Gender locked race?

[cicatriz313]

When he said the line "They simply do not exist to us" he was talking specifically about his time in Dalamasca. Full lore quote, not just the part that people keep ripping out of context:



He wasn't talking about the male Viera population in the entire world, just what the population was specifically in Dalamasca.


As for the concept art, the thing you are overlooking is that the female version of the concept art was used in the game.

You can't say read the full lore and ignore the 3 statements the dramaturge makes before that one. He literally says the males don't even meet with their kin aside from breeding. They live alone and one would be foolish to go seek them, because you wouldn't see one (or you'd be killed.) People are focusing on this death part but it doesn't make the first part meaningless. It's not just Dalmasca he's talking about he's making a statement about society in general and using Dalmasca because this is supposed to be an avatar of Matsuno.

No one is overlooking the fact that they use a similar model as one of the concept art pieces to create Viera. Like of course they did. That's the point of concept art. You're just choosing to completely ignore the other pieces of concept art revealed in that same panel that show that they don't use everything they showed...

[Gwenorai]

You can't say read the full lore and ignore the 3 statements the dramaturge makes before that one. He literally says the males don't even meet with their kin aside from breeding. They live alone and one would be foolish to go seek them, because you wouldn't see one (or you'd be killed.) People are focusing on this death part but it doesn't make the first part meaningless. It's not just Dalmasca he's talking about he's making a statement about society in general and using Dalmasca because this is supposed to be an avatar of Matsuno.

No one is overlooking the fact that they use a similar model as one of the concept art pieces to create Viera. Like of course they did. That's the point of concept art. You're just choosing to completely ignore the other pieces of concept art revealed in that same panel that show that they don't use everything they showed...

He also talks in past tense, states that before all of this if you left the wood you were a Viera no longer. Times have changed however and that's no longer the case. It also states that a Viera can seek the aid of outsiders if the forest/their people are in danger. The men leave not because they want to but out of necessity. They are the first line of defence and most of the time, the last.

You don't go into those woods looking for a male Viera - I think that's just him adding in 'drama'. Fact is if you go into those woods you're probably going to die unless you are escorted by a Viera or have their blessing.

I really don't understand why people are getting confused about the 'They do not exist to us' part. It's an old saying of course and not what we use today. But it's how someone describes an object/person/place that is known to exist by hearsay but hasn't been seen by any outsiders; and if they have, they haven't survived to relay the tale.

Example; a tribe on an island that hasn't been inhabited by the modern world. They have customs and their own religion. We will never make contact with them and only a handful will see them. We know they exist by hearsay, secondhand experience and obvious physical evidence. But, they're not on our radar, they are air and only matter to those who actually go and seek them out. Those who do try to seek them out end up attacked and killed.
This is a true scenario btw, there's a place like this - forgot the islands name though. Give it a google.

Let's switch back to Viera; you can see the similarities. Hearsay is the females talking about them; secondhand experience is the females again. The evidence is the young kits and the corpses of the fools that tried to cause the jungle/wood harm and were killed.

Now let's break it down.
Lore states they exist; he goes on to say they exist.
He then goes 'they do not exist to us'
It's either one or the other buddy, there is no in-between. Dramaturge is just being dramatic, hence his title. Either that or he's drunk.

[cicatriz313]

Now let's break it down.
Lore states they exist; he goes on to say they exist.
He then goes 'they do not exist to us'
It's either one or the other buddy, there is no in-between. Dramaturge is just being dramatic, hence his title. Either that or he's drunk.

No one is saying they don't exist though. The lore does state they exist. The lore also makes it pretty obvious that they are less likely to interact with us than female Viera. Now I don't know about you, but I think lore that explicitly states how separated male Viera is, months before Viera launches, which Yoshi apparently explicitly stated to look at, is more indicative of no PLAYABLE male Viera, than indicative of them being playable. They could exist in game lore and yet not be playable.

[Lacan]

No one is saying they don't exist though. The lore does state they exist. The lore also makes it pretty obvious that they are less likely to interact with us than female Viera. Now I don't know about you, but I think lore that explicitly states how separated male Viera is, months before Viera launches, which Yoshi apparently explicitly stated to look at, is more indicative of no PLAYABLE male Viera, than indicative of them being playable. They could exist in game lore and yet not be playable.

See, that's something that depends on how you interpret it. When I read it I didn't get that notion at all, and a lot of other people didn't get that idea either. It just looked to be laying out how the society worked. I was expecting male viera to have a culture like that just from how the race was depicted in FF XII. Reclusive forest guardians just made sense to me. I don't see how them being described that way makes them less likely to be playable. The females are described as reclusive as well.

[cicatriz313]

See, that's something that depends on how you interpret it. When I read it I didn't get that notion at all, and a lot of other people didn't get that idea either. It just looked to be laying out how the society worked. I was expecting male viera to have a culture like that just from how the race was depicted in FF XII. Reclusive forest guardians just made sense to me. I don't see how them being described that way makes them less likely to be playable. The females are described as reclusive as well.

Yeah, I mean take it as you want it. I'm sure anyone who wants male Viera will read it your way. Seems pretty obvious to me that a "times are changing" matriarch society is more likely to interact with the WoL than counterparts who live in solitude for 99% of their lives, but maybe you're right. For like the fourth time, I'm not using lore to say they're not going to be playable. I'm saying that it seems more like the lore is stating that they won't be playable than that the lore is stating that they will be playable. Overall, lore is just lore.

[Lacan]

Yeah, I mean take it as you want it. I'm sure anyone who wants male Viera will read it your way. Seems pretty obvious to me that a "times are changing" matriarch society is more likely to interact with the WoL than counterparts who live in solitude for 99% of their lives, but maybe you're right. For like the fourth time, I'm not using lore to say they're not going to be playable. I'm saying that it seems more like the lore is stating that they won't be playable than that the lore is stating that they will be playable. Overall, lore is just lore.

Yea, I get what you're saying too. I just think things are too muddled right now to make a call one way or another. I know I have a bias because I really want the male viera to be playable, but I do think they intentionally made this stuff open-ended enough for the possibility of playable male viera. They could have just as easily closed the door on that possibility but they didn't. Why mention the males at all to begin with? FF 12 went the entire game without alluding to male viera in any form. We didn't find out they were their own thing till the guidebook released. Up until then a good number of people were convinced that viera were a female only race altogether.

[Shippuu]

Oh but you have made statements about what the developers did do and why they did it. Shall we look at one of the more recent examples?

This should be interesting.

That is a unequivocally statement about why they did do something in the past and according to your little statement above you need hard evidence to prove. Where is it?

No, it isn't an unequivocal statement because it's not self evident that them undoing gender locks meant they felt like that was something that damaged the game in any significant way. Unless they come out and state that was the case, claiming such is just an assumption. I didn't make a statement saying they didn't think gender locks damaged their game, I said them fixing them isn't necessarily indicative they felt that way. And then I said they LIKELY (i.e. probable, potentially, not equivocal in the slightest) one of the things they could use as an opportunity to regain player favor by fixing.
Next.

And the reason you should provide it is because you keep demanding everybody else in this thread supply you with evidence they make a claim you dislike. Failure to do so after demanding left and right everybody else do so is hypocritical.

I ask for evidence (not demand, by the way) because this thread is filled with people making outlandish claims of what SE has or will do, often based on false information or potentially on information I am not aware of, plenty of evidence has been given to me that I did not know about and these things can change my opninion on things.
If someone makes a claim I think isn't backed up by evidence I will ask for it, because there are some pretty big assumptions here. If you make a claim and can't back it up, why should I provide evidence for a counter-claim? That's not how it works.

If it wasn't a major selling point why did you expect it majorly increase their market share in the Chinese and Korean markets? Minor selling points (especially a minor selling point found in many a game in that market) don't significantly increase market shares, major ones do.

There you go putting more words in my mouth, ironically it's the SAME word again. I didn't say it would MAJORLY affect their market share. But thank you for telling me what MY expectations are apparently? I said it was a possible design decision that COULD influence those regions more than the western regions, since people continuously talk like the JP/NA/EU playerbase are the only ones that are factored into this decision. I never said to what degree it would or could effect them, only that it was worth considering.

And statements given by a developer in a interview years prior to the concept art even being developed about how he personally disliked the concept is weaker still. Yet, you have no trouble using that back your claims.

It really isn't though. The words of the director himself, the man in charge of signing off on everything that gets put into the game, are FAR stronger than concept art that may or may not have been approved by him to be further developed. Even after they showed the concept art he went on record stating he still felt the male viera were "too cute", implying he was still not convinced on the concept of male viera, meaning potentially his artists weren't able to come up with a concept that changed his mind on the issue.
I will take the word of the director over some concept art ANY day. The concept art doesn't dictate what goes into the game, the director of the game does.

And one of the possibilities is that the coding was made because they intend both male and female Viera to playable at launch. Why should the "what if/ just so" theories you favor to explain the if/else conditional statements for male Viera player characters be weighed more heavily then those you dislike?

If all we had to go off was that specific line of coding, then I would say it would be stronger evidence, it's when that example is tempered with everything else that it becomes not as strong. There is evidence for both sides, it's just the evidence that they will be genderlocked is a bit stronger, such as the way they have handled the official reveal and information of Viera and the reality that developing two dual gendered races is a lot of work and thus less likely to be the road taken (but still possible).

And there wasn't any Au Ra in Limsa, despite the fact Limsa ships regularly docked in Kugane were Au Ra make up a sizable chunk of the population, prior to Yugiri's arrival. Nor were there any in Ul'Dah prior to Yugiri's arrival, despite the fact that Ul'Dah's largest corporation maintains a branch office in Kugane.

There wasn't any in game lore saying there wasn't though. Only that we never personally saw any doesn't mean they weren't technically supposed to be there. Part of that is due to the nature of adding things to the game. This also applies to the Dramaturge, just because he personally never saw any doesn't mean there aren't any there, however it paints a picture to not expect them. They couldn't show Au Ra because the assets didn't exist prior to that, this information is giving them an excuse to not even need to make the assets for male viera.

Fran specifically says during the quest they are watching you and if she wasn't with you they would have attacked by now. It pays not to skip cutscenes.

Whew, cool accusation I skip cutscenes. Somehow you expect us to just wander into the Raktika greatwoods without some similar plot point to lead us there apparently then? You just proved my point that there will likely be reasons we are exceptions to being allowed into the woods so the whole argument of "male viera would attack us on sight so they have to be in the game" falls apart.

We got special treatment prior in the game when we entered another militant isolationist territory, Ishgard, when we were made a ward of House Fortemps. I remember getting attacked by Ishgardian forces in the MSQ, the Dark Knight class quests, the Astrologian class quests, the Machinist class quests....

Just because other places did it doesn't mean this one will. Ishgard also doesn't have a magical forest voice that talks to all the Viera giving them more cohesion. Next.

And at the same time we might not any special treatment at all. It is just as likely the male Viera find out that the Garlean troops that attacked their homeland are looking for us and decide they can get rid of the Garleans by getting rid of us.

Certainly possible, but less likely. It's more likely they try to get our help to fend of the Empire than anything.

They specifically showed those old designs during the fan fest in Paris two weeks ago. See the 2:10:00 mark

I'm aware. They showed off some of the old concept art, but once again, none of the old stuff was actually used from what we can see implemented into the actual game. They showed the new concept art for the stuff we actually are seeing in the game. They showed the old ones to show the process from how it goes from a rudimentary design from being finalized and fleshed out.

None of this (that we know of) particularly has been shown to actually be in the game (save for potentially that hairstyle that's similar, the viera we've seen do not have that same body type however, and are lacking tails as depicted in that art, meaning while that art was similar, it wasn't the exact design they went with and that's the closest one.)



Compared to the new more finalized art they showed here which will basically be what we are getting.

[Gwenorai]

No one is saying they don't exist though. The lore does state they exist. The lore also makes it pretty obvious that they are less likely to interact with us than female Viera. Now I don't know about you, but I think lore that explicitly states how separated male Viera is, months before Viera launches, which Yoshi apparently explicitly stated to look at, is more indicative of no PLAYABLE male Viera, than indicative of them being playable. They could exist in game lore and yet not be playable.

Oh? The Green Word states that a Viera can seek outsiders aid and thus leave the wood. All Viera are linked into the Wood. Male Viera has gone through intense conditioning where they follow the Green Word to the letter. They don't do it by choice, I don't think any child wants to be dragged from their mother to a life of solitude and death. Females also have this; they have the matriarch and their families making them stay - only those who have aid or are strong enough to leave actually do so. But let's go back to the males and how they're conditioned to do the following; protect the wood, protect their families, kill all intruders, breed and raise the next generation of wood wardens. Somewhere down the line they adapted to this way of life, something caused them to end up like this. More than likely the loss of their original home.


Let's talk about the Green Word and how the Jungle speaks to the Viera. The Jungle being some sort of motherly entity. It's a spirit, not one that is necessarily evil, but more like the Spirits of the Girdania woods. As they communicate with the Padajj, the Jungle/Wood communicates with the Viera. Instead of strange emotions, however, the Jungle speaks with actual words. If the Wood is a spirit a benevolent spirit tied into either the crystal of light or the crystal of darkness. If the one lone WoD/WoL is a Viera, it is going to tell them to leave. Final Fantasy has always been about fate and destiny.

Since in a RPG MMO, only your character counts. One lone Viera - your viera - isn't going to set off the huge balance and retcon the lore, which they are already retconning. Before if a Viera left the wood they were 'dead' to their tribe, now that has changed. As for NPC male Viera? What would bring them together? War. A need to survive. They are not stupid.

Of course, if they add in NPC Viera to the story since we're going into their woods. Then it raises the whole, well, wait a minute Yoshida - you found a design you like! That's great! Now, why haven't you made them playable?

[Tharne]

Dramaturge is just being dramatic, hence his title. Either that or he's drunk.

He's also meant (imo) to be a "sub in" for Matsuno and the phrase "They simply do not exist to us." could imply that they do not exist for the dev team by going a little meta in the game, i.e. : We won't make them playable or not even make a model for them.
There are a lot of hints inside his monologue that points towards : You will never see them even if they exist.

I'm just saying, Yoshida said that they gave hints there about the state of Male Viera, I just don't want people to end up with a Pikachu meme face if they say that you won't be able to make Male Viera. From what we have, I expect to not get them and will be happy if we do.

[Gwenorai]

He's also meant (imo) to be a "sub in" for Matsuno and the phrase "They simply do not exist to us." could imply that they do not exist for the dev team by going a little meta in the game, i.e. : We won't make them playable or not even make a model for them.
There are a lot of hints inside his monologue that points towards : You will never see them even if they exist.

I'm just saying, Yoshida said that they gave hints there about the state of Male Viera, I just don't want people to end up with a Pikachu meme face if they say that you won't be able to make Male Viera. From what we have, I expect to not get them and will be happy if we do this way.

Oh yeah, totally. Though with Square Enix's track record. I can't see them not adding them in. It's a matter of when will they add them in.

Either they add them in 5.0 or give in to consumer demand later on. Either way, we'll be waiting and I'll keep speculating for funsies.