Why FFXIV is The Best

[WhiteArchmage]

Why would Manqo'tes not be nearly as bad as Viera? It's already been revealed that they wrote that Lore BECAUSE they'd already decided on Female Viera to be the counterpart of Male Hrothgar. There was not 1 Male Miqo'te in 1.0 (Nor Female Roes until they made Merlwyb, and she was made as part of the storyline to set up 2.0) and in 2.x+ there's maybe 4. Koji's already said that the Lore gets bent all the time when the MSQ team gets an idea, or they want to introduce something like BLU, or for side story quests, and it's the Lore team's job to see how they can bend it to excuse that.

There is literally nothing stopping them from saying "Well, the Dramaturge was only talking about the Viera in the Rak'Tika Greatwood, the Male Viera in THIS area do venture forth every once in a while." (And given that we're going dimension-hopping now, there's no one to say that they have the same rules in the First, just look at the Dwarves=Lalafell thing)

You're ignoring what other people say to repeat your own talking points.

[Zsolen]

People have seen them but not male viera. Male viera (anywhere) are almost mythical to anyone not a female viera. Similar lore existed prior to FFXIV, and that aspect is being continued. If anything, female hrothgar are being screwed over. Male viera were not even in the cards.

[Kalise]

People have seen them but not male viera. Male viera (anywhere) are almost mythical to anyone not a female viera. Similar lore existed prior to FFXIV, and that aspect is being continued. If anything, female hrothgar are being screwed over. Male viera were not even in the cards.

"Until now"

There we go. That's all the lore fixed. Just slap literally 2 words to the end of "People have never seen Male Viera" and you now have 100% lore accurate inclusion of Male Viera. That's literally how easy it is to write the lore to fit whatever idea is being justified.

To say nothing of the fact that, maybe there are parts of the world that have tribes of Viera where Males do go adventuring? What if there's a Tribe that has a unique Patriarchal society where it's the Females that are scarcely seen?

It's not like we've actually gone around the entirety of The Source to find out that literally no Male Viera has ever, in all of history, decided to rebel against their society.

Gender locks in other MMO's have lore that backs up their gender lock in a definitive way. Usually in the form of the species being asexual so they're neither male nor female despite their appearance.

With Male Viera, there is no definitive lore. They exist. They aren't horribly crippled. They aren't literally kept in a cage from birth. They don't have some weird defect that makes them unable to live outside of a specific area. No, it's merely "In their society, they're loners whom hide from/kill outsiders that happen across their homes"

Societal rules are inherently non definitive. As evidenced by literally every other race in the game (Including Beast Tribes) having examples of individuals that go against their race's societal norms. Heck, we even have things like the Xaela for whom the societal norm is to kill other tribe members on sight, instead actually befriending people from other tribes (See: The Mauci questline).

As far as other players in the game, their race is taken lorewise as being non-descript. Sure, we might see hundreds of Male Miqo'te's running about the place, but in the eyes of the lore, they're all Hyur/Roe/Elezen instead (Depending on their origins) with their tribes also being disregarded and being viewed as generic.

Since, the game only takes into consideration NPC's as canon. With your own character having some level of exception by the nature of being the WoL (Thus uniquely different to literally everyone else in the entire world by being Hydaelyn's one chosen Warrior of Light). Hence why there's so few Male Miqo'te NPC's until we get to Gyr Abania and come across the M-Tribe and more members of the J-Tribe.

[Zsolen]

"Until now" does not answer why a ton of them would be in Eorzea without a single one being known to travel or have any home anywhere in Eorzea nor even previously seen before. Another player character's race is does not change from another player's perspective. That is just silly. Lore adds immersion. Removing it destroys immersion. I've seen other universes do this too often, and it destroys the immersion enough to the point that it makes unsalvagable. Final Fantasy puts a huge emphasis on story. It is the biggest selling point. Without that, this is just another grneric mmo.

Here is a real question. Why is is so important that this gender of this race be introduced as a pc? Odds are they would not be as feminine as the male miqo'te, given how they live. If people want a miqo'te with bunny ears, they would likely be disappointed. If they were as savage as lore describes them, they would be a real great addition as a pc in terms of masculinity, but they still won't fit lore.

[WhiteArchmage]

"Until now" does not answer why a ton of them would be in Eorzea without a single one being known to travel or have any home anywhere in Eorzea nor even previously seen before. Another player character's race is does not change from another player's perspective. That is just silly. Lore adds immersion. Removing it destroys immersion. I've seen other universes do this too often, and it destroys the immersion enough to the point that it makes unsalvagable. Final Fantasy puts a huge emphasis on story. It is the biggest selling point. Without that, this is just another grneric mmo.

Here is a real question. Why is is so important that this gender of this race be introduced as a pc? Odds are they would not be as feminine as the male miqo'te, given how they live. If people want a miqo'te with bunny ears, they would likely be disappointed. If they were as savage as lore describes them, they would be a real great addition as a pc in terms of masculinity, but they still won't fit lore.

It also does not answer how you can make an Au Ra and Yugiri says absolutely nothing pre 3.0-storyline, or you can walk up to CCH without being shot on sight like many other Au Ra, it does not answer (again) how you can have an alliance full of male miqo'tes, it does not answer how you can have a chat in Ul'Dah with over 10 White Mages. "have any home in Eorzea nor previously seen before" can also mean how no one bats an eye at Au Ra, and soon at female Vieras and Hrothgar, because you can make a level 1 PC as that race way before they're introduced to Eorzea (and if we're getting technical, Viera haven't been introduced to Eorzea because Fran has only been in Othard).

Now to your question: There are many reasons for it, first because we've already discussed how problematic the "waifu female, beastial male" thing is; Second tied to the first, Gender locks are absurd in this day and age; Third, the "Lore" was written as an excuse, not a reason, given that Hrothgar were considered to be playable first and Viera were only introduced after they decided on Female Viera instead of Female Hrothgar; Fourth, less people care about them being feminine or overly masculine than they care about their inclusion to start with, there would be way fewer players complaining if they were released but didn't fit their expectations than just ignoring the issue like what's happening now; Fifth and this is personal: I've wanted to play a male Viera since FFTA, I always wanted to see them.

You're trying to use the Lore as an excuse in one of the places where Lore is flimsiest and most ignored. (For Heaven's sake, you can make a Female Xaela and call her a Buduga)

[Dustytome]

"Until now" does not answer why a ton of them would be in Eorzea without a single one being known to travel or have any home anywhere in Eorzea nor even previously seen before.

Some leniency to such things has to take place with any new races introduced because of how the game is set up. There can always be an introduction lore written in, but that pre-intro still exists to get through for new characters and can't always tie in perfectly lore-wise.

[Rowde]

At least Au Ra "locking horns" is officially lore now as per Saturday's LL!!!

Can't wait for my lore friendly transforming flying car in April too!

[hasana]

At least Au Ra "locking horns" is officially lore now as per Saturday's LL!!!

Can't wait for my lore friendly transforming flying car in April too!

Why is the car an issue? We have flying chair, flying panda, flying bear, flying behemoth, flying wolf, flying poney,...

[Shurrikhan]

Or in the same timeframe, they could have released one complete race instead of two incomplete ones, which arguably would be easier, since you don't have to create lore for two races.

Lore and easily-meshable arts have always outpaced anything remotely to do with code or fitting components to frames. Remember when we got entirely new Primal weapons because it was easier to just make a line new art assets than allow 2h glamours to work on 1h weapons? Meanwhile, every new race has fit precisely upon a prexisting frame. They're not even making any efforts whatsoever to hide that our new Derpcats are just reskinned Roes.

It is not bad plain and simple. You don't get quality if you keep changing your own lore. Star Wars did that. It created a weird unwieldy EU for a long time with some of it god and some of it really bad. If SE implemented male Viera as a playable race, it would be lowering their standard.

Well, it's a good thing we'll never had any quests remotely to do with protecting the forest, since male Viera's role as a wandering protector of their realm is so antithetical to being an adventurer.

Also, I remember people asking for Ronso or a more bestial race.

Yes, right about the time we got a badass concept art for Au Ra and then were given basically-Hyur 3.0 for the females. The males, at least, were reasonably distinct.

You asked for Viera and got it. It's a race where we only ever see the females for lore reasons. As a result, we ended up with male only Ronso to balance it out. It's really not that complicated.

And I'd be fine with that, if they just actually had some variety to the feel of each. As they stand now, it feels like the diversity provided amounts to little more than an added face or two to Aura/Hyur/Elezen females together and Roe males specifically.

If the variety of Viera was just a bit more -- increasing the chance of a stance and face I actually like -- I'd be happy. If the Ronso didn't look stupid as heck when running and had some variety in body shape (as per different clans), rather than just different fur patterns (equivalent to hair color), so that they could be more than just squat furry-Roes, I'd be happy. But at least as present, they're painfully limited, to the point I'd much rather see more customization for the existing races if each additional race is going to curtail future customizations further.

[Zsolen]

If they keep rewritting lore, it won't mean anything. The solution is not to rewrite lore over and over.