Gender locked race?

[Lauront]

Lmao, why are you even complaining that I brought up FF12 ultima? Come on dude. She's wifu form in BOTH games. Her bottom half has always been like that 'strange, mysterious and in terms of FF14 mysterious', but the top half has always been how it is - beautiful wifu. Imagine complaining about that when the 24 man is a throwback to Tactics and FF12? Though, I'm actually impressed with her new design; especially how in FF12 she was found in a giant crystal maze... cool.

Anyway, you don't have a point dude not in regards to the female's enemies always looking like wife material if they have a humanoid form.
Square Enix doesn't know how to make ugly females - unless, you know, they're old.

They do. At the same time, I don't see why they need to have as many of those as they do male beasties.

Also, an interesting point about Ultima's design is that it may tie into Hydaelyn's (lower body aside.)





Also look at the similarities to Zodiark's position (in my sig) and the crown they both share for her statue version. Although Ultima in the dungeon was just a primal-like being which gained sentience - and great power - I have a suspicion that it somehow glimpsed Hydaelyn and emulated her form. Ultima in XII was characterised by her hubris and rebellion against the gods, and that would give it similar undertones in FFXIV.

[DevilsDontFly]

I love that this thread evolved from theorycraft to court room.

wHerREs tHe eViDEnce?!!?!?!?!

[Gwenorai]

Aye, in FF12/Tactics Ultima was the 'Holy' primal and the balance to Zodiark. I always did wonder if Hydaelyn was Ultima's 'pure side' - eh, who knows, guess we will eventually. Nice spot though, hmmm.

[Lacan]

They do. At the same time, I don't see why they need to have as many of those as they do male beasties.

Also, an interesting point about Ultima's design is that it may tie into Hydaelyn's (lower body aside.)


Also look at the similarities to Zodiark's position (in my sig) and the crown they both share for her statue version. Although Ultima in the dungeon was just a primal-like being which gained sentience - and great power - I have a suspicion that it somehow glimpsed Hydaelyn and emulated her form. Ultima in XII was characterised by her hubris and rebellion against the gods, and that would give it similar undertones in FFXIV.

That's actually really interesting, good catch! It reminds me of what happened with the final boss of WoTG in FF 11. Don't want to give any spoilers for it, but you get to see what is basically an imitation of the goddess Altana.

[Lauront]

I love that this thread evolved from theorycraft to court room.

wHerREs tHe eViDEnce?!!?!?!?!

OBJECTION, YOUR HONOUR!

[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.

[Karl0217]

I mean, if there isn't a single male Viera in Dalmasca, the biggest hub that's closest in location to their homeland, it doesn't paint a positive picture that there'd be others even further away.

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.

People keep bringing this up, but we certainly didn't have any trouble getting to the Orbonne Monestary which is inside the Golmore Jungle. We weren't riddled with arrows stepping foot there.

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.

And there's nothing to say we wouldn't get some special treatment like we always do, some magical boon that blesses us with the favor of the woods. So if male viera hear the Green Word, it'd tell them we're here to help and thus have no reason to attack us in the slightest.

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....

And at the same time we might not get 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.

Except it wasn't. None of the old designs shown from 2015 were used. The closest one had traits that the in-game version does not.

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

[Tsumdere]

I love that this thread evolved from theorycraft to court room.

wHerREs tHe eViDEnce?!!?!?!?!

You can't say anything in this thread without at least 10 academic sources.

I mean, if there isn't a single male Viera in Dalmasca, the biggest hub that's closest in location to their homeland, it doesn't paint a positive picture that there'd be others even further away.

I mean, people keep bringing this up, but we certainly didn't have any trouble getting to the Orbonne Monestary which is inside the Golmore Jungle. We weren't riddled with arrows stepping foot there.

We flew in, had Fran with us, and immediately walked into a gigantic monster-riddled building. That's a big difference between just waltzing around the jungle solo and picking some flowers to make crafting tea.

-snip-

I typed up something and then realized it was useless because you obviously are arguing for the sake of being a contrarian. There is some real stubbornness if you refuse to see that Suzaku and Ultima are beautiful women, especially when you look at their male counterparts who have been monsterized far more than they have. With Tamamo no Gozen having lore that says she chose the form of a beautiful woman to walk among humans and you can see her wandering around sprouting lines of dialogue in Yanxia. One person brought up other enemies when the conversation was clearly about primals as one with a little critical thinking could figure out when we were talking about Sophia/Lakshmi/Zurvan/Ramuh. This is because primals are the enemies seen far, far more often than anything else and have a lot more visibility than Poroggo #507.

AND LET ME MAKE THIS VERY CLEAR, there is nothing wrong with making hot female enemies. I like them a lot, but it's just a very interesting trend (and honestly, you would have to be really stubborn to not acknowledge that you can probably name far, far more hot female enemies in this game than you can male) to look at. There is an interview where Soken flat out said that Yoshi-P wanted him to make Lakshmi's music more youthful since Yoshi-P didn't like THICCshmi (despite others seeming to like her) and made the art team change her to what we have now.
I don't know how much clearer you can make this.

inb4 I'm told I can't pick and choose when the original conversation was one of my making and I specifically said primals

[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?