Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Melichoir]

You've missed the entirety of my point. I didn't say they couldn't or shouldn't add them. I'm saying that CURRENTLY ROLEPLAYING AS A MALE VIERA isn't lore abiding, because they have YET to leave the forest. My point has nothing to do with whether they should be added or not.

I wasnt addressing your point about roleplaying male vieras?

I was addressing that the lore reasons that we have currently are garbage. If people want to roleplay something, thats whatever. If anything, people Roleplaying Male Viera simply illustrates that the lore is weak as it were and it actually would make more consistent sense within FFXIV world building to actually see sporadic male vieras.

Maybe more people should role play Viera so when they drop some variation of "Oh Male Vieras now have to join in cause things are dire" reasoning, at least people can be like "Yeah, Male Viera have slowly trickling out this entire time."

It doesn't really matter if the lore reasoning is 'garbage' at this point in time. If they're not a playable option then they're not a playable option. I'm not against the inclusion of male viera so long as they are handled well - but that's a key point. I want them to look good and I want them to have a plausible lore reason for leaving their homeland. I also want them to have a fleshed out background and not simply feel tacked on just for the sake of having them there.

Development reasons aside, the only course of action SE has lore wise for Male Viera is to say what I mentioned above. Itll probably be dressed up a bit, but its going to boil down to "Things are serious, so male viera are breaking with tradition to join the 'war effort'." This is unfortunate, cause we couldve had so much more interesting things to do with Viera, but the devs decided to really play up that FF12 nostalgia and painted themselves into a corner lore wise.

[Theodric]

Whether it's 'garbage' or not is entirely subjective in itself. There's a lot about the game's lore that I'm not particularly keen on, but there's plenty of people who enjoy the stuff that I dislike. I also doubt that people playing male viera is going to help the cause given that quite a lot of people - myself included - find the workarounds to look utterly ridiculous. As a role-player myself, I can't say I'm particularly interested in interacting with people who have characters that are completely 'out there' either. Grounded, well written characters are much more engaging. Especially if they look and act like they're actually a part of the setting and operate within the confines of the established story/world.

Development reasons aside, the only course of action SE has lore wise for Male Viera is to say what I mentioned above. Itll probably be dressed up a bit, but its going to boil down to "Things are serious, so male viera are breaking with tradition to join the 'war effort'." This is unfortunate, cause we couldve had so much more interesting things to do with Viera, but the devs decided to really play up that FF12 nostalgia and painted themselves into a corner lore wise.

It's not solely a matter of playing up the nostalgia for FF12. It's also due to limitations as to where development resources can go. They've outright stated that it could go either way - they might be added to the game in the future, though equally they might not. If they are added to the game then a reason for their existence will be put forward. If they're never added to the game, however, then the current lore serves as a solid reason as to why they aren't around.

[SomeRandomHuman]

It doesn't really matter if the lore reasoning is 'garbage' at this point in time. If they're not a playable option then they're not a playable option. I'm not against the inclusion of male viera so long as they are handled well - but that's a key point. I want them to look good and I want them to have a plausible lore reason for leaving their homeland. I also want them to have a fleshed out background and not simply feel tacked on just for the sake of having them there.

Please explain duswright elezen, moonkeeper miqo'tes as a whole, and male miqo'te as a whole. All 3 are said to be rare, especially the first and third mentioned, but are playable and no one ever complained about the lore breaking it suggested.

That's why the lore argument is invalid. Stuff was made playable regardless of lore or whatever it implies.

So I'm sorry, but using lore to prevent something becoming playable isn't a valid argument.

[Theodric]

There's a rather big difference between 'rare' and 'never seen'.

I'd like male viera to be added to the game, though only if they look good and have a plausible and in-depth reason for suddenly showing up. I'd also like them to retain elements of their fierce edge and proud traditions, not just be another variant of Hyur with slightly different ears. Which is exactly what we get if they're introduced in the way some are suggesting within this thread.

[Lauront]

With things as murky as male Viera, introducing "workarounds" to play one at present is always open to the possibility that what is eventually added will be markedly different - and in the case of RP, completely contravene some headcanons. I can understand why people would want to avoid such a situation from the outset.

[SomeRandomHuman]

There's a rather big difference between 'rare' and 'never seen'.

I'd like male viera to be added to the game, though only if they look good and have a plausible and in-depth reason for suddenly showing up. I'd also like them to retain elements of their fierce edge and proud traditions, not just be another variant of Hyur with slightly different ears. Which is exactly what we get if they're introduced in the way some are suggesting within this thread.

Any lore-related argument is invalid as mentioned. As for the difference between "rare" and "never seen" I'd like to point out to you to how male viera lead very isolated lives with the only form of communication being to mate and to teach any other young males their needed life skills.

Please note that the core premise is basically the same as male miqo'te; lone wolf that doesn't really interact with anyone else. After that premise is when they start to differ, but male viera and male miqo'te are about as equally rare as far as lore is concerned.

We "encounter" a male viera in a greatwood side quest that came to the aid of a female in danger. It is also worth noting that, unless you're a viera or some other form of ally, they shoot first leading to the "never seen" nature.

[MikkoAkure]

Please explain duswright elezen, moonkeeper miqo'tes as a whole, and male miqo'te as a whole. All 3 are said to be rare, especially the first and third mentioned, but are playable and no one ever complained about the lore breaking it suggested.

That's why the lore argument is invalid. Stuff was made playable regardless of lore or whatever it implies.

So I'm sorry, but using lore to prevent something becoming playable isn't a valid argument.

SE isn't using in-game lore to prevent something from being playable. They're using the lore in-game to explain why, due to outside of game decisions, these options are not playable. They are not the same thing.

Also, all 3 of your examples have lore that would perfectly fit an adventurer. Do we see many of these as NPCs? No, not really. But we see a lot of them out there as player characters. It doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to think that the percentage of these races/clans we bump into as adventurers is not representative of those races/clans population percentage in Eorzea as a whole.

Meanwhile, using current lore, the chance of seeing a male viera running around Ishgard would be even less than that of seeing an Amazonian warrior in Bucharest. Viera are from a continent so far away, there's another continent in between us and them. The region they're in is currently controlled by our main enemy and they're fighting them in their own homeland. There are obviously female viera adventurers running around now, but they were already present in civilized cities before the Garleans had invaded while a visitor to the largest of those cities has never seen a male viera at all. Male viera only exist in 1 of 10 of the already low population of viera, and then, after hitting puberty, are taken out by an older male to be trained and many don't survive the training.

All of this piled together makes it very unlikely for a male viera to exist in Eorzea unless something changes. The lore is up to SE to decide based on what they chose to make available for us, but it is not forcing their decisions, the development costs/time are. The lore is as it is written currently because male viera were not meant to be playable. There is nothing to "genderlock" if the genders do not even physically exist as something we can see in game. As it has been stated and restated multiple times in this thread, the current situation exists because SE wanted to satisfy those who wanted hrothgar and those who wanted viera, without the development work of fully fleshing out two complete races. Going back to complaining about lore or saying it's flimsy is a waste of breath when that's not the reason at all.

[MirronTulaxia]

Snip.

1. All RPing is non canon. The only story the Gabe has is that of the WoL.

2. We already know from the developers that they don’t use lore as 100% accurate. People report rumors, falsehoods, lies. Since we know that to be true treating anything in the game as absolutely accurate when you don’t witness it is foolish.

3. It isn’t logical at all for a race to be culturally monolithic. We know that the Viera aren’t for females. Expecting that of males is illogical.

4. Not everyone treats RPs the same as you. I can certainly say that, having been on Sargantas for a time, that most RPers don’t have a properly cited character sheet with every detail in it referenced to a specific part of the game.

5. Not everyone treats lore the same as you. I, for instance, see it as a starting point, not the end. If lore says something and I do something counter to it then I look for why I can do that. Most characters in stories are different from the norm, XIV certainly isn’t unusual in that regard.

6. Even if the lore was absolutely iron clad and almost everyone approached it and RPs the same as you, none of that justifies harassing others for doing it differently.

[Melichoir]

Whether it's 'garbage' or not is entirely subjective in itself. There's a lot about the game's lore that I'm not particularly keen on, but there's plenty of people who enjoy the stuff that I dislike. I also doubt that people playing male viera is going to help the cause given that quite a lot of people - myself included - find the workarounds to look utterly ridiculous. As a role-player myself, I can't say I'm particularly interested in interacting with people who have characters that are completely 'out there' either. Grounded, well written characters are much more engaging. Especially if they look and act like they're actually a part of the setting and operate within the confines of the established story/world.

Oh, I have no illusions that the lore and world building of FFXIV is perfect. There are a lot of inconsistencies within lore. However, we're discussing a specific case where the argument of Lore doesnt actually work because that Lore comes from another game. It works there, it doesnt work here because its two separate worlds with built in rules and concepts. You cant just transplant a culture and lore from one game into another and expect it to just fit comfy. And exists here because it was either convenient or because theyre trying to push those nostalgia buttons. IMO, its a bit of both. It wouldve been straight up better to just develop one race and not two, cause to justify the off sexes not currently existing, they copy/pasted lore from another game that doesnt fit within FFXIV, and created some odd lore for Hrothgar. And atleast for Hrothgar there is a tiny little bit of "Oh ok, I can kinda see this being somewhat the case,". Hell you could argue that the lore for Viera does work in a very limited fashion IF Viera were never a playable race and Norvrandt wasnt a thing. If Viera were extremely isolationist so that you wouldnt even see Female Viera except in rare circumstances, let alone male, that would atleast lend itself to the imported lore. However, this isnt the case.

It just is bothersome to see people quote the lore for no male viera, cause that justifies and endorses it as good writing when it clearly isnt. This isnt even a tastes issue. It literally is an objective issue of inconsistency within the context of the FFXIV world to have this lore in game.

It's not solely a matter of playing up the nostalgia for FF12. It's also due to limitations as to where development resources can go. They've outright stated that it could go either way - they might be added to the game in the future, though equally they might not. If they are added to the game then a reason for their existence will be put forward. If they're never added to the game, however, then the current lore serves as a solid reason as to why they aren't around.

Development reasons aside, the only course of action SE has...

I mean I straight up said "Development reasons aside." Im well aware there are limitations within the development cycle. However, its damned if you do and damned if you dont lore wise. If they dont introduce the off sexes, there will always be poor lore in the game to stand in as the reason (and the best thing they can do is literally never address it or try to explain it, as that will only further highlight how janky the Lore is for it being in FFXIV). If they do, then its going to boil down to "things serious, Get the bunny-boys/lion-girls."

I like a lot of ShB and what YoshiP and the devs do. But this was clearly a complete misstep on their part.

[MirronTulaxia]

With things as murky as male Viera, introducing "workarounds" to play one at present is always open to the possibility that what is eventually added will be markedly different - and in the case of RP, completely contravene some headcanons. I can understand why people would want to avoid such a situation from the outset.

Having headcanon about a facet of the game is a rather poor reason to not do something. People have headcanon about Ascians or Garleans, yet they still expanded them. Pick something and someone, somewhere, has ideas and expectations of what that means. Adding nothing is not a sound solution, and that reasoning for why they shouldn’t add anything is flawed. Unless you can provide some meaningful reason Viera should be treated differently then there isn’t an argument here.