Gender locked race?

[Hunky]

You're putting the cart before the horse here. SE isn't trying to find reasons to justify adding male Viera even though it doesn't fit the lore, they created the lore as a justification to not add male Viera.

You can't even argue that they created that lore to justify why we've never seen any male Viera before. So far we've only seen one Viera in-game, who happened to be female. Going only by FFXIV, we'd have no reason to question why we haven't seen any male Viera, only why we've never seen any other Viera of any gender.

It's true we only ever saw female Viera in XII/TA, but that's a different continuity. There's no need for the lore of this game to justify the lore of a completely different universe. If SE wanted to add playable male Viera in XIV, they wouldn't have created an excuse not to.

This. The lore they're setting up for male Viera would justify why we won't get male Viera. The dramaturge puts on a strong emphasis on how males are incredibly rare.

This is the exact same kind of lore they created for male Miqo'te, which they used to explain why male Miqo'te were not playable. But just because male Miqo'te, female Roegadyn, and female Highlander were created doesn't mean that things have changed permanently. Let's not take things for granted. Let's not entitle ourselves into thinking we know how things will work out. At the end of the day, whatever is chosen to be implemented into the game is out of our hands.

The lore for male Viera is so keen on pointing out their rarity that it almost seems like we're being prepared to expect no playable males.

In the Game Watch interview, when asked about male Viera, Yoshida said to read the lore written for Viera again. Coupled with the fact that only female Viera were showcased, along with a PowerPoint slide titled "The Viera" featuring only females, is pretty strong evidence that Viera is going to be a female-only playable race.

And if we do get male Viera, they might just end up looking like Ronso with bunny ears. Which would be even more disappointing. The female Viera look beautiful and amazing. The males should look handsome and muscular. But because bunny ears are considered such a feminine trait, they're probably going to make the males more animal-like to offset the bunny ears.

It goes back to this archaic, out-dated, old-fashioned, close-minded idea that females equal cute and sexy and males equal brutish and savage. There are so many Asian mmos that follow this trend, and I wouldn't put it past ffxiv to do the same. One of the posters above mentioned that Yoshida said "seeing a male rabbit might be weird" when asked about new races.

If the team felt genderlocking the Ramza and Alma hairstyles was the logical thing to do, I can see them genderlocking Viera, or even designing male Viera to make them Ronso-like. Either we're getting male-only Ronso and no male Viera, or male Viera that look like Ronso. From everything I've seen, that's what I'm expecting.

I desperately hope I'm wrong, but I'm preparing myself to be disappointed.

[Corue]

This. The lore they're setting up for male Viera would justify why we won't get male Viera.

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.

[Shibi]

In the Game Watch interview, when asked about male Viera, Yoshida said to read the lore written for Viera again.

A part of the lore that could be relevant is that Viera do leave the woods to live amongst the Humes, but by doing so they become outcasts and lose the ability to communicate with the Jungle, their senses are dimmed (to our level?). One considers this is not written as only females do this. It could be quite inclusive of males.

It would also fix up the lore around the Viera so that player-characters don't have a lore advantage over the other races while in the jungle.

Outcast doesn't need to mean shunned/exiled. It could be restricted to just dimming the normal Viera senses that would allow communication with the forest other races don't have.

I really hope there are male viera, but I don't think I will change from Miqo'te.

[Gwenorai]

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Regarding the lore and of course having their ability to hear the wood etc. Wouldn't the WoL/WoD be able to understand the green word and 'hear' the wood through the use of the echo? Or did I completely forgot how the echo works in regards to an understanding over languages including spiritual ones? But yes... wouldn't they be able to communicate with the wood regardless of race? That'd be pretty cool...

[Shibi]

Regarding the lore and of course having their ability to hear the wood etc. Wouldn't the WoL/WoD be able to understand the green word and 'hear' the wood through the use of the echo? ... But yes... wouldn't they be able to communicate with the wood regardless of race? That'd be pretty cool...

It's a great point, ほんとに thank you for correcting me, a lot of fun thoughts result