Gender locked race?

[Kupocoubo]

So someone in this thread said that the leaker was asked about his icon and I couldn't help but want to find the quote out of curiosity.

"So I asked Blu about extra info and he said to look at his profile pic, It had a Rabbit and a Lion on it. Now the Rabbit is obvious as Viera and I asked if the Lion was something like Ronso since it's the only Lion like race I could think of other than Miqo'te all his said was I was pretty close. I'm hoping its Ronso because they are natural born Blue Mage type fighters so learning BLU from them would be cool. But we will see if this is right soon"

The leaker didn't outright state Ronso, but he did outright state Viera in his posts. I can imagine the second race he could've gotten mixed up about was a different variant of Viera... 'young elezen like'. Meanwhile, the Lion-like look could be fluffy male Viera or an npc race like Lupin.
But yeah, the more I think about how things are panning out now, like someone a while go talked about how the Viera's Forest has been attacked and along with the fact that we shouldn't be able to freely walk in there without a good enough reason then things begin to add up. Also... female Ronso exists so genderlocking them would make the least amount of sense.

Maybe the male vieras are lion like, it would explained why the "lion race" i not ronso but something a bit similar, it must be something new in the series since there isn't a lot of lion like race in FF

[Gwenorai]

So I was thinking on this again and something hit me regarding numbers of Viera and how the argument of 'they're too rare'.

Lore has it that the Viera population in Ivalice is 5%. Ivalice is quite large and has a very big population. Viera aren't exactly endangered - there's no lack of them; they're just confined to woods for the most part. No plot that I recall of where their numbers are 'dying'. Though, I will remind that Viera means 'of the wood' and that if a Viera leaves the wood they are no longer considered 'Viera'

Anyway! Let's do some lame maths.
Let's say Ivalice has a population of 3million - small; considering how huge it is; and for comparison, the population of the UK - which is tiny in size regards to land mass - has a population of 66million - so for this example, I'm aiming disgustingly low. Note; I picked this number because of medieval England - even smaller than the UK! - had a population of 3million + that was with war/famine/bad hygiene etc. And of course, Ivalice is based on medieval Europe. Ivalice by estimate is more than just 10x bigger than England - that's a given.

5% of 3million is 150000 give or take. Now Viera births are 8:2 in regards to female and male. So 20% of 150000 = 30000 let's now cull the poor males because of their lifestyle. I'll be drastic and cull them by 75% which is extremely high. We now have 7500 males. That's 7500 males doing border control. 7500 males that can live up to 300+ years that breed every 3-5 summers with females, who also live up to 300+.

I have to ask; how would this spoil immersion? I honestly don't understand how people could get upset if 5 of those '7500' males happens to be in their vicinity or something. Or even ten of them or twenty etc. You're not going to see 7500 male Viera around you at one given time.

Edit: The 5% is a percentage taken from the 'Encyclopedia of Eorzea II'

On the other hand, I wish there was 7500 handsome male Viera in my vicinity at all times. I'll be your border, bunny men.

[Beckett]

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You're putting the cart before the horse here. SE isn't trying to find reasons to justify adding male Viera even though it doesn't fit the lore, they created the lore as a justification to not add male Viera.

You can't even argue that they created that lore to justify why we've never seen any male Viera before. So far we've only seen one Viera in-game, who happened to be female. Going only by FFXIV, we'd have no reason to question why we haven't seen any male Viera, only why we've never seen any other Viera of any gender.

It's true we only ever saw female Viera in XII/TA, but that's a different continuity. There's no need for the lore of this game to justify the lore of a completely different universe. If SE wanted to add playable male Viera in XIV, they wouldn't have created an excuse not to.

[Gwenorai]

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That's just as much speculation as what I was doing. Lore is lore, they can't justify 'this' when the male miqo'te were also in the same boat with similar abysmal numbers. The 5% I got wasn't from tactics or FF12 - it was from the latest encyclopedia of Eorzea; this was Yoshida's 'domain' so to speak - so this is FF14s version of Ivalice.

[Beckett]

That's just as much speculation as what I was doing. Lore is lore, they can't justify 'this' when the male miqo'te were also in the same boat with similar abysmal numbers. The 5% I got wasn't from tactics or FF12 - it was from the latest encyclopedia of Eorzea; this was Yoshida's 'domain' so to speak.

Let me rephrase: What possible reason would they have to create the lore that male Viera are incredibly few in number and never leave the forest, while they're simultaneously working on creating Viera as a playable race?

The case with Mi'qote is a perfect example. They created the lore that males were few in number and never went out as a justification to not make them playable. It was only much later that they had to adjust the lore in order to make male Mi'qote adventurers make sense. So for male Viera, why would they create lore they know that they'll instantly have to change?

[Gwenorai]

Let me rephrase: What possible reason would they have to create the lore that male Viera are incredibly few in number and never leave the forest, while they're simultaneously working on creating Viera as a playable race?

The case with Mi'qote is a perfect example. They created the lore that males were few in number and never went out as a justification to not make them playable. It was only much later that they had to adjust the lore in order to make male Mi'qote adventurers make sense. So for male Viera, why would they create lore they know that they'll instantly have to change?

That all depends on how you look into it I suppose. I look at that lore and see a possibility. The dramaturge, states that the Green Word that Viera follow actually gives them means to seek aid from outsiders and possibly leave the wood if it also means that by doing so they are protecting the wood and the Viera. He also speaks in past tense hinting that things have changed in present years; a throwback to FF12 and tactics and how now things are very much different. If not, then oof, our female Viera is going to get some very rude responses when they return to the wood.

If one of the playable areas is going to be the very homeland of the Viera. Where Lore has it that the males shoot on sight, attack outsiders etc - would it be good storytelling to have your WoL a possible outsider and other outsiders just to stroll in? Or for the males that are guardians and protectors of the wood to not engage both the imperial invasion and more so; the cause of the fire - that was started by Yoshida to be in that area.

While they certainly can ignore the fact the males exist. Why then hype up the fact that males are wardens of the forest, killers who swoop down and dish out cold punishment regardless of your purpose of being there? And instead just have it 'Oh, even though all of this stuff is happening which certainly would cause male Viera to stir and congregate to form a resistance. I know it's the one thing that would possibly cause a male Viera to pop out and say hi, but nope.' What are they going to do, how would they go about even doing that? Just state 'Oh, our males are fighting them' and that's it? I can't imagine any writer worth their salt doing this.


Note; this is the quote I was referring to.
'Until recently─perhaps the past several generations─a Viera living outside her homeland was unheard of, and those who abandoned their tribes were branded outcasts. You see, the Viera follow a strict code called the ‘Green Word’ that binds them to their land and prohibits all contact with the outside world unless absolutely necessary.”'

[Rokke]

Let me rephrase: What possible reason would they have to create the lore that male Viera are incredibly few in number and never leave the forest, while they're simultaneously working on creating Viera as a playable race?

The case with Mi'qote is a perfect example. They created the lore that males were few in number and never went out as a justification to not make them playable. It was only much later that they had to adjust the lore in order to make male Mi'qote adventurers make sense. So for male Viera, why would they create lore they know that they'll instantly have to change?

I interpret it as the Dramaturge has no idea what big shakeup is going to happen between now and 5.0 that causes us to travel to Dalmasca or become the WoD. Despite the game existing for the most part inside a time bubble theres a few points where logically X happens before Y. Logically we met Fran and became aware of her branch of the resistance and the dramaturge tells us what we know so far about Viera pre 5.0 in the same vein that logically the lv 30-50 DRG quests take place before Heavensward.

The devs have all but spelled it out that we're going to be able to visit Viera settlements at some point in the expansion, but if the guys are as trigger happy as the current lore says they are, we shouldn't be able to do so. I think something big is going to happen between 4.56 and 5.0 that'll give some wiggle room for both us to play as Viera and for us to make it to bunnyville.

@ Ronso -
The fact that Yoshi didn't wear or say any hints towards "lions" on day 2 leads me to believe that we're not getting a 2nd race. We're 50ish days out from the final fanfest with zero nods in-game or out of game to Ronso being a part of the expac.

[Jaywalker]

Let me rephrase: What possible reason would they have to create the lore that male Viera are incredibly few in number and never leave the forest, while they're simultaneously working on creating Viera as a playable race?

Tbh I think it could be an interesting storytelling conflict. Motive-wise, viera lead a pretty tough and limited lifestyle. It wouldn't be crazy to think any of them, including males, might want to leave that for more lifestyle freedom. If the males especially are predominantly fighters, boom. That's a skill they can use to support themselves as adventurers. But with all of this, if there's a limited number of males and they've been fighting off Garlemald to protect the forest and a bunch of viera are leaving the forest behind for a slew of reasons, that creates first some stigma for any player character viera who have left (especially males since there are less) and with it juicy conflict. Also possibly places strain on viera traditions and gender roles, like they might need to send female Viera to defend the forest too.

Not to mention this encourages them to start breeding like rabbits to replenish ranks. ;P

The male/female extreme divide can be used to justify having villages of entirely female or male viera, to maintain continuity with FFXII, to offer further immersion into alternative societies, you name it. Originally in FFXII I suspect it was to make less models to design and just have a bunch of sexy bunny girls, but moving forward it strikes me as more of a nod back but with some wiggle room.

They put themselves in an interesting position where they conceivably could delay male viera release, or technically avoid it (although I think that wouldn't go over well) but they could also work them in no problem. What might be interesting is if they have conditional release, like you unlock male viera in the character creator if you complete xyz quests. There's flexibility atm.

[Hunky]

You're putting the cart before the horse here. SE isn't trying to find reasons to justify adding male Viera even though it doesn't fit the lore, they created the lore as a justification to not add male Viera.

You can't even argue that they created that lore to justify why we've never seen any male Viera before. So far we've only seen one Viera in-game, who happened to be female. Going only by FFXIV, we'd have no reason to question why we haven't seen any male Viera, only why we've never seen any other Viera of any gender.

It's true we only ever saw female Viera in XII/TA, but that's a different continuity. There's no need for the lore of this game to justify the lore of a completely different universe. If SE wanted to add playable male Viera in XIV, they wouldn't have created an excuse not to.

This. The lore they're setting up for male Viera would justify why we won't get male Viera. The dramaturge puts on a strong emphasis on how males are incredibly rare.

This is the exact same kind of lore they created for male Miqo'te, which they used to explain why male Miqo'te were not playable. But just because male Miqo'te, female Roegadyn, and female Highlander were created doesn't mean that things have changed permanently. Let's not take things for granted. Let's not entitle ourselves into thinking we know how things will work out. At the end of the day, whatever is chosen to be implemented into the game is out of our hands.

The lore for male Viera is so keen on pointing out their rarity that it almost seems like we're being prepared to expect no playable males.

In the Game Watch interview, when asked about male Viera, Yoshida said to read the lore written for Viera again. Coupled with the fact that only female Viera were showcased, along with a PowerPoint slide titled "The Viera" featuring only females, is pretty strong evidence that Viera is going to be a female-only playable race.

And if we do get male Viera, they might just end up looking like Ronso with bunny ears. Which would be even more disappointing. The female Viera look beautiful and amazing. The males should look handsome and muscular. But because bunny ears are considered such a feminine trait, they're probably going to make the males more animal-like to offset the bunny ears.

It goes back to this archaic, out-dated, old-fashioned, close-minded idea that females equal cute and sexy and males equal brutish and savage. There are so many Asian mmos that follow this trend, and I wouldn't put it past ffxiv to do the same. One of the posters above mentioned that Yoshida said "seeing a male rabbit might be weird" when asked about new races.

If the team felt genderlocking the Ramza and Alma hairstyles was the logical thing to do, I can see them genderlocking Viera, or even designing male Viera to make them Ronso-like. Either we're getting male-only Ronso and no male Viera, or male Viera that look like Ronso. From everything I've seen, that's what I'm expecting.

I desperately hope I'm wrong, but I'm preparing myself to be disappointed.

[Corue]

This. The lore they're setting up for male Viera would justify why we won't get male Viera.

It's more likely they'll "break" the lore to have male Viera rather than break the entirety of the start of ARR to have a playable beast tribe race.
I'm not buying that we're getting Ronso.