Gender locked race?

[Gwenorai]

I do certainly find it unlikely - but then again Yoshi P has spoken about slapping gender locks back onto Viera just because he doesn't like the idea of Cute Viera. Nothing regarding lore, but his simple dislike of them being cute. Now if the concept artists can show him something that isn't cute, or the concept artist holds their ground and says 'No, this is good, the users will like this' then yes.

Yoshi isn't the type to throw away ideas as well, even if he dislikes them. Example; when showing the HW concept art he was extremely against showing the art, a) he thought the Viera male was a little bit too cute still b) he knew that if people saw the concept art that they would want the Viera and he liked what they had with Aura. This to me sounds like he got overruled by the others and he conceded. It also seems to me that Yoshida has a specific idea on how the males should look - just like us when we make our fan art and speculations. He has something specific in mind, or rather a guideline in his head on just how the males should turn out.

--
So far we've been going off the leaks regarding this new race. One that is supposedly male only and a lion. This is where I start to doubt. The leakers won't give a name only a description, none of them will go into depth about it and instead; acting like giving a name is just too far. You know, the people who leaked a lot of the story already leading up to this. Not to mention that apparently, NA did a big laying off just after this happened as a result of the leaks. Leaking information like this isn't a victimless crime. These people more than likely resulted in the loss of peoples jobs - that's a given. But, oh, no. Describing the Lion and telling us their name is too far for them.

Regarding the whole 'Lion' this is what I don't understand, and I've said this plenty of times. What would be the point of adding in a humanoid lion, when we already have a race that is like this? Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the Miqo'te fashioned after lions? They live in prides with the females hunting for food and have one breeding male. They even can have 'lion' tails. Heck, males are known to leave and find their own 'prides'.

If they said any other animals, I could have believed it.

Now, it was hinted that the leaker was part of the NA translation team - this is based on the whole M/F deal. Let's say they were going off descriptions and not images. And try and describe a male Viera without actually saying they're a Viera with the idea of the Lionhead.

Strong, muscular, tall and fierce. This race has a mane of locks, which one set of leporine ears sits above the unkempt hair. Fur protects the collar bone during winter nights and distinguishes them further from the females. They are armed with sharp claws, strong legs and the ability to leap from tree to tree without being seen or heard. They have an almost animal-like ferocity defending their territory with cold determination.

Which words do you tend to focus on here? Honestly, I don't even think you need to describe them as a lion head. You can simply describe a Viera and mention mane and you could get the same idea.

[Tonkra]

I hope they allow male Viera as well. It's odd that they only highlighted the female models. Have they typically only shown the female versions (or one version in general) in the past for a new race? I don't want to be too quick about my judgments, hence the inquiry.

I think they showed just female models for now because they want to surprise with male vieras..

in FFXII there have been no male vieras at all. So it would be a surprise here to see male vieras for the very first time.

The Viera trailer was more or less a tribute to Final Fantasy XII in that way.

[reivaxe]

Does that include BLU as starting-at-Lv60 melee support DPS? Because that made me conclude a separate supposed-leak was fake, only to finally read the original BluFever leaks the other day and discover the same claim was in there.

I don't remember him saying it's starting level would be 60. I do remember him thinking it could be a pre-order thing or w/e and we know the class is being pushed to 60 soon. IIRC it was supposed to be capped at 60 instead but they decided to lower that to 50 close to release.

And by all means Blu is a melee caster Support DPS if you want to call it anything.

But if you think having some guess work on Blue details means his leaks are not to be trusted don't mind me, just ignore them.

His leak's have been more than correct enough for me personally.

[BiddyBatnana]

I still believe they will be genderlocked. I have a hard time thinking they would insist that much on the lore just for stortelling purpose.

But eh I coud be wrong.

Maybe if people keep begging SE as if their lives were on danger or threatening as if they were the supreme authority, SE could change their mind. *shrugs*

[Gwenorai]

...Lore exists for the sole purpose of storytelling.
Lore = the basis of the story, the foundation of a race, populace, world.
Plot = Something for which was for the lore to exist in the same place; the two are intertwined.
Story = A combination of both, a story that is driven by both plot and lore that expands upon the two.

This is why people say that when someone uses lore as an excuse to make a half arsed attempt, it means the story is also bad unless they do something in the story that retcons/changes the lore. Writers usually do this when they've written themselves into a hole.

Here's an example of lore; the men are rare but not as rare as male miqote, they live in the great wood. They shoot people on sight and don't bother to ask questions; they are fierce warriors. The green word makes it so that a Viera can leave and seek help from outsiders if it means to protect the wood. The only people who have seen a male Viera are the females and other male Viera - the rest are dead as they are cut down in cold blood. Recently it is now more common for Viera to leave the wood and not be branded an exile because of it.

Here is an example of plot; We are going into the great wood.

Here is an example of story; we are going into the great wood where male Viera shoot people on sight during a time of war where they are going to be especially more trigger happy.

Let's have an example of a good storytelling; We go into the Greatwood knowing that these males exist due to our knowledge of the lore of the Viera. As one might expect as we go deep into the thicket, we are assailed by an unknown enemy with arrows which causes our comrades to scatter or be down for the count. We, protect them and stand our ground only to be found face to face with the one who initiated the attack.

A male Viera, one who looks at us with disdain but also a glimmer of curiosity; we do not look like we are from the Empire, we smell different and look different. Further, still, he notes that the wood speaks to him about us. He indicates that the wood is interested in them, that it speaks to them about the WoD and how it desires them to help against those who would destroy it. While he is firmly against this; he does what the wood wishes. He then brings them to the village for which males and females of all clans have come together in order to cordinate a defense.
---
If we're a male or female Viera his dialogue changes to curiosity on why a brother or sister is with these outsiders. They both talk on how the wood wants them to help. The unknown Viera talks about how he thought those who leave the forest couldn't hear it anymore. WoD speaks about the power of the echo, how it allows them to understand and listen.

Here's an example of bad storytelling;
We go into the great wood where we know that we will be attacked yet find ourselves unassailed by the wood-wardens and are able to walk straight into the Eruyt village. Later we are told through flavour text that the males are fighting in the shadows and we will not see them.*
or
We are told they have all been slain.
or
They have been all been captured but we are not going to be sent to release them.
or
They have been taken under control by a primal but we won't fight them because that requires seeing them.


This is where the argument that having no male Viera is linked to bad storytelling. If they don't have NPC male Viera then the great wood is going to be missing one of if its biggest threats to outsiders - the male Viera. No quests, no fates, nothing related to them - because they do not want to show the male.
And if they add the NPC males then Yoshida obviously found a look that he likes regarding them, which one could argue there is now NO reason for them to be gender locked. The lore about their rarity does not stand. There is only one character that matters in this MMO, us. There is only one warrior of light, everyone else playing as a Viera etc doesn't 'exist' in regards to the story and the lore set down.

But I know the truth why Yoshi won't add in male Viera...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWo-xJIg1Z0
XD If you didn't get the joke; it was referring to adding in flavour text where females will ask for breeding requests from the males as they are the strongest.

[stormygabe]

Let's have an example of a good storytelling; We go into the Greatwood knowing that these males exist due to our knowledge of the lore of the Viera. As one might expect as we go deep into the thicket, we are assailed by an unknown enemy with arrows which causes our comrades to scatter or be down for the count. We, protect them and stand our ground only to be found face to face with the one who initiated the attack.

A male Viera, one who looks at us with disdain but also a glimmer of curiosity; we do not look like we are from the Empire, we smell different and look different. Further, still, he notes that the wood speaks to him about us. He indicates that the wood is interested in them, that it speaks to them about the WoD and how it desires them to help against those who would destroy it. While he is firmly against this; he does what the wood wishes. He then brings them to the village for which males and females of all clans have come together in order to cordinate a defense.
---
If we're a male or female Viera his dialogue changes to curiosity on why a brother or sister is with these outsiders. They both talk on how the wood wants them to help. The unknown Viera talks about how he thought those who leave the forest couldn't hear it anymore. WoD speaks out the power of the echo, how it allows them to understand and listen.

Oh I like this. Even if it's just some quick flavor text, having your race in a game acknowledged really helps with that immersion.

[Serenno]

-snip-

Wholeheartedly agree! And this is also a prime example of why the lore excuse doesn't hold up; SE could've just made it so that the lore would completely retcon their existence and made it so the Viera reproduce asexually or are "born" from the Greatwood or something like that. That's if they really don't want to add them. On top of that, considering what we've learned this past FF and the lore we got from the Orbonne Monastery questline, it would make little sense if we were to not come into any contact with (a) male Viera.

After having told us this:

As I explained before, the duty of a male Viera─a Wood-warder─is to see that their tribe’s demesne remain untouched by the destructive whims of outsiders. Yet, they do so from the shadows, oft choosing to shoot first, and not even bother with questions.

It's hard to believe that they would just ignore what they gave us and make it so that we're just able to waltz into the Greatwood undetected, or without any confrontation. If that's the case, are we just supposed to believe that they're these master wood-warders that would kill us on the spot? Even if they couldn't kill the WoL that easily (and they can't), they'd have to at least confront us and that would likely require a NPC, which means an ingame model. Which means....if they did all that and still didn't give us male Viera then you can imagine the uproar. Furthermore, the Greatwood is shown to be on fire in the trailer, so obviously something's going on there. It keeps me hopeful that we'll get to see male Viera because it just makes the most sense all things considered, but the rumors about another race and potential gender-locks on both have me a bit worried. All we can really do is wait until Tokyo FF, and this thread likely wouldn't do much, but it makes for great conversation/and discussion nonetheless.

[reivaxe]

I don't remember him saying it's starting level would be 60. I do remember him thinking it could be a pre-order thing or w/e and we know the class is being pushed to 60 soon. IIRC it was supposed to be capped at 60 instead but they decided to lower that to 50 close to release.

And by all means Blu is a melee caster Support DPS if you want to call it anything.

But if you think having some guess work on Blue details means his leaks are not to be trusted don't mind me, just ignore them.

His leak's have been more than correct enough for me personally.

Also everything he posted that people have been able to track down has been collected on the first Reddit thing to pop up when you google blufever leaks.

I don't see anything about starting at lvl 60 for blue. Maybe you're mixing things up.

[Serenno]

Also everything he posted that people have been able to track down has been collected on the first Reddit thing to pop up when you google blufever leaks.

I don't see anything about starting at lvl 60 for blue. Maybe you're mixing things up.

That piece of information came from whoever first leaked it on Discord, and it was a whole mishmash of accurate and inaccurate info. That could be where they got it from but I'm not sure if that came from the leaker themselves, or just somebody pretending to be them?

[reivaxe]

That piece of information came from whoever first leaked it on Discord, and it was a whole mishmash of accurate and inaccurate info. That could be where they got it from but I'm not sure if that came from the leaker themselves, or just somebody pretending to be them?

There's no reason to think that was blufever. They posted all their leaks on that forum, not discord.

According to this latest leaker the discord stuff is just someone this latest leaker told info to who tried to spread it for fame so that telephone effect is prob why the discord stuff sounds so strange if true.

As for this latest leaker we'll know by Monday night. If miners find the glam in eureka or not. That's the bright side to this new one.