Gender locked race?

[KaijinRhada]

If they want to make a lion race they can just give miqo'te some manes, or even introduce a new sub miqo'te race with mane, maybe more threatening

This exactly. I love cats, but having two separate feline races feels incredibly redundant.

[Jaywalker]

This exactly. I love cats, but having two separate feline races feels incredibly redundant.

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.

[Shippuu]

How would we, the WoL and our party manage to get through the wood without being attacked by one? And yes they attack from the shadows, but this is the WoL/WoD they're not going to go down with one shot which will end up with a confrontation.

Not to mention their wood - which Yoshi P mentioned - was burning in the trailer. Another reason for them to come out and fight or help with the blaze. It honestly just doesn't make sense to me at the minimal for there not to be a male viera NPC.

I don't think you're considering a potential story element they could be using with that particular burning wood. Male Viera are already very rare and staunch defenders of the wood. If a significant threat were to approach the woods, it would make sense for them to gather to defend it, no? And if that so happens to gather the majority of those already rare males into one spot to defend their home? Then a sudden massive inferno would make short work of them potentially. This would be a powerful story hook that would not only give female viera a tragic element if the vast majority of their already small male population was eradicated, but would further solidify even more of an excuse to not include playable male Viera.

We know SE isn't afraid to gut punch the players with tragic stories, after all.

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.

This same argument can be made against Viera with Miqote. You can make miqote or even elezen look like Viera already, so adding Viera is redundant.

[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

[Senn]

If on the off chance we don't get male viera, I wonder why they had the npc describe male viera's appearance. World building, or a hint?

[Nihility]

how about you all calm your butts and stop jumping to conclusions about things that aren't even kind of verified?
we saw what? 4 female viera all wearing the same thing and all with the same face. Clearly they are far from ready even with females

Just gotta pray the males look like the cool bestial ones matching the females in that concept art because the anemic children looking ones seem to have quite a child molester-ish following on some other forums that is very disturbing

[Senn]

...

Everyone here seems pretty calm to me. Nothing wrong with speculating, either.
If you don't like it, you don't have to read.

[Iscah]

I think the "young Elezen" description is being over-imagined. I'm picturing something more like a variation on ear placement that's more to the sides of the head, so would look a bit more like an Elezen silhouette with the young-looking Viera face.

even if the description is accurate, it's still not reliable to compare their theoretical-height to Alphinaud, because scale is important. The proportions might be the same but on a taller character, so they look similar when you don't have anything to scale them against.

(I have a female Roegadyn alt, and she looks human-proportioned until she's standing next to an actual human-sized character and you realise how much bigger they are.).

[Jaywalker]

This same argument can be made against Viera with Miqote. You can make miqote or even elezen look like Viera already, so adding Viera is redundant.

I disagree on the grounds that I think the body type difference goes a long way in that department tbh. Personally I would have preferred a more alien spin on Lunarians for tall and slim race as opposed to another animal thing, but if it's going to be Viera the ears add a further vertical impression with height. The narrow shoulders and long legs only emphasize further. Elezen have very different facial structure and body structure (best I can describe it is as lanky, whereas viera look like they'll be narrow) and Miqote are teeny tiny. One of the female miqo'te faces does look really similar to Viera from the previews I agree, but the body types remain dramatically different. Also without mods it's kind of tough to hide the extra ears and all, bunny suit ears look like they are fake imo.

I don't want to assume this is a common knowledge thing so if you already know this sorry! But basically one of the big things in design (among other stuff) is forming distinct silhouettes. Basically if you black out the entire figure and just look at the outline, can you tell what character it is. I think Viera do still manage that because the body type is distinct, even if again I'd have preferred something other than animals again.

[xbahax92]

I'm up for bestial anything, but I have a problem with a lion-esque race. Lions are felines, different genus, but still cats. You know what's also a feline race? Miqo'te.

You forget something here though. Viera are created by someone else, as someone pointed it out in this thread. I do not think that Yoshida can ignore how Matsuno-san envisions male Viera. Im pretty sure YoshiP asked him how he thinks about them, and lets be honest, there is no reason to restrict it just because there is another feline race.
Im pretty sure many players here want them to be something taller than Male Miqote but not to tall, many dont like large races just as Roe, Elezen, Highlander and Male Au Ra. At least, thats what I think and experienced so far inside the game. Bishie look, this ones popular.

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.

There is a chance this changed though. I mean, he took the creator of Tactics and FF12 into the team. And if Matsuno-san is really the creator of Viera, then he also has the opportunity to create the Male Viera.