Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Halivel]

The Dramaturge says that eight in ten Viera are female, so they are rarer relatively speaking.

Oh, I suppose I missed this, thanks for clarification. Well, then their population proportions seem to be pretty much the same as for Miqo'te. What does Dramaturge says in JP though? I never checked (was too lazy for it, tbh).

[CoolDad]

Oh, I suppose I missed this, thanks for clarification. Well, then their population proportions seem to be pretty much the same as for Miqo'te. What does Dramaturge says in JP though? I never checked (was too lazy for it, tbh).

I'm afraid I don't know. :/ I'm pretty sure people checked for differences between the languages but it was quite a while ago, and possibly on another thread. If anyone could take a look again that would be appreciated.

[MikkoAkure]

The Dramaturge says that eight in ten Viera are female, so they are rarer relatively speaking.

In addition to only two in ten being male, many don't even survive to adulthood.

More than a few will perish during this brutal rite of passage, further thinning the tribe's males, until only those with the strongest seed remain.

All in all, not only are adult male viera as rare or rarer than male moon keepers, they only live in the jungle of a continent far away from Eorzea and go through a trial that kills a fair few of the remaining ones off. They are said to not even exist to the people who live in the closest city to the jungle, and this is a city where viera make up 5% of the population. Male moon keepers may be rare wanderers, but they don't go through trials that kill a lot of them (that we know of), and they adventure around on the continent where our adventures take place so we're likely to bump into a couple. There is no real point in comparing the two. Male viera are not seen at all by outsiders and never have been. They don't communicate with foreigners, let alone each other and spend their whole life alone. The only inter-personal contact they have is when they return to their village every 3-5 years to mate and potentially grab a couple of jacks to train.

All this being said, there's almost no room in the lore as it stands now for male viera. We're going to visit a viis village in ShadowBringers so we're likely to learn more about the race as a whole, but viis aren't viera so it's not going to be a one-to-one thing and Yoshi already said that we will not see the missing genders as NPCs, but we may learn more about them.

[Halivel]

Well, I highly doubt that we will ever see male Vieras among NPC anyway, even if they will be playable. Same goes to female Hroths. Pretty much because of their lore. And it's totally fine, because lore explains how the world works.

Should not forget that lore works differently when we speak about WoL (or, pasically, players), though, because, it was stated so many times here and there, we will need to delete about 80% of playable content if search for a "room in the lore" including some races and at least half of jobs.

Anyway, does Dramaturge says his lines about Vieras after raid scenario is completed? I want to check Japanese version today if he does.

[LittleChickenNugget]

Boy, have I missed some conversation... I step away to play WoW for just a couple of days..

[Gwenorai]

snip

What I find interesting about this is that Matsuno wrote this lore, yet he wasn't the one denying them to be playable. If that's the case, as a creator he must have already come up with scenarios or situations where this usual 'rule' of their life would change. Unless they're just going to add them and just go "ah, whatever - just use the 'the wood said you had to go' excuse." Which I suppose is better than, 'Just add them in and have it make no sense'.

Beyond this, it does have me cock a brow on how the Viera find this lifestyle to be acceptable to them for so long. Why is the rarer male the one that is fighting, compared to the female who is a lot more common and supposedly can handle themselves just the same? What makes the males more adept that they would actually risk their whole population becoming trashed by shrinking their male numbers to such a degree that their gene pool is shallow enough for a toddler to play in?

How can families let their children do such a thing knowing full well that it's likely they will die? I know it's seen as a sacred honour but still. It does baffle me. How the men can be so indoctrinated to the point none have left the wood - or rather none have been seen to leave... or those that have seen them haven't survived to relay the tale.

--

Anyway, random curiosity - when male Miqote, femroe and Fhighlander were genderlocked - did the 'blurb' information regarding races on character creation mention them at all? As in, if you picked a female miqote did it talk about the males?

[CoolDad]

I'm still firmly of the stance that lore doesn't have much bearing on a playability. It's been absolutely discussed to death here though (Rathalos and the regalia being in this game, there's only one non-padjal white mage, the devs are the ones writing the lore etc etc). Regardless Yoshi P have been presenting it more as a resource problem with lore to complement the limitation, rather than lore being responsible for the ultimate decision here.

Edit:

Anyway, random curiosity - when male Miqote, femroe and Fhighlander were genderlocked - did the 'blurb' information regarding races on character creation mention them at all? As in, if you picked a female miqote did it talk about the males?

There was for Miqo'te yes. The section said: "Miqo'te are known to be quite territorial, and many individuals tend to lead solitary lifestyles, particularly the males. The few Miqo'te who have made the transition to life in Eorzean society are predominantly female." The Roe blurb did not mention female Roes, though I'm not sure if other material gave a reason. I'm not sure about Highlander either.

[Theodric]

The lore is technically capable of being changed. My concern is that in changing things there might not be much left of what makes them so mysterious and appealing. So it needs to be done well and the justification for them leaving their forest needs to be satisfying and not lazy/overly contrived.

[Nestama]

How can families let their children do such a thing knowing full well that it's likely they will die? I know it's seen as a sacred honour but still. It does baffle me. How the men can be so indoctrinated to the point none have left the wood - or rather none have been seen to leave... or those that have seen them haven't survived to relay the tale.

I vaguely recall a culture (tribe?) somewhere in the Amazon where young men of age must go through a ceremony involving putting their hands into a glove full of bullet ants twenty times for ten minutes (while also doing a dance). Dunno if any die from the shock of the pain (or allergies), but it's something to think about.

Boy, have I missed some conversation... I step away to play WoW for just a couple of days..

I know, right? I go to work, do work, start feeling sick (probably food poisoning, since it was shortly after lunch), come home and apparently there was a storm? Golly goodness.

[CoolDad]

I know, right? I go to work, do work, start feeling sick (probably food poisoning, since it was shortly after lunch), come home and apparently there was a storm? Golly goodness.