consideration with the next race we bring in."
From: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the...n-sense/.91021

I think its also worth noting that he didn't want to add Viera either yet here we are several years later.
However, I feel like I'm missing another interview that touches base with this.

Edit: Person above me found it.

[Roda]

"The issue with the Viera is that, if you look at them, they're basically humanoid save for their long rabbit ears and their heels. We already have a mostly humanoid race with animal ears in the Mi'qote. When we looked at those initial Viera concepts, it just seemed like a Mi'qote with bunny ears instead of cat ears. It simply wasn't different enough. Especially when we did the male designs… they didn't look beastly enough, they were just a little too cute. We wanted to make something that was original to the Final Fantasy series, and to do that, we decided to step away from the Viera.

I was actually strongly against showing the Viera concept art at the event we unveiled the Au Ra at. I knew that people would be like “why didn't you include them?!” [laughs] We feel we have a good thing with the Au Ra, though. If you don't like them, though, let us know and we'll take it into consideration with the next race we bring in."
From: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the...n-sense/.91021

I think its also worth noting that he didn't want to add Viera either yet here we are several years later.
However, I feel like I'm missing another interview that touches base with this.

Edit: Person above me found it.

"viera is just like miqo'te but with rabbit ears!"
-immediately introduces female au ra which is miqo'te with horns which also is both too cute and not beastly enough compared to their male counterparts and concept arts-

YoshiP's interviews on viera and races in general have always annoyed me. =_=

I'm really hoping my impressions will be proven wrong with the introduction of a smaller, non-beastly, but still cool male viera to balance out what the DID to female au ra, but the pit in the bottom of my stomach says that I'll be disappointed again. >.<

[Nestama]

"viera is just like miqo'te but with rabbit ears!"
-immediately introduces female au ra which is miqo'te with horns which also is both too cute and not beastly enough compared to their male counterparts and concept arts-

YoshiP's interviews on viera and races in general have always annoyed me. =_=

I'm really hoping my impressions will be proven wrong with the introduction of a smaller, non-beastly, but still cool male viera to balance out what the DID to female au ra, but the pit in the bottom of my stomach says that I'll be disappointed again. >.<

I mean, he wasn't wrong... granted the Viera are if Miqo'te were able to be as tall Elezen.

It's more likely they'll "break" the lore to have male Viera rather than break the entirety of the start of ARR to have a playable beast tribe race.
I'm not buying that we're getting Ronso.

And yet: Ul'dah has two Mamool Ja hanging around (if you unlock BLU), Limsa Lominsa has the New World beastmen (Goblins, Mamool Ja, Qiqirn) and in the Halloween event, Gridania had a Lupin (though they thought he was a guy in a costume).
I think the only Beastmen not allowed in the city states are native to Eorzea.

Yup! I said before but also you can make hellsguard roegadyn look like big cats anyway which just makes it more redundant. lion people would be silly imo.

A furless lion with a human face... sure. Totally more redundant than Au Ra females (Miqo'te with horns) and Viera (Elezen-Miqo'te hybrid with rabbit ears).

[Jaywalker]

A furless lion with a human face... sure. Totally more redundant than Au Ra females (Miqo'te with horns) and Viera (Elezen-Miqo'te hybrid with rabbit ears).

:/ Hey, lets take it down a few notches. If we have a difference of opinion that's fine. You don't have to agree with me. But lets have a chill, straightforward conversation as two fans with zero control over what SE will do regardless. Alright?

I remember you said you want to play a beast race previously, and I get that's your preference. The way Final Fantasy XIV is set up there is a divide between beast races and humanoid races for player characters. I do think that having headpieces, chestpieces, etc. available to equip over humanoid frames that allow for players to look like a legit beast character would be a good thing. I'd even go so far as to say I think it would be neat if it was dyable and had multiple possible gear options, because that would be rad and I bet you're not the only one who'd enjoy that. However, one thing I've noticed in character creators and that I suspect would especially be the case in final fantasy--when you go completely animal with facial features, it becomes harder to tell faces apart outside of color scheme. This doesn't mean zero differences, but it's not as immediately apparent to most people unless they really try. For a game that pays so much attention to different glamours and subtle differences in human facial features, a project like that seems like it would result in SE spending a lot of time, money, and effort on something that most people might not notice or choose in terms of individualization. Given that across MMOs there is a trend for more humanoid and conventionally proportioned races being more popular, that is potentially a huge gamble for them that pragmatically might not pay off. Additionally, within the game having what amounts to a playable beast tribe it would also be unusual to see a lot of facial variation when all other beast tribes use the same face model generally. That double standard would be pretty weird and doesn't seem to be the focus of this specific game.

When it comes to player character races, I've been discussing characters that are ultimately humanoid. If you have an egyptian god-type character with an animal head on a human body positioned next to two different human characters, that's a different frame of reference than if you are comparing the two human characters exclusively. All three might have distinct silhouettes, but then you start getting questions about whether or not the cast and world designs are sufficiently cohesive, whether foiling between body types is done effectively, so on and so forth. That can be tricky enough with just humanoids. Throw in total non-humanoids, it's an added level of complexity for a game that already incorporates a lot of complicated design directions.

[Jaywalker]

There's cohesion among beast races as a whole. The fact that their faces in-game are generally the same is part of that. There's also cohesion among humanoid races, with a high degree of variation shown consistently. If SE had chosen to do variation for every beast race character we saw then that would also be cohesive because the variation would be employed with consistency. If all humanoid races had the same faces, again it would be consistent. At the end of the day, consistency is important to world building and creating a sense of immersion. As things stand, SE has done a lot and ultimately chose not to implement a huge range of facial options on beast races.

I'm not saying a lion beast race would be silly. I'm saying IMO it would be as the additional humanoid race. We've done cat people. Au Ra, to my understanding, were more intended to be a parallel to tieflings. They were however interpreted through an aesthetic that people read as draconic or lizardlike. It wound up being closer to miqo'te than I think optimizes both races. It just seems like a missed opportunity to me. Viera I've already said I would prefer to go in a more alien looking route, but since the features they chose emphasize thinness and height I don't mind so much. It stands out next to the other humanoid races so far as body type is concerned.

I hadn't voiced my opinion on Au Ra females before this post. I do think it would've been more interesting if SE had gone with the original design for them, but suspect their choice to make them cute was because they weren't sure how many more races would happen. I think they probably did audience tests with concept art, and if I had to guess would imagine they found that Au Ra designs were popular but that cute designs for women were more popular than their fierce designs. So they adjusted. In terms of stature, female Au Ra and female Miqo'te are essentially the same and I consider that a pity. I'd prefer if they tried for more variation going forward and think it would be more beneficial since it prevents races from competing for the same tonal niche.

We don't know all the Viera facial options. There's a single default face for Miqo'te that looks similar to the face we saw in the trailer. I don't think Viera look like Elezen at all. We don't have any tall, narrow builds. Elezen are regularly cited as having weird proportions with insanely wide shoulders. Viera females at least don't have that. We do not have an outright thin and streamlined race outside of Viera. We also don't have short but burly, but I think tonally that can be tricky to use to its best advantage. Viera potentially can fill the streamlined body type, and the higher ears add to the elongated vertical impression. It's a different silhouette.

Me saying adding a lion humanoid race on top of everything else seems silly was not intended as a slight to you. It wasn't me going "I don't want you to have things that make you happy". I think there might be another route to get there that might work better though.

[Shippuu]

Do you remember when YoshiP said that about a separate male race? I don't want to quote it at people without a source but that's very interesting.

I sure do. Link

Q38: In terms of new races, what kind of races are you looking into and will mixed races be introduced?

A38: I don’t think we’ll have mixed races for a while. Since it seems like Viera is popular around the world we have been proactively looking into this, but since having a rabbit male might be kind of weird, maybe we’ll look into having a separate race for the male counterpart.

One reason male viera may still be a possibility is because of the amount of work that went into viera feet and helmets. Things had to be reworked. It would be a shame to not reuse the feet and helmet adjustments for males as well. Another reason could be because of past player demand for the missing genders of roe, highlander, and miqo'te. They may be aware the player base want both genders of a race.

It's true, but at the same time, that work can also be used for some other male race that features similar feet and ear placement. We also don't fully know the extent of the accommodations they have made for the Viera feet and ears. For all we know, they could have decided to do something as extreme as simply not letting Viera show helmets they're wearing. It's an odd choice, but it would open them up to other race options that have more extreme head shapes that would have also been problematic for helmets. We'll have to wait and see when they explain whatever change it was they have made to accommodate Viera ears.

[Senn]

...

Yeah, someone mentioned the "Ronso" feet thing. They do have similar feet, so they could reuse viera feet for that. Since they mentioned a separate race in the past, this is totally possible.

[Shougun]

I sure do. Link

Q38: In terms of new races, what kind of races are you looking into and will mixed races be introduced?

A38: I don’t think we’ll have mixed races for a while. Since it seems like Viera is popular around the world we have been proactively looking into this, but since having a rabbit male might be kind of weird, maybe we’ll look into having a separate race for the male counterpart.

:O (Forgot how exact the old question was, I just thought it was like "meee..ehhh" lol).

So the question now is will he Blue Mage the Viera people lol. If Yoshi does it again then I'm going to have to reread a lot of old posts, anything he said he is going to do might just be something way down the pipe line but he will be doing XD. Of course he could change his mind too, it's not like he cant do it (but it just seems when he has a strong opinion he sticks to it).

Yeah, someone mentioned the "Ronso" feet thing. They do have similar feet, so they could reuse viera feet for that. Since they mentioned a separate race in the past, this is totally possible.

I imagine IF (not saying they are) they did something like Ronso it might not be called Ronso (just have a high inspiration from- and it would really just be "lion-like"), but yeah.. Ronso have the Viera feet and Viera hands, they also have very similar Viera hair. With their elvish like ears and tails all the systems that made Ronso-like race a pain in the booty to produce a while ago is now technically all prepared.

It's actually why I thought you could buff up a rabbit enough that it might even look like a ronso. Especially with one of the concept arts (of a Viera male) they've produced that has similar T chest hair and hair mane.