Revelations from Keynote III (2019)

[Daralii]

When Yoshida was presenting the team, one of the writters asked people to do Crystal Tower for a special unique moment later on. She was very vague about it.

There's been unique dialogue for doing prior optional content beforehand, like Estinien's lines about you being an Azure Dragoon, or Alisaie's lines if you finished FCoB. That makes me think they'll be doing something similar, maybe on a bigger scale.

The question is if that will relate to CT itself, or if it's soft confirmation about G'raha.

[zuzu-bq]

Maybe both! Who knows? I'm all for extra dialog based on previous Side Quests, they always make things special and more personal and I'm really happy they'll be making more of it. I do want it to be G'raha though.

XIV has a really good historic about telling tales through music (we love you Soken), the trailer has Eternal Wind to play over the scene with the Crystal Tower and the only moment that song ever plays in game is at Crystal Tower's finale when G'raha closes the tower's gates. If the one in there is him, I'd say this is the biggest pointer to it than anything else.

[Nezerius]

I don't think we will actually end up on the First at the end of 4.56, but we might find a way there, or at least know that we must go there for some reason. And once Shadowbringers is released, there must be a way to easily go back and forth between the Source and the First, because eventually we're going to have to celebrate the Source's Moonfire Faire event, and also port back to the Source every week to pick up Khloe's journals.

This is probably to the chagrin of the 3.x Warriors of Darkness, who had to kill themselves just to land on the Source.

Also it must not only be us who will be able to travel between the First and the Source and back, because we are shown what may be the primary hub town of Shadowbringers, and primary hub towns have thus far always have Marketboards and retainers. So we must be able to summon our retainers across Shards, and when we buy an item on the First's Marketboards, we will presumably have to pay interdimensional tax.

Or those things just keep on working for the sake of gameplay mechanics (Time-bubble events, Khloe, Marketboard, retainers), without really being affected by the story, or simply handwaved with a comment on the side (see: Crystal Braves in Ul'dah).

[Nalien]

I'm really curious how Jobs are going to work with this... All the new zones are in the First, and so far travel there has required fairly extreme measures... Obviously we'll be an exception to that, able to teleport to and from zones with no trouble whatsoever, but lore wise, what about all the Job NPCs? I could see some of the quests involving completely new characters in the source, but every single one of them? No, some of the Job story characters are going to carry over, and they'll have to use new zones in some capacity for the quests, so how is Estinien going to join us in the First for that? "Throw wide the gates" going to be a very literal thing, perhaps?

Very interested to see where Garlemald goes with this, too... We're escalating to a full on war, then just... Disappearing... Presumably for a long time, too... All the new areas seem to be in the First, that's where the majority of the 5.x series is going to be taking place then, so how will Garlemald fit into that? Guessing there is one Azys Lla style zone still on the Source for such plot points, but I don't see it yet... Sure do hope Gaius didn't crawl out of the grave just for a 5 minute cameo while we spend the next 2 years elsewhere.

[Wyssahtyn]

I'm not going to say it's not sexist, but before bringing the hammer down too hard I think we need more information on the Hrothgar than the fact they exist and their basic appearance.

The males of both Miqo'te tribes tend toward being itinerants due to their culture. That's conducive to becoming adventurers... and I don't have either lore book myself, but are male / female birthrates skewed toward females in Miqo'te societies, or do the males just tend to be seen less due to their itinerant lifestyles / getting themselves killed vying for dominance?

Duskwights exist for the same reason drow elves are playable in D&D - so everyone can live out their Drizzt fantasies. (I kid. But I honestly don't know other than "Well, we need a second tribe for the elves.")

... I'll get to more tomorrow. It's late and I have to work tomorrow... nyeh...

I don't care if it is or isn't sexist. Whether it is or isn't is irrelevant to my question.

I scanned a loremonger's transcription of Miqo'te related entries from the lorebook, and while they didn't give a specific birth rate ratio (that I saw; I've often seen a 1:10 ratio quoted) like Viera's 2:10(?), they do state that the population is skewed towards females over males. Specifically, it states, "For reasons that are not entirely clear, female Miqo'te vastly outnumber males, a phenomenon unique among Eorzea’s races.” And while the possible itinerant nature of Tias (some, at least, may wish to travel to become stronger as in the case of U'odh Nunh) and the definite one of Keeper males might lend them to becoming adventurers, the Lodestone states, "Instinctual territoriality causes many among them (Miqo'te in general) to lead solitary lifestyles. Males in particular are said to shy from contact with others.” Solitary lives and shying away from contact. Not all that dissimilar from male Viera who also lead solitary lives and shy away from contact to such an extent that they might as well be ghosts.

To be frank, putting all this aside, the lore has never been a huge deal when it came to the PC, that is the WoL. The PC has always been made out to be atypical from racial norms, at least by the community. Certainly the devs aren't going out of their way to insert any Keeper/Duskwight prejudice against the PC in Gridania or any sort of reaction at all in Eorzea to Au Ra in spite of Yugiri's concerns or the massacre of Sidurgu's tribe. So it comes back to the big question of, "Why does it matter now?" If the devs didn't want to do male Viera because they didn't want to, then they should have stated that instead of trying to hide behind a flimsy excuse that falls apart when one thinks about it for more than a minute.

[Anonymoose]

So it comes back to the big question of, "Why does it matter now?" If the devs didn't want to do male Viera because they didn't want to, then they should have stated that instead of trying to hide behind a flimsy excuse that falls apart when one thinks about it for more than a minute.

At the risk of phrasing it too bluntly, this may be the closest I've seen anyone come to just saying, "In my opinion it looks hypocritical to to disregard the lore for fifty other kinds of PC-vanity only to suddenly invoke it as defense for denying character creation options that don't seem to with fit Japan's more comfortably traditional gender norms." without making it weird and/or being insulting. <raises glass>


EDIT
Also, Yoshida has always been pretty outspokenly anti-bunny-boy, lol. In a 2013 interview with Siliconera, he said that if they did Viera, they would probably make them female only and consider another race for males because, direct quote, rabbit males are "kind of weird." 2013!

[ShinShimon]

If they decide to not do male viera for preference/budget reasons, of course they're still going to come up with an in-universe explanation for why they're not playable. Even if Miqo'te men are meant to be rare, they're still native to Eorzea. Viera men are both rare within their homeland, and not native to anywhere we can go. So that's even more justification for why we see Miqo'te but no male Viera.

Besides, Yoshi-P understandably does not read the English forums or reddit, so he probably remains blissfully unaware of the vocal minority that go insane over male viera (in-game, almost all discussion I've seen is people making fun of Balmung players who don't get their bunnyboys). Hrothgar are a perfectly valid allocation of resources over another gender of rabbits.

[KylePearlsand]

If they decide to not do male viera for preference/budget reasons, of course they're still going to come up with an in-universe explanation for why they're not playable. Even if Miqo'te men are meant to be rare, they're still native to Eorzea. Viera men are both rare within their homeland, and not native to anywhere we can go. So that's even more justification for why we see Miqo'te but no male Viera.

Besides, Yoshi-P understandably does not read the English forums or reddit, so he probably remains blissfully unaware of the vocal minority that go insane over male viera (in-game, almost all discussion I've seen is people making fun of Balmung players who don't get their bunnyboys). Hrothgar are a perfectly valid allocation of resources over another gender of rabbits.

While it is funny that Balmung doesn't get their bunny boys... I do shudder to think of what they will do now there there is two races of cat people.

On an aside, any ideas where Matoya and Urianger are in the trailer? Looks like it could easily be either the greatwood or the black shroud.

[Rocl]

It's Greatwood isn't it? I thought Yoshida pointed out where the trailer scene was during a walkthrough at EU Fanfest.

("As you can see it's already burned so those events take place before you arrive" or something?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItY4mNnRnsU

The architecture here definitely looks like the trailer bit Matoya/Urianger are on.

[KylePearlsand]

Yeah, probably just missed that. Thanks for clarifying because the panning shot looked like it could easily fit as a Gridanian camp under siege.