Quote Originally Posted by lackofwords View Post
I think I understand where you're getting at. If you think of them as "actors", then yes they have the potential of playing any role regardless of what settings they are in. Such as how "humans" are acceptable to appear in many multiple cultural roles. You don't see them as one of the many human cultures and societies... but more as whatever culture it is tied to.

However, these unique races are designed to fit a particular cultural role. Such that they have been pretty much "type-casted" to fit a role for that particular FF universe. They are strongly identify with the role it plays.

Such as when I think viera I think of three things; mist frenzy, attuned to nature, and reclusive society. Now I think the former two might conflict with how FFXIV universe is designed. You can't have a viera going into a frenzy every time it walks up to an aetheryte, you can't have a viera attuned to nature without being a conjurer naturally. (Granted that not all vieras were magic users, but they all had the innate ability to be one. Which is why in the FFTA games they were the only summoners, elementalist and can access other mage type jobs)

Eventually I might be able to forget what a viera was after aggressive re-branding, but even now I'm still having trouble not seeing a roegadyn as a galka. (well this could also be because there's very little cultural background references for races in game)
That's one point me and a couple of friends came across while discussing the game. It's either the time the story takes place is after a cultural boom where all the races pretty much united into one common ideal, or the writers for the story did not want to bother with the races and their background for the time being. I feel like this game is merely a continuation of the XI time line, or possibly a different time space set in the same world.

Regardless, I do feel like it is time for a change in scenery and the main reason I want a race like the Viera is because visually I find them appealing and I wouldn't be too concern with the background story so much. As of now I still refer to the races the way I did as in XI, which I'm sure a lot of players do. And feel like SE was just being lazy in the process of recreating a new world.