Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[zeylos]

Guys, I want myself a very muslced male viera, but not only are female viera female elezen with different heads and tweaked animations, but they confirmed that they'll look like male elezen adn miqote face if im not wrong on an interview

[Amnmaat]

The problem is you seem to be trying to base your interpretation of what viera may look like on a real life forest. You do realize that bunny people do not actually exist in real life? Viera is fantasy, Eorzea is fantasy, the fantasy setting - and dangers - should be taken into account.

No, I wasn't using real life. I was using location differences. A forest and a jungle are 2 different things whether in Harry Potter, in a children's book, or in FFXIV. In any fantasy setting that includes elves they would never be located in a jungle. (Female) Viera do exist in XIV and they look nothing like Elezen, specially face/head wise. Those wanting Sephiroth (male) Viera are in for a surprise. They're going to look rough, nothing like an elf

[WhiteArchmage]

I mean, this is a game where popotoes normally face off against bisons 30 times their size (at least) with an axe and nobody blinks an eye. And I'm not just talking about the PC since Alka Zolka is a MRD. Equating any sort of real life zoology when we have literal magic is... well, a weird point.

P.S. Saying there's no such thing as jungle elves is also flat out wrong. A quick google search threw 15 million results, between D&D, Summoner Wars, Mysts of Eyr, and a whole lot of art and homebrews.

[zeylos]

No, I wasn't using real life. I was using location differences. A forest and a jungle are 2 different things whether in Harry Potter, in a children's book, or in FFXIV. In any fantasy setting that includes elves they would never be located in a jungle. (Female) Viera do exist in XIV and they look nothing like Elezen, specially face/head wise. Those wanting Sephiroth (male) Viera are in for a surprise. They're going to look rough, nothing like an elf

Female viera are literally the exact same thing as female elezen but with different heads. An image a few pages back showed that

[Theodric]

Elves have been presented as 'rough' in a number of settings. The concept art for male viera also doesn't look hugely different to some of the elf art being posted. I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

[Lauront]

The irony, you couldn't win your argument using real life squirrels so you had to resort to the game's fauna/animals, keep reaching. What's next, jungle dwarfs?

I did not see anything by you that served to dislodge that argument other than by once more over-simplifying the challenges in actual northern forests, claiming you could simply retreat to caves (again ignoring the difficulties of gathering perishable foods in such a climate that is meant to last for extended periods, in a non-agrarian society) and then moving the goalposts to temperate forests, claiming bears are pack animals (which is nonsense, and irrelevant), ignoring the fact that there are forest-dwelling big cats, and then claiming
that both bears and wolves are a non-issue because they can be dealt with through traps or archers...

...and then attempting to foist your caricature onto the Shroud, because otherwise your argument falls flat.

My point was that jungle elves don't exist and they never will. The fact that you have to keep grasping as straws is really is amusing.

Except for those fantasy settings in which they do exist.

They won't, just like female Viera isn't an elf, they're jungle warriors and look as such. Wider hips, meatier legs, and a head completely different from Elezen. Precedence is on my side.

Aha. For better or worse, the female Viera are not much different to Elezen, in all honesty.

I am all for bulky Viera males, but the arguments you are putting forward regarding elves simply do not hold up.

Elves have been presented as 'rough' in a number of settings. The concept art for male viera also doesn't look hugely different to some of the elf art being posted. I'm not quite sure what the issue is.

I mean look at this guy:

[Amnmaat]

Female viera are literally the exact same thing as female elezen but with different heads. An image a few pages back showed that

Incorrect, female Viera do not look like female Elezen. Female Elezen are lankier, skinnier, and different face/head style/size. Those are big differences. As much difference as male Elezen and male Au ra, they're very similar too except for wider legs, more muscle, and different face/head style/size.

[zeylos]

Incorrect, female Viera do not look like female Elezen. Female Elezen are lankier, skinnier, and different face/head style/size. Those are big differences. As much difference as male Elezen and male Au ra, they're very similar too except for wider legs, more muscle, and different face/head style/size.

female viera, like I said have obviously different heads.
That means that there's a chance we will end up with an existing model that they don't have to refit much gear for, and as much as I'd love that to be au ra, it would likely be elezen, which is what they did for female viera, they are female elezen with slight more meat

[Gwenorai]

Incorrect, female Viera do not look like female Elezen. Female Elezen are lankier, skinnier, and different face/head style/size. Those are big differences. As much difference as male Elezen and male Au ra, they're very similar too except for wider legs, more muscle, and different face/head style/size.

I have to agree with this, the female viera have more curves and seem to be more muscular than Elezen. I put it down to them probably eating more meat as well as the environment they live in. With Viera taking care of the forest I think they're less inclined to eat vegetation and tend to eat meat more. Perhaps like Bosmer where they eat meat only?

[Lauront]

I have to agree with this, the female viera have more curves and seem to be more muscular than Elezen. I put it down to them probably eating more meat as well as the environment they live in. With Viera taking care of the forest I think they're less inclined to eat vegetation and tend to eat meat more. Perhaps like Bosmer where they eat meat only?

Whatever difference there is, it is slight, and certainly not enough by its own to make or break the ability to survive in the Golmore jungle.

I don't think it means much for the males, because unlike Elezen males, they don't really cohabit with the females or follow the same lifestyle. You also have to consider that their solitary lifestyle means, if they take down some form of prey, it's all theirs to eat - at most, I'd picture them teaming up with one or two other hunters on rare occasions. So we're talking much higher potential protein availability, aside from the fact that a fantasy jungle will have more readily available - and much larger - prey than a RL equivalent, much like the Shroud does. You may be right that there's a difference in their dietary habits, but I think this will be all the more pronounced for the males.

I mean, this is a game where popotoes normally face off against bisons 30 times their size (at least) with an axe and nobody blinks an eye. And I'm not just talking about the PC since Alka Zolka is a MRD. Equating any sort of real life zoology when we have literal magic is... well, a weird point.

I don't think this is a particularly fruitful route to go down. The races do differ in their physiques, so evolutionary factors clearly played a role here, and not all of the variance appears to be attributable to Allagan intervention, either. As I've said in the past, there's factors like the supernatural abilities classes/jobs possess, materia, and so on, which can explain scenarios like Alka Zolka, and it's not like they're going to spell it out each and every time. Where I agree with you is your last sentence, but I think it's worsened by the fact that the comparison is not with wild forests but the more domesticated variants we're mostly familiar with these days.

Generally I think it's lazy world-building for developers to just throw their hands up and attribute any oddities to "well, just because" explanations. Not saying SE do this, but in general you create a more compelling world if you try provide explanations for such things, which can include in-world catalysts such the effects various arcane arts or phenomena have, rather than just making it a general appeal to absurdity. Also, although it's not as viable in MMOs, I do like race-locking jobs for exactly this reason.