Gender locked race?

[NekoNova]

I just want to contribute one thing to the entire discussion:

[Corue]

I just want to contribute one thing to the entire discussion:

The same lore that states that there are proportionally more male Viera than there are male Miqo'te?

[Shougun]

The person i quoted and set that 'challenge' to was in favor of gender locking viera without giving a reason why they think that after being called out by people they went on to say they are sick of criers who just complain whenever they don't get what they want so i then called them out specifically why they think male viera should not be added basically why they were in favor of gender locking them.
The bogus restrictions are the common defense i have seen in every thread about this and guess what they are bad reasons as
1. Male mi'qotes are equally as rare and are fully playable so lore is moot
2. Yes personal preference should have no bearing on reasoning to me this should include the Producer himself i will never ask for his job if he lets his personal taste completely dictate sound reasoning i will however have absolutely no sympathy for him if he gets hounded at every interview about it
3. If they try to defend the devs saying its too much work HW gave more that what ShB is giving currently this could change at Tokyo not a future reader afterall, HW is also the best comparison as was last time gave a new race.

Those that wanted to play female viera will play female viera those that wanted to play male viera will play as them if male viera is forcibly locked out some may go as female viera but a lot of those that wanted to play male won't. I cannot speak for other posters but if male viera is different to what i may want i will still play like i did au ra also i would be content that they were added period the main issue i have is gender locking itself and i personally would find it a very bad direction for ffxiv to take.
Also Yoshi P specifically hated 'cute' male viera not male viera in general

I am not trying to play devils advocate here (you haven't accused me of it, just starting off with that statement lol), more like trying to keep everyone hopeful but prepared for what they might find the worst case (myself included lol). Like for me, I really want a bestial race and in fact if it was just a straight up port form Ronso FFX I'd be like "WOOOT" lol (although I find that unlikely).

However, taking part in the conversation and puzzle (will they wont they lol) I found I might think male Viera to be interesting (if its a bit feral like, at least one of the clans). . So I'm here for an honest discussion. I know you haven't accused me (so I'm not trying to defend myself against you haha) but I just want people to know I'm not trying to stir a pot just cause, especially with what I say next lol.

With all that said, consider that all the people who thought the reasons why blue mage was limited (myself included) were all issues that were like "but you could fix that.. but why..".

You list out how the male Viera even with their "issues" shouldn't be banned from existing, this is what many blue fans did before (and still after) as well. Also considering that ancient word of Thal (Yoshi-P) has said that Blue Mage will be X and so it was, and Viera will be Y... and so it may be? It's not that he can't change his mind, he has.

I guess I add that because you said he didn't like a cute male viera but I think it's more accurate to say he doesn't like male viera because they will feel cute (in his opinion) - the distinction small but important. It's possible to show him a design where he changes his mind, but I believe he said it in a way that is "how I keep seeing male viera, it's cute, I don't like it" (so he's thought of it on his own at least, and doesn't really like it). To such a point that he has also said they might be genderlocked (even after unlocking other races, of course this was said LONG ago).

For genderlocking:

• May be hard to believe they design two whole races, but the leak has been so accurate that it feels like one must include a lion race concept somewhere
• SE used the miqote lore that was used to lock genders before
• Yoshida has said he may lock Viera and make another male race (many many years ago)
• The designer of Viera may feel uncomfortable with male Viera (he never made them before in his other three tactic games, if he had wanted to in the past he probably would have already)
• The reveal picture for the jobs was two images in silhouette but Viera was just a bunch of females with no blank space (like the shadowbringer landing page website)
• They've played very coy around the race, "Japan Fanfest" being the extent of an answer about it

If genderlocked then for Ronso-like/lion race:

• Ronso have similar feet to viera, the system they just made
• Ronso have elvaan like shaped ears, when the talk of Elvaan ears and helmet system came up Yoshida silenced that fast
• The hair Viera use is a bit like the hair you might see on Ronso
• Not important like the other new systems added but Ronso happen to have claws like Viera
• They're not cute like bunny, but there is a concept art that looks a bit like a Ronso (so the concept art could have lead to a departure of bunny into this)
• The leak mentioned lion race and Ronso is one of SE's most iconic Lion races (there exists a few others but they're far less prevalent)

Not genderlocked, for lion Viera:

• Yoshida may find them not so cute anymore
• Meets the leak criteria
• Designer of Viera gets to finally release the counterpart and was able to write the lore that made them, giving them another opportunity to touch the world and FFXIV
• They're not genderlocked so that's not a issue anymore (complaints of dimorphism may happen though)
• They probably will look like how you would imagine a male solo-ing the world since the age of 13 (out in the wild nearly their whole life, killing on sight), so it seems lore approriate (if they were tough, buff, and muscular)
• One of the concept arts looks a bit like a Ronso (hair puff chest, not terribly long ears, full hair, and a bit of a mane)

Not Genderlocked, normal Viera male (leak was mistaken or there are two races):

• People will be upset if it's locked, they have unlocked other races already and that was a well loved decision
• Male viera have similar lore to male miqote such that npc will be very rare but they don't have to lock the race
• They've made concept art for males

For Two Races:

• Meets critera of leak
• Isn't genderlocked
• . . . .
• chirp
• chirp
• Not supporting evidence but it would be pretty cool surprise

Leak is Yoshi-P and he's needed a destresser:

• He and team are so overworked that they come to the forums to watch us roll around wondering what in the world will happen, lion is the ultimate cake and it's a lie
• Male Viera

Also possible leak mistaken a race concept that is NPC only (and isn't Yoshi, I was just joking about that but I figure whoever leaked either has a lot of access or their design teams are very open), but I feel like with how they reported things that they would know better than to mistake say a beastmen race or anything like that. If the leak is a lie and there is only one race and it is genderlocked I'm going to flip a table for you guys lol, I imagine if there is only one non-genderlocked race then it is either lion viera or a good ol regular viera male.

For little boi bunny / boi clan:

• Elvaan ears on a small alphatoad (yes I know lol), Yoshida wanted to hush that conversation up really fast. Conversation was in context of a system for helmets that Viera will use.
• One of the many concept arts is of small bunny bois. (some argue are children some argue are more just child like because like lala small looking = young).

Keeping in mind we have a long standing tradition for two clans per race, with the possibility that the clans are quite different (hyur).

[Gwenorai]

I actually went back and checked the leakers' comments; pretty much all of them. If I missed a few, please feel free to show me - I spent way too much time in Pastebin and GameFaqs reading his comments and it's a possibility I missed - anyway; I didn't once see him mention there was a gender lock. Yes, this was me reading the comments and again, people are free to correct me. All I saw was that the guy mentioned Viera was the new race multiple of times - I saw nothing about a gender lock. The comment regarding Ronso was just speculation that he debunked by saying 'close' - so it's not Ronso at all if this guy is to be believed. If someone says 'close' they mean there's a similarity but it's not it. If I'm thinking of an animal and it's a 'Horse' and you're guessing the animal and say it's a 'Donkey' - and I go 'Close', you don't jump the gun and say 'Oh, it's a Donkey!' my statement of 'Close' literally means, no but you're on the right track.

A few months after he returned and said yet again it was Viera - still no mention of a gender lock - he mentioned there was a new race; he didn't mention it was playable. But let's assume that it is playable and it's the lion that is 'close to Ronso' but isn't. If it's not Ronso then it's either, a completely new race or a Rev - OR the guy has mistaken a Male Viera that looked like a lion in regards to the whole 'Lionhead' rabbit. Which is certainly possible that he didn't even see images and it was just text. This guy has been rumoured to be part of the local translation team - someone who puts text into the game. He could have easily been going off of descriptions and not images.


If he was just going off text and all that; all he could have done is literally seen that Fran was in the new 24man - and a logical guess would jump to the fact that Viera would be added in as a new Race.

He never said playable race, he just said 'New Race' and when questioned about the other race he didn't want to spoil the story. This guy already just spoilt a huge portion of the story/savage content/events - I don't understand how all of a sudden speaking about the 'lion' is too far.

Again, I would appreciate it if someone could correct me with quotes etc if this is incorrect!

[Shippuu]

The leaker never talked about gender locking, but he never confirmed male viera either. Just said viera are coming. Considering viera have only always been depicted by females of the race, it's easy that if you see a female viera it's confirmation viera are coming.

Th gender locking comes into the logistics of developing a new race. It takes a lot of work to make a full blown race, all the art assets with around 7 new hairstyles etc. Adjusting equipment to fit them, and the huge amount of emotes that need to he created for them (and all the other animations rigged to their skeleton).

So when comments leaking of there potentially being a second race, realistically having two full blown male and female races is highly unlikely. That is a TON of work. Yet creating 1 male only race, and one female only race is the more logical option. (This is also why having two very distinct different sub races is also very unlikely because it's just as much work as doing a second race. There are shortcuts such as sharing emotes they could take but it's still a lot of new assets to create, they would be less separate than Hyur differences for example).

Once those are taken into consideration, there's a history of evidence old and current that paint a picture that genderlocked races may indeed be coming. From old comments straight from the director saying he would do exactly that (specifically with viera as well), with new lore setting up to explain why male viera may not be around in any meaningful way, to doing a full race reveal with no mention of male viera coming, even if they were still a work in progress. To then being coy and vague when asked directly about it in interviews, even saying that he sees himself as a contrarian when an interviewer said they expected him to give male viera.

All these things start to add that the obvious thing of implementing male viera may not happen.

[Jaywalker]

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Thank you for making this and for trying to be very fair in it, think you did a pretty good job of capturing the different stances! I've been watching the back and forth a little, the only thing I want to add is that in terms of Yoshida personally not being into the cute spin on male viera--in my experience that kind of thing can get weird when it's franchises, large creative teams, and customer demand is overwhelmingly in contrast.

Ex. A franchise introduces character A, who is enormously popular with fans. Some of the creators aligned with the property openly express interest in working with character A. However, creative director B hates character A with a burning passion for subjective personal reasons and has functionally banned the character for the foreseeable future.

When I've seen that kind of thing happen it pretty much always wreaks hell on the company, not to mention customer relations. So for male Viera, while I expect personal preference might play a role in whatever happens I'd be very skeptical of personal preference alone resulting in a full gender lock because that kind of behavior can really wreck the consumer base. I expect SE to be smarter about stuff like that.

Aside, honestly I wish there was some kind of poll for predictions on this subject. For all the debate going on it might be really funny to track expectations as we get closer to Tokyo fanfest then compare with what actually comes out.

[frostmagemari]

People were not upset over the lack of those races having multiple genders.
Many of the 1.0 ideas were fine, so saying “all the decisions” is questionable.

Yup. They made a lot of good decisions in xiv 1.0 so many good decisions and ideas that the game was a complete and total failure and had to be rebuilt from the ground up to be a totally different game.
As for people being upset at the lack of gender choices.. They weren't happy about the lack of choice, but 1.0 had much larger problems that drove 99% of it's player base away so it was a minor issue all things considered (since even back in XI, people found it stupid that male Mithra weren't a thing.)

I just want to contribute one thing to the entire discussion:
<image>]

The problem with that is.. SQE made the lore and mechanic limitations for XIV; And if they don't have the male Viera, this isn't "we have to make X mechanic fit in with lore to stay faithful", this is a case of "we're creating X mechanic, and going to use lore to excuse it"

[Crushnight]

snip

Nothing wrong with presenting opinions at all so don't feel like it's devil's advocate but more like a counter argument

With that said while the idea of Ronso does have merit i think it is unlikely due to a few reasons;
1. Player demand. I believe that male Viera is on more players wish list than male Ronso this isn't to say it shouldn't be included if possible just that if we was asked which we prefer i expect male viera to win
2. No appearance or mentions in or out of game. While au ra had sparce lore if any before HW we did have yugiri who was around since 2.2 which shows how long they were planning a new race not necessarily au ra but definetly a new race was concieved at that point whereas Ronso has had nothing no npc no mention in either lore book, lore book 2 being the more prevalent as if wanted to hint potential Ronso single line in that book be good enough hint
3. Business sense. This is probably most baffling to me as not adding male Viera is probably a bigger gamble than anything else why take that risk when they know the biggest profit is in the Viera as a whole rather than just female Viera and an unknown race.

If Matsuno and Yoshi are both set against male Viera then i would feel it more of a mistake to add Viera in general as no matter what gender locking will create a negative stigma that a lot of kmmos have of pandering too much to a specific audience, cause more discomfort with the community than adding them but with a different look to what each individual person wants.

I know i am basically wishing at this point as i do really want to be a bunboi but adding a second gender locked race is probably going to create more issues than just adding male Viera would. SE has full creative freedom with male Viera whereas adding any other race in ff would be as restrictive as female Viera are if it was a new race completely the next question is was it worth it over male Viera?

[Shougun]

The comment regarding Ronso was just speculation that he debunked by saying 'close' - so it's not Ronso at all if this guy is to be believed.

He never said playable race, he just said 'New Race' and when questioned about the other race he didn't want to spoil the story. This guy already just spoilt a huge portion of the story/savage content/events - I don't understand how all of a sudden speaking about the 'lion' is too far.

I've begun to say Ronso-like a lot to help clear up confusions people may have since I've never thought they were going to literally make Ronso (but something like it or "close" to it ). Ronso is SE's most iconic lion race, which is why I say it (but I've added -like to most of my posts now to help). If I say Lion and someone says Rev a part of me just wants to go "please not the naked cat" lol, also if Ronso is close then Rev is probably not close .

As for new race / non-playable. It is true that is possible but that's why I covered that I think they would know better. They knew how to fairly well describe most things and how they didn't describe all the other new races (pixie, numou, etc) and how they put the lion right next to the rabbit I feel means that the lion reference is more than just some new beast tribe. Of course we wont know for sure until next month, /cry /panic /pysche /cheer lol.

So while I think you're right that it's possible its not playable I think it's more likely the person who reported this stuff knows the difference enough not to put them together unless it was meaningful.

Thank you for making this and for trying to be very fair in it, think you did a pretty good job of capturing the different stances! I've been watching the back and forth a little, the only thing I want to add is that in terms of Yoshida personally not being into the cute spin on male viera--in my experience that kind of thing can get weird when it's franchises, large creative teams, and customer demand is overwhelmingly in contrast.

Aside, honestly I wish there was some kind of poll for predictions on this subject. For all the debate going on it might be really funny to track expectations as we get closer to Tokyo fanfest then compare with what actually comes out.

<3 thank you~ Definitely even though I've wanted something else for a long time (warmed up to a more feral viera) I always recognized the sheer unity for Viera demand. I still think there is good value in making weird races (like WoW, GW2, EQ, etc has) but it is without a doubt easy to say there are a lot of people who want specifically Viera. I'm curious about is if we had both genders what the gender ratio would be.

It'll be really interesting to see what happens at fanfest for sure, gotta get ourself some fake internet points and put them on a fake prize lol.

Nothing wrong with presenting opinions at all so don't feel like it's devil's advocate but more like a counter argument

With that said while the idea of Ronso does have merit i think it is unlikely due to a few reasons;
1. Player demand. I believe that male Viera is on more players wish list than male Ronso this isn't to say it shouldn't be included if possible just that if we was asked which we prefer i expect male viera to win
2. No appearance or mentions in or out of game. While au ra had sparce lore if any before HW we did have yugiri who was around since 2.2 which shows how long they were planning a new race not necessarily au ra but definetly a new race was concieved at that point whereas Ronso has had nothing no npc no mention in either lore book, lore book 2 being the more prevalent as if wanted to hint potential Ronso single line in that book be good enough hint
3. Business sense. This is probably most baffling to me as not adding male Viera is probably a bigger gamble than anything else why take that risk when they know the biggest profit is in the Viera as a whole rather than just female Viera and an unknown race.

If Matsuno and Yoshi are both set against male Viera then i would feel it more of a mistake to add Viera in general as no matter what gender locking will create a negative stigma that a lot of kmmos have of pandering too much to a specific audience, cause more discomfort with the community than adding them but with a different look to what each individual person wants.

I know i am basically wishing at this point as i do really want to be a bunboi but adding a second gender locked race is probably going to create more issues than just adding male Viera would. SE has full creative freedom with male Viera whereas adding any other race in ff would be as restrictive as female Viera are if it was a new race completely the next question is was it worth it over male Viera?

1. I'd agree demand for Viera is high, but I'd counterpoint that demand for Eureka is low but they're still doing it :P (5.0 like content even iirc).

2. I've got nothing for lore, if they happened as a seperate race then they're going to be coming out of no where lol. Although I guess my only supporting to that idea would be recently Yoshida mentioned he thought it would be more interesting to keep people in the dark more (rough wording, not exact). I think if ronso like is a thing it'll mostly appear as a dimorphic viera, but that's just me based on the idea that no other race is really available in lore (as you said).

3. Two whole (both gender) races would be awesome because I believe that SE has an ever growing void for "weird", imo all the current races are pretty standard (human being stretched up and down, I know there is anti-beastmen lore but that lore is being weakened drastically over time to the point of beastmen inside Ul'dah lol). Meanwhile other MMO offer some weird choices (like being undead, Charr, etc). I would agree that splitting a popular demand race is not the way to get to a weird race though. Like if you said no undead, orc, troll, etc in WoW then people would be like "blizzard, you've lost it!!" but if they said only female blood elf no male but we're adding male goblins.. then I think people would be even more upset. There is definitely a balance. I don't think neglecting the male viera slot is the solution to the void that I strongly believe should be filled, but fill it I want lol.

I definitely think that one of the ways we get female but not male viera is if both designers are against male viera, which is possible (imo) since Yoshi-P is already against it in some fashion and the tactics universe never had them which suggests he didn't care for them either..... Just to be clear to those reading I'm not saying this will happen, but that if it does it might be because of that (just so I don't get mistaken as "this will happen").

I agree with your suggestion it makes it appear they're pandering to a specific audience. In their defense that is a very large audience and makes them money, its like if you made adult entertainment.. you obviously pander.. but I would also suggest that under the same logic I use for the void that is beasts you should be careful with voids elsewhere, also to be fair mmorpg are not as simple as adult content where the audience type is as narrow haha (never thought I'd use that as an analogy lol). So I'm saying there is strength in pandering, but if you're not careful it makes you very lopsided and you'll fall over. I agree it can be an issue but just that I think some people demonize the idea of knowing and serving your audience accordingly - there is a balance (not suggesting you were making that argument, I just worry sometimes when it's brought up).

[Gwenorai]

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The question everyone got the most excited for at yesterday's press Q&A was the male vieras. Since it's you, Yoshida, we think there'll be male vieras. But in FFXII, male vieras are extremely rare and never appear. How are you going to introduce them into FFXIV?

A: Who knows? I'm a contrarian, so when you say "Yoshida would definitely do this", it makes me not want to answer *laughs* Actually, in the Return to Ivalice story that concluded the other day, there's a ton of lore about vieras in FFXIV. We coordinated with Matsuno-san to include most of the hints there, so please check that. Matsuno-san wrote wonderful texts for us.


---
So that's what was said of course; I'll try and explain my take from this. To me, regarding the contrarian part he's saying that he doesn't like it when people say that because then when he answers and it's the wrong answer people get extremely upset because they expected it.

This makes a lot of sense; I hate assumptions myself. While it could be taken as him avoiding the answer and just going - I don't want to answer this because you won't like what I say. It's also extremely sly and could just come off as a comment regarding people assuming and not actually fully linked into the question.

Now this part when he says 'Actually, in return of Ivalice...' this is him actually answering the question which he links back to the lore given to us by the Dramaturge in regarding Viera - specifically male Viera. The lore does indeed say they're rare and that the dramaturge has never seen a male, Viera. But he heavily talks about their way of life and how they are insanely protective of their people and the wood.

To me this isn't him writing them off, it's putting forward the fact we're going to the wood, we're going to get attacked by the males. Why do I think this? Because I think the fact he brought forward that the wood that was on fire was the Viera homeland is a huge hint. He didn't need to tell us that, he could just have us think it's just another woodland. We certainly didn't need to know it regarding the female Viera because they can be seen in the cities. No, this is the introduction to the male - or that's what I believe.

There is something big going on in the woods that will cause them to fight and thus give an introduction.

On the other hand, you could be completely right. The lore mixed with the fire could just be the idea that the males will all be killed and the those that aren't will just... what, flee? Continue fighting and we just not see them? Who knows, to me it opens up the possibilities.

But I certainly do see your side, there's a lot of evidence though circumstantial to both sides. I, however, from the other side of things can't imagine them not being there as it would be bad storytelling. In the end I just like to speculate.