Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

I mean, the lore was created that way to justify the fact that MViera are not seen in previous games and in ShB, since the race itself was basically created to pander to the prevalent horny male teenager audience. It's not like it's a fundamental and unchangeable state of the world. All it takes is an additional piece of lore that says "look, their homeland is in danger so they decided to venture out". Even without that, "mommy crystal called the MViera and he decided to leave his bros in the woods" would be a more than acceptable explanation given the circumstances and the fact that our character is a singularity. And to be honest, it's pretty weird that MViera are nowhere to be seen in two different worlds with two different catastrophes coming their way because they're oh so precious. Really doesn't make any sense, especially when you see beast tribes working with playable races on the First. FHrogh too of course. It was clearly due to resource constraints and they came up with a lore excuse so their white knights could do the rest of the work for them.

Either way, I feel vindicated, I remember having a few arguments when FViera was announced and I pointed out that not having MViera and FHroth was just stupid, the lore argument was weak and they'd eventually add them because the community would ask for it. Let's just say that I now agree with those people that say that many ffxiv players look more like zealots than actual consumers.

Meanwhile RPers are laughing at people saying "lore says they never leave the Wood!!!"

I've got one bun who left the jungle over 70 years ago, and another that left 20 years ago and has lived in Sharlayan since then.

And guess what? Neither break the lore - if the women can choose to leave despite the Green Word they all live under, so can males. Shocking, I know!

[Duskane]

I don't know about that. Au Ra are very popular: both males and females. Not to mention they aren't limited. Male viera are limited, and I can't see the appeal for them like male au ra in comparison either.

its pretty basic new toy syndrome
it happens all the time in this game
new hair
New map glam
new race
new event glam
etc etc
most will be using it and people will revert a week or two later or keep going just how it is.

[Derio]

Yea I dont buy the lore reason that people are clinging to. If you played FF12 then you know outside of the wood you saw at least one female viera in a pub or on the street somewhere. Pretty sure male viera would have been the same way if they had created the assetts for it.

[Allegor]

I think we should be waaaaay past the "but the lore!" phase already

[Averax]

I think we should be waaaaay past the "but the lore!" phase already

Yeah. The lore only exists in this way because they didn't want to have to make a male variation for players. The lore was ever just an excuse not to do it. It was exactly the same with male miqo'te in 1.0. Literally, exactly the same.

1.0 male Miqo'te were never seen because they preferred to live reclusive lifestyles away from other people, and only came around for procreation, then went back out to the woods. They just recycled this excuse for Viera.

[MikkoAkure]

I mean, the lore was created that way to justify the fact that MViera are not seen in previous games and in ShB, since the race itself was basically created to pander to the prevalent horny male teenager audience. It's not like it's a fundamental and unchangeable state of the world. All it takes is an additional piece of lore that says "look, their homeland is in danger so they decided to venture out".

I'm not saying that the lore wasn't created as an excuse, I'm just saying that's how it's presented to us and why we wouldn't expect to see them until a certain moment of the game. Just like how up until the Doman refugees arriving to Eorzea and the recent events of Stormblood, no one had ever seen Au Ra or Lupin before in Eorzea. Of course things can change and that's why we have playable Au Ra to begin with.

Viera aren't the only pandering race either. We have Au Ra whose extremely weak lore just shrugs at the fact that SE made a race of edgy, brooding, muscular men and tiny, scrawny, cutesy women half their size in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator. And then the Miqo'te were changed from having more cat-like features to becoming more traditionally attractive and basically being humans with cat ears and a cat tail.

Adding male Viera wouldn't be the first time they retconned anything anyway. Dalmasca was originally much smaller and on the other side of the continent before they decided to make it actual content and wrote off the old lore as a "clerical error".

Meanwhile RPers are laughing at people saying "lore says they never leave the Wood!!!"

I've got one bun who left the jungle over 70 years ago, and another that left 20 years ago and has lived in Sharlayan since then.

And guess what? Neither break the lore - if the women can choose to leave despite the Green Word they all live under, so can males. Shocking, I know!

May not break the lore but RPers can say anything they want as long as the people they're RPing with accept it. During ARR and HW you had a bunch of people who RP'd as dragons who pretended to be hyur and elezen. I've also bumped into people who RP'd as robots that look 100% human and more than a few vampires, despite neither of those existing in the game. And then there's the hordes of dragoons despite the game saying there's only about 9 left alive.

[Theodric]

Viera aren't the only pandering race either. We have Au Ra whose extremely weak lore just shrugs at the fact that SE made a race of edgy, brooding, muscular men and tiny, scrawny, cutesy women half their size in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator.

What would that 'lowest common denominator' be, exactly?

It seems to me that they were designed around classical beauty standards - with the men being tall, muscular and handsome and the women being short, elegant and slender.

Granted, the height difference did not necessarily need to be quite so drastic but based on what I see in-game it doesn't appear as if either side of the coin is starving for interest.

On the other hand, the race and gender combinations based around niche aesthetics are decidedly, uh, niche. Roegadyn women being a prominent example, to say nothing of the lanky proportions that Elezen are bound to.

[MikkoAkure]

What would that 'lowest common denominator' be, exactly?

It seems to me that they were designed around classical beauty standards - with the men being tall, muscular and handsome and the women being short, elegant and slender.

Granted, the height difference did not necessarily need to be quite so drastic but based on what I see in-game it doesn't appear as if either side of the coin is starving for interest.

On the other hand, the race and gender combinations based around niche aesthetics are decidedly, uh, niche. Roegadyn women being a prominent example, to say nothing of the lanky proportions that Elezen are bound to.

Yeah, that's what "lowest common denominator" means. It's deliberately made to appeal to the greatest number of people. Instead of making a uniform race, it feels as though they took the concept art and said "well what's the simplest common value players want in a female character that would give us wide adoption rates for the new race?" and then applied it to the Au Ra, while leaving the men as musclebound hunks since that's the lowest common value players want in a male character.

Doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing though, which is why you have people in another thread fighting over femhroths and whether or not they'll look like the men or be blue miqo'te. And you have Xaela women, who are supposed to be rugged nomads but don't exactly act like it because SE decided that we needed a second miqo'te instead in order to sell more fantasia.

[MellowMink]

"Male Viera are ruining my immersion," someone says while taking off in a flying car.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

"Male Viera are ruining my immersion," someone says while taking off in a flying car.

That Flying Car was explained that it could actually exist. Garlean Tech isn't far off from it.
So this is kind of a Weak Gottcha.