Gender locked race?

[DevilsDontFly]

I"m not even sure what is going on in this thread at this point, honestly.

It's safe to assume it's what happens on all NA threads with more than 40 pages: Drama, personal attacks, sass and meme worthy sentences.

[Daralii]

I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on for a moment: the "home of the viera" in Shadowbringers is in the foothills of a mountain range, and being solitary guards, the males would likely be higher up in the mountains where it's colder so that they can watch for incoming threats from most of Othard. Viera already borrow aspects of Norse and Icelandic culture in their accents, naming, etc. I suspect that the Hrothgar are male Viera, but there's enough dimorphism that they've been classed as their own race, both by the matriarchs and by any outsiders that see them - bulky, to contrast with the females being wiry, thick fur that covers their neck and part of their face, shorter ears that are protected by the fur of their manes instead of exposed to the cold wind, and so on.

[Lauront]

I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on for a moment: the "home of the viera" in Shadowbringers is in the foothills of a mountain range, and being solitary guards, the males would likely be higher up in the mountains where it's colder so that they can watch for incoming threats from most of Othard. Viera already borrow aspects of Norse and Icelandic culture in their accents, naming, etc. I suspect that the Hrothgar are male Viera, but there's enough dimorphism that they've been classed as their own race, both by the matriarchs and by any outsiders that see them - bulky, to contrast with the females being wiry, thick fur that covers their neck and part of their face, shorter ears that are protected by the fur of their manes instead of exposed to the cold wind, and so on.

That's a pretty interesting prospect, IMO.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of the whole "leak" being a trial balloon, to see what fan reaction is. Slightly cruel but it provides an insight in the form of conversations taking place on the matter, particularly given how little information we have on these Hrothgar, including whether it's even an actual race and not just a false lead.

[xbahax92]

I hope next BluFever will keep his lips shut next time and not ruin people's excitement. If next expansion is going to end up like this, I rather have no leak at all without every 2. User has to remind me on them.
This whole thread only lives on thanks to him and his leaks. Its time that it dies down.

[Tsumdere]

I hope next BluFever will keep his lips shut next time and not ruin people's excitement. If next expansion is going to end up like this, I rather have no leak at all without every 2. User has to remind me on them.
This whole thread only lives on thanks to him and his leaks. Its time that it dies down.

I mean, SE kinda leaked themselves in the end... it wasn't Blufever who put the text glitch into the game (or was it...?). Even if he wasn't in the picture, I'm sure we would still all be wondering the exact same things.

Let me join the tin foil hat club with Daralii and say that I think the text glitch might have been intentional. Sudden uproar about lack of male Viera in preview? Just got out of the Fanfest in France and it just so happens that the French client is the one that gets borked? Funny timing for this to get put out there. I smell shenanigans.

[Duskane]

I hope next BluFever will keep his lips shut next time and not ruin people's excitement. If next expansion is going to end up like this, I rather have no leak at all without every 2. User has to remind me on them.
This whole thread only lives on thanks to him and his leaks. Its time that it dies down.

Leaks or not the reveal of only female viera would have sparked something,
This thread was 100% garunteed to happen.

Cant really blame the leaker.

[Gwenorai]

Read the last few pages, and my god. Just block each other already. Some folks are just happy to speculate and have some fun. I swear others are here just to kick up dirt instead of being devil's advocate - which is at least acceptable!

Just had a thought, but if you're advertising a new product in a game - don't they specifically have to state if something is 'Limited'. They're advertising ShadowBringers with Viera right now as a selling point. But it only says 'The Viera' - I would have thought they would have needed to put a ' * Female only ' I suppose it could be argued that the image only shows the females but I was of the mind it had to be stated thy text. If they don't do that, well is that false advertising? I mean I suppose it's fine if they're adding onto it - but they're supposed to state the 'minimum' expectations.

[Nestama]

I mean, Viera are technically a female only race in the Final Fantasy franchise. We've never seen the males in the games they're from and FFXIV is the first game to even give them lore. If anything, it'd be more like: "The Viera - Males included" if males were to be playable.

[BillyKaplan]

We've never seen the males in the games they're from and FFXIV is the first game to even give them lore

But the lore does exist and was a hefty portion of what we were told about the race onboard the airship. They could've just as easily spewed something about them needing males from other races to mate instead of explain that there are, in fact, male Viera out there, and go on about their habits and customs.
Honestly, we're at the point where there's enough pointing either way. It's Schrudinger's Male Viera - Viera are both genderlocked and not genderlocked until Yoshi-P opens the box at fanfest