Gender locked race?

[Shougun]

I'm 100% not a fan of gender or race locked content in mmos - and while it's been a dealbreaker for me in the past with other games, if Viera are female only, well, whatever I guess. I had no intention of swapping to a male Viera myself, but I find it unfortunate for those who had intended on changing to a Male Viera (if the assumpptions are even true).

Even with the leaks aside, during the live letter on Sunday the following Q/A is more telling than anything else to me:

Q - "Fans are very excited that Viera is a new race but I think that fans are hoping that we’ll also get the male Viera as a playable character. Can you comment on that? Or even if they’re going to be NPCs if not, or if we have to wait until Tokyo Fan Fest?"

A - "That’s true we do still have the Tokyo Fan Fest ahead of us. zips mouth"

If there were playable Male Viera, he could very easily have just said, "Yeah, but you'll see them in Tokyo," or "We're still polishing them," or something.

Plus, having just watched the Au Ra reveal video - there were male and female models there. I have a very strong feeling anyone looking forward to playable male Viera are going to be disappointed.

Yeah... That's the only reason why I've even sort of entertained the thought of gender locked races (because under any other circumstance I wouldn't think it'd happen). That and due to the leak it adds some credence to "two races", which I have a hard time to believe there would be two complete races (possible though), and "lion like". Lion like I've just been calling Ronso, even if it may not be that, because of the high fidelity SE picture it paints.

Then you've got the game watch interview where he is like read the lore, adding importance to the lore we have (lore is like "males be rare yo").

Q: The question everyone got the most excited for at yesterday's press Q&A was the male Vieras. Since it's you, Yoshida, we think there'll be male Vieras. But in FFXII, male Vieras are extremely rare and never appear. How are you going to introduce them into FFXIV?

A: Who knows? I'm a contrarian, so when you say "Yoshida would definitely do this", it makes me not want to answer *laughs* Actually, in the Return to Ivalice story that concluded the other day, there's a ton of lore about Vieras in FFXIV. We coordinated with Matsuno-san to include most of the hints there, so please check that. Matsuno-san wrote wonderful texts for us.

I want to note that the lore doesn't make male Viera impossible, but you certainly could take a gender-lock concept out of it. It is how miqote were locked, but as we all know they've also been unlocked.

I've also been wondering what might increase the chance of a lock is the desire not to affect another FF property. That the person who helped head that other property (Yasumi Matsuno) is the one that wrote the lore for this game also lends a heavy hand to that idea. If Yasumi Matsuno doesn't want male Viera (which sounds more plausible than wants since we've never seen them) then it might mean something. Imagine if they add male Viera here, then not adding them in other tactic world based games is weirder - they may not have wanted to push those other games to add male Viera (as those games that have Viera clearly didn't want to add males, they've never really existed outside of a few lines of text). Note I said increase the chance, not that I've laywer"ed" the issue into a neat little corner lol.

My gut says most likely a lion like male viera, but with all the info on the table my head would say nothing is set in perfect stone and a weird number of options are available right now (including two whole races, gender locks, leaker mistake and lion isn't playable, ronso viera, etc). I would say if Viera has a strong Ronso (lion like influence) I might consider switching races.. I was actually a bit sad with the idea of this being the last race, and have been really hoping something weird comes out of the leaker's lion comment. Although, I've largely been sold that a ronso-like Viera could be possible. But with all the variables on the table and Yoshida playing a very strong game of keep away, we might have more things than one may consider normally possible right now lol.

What I wish happens is we get smacked in the face with either some amazingly different clans, like an elvish inspired viera and then a ronso-like inspired viera, or a whole new race where both new and Viera come with both genders.. Two races seems less likely but would be taking the prophecy (lol) words at face value, and they've said some wild true things already.

Moombas from FFVIII and Revs from Ivalice are lion like, but there is no reason for them to be playable and not male vieras (same for Ronsos, no one really ask for them and there is no mention of them in the lore of FFXIV)

There have actually been a few Ronso specific race requests, myself included. Although most of them are like 4+ years old. Not that I'm suggesting that Ronso would be more popular than male Viera lol, just that weird races (ronso included) have been desired for a while (Viera community certainly wins the unity award on wanting a specific race though).

All I want to know is: why would they suddenly want to genderlock a fan-requested race out of nowhere? What reason would they have?

Contrarian Yoshi-P? Lol. I mean some people have this question like "but why, why, how?" but I had that feeling about limited blue mage soo.... /shrug . I give him credit for being so consistent (he said Blue Mage would be like that since long ago), but then also he has said he wasn't a fan of male Viera since long ago too. I'm still praying he considers making Blue Mage an Advanced job (both normal and limited, via subset of balanced skills and a flipable stone for DF).

Ronso tribe are nowhere near Ivalice - the only lion like species that is in that 'area' is Rev.

Well I'm sure there are some mountains in Ivalice . I doubt if they had wanted to add them that someone on the lore team going "but this isn't a FFX throwback area, it can't be done!" would stop anyone lol.

[Gwenorai]

I mean, what get's me about Ronso is that they guard a holy land by lore. Which means if we go Ronso again and have them have a similar background to Viera with 'guarding a holy land'. Then I have to ask what's the point? Unless they're going to have them do something completely random like hold a Blitz ball championship. Actually, I've figured it out. Ronso is just going to be a playable race in the gold saucer where we play blitzball. Sorted.

[Shougun]

I mean, what get's me about Ronso is that they guard a holy land by lore. Which means if we go Ronso again and have them have a similar background to Viera with 'guarding a holy land'. Then I have to ask what's the point? Unless they're going to have them do something completely random like hold a Blitz ball championship. Actually, I've figured it out. Ronso is just going to be a playable race in the gold saucer where we play blitzball. Sorted.

Well.. I mean is holy land that hard to find? Seems like everyone thinks their land is holy, especially if they're xenophobic lol.

Slap a shiny ancient artifact / natural wonder and bam, holy .

[DracotheDragon]

from what i have talked with a few friends on a discord of mine, this feels like they are trying to build up a slight non-traversy, to kick up a stink so that come the JP fan fest they reveal it and people go even more nuts over it, it would make a bit of sense and SE wouldn't be the first company to do something similar,

in my honest opinion come the tokyo fan fest we will get the new job revealed it will show the weapon then the chest then BOOM male viera, (mainly since we haven't seen the viera represent a job yet.)

[Kallera]

from what i have talked with a few friends on a discord of mine, this feels like they are trying to build up a slight non-traversy, to kick up a stink so that come the JP fan fest they reveal it and people go even more nuts over it, it would make a bit of sense and SE wouldn't be the first company to do something similar,

in my honest opinion come the tokyo fan fest we will get the new job revealed it will show the weapon then the chest then BOOM male viera, (mainly since we haven't seen the viera represent a job yet.)

I think that's just ridiculous, as if we don't have enough to worry over.

[redcurrant18]

Who ever said that adding male Viera here meant they would have to retroactively go back and add them to every game prior to FFXIV? What kind of logic is that? FFXII and the tactics games are so old and no one is going back in to add anything else in them anytime soon. On a side note, I'd love it if that's how they revealed Dancer, with Tina Turner's Private Dancer playing in the background...

[Shougun]

Who ever said that adding male Viera here meant they would have to retroactively go back and add them to every game prior to FFXIV? What kind of logic is that? FFXII and the tactics games are so old and no one is going back in to add anything else in them anytime soon. On a side note, I'd love it if that's how they revealed Dancer, with Tina Turner's Private Dancer playing in the background...

I never said they would retroactively add them . . . That's impossible and a huge simplification of what I was saying lol. I meant once they're added then they're there, that FFXIV is breaking the ground for the tactics universe rather than the tactics universe breaking ground for itself. So when they make the next tactics based game it's more pressure to add them and with some expecting it to be like FFXIV did. On top of that it would be like having a job based FF game but not putting Black Mage in, it's just weird (once there it's sort of expected). If they want the game's own universe to direct itself then FFXIV being the ground breaker isn't preferable, and if the creator who wrote the lore for FFXIV doesn't really want them then there is that too.

Also please note that I said this is just a possible element in pushing back, not that "HAH THIS IS IT, PROOF THEY WONT BE ADDED".

[Gwenorai]

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This is why I said it's very much likely that the original creators of Viera will be there in jp fanfest to reveal the male Viera. It's not just something Y.P can decide on. Rather this has to be discussed with them as well in order for it to make sense and to not just be completely out of the vision of what the original creators thought.

Also, Yoshida didn't dislike male viera, he disliked the idea of them being too 'cute' - that's why the concept art in HW didn't look 'cute' they were tall and muscular with stern faces. And that concept art along with the others was also shown which also included male Viera. That to me speaks as if he's already talked to the other creators of tactics/ff12 - they already have ideas on what the male should look like.

It honestly would make zero sense to put forward the idea of Viera as a new race back in HW; then go 'nah, let's not'. The lore hasn't changed since then regarding Viera yet they still made the male concept art and said they wouldn't have just female without a male.

[Shougun]

This is why I said it's very much likely that the original creators of Viera will be there in jp fanfest to reveal the male Viera. It's not just something Y.P can decide on. Rather this has to be discussed with them as well in order for it to make sense and to not just be completely out of the vision of what the original creators thought.

Also, Yoshida didn't dislike male viera, he disliked the idea of them being too 'cute' - that's why the concept art in HW didn't look 'cute' they were tall and muscular with stern faces. And that concept art along with the others was also shown which also included male Viera. That to me speaks as if he's already talked to the other creators of tactics/ff12 - they already have ideas on what the male should look like.

It honestly would make zero sense to put forward the idea of Viera as a new race back in HW; then go 'nah, let's not'. The lore hasn't changed since then regarding Viera yet they still made the male concept art and said they wouldn't have just female without a male.

It would be pretty neat if they add male Viera that the creator gets to announce them, that would be something else. Very nice nod. Also I said he wasn't a fan of male viera, as in they were going to feel cute (at least in his eyes). Not a fan should still be an accurate statement (if maybe not very specific), because he didn't like his initial reaction to the idea of male viera (this is true) - he can of course design them to be a way he does like them (or choose to decide he doesn't care if he likes them or not and produce them anyways). Obviously as the forum has shown we can even make Viera look lion-like.

Having a quote of them saying they wouldn't introduce female viera without male viera would be nice, I haven't seen or recall that one but it would be a pretty good quote for the discussion. Would add a lot of weight the other way.

Mostly I'm just here for the speculation fun lol. I am not confident they will not add male Viera (mostly because that seems to be a "lesson learned" already), but with the leaked info and other info I'm having fun figuring out what they'd do.

In order of likelihood I think (in context of the lion info):
A. lion-like male viera, perhaps as a specific clan option type
B. two races
C. non-playable (but I feel this is weird because we have other new races, like the beastmen and the leak didn't mention those like mentioning viera.. I think they would know better?)
D. gender locked races.
E. Yoshi-P is the leaker and has been trolling us because it's fun lol, lions are a lie and that is all they were

[Gwenorai]

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Honestly, I think all but D are likely. xD What I don't understand is this; the leaker told us plenty of things that turned out to be true. Why suddenly stop when pushed regarding the second race and say story spoilers; all the info he released 'was' story spoilers regardless; what made this one so special?

And of course, there's all the other logic behind it all. What I found out recently that amused me was that the Wandering Dramaturge is Yasumi Matsuno just as Yoshida is the Wandering Minstrel. The wandering Dramaturge speaks about the male Viera in length but does so in the past tense - hinting that things have changed how it was all in the past and things will change even further. Seeing as Yasumi Matsuno was the producer/director of FF tactics and FF12 - and wrote/made the Viera race - well... it seems to me that we might be seeing more of him in jp fan fest - I don't believe Yasumi Matsuno was at Paris; but if anyone made that announcement, I think it'd be him.