Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Floortank]

Except neither Male Viera nor Female Hrothgar would ever be considered a new race since we already have them in the game.
Yes, Yoshi-P clearly stated that there won't be any more new races coming. He never said there will be no missing genders coming to already existing races.

You're splitting hairs. Yoshi-P is explicitly talking about the additional genders as being the same as adding new races, because as far as work flows, it is the same.

[Floortank]

Nope, as far as I'm aware the last thign he said was the interview I linked 1-2 pages ago. Also ofc theyre the last races, but they did say that if they can add the missing genders they will indeed look into it

I'd very much like to be wrong and it will be awesome to have them announce it at fan fest. "We're trying" could also mean they show up in 6.x or later though.

[Cidel]

Guh, I didn't want to get involved in this thread but just seeing the misinformation about what happened between the Viera reveal fanfest and Hrothgar reveal fanfest being shared here is making me want to say something.

The hype was completely on SE...again Yoshida was asked after the reveal of the females if we get male vieras and he just kept on increasing the hype. He bascially was like "you will see at the next fanfest" which seeing how we always got all genders and no other race was on the door at that time, that this was a yes....

First of all, Yoshida was not responsible for increasing any hype for any potential male Viera after the Viera reveal fanfest. When asked about it, he told the interviewer to "reread/look at the game's lore." And players quickly checked out the Ivalice raid's dramaturge and discovered that he says something along the lines of "they simply don't exist to us" about the subject. For all people want to get upset over Yoshida for not telling them "no;" the way I still see it, that was his way of letting people down gently and letting them discover the answer to that on their own without subsequently spoiling a major reveal for the upcoming Tokyo Fanfest.

You also need to consider the situation at the time which put the development team in a bad spot. There was a leaker who had already more or less correctly spoiled upcoming things like BLU and it not being a full job, the upcoming bosses for the Omega raids (referring to the last boss(es) as "Adam and Eve" as opposed to Omega M and F, for example), and most surprising of all, that Viera and a muscular lion race were in the works and coming next expansion. There is no way that the developers could not have been informed and aware that someone blew the lid on their upcoming reveals. Outright saying there would be no male Viera right then and there would instantly cause many to connect the dots and realize the leaked races were correct and a lion race for males was being saved for the Tokyo fanfest. He instead gave a breadcrumb trail.

What made it even more accidently blatant before that Tokyo fanfest was the dataminers finding text that not only confirmed a new lion race coming by being described as having "manes," but namedropped the race as Hrothgars. The discussion was right here on these forums as well. It was even brought up that in an older interview about new races, Yoshida said he didn't think they'd make male Viera, and would include a different male-only race; so its not as if the precedent wasn't there.

Yet despite all that, I still remember how people let hope and personal headcanon delude themselves into thinking male Viera had to happen. "Lore doesn't matter." Perhaps it doesn't, but that was what the game's director said to look at to come to our own conclusion about the probability of male Viera (essentially near-0) without totally spoiling an already dwindling reveal for Tokyo's fanfest. Whether or not its an excuse now is moot since they've been asked about it after the fact and he's mentioned why they did what they did. Male Viera had the odds stacked way against them and yet some people would not let it go or temper their expectations and self-inflicted hype that many echo-chambers here did not do any favors for; which culminated in the vile, nastiness from some of the "fans" here on the forums against the devs when the Hrothgar showed up- as many had already expected.

You're free to continue to hope and hold-out for male Viera the missing genders here, but it's getting exhausting seeing some people try to shift the blame to the devs about not taking it upon themselves to personally rein-in speculation between fanfests.

[Theodric]

Well, I don't think it's fair to blame the community. The only reason why viera were even added to the game in the first place was due to people specifically requesting their presence. Yet a large portion of those asking for them to be added to the game were asking specifically for both genders to be added. Not just one. Furthermore, the development team took the decision to step away from single gender playable races by adding female roegadyn, male miqo'te and female highlanders to the game as a playable option.

It wasn't unreasonable for people to expect male viera to be added to the game with all that in mind.

[grinkdaboy]

and yet they've demonstrated how truly flexible the lore is

they didnt have male miqote or female roegadyn just to keep tradition with ff11 and tried to justify it with the lore. there were no male miqo'te because they were all apparently very hostile or whatever gobblidgook that was hastily retconned away in 2.0. which funnily enough is the same lore justification they have for viera. the lore justification for no female roegadyn or even female highlanders in 1.0 (besides the lady admiral of course, who was introduced after yoship became director of xiv) was...uh...er.... and there are no female hrothgar for the same reason.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

and yet they've demonstrated how truly flexible the lore is

they didnt have male miqote or female roegadyn just to keep tradition with ff11 and tried to justify it with the lore. there were no male miqo'te because they were all apparently very hostile or whatever gobblidgook that was hastily retconned away in 2.0. which funnily enough is the same lore justification they have for viera. the lore justification for no female roegadyn or even female highlanders in 1.0 (besides the lady admiral of course, who was introduced after yoship became director of xiv) was...uh...er.... and there are no female hrothgar for the same reason.

Miqote and Roegadyn are not Mithra and Galka.
Also these are XIV races, not Tactics Races from Ivalice. So they can change and flip the Miqote and Roes and people wont care as much. But the Viera are not from XIV and have their own established lore.
Now, Ive said a good handful of times they can add to that lore to justify them, otherwise there is a lore excuse should they chose to fall back on it.

No Female Hrothgar is because they didnt have enough time and resources to make them along with Male Hrothgar and the Viera

[SpiralMask]

Miqote and Roegadyn are not Mithra and Galka.
Also these are XIV races, not Tactics Races from Ivalice. So they can change and flip the Miqote and Roes and people wont care as much. But the Viera are not from XIV and have their own established lore.
Now, Ive said a good handful of times they can add to that lore to justify them, otherwise there is a lore excuse should they chose to fall back on it.

No Female Hrothgar is because they didnt have enough time and resources to make them along with Male Hrothgar and the Viera

at least on the viera note: they can and have called in the lead ivalice guy to oversee content for the game already, and he, yoshi, soken, and a few others are all on good terms both personally and business-wise (yoshi noted them as basically all being drinking buddies). there's no reason why they couldnt either get him to design one, or give his blessing to make their own design (if such a thing is even required).

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

at least on the viera note: they can and have called in the lead ivalice guy to oversee content for the game already, and he, yoshi, soken, and a few others are all on good terms both personally and business-wise (yoshi noted them as basically all being drinking buddies). there's no reason why they couldnt either get him to design one, or give his blessing to make their own design (if such a thing is even required).

Of course, I agree and see no issue with that.
Just... at the same time would they wanna preserve what makes the Viera...Viera?
Its just a personal opinion but I think our first vision of them should be in a brand new game set in Ivalice instead of in an MMO. Im not exactly against them being put into FF:XIV, but I just think their lore should be expanded on should the Males come out of hiding. Since in every other game the males have been separated and exclude from others.
I think that should stay, unless their lore as a whole is expanded on.

[Alleo]

He was ambiguous, he didn't say yes or no. It was a badly worded and extremely vague response. Being Vague is not saying yes. Either he could have just not answered or he could/should just say outright no. People agree to this. But people seem to hate to admit they were the ones that came to the conclusion Male Viera was happening. Also, be fair, why blame Square Enix when the response was from YoshiP?
Just saying.

He was ambigous on purpose. If I remember it correctly they even said that they knew that they would get backlash for the decision of including only half of the genders. And of course being vague does not mean yes but under the circumstances the chance that male vieras would happen was just so big. Why should people assume that SE decided to suddenly go back to horrible gender restrictions? And some of us did point it out and we did get told down. Its the same like alot of topics here. Anyone daring to say something negative and a few people will always come and say that we should just trust SE, that they wont do it. And if they do something which we see as bad we are told that we should wait...

Just like we got told that SE said that we will get new hairstyles for the new races and that we should wait...a whole expansion with the new genders is over soon and we did not get a single one. Of course now the goal post was moved again and we are told that SE never said any specific time so its on us again for being disappointed..

Are people sometimes jumping to conclusions too early? Of course! But a lot of time its also thanks to the hype that the devs like to create.

First of all, Yoshida was not responsible for increasing any hype for any potential male Viera after the Viera reveal fanfest. When asked about it, he told the interviewer to "reread/look at the game's lore." And players quickly checked out the Ivalice raid's dramaturge and discovered that he says something along the lines of "they simply don't exist to us" about the subject. For all people want to get upset over Yoshida for not telling them "no;" the way I still see it, that was his way of letting people down gently and letting them discover the answer to that on their own without subsequently spoiling a major reveal for the upcoming Tokyo Fanfest.

I searched it up.

Ricedigital wrote this after the first fanfest:

In a press conference, Yoshida was asked whether this was going to continue to be the case or whether male Viera would be coming with the 5.0 update to the popular MMO. However, he refused to comment on this matter, teasing that this would be revealed at the Tokyo Fan Fest on March 23rd-24th 2019 (he even did a motion zipping his mouth).

Another site wrote this:

Update: Speaking with Stevivor at a press conference, Producer Naoki Yoshida said that fans will have to wait until Shadowbreakers‘ Tokyo reveal event for more information about male Viera.


Yet another site:
During a Q&A conference with press, game director Naoki Yoshida was asked about the absence of male Viera and the possibility of the race being gender locked to women only. Yoshida refused to commit to an answer, instead remarking that more would be revealed at the Japan Fan Fest, which took place last week. Stirring the pot further, Yoshida also remarked that the Viera would likely be the final race to be added to Final Fantasy XIV, leading many to believe that a reveal of the male Viera options would be coming.


The part you mean is the following which was said after the second fanfest after the backlash started!

In an interview with Gamespot, conducted at the Tokyo Fan Fest, producer Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida responded to the fan outcry. The key exchange is this section:

"We have to identify what they're coming from, so we can respond correctly," Yoshida said about concerned fans. "We want to review all the feedback that players gave. The bottom line is that the addition of a race takes quite a lot of cost; it's really quite an undertaking."

Yoshida added that in Final Fantasy XII, which is where Viera is from, the male Viera do not show themselves in public, so Final Fantasy XIV Online is staying loyal to the lore with only offering a female option. Yoshida explained that the male-only Hrothgar is Square Enix's effort to offer a new male-only race in response to Viera being female-only.

They also went back on the lore statement later and again flip flopped between reasons afterwards quite a bit...from stating that Hrothgar were created first, to them saying that they choose Viera but saw the want for a more bestial race thus introduced the male Hrothgars too. See just one statement being changed from one interview to the other.

The lore reason is also bad because the NPC mentions the males existing, just that he never saw one.

[WhiteArchmage]

Miqote and Roegadyn are not Mithra and Galka.
Also these are XIV races, not Tactics Races from Ivalice. So they can change and flip the Miqote and Roes and people wont care as much. But the Viera are not from XIV and have their own established lore.
Now, Ive said a good handful of times they can add to that lore to justify them, otherwise there is a lore excuse should they chose to fall back on it.

No Female Hrothgar is because they didnt have enough time and resources to make them along with Male Hrothgar and the Viera

I've gone over and OVER this. They're not FFXII Viera suddenly sucked into a portal and dumped in the XIV world. They're Hydaelin Viera. They look similar to Ivalice Viera (note: no clawed, three-toed feet, no long claws, ears sit differently, eyes look somewhat different), they have similar (note: SIMILAR, not THE SAME, SIMILAR) Lore, but they're NOT the same.

EVEN THOUGH Matsuno worked on Return to Ivalice, they're not the same. To the point that it's repeatedly mentioned that Ivaliceans are Proto-Garleans, especially the Gougans. Matsuno basically added Fran (and she was added later in development because originally he wanted to add Balthier), the XIV dev team decided to make Viera, and basically made THEIR version of Viera, not Matsuno's (or, Akihiko Yoshida's, the character designer).