Since Lore Suddenly Matters

[SannaR]

It was kind of hinted that only female Viera see the males everyone else ends up dead.

The way they handled why no male Viera was just bad. I mean when the answer is wait til jp fan fest and go poke a npc about their lore it just builds up hope and expectations. Then you go and say nope they're not playable because of lore and then give us another race which at the time of the keynote has no lore and basically say you don't get females because of time restraints. Like really those are your reasons? Lore for one even though you handwaved it for male M'qote which have lore just like it and oh well making two new races with both genders and two clans is just so hard and time consuming that we're just going to give you the dudes of the other one.

[SkyEdge1]

"Its more likely you never see a Male Viera, and those that do don't live to tell the tales"
Johnny Depp : No survivors? Then where do all the tales come from I wonder?

Joking aside, it's a little dissatisfying to have gender locks again, as for me it's something that forces players to accept and play something, rather than being given the choice to play something or not.

[Aelysian]

I really hope the developers read this post and reflect on it too, because I really am pouring my heart out on this one guys. So I hope you all bear with me for the first half.

Let me start off with the expression of how disappointed and mad I was upon hearing the news of there being “No Male Viera”. However I will also humbly admit that I was a bit salty when the words came right out of Yoshi's mouth since after months of anticipating the release of the race, and having pre-ordered it in excitement right after the teaser of the bunny females in France.

Despite that, everything about the Shadowbringers expansion is looking great. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it; the new maps, cosmetics, raids, collaborations, the lore and where it is headed and I get it, it isn't easy work for you guys to have done so much within the span of a year, there was a lot of harsh decision making, great ideas being scrapped and sacrificed for the more practical ones. I really appreciate what you, the team have done to get this far. I, myself, want to have a place as a concept artist/illustrator in the gaming industry and I fully understand that there will always be mixed reviews and how people feel about this game — it isn't entirely perfect — but I believe that's how it's supposed to be, because there is always room and an unlimited time for improvement.

However, please don't just assume we would get over the phases of being in denial, of overcoming our denial and accepting such a change if you think that you are going to get away with it like that, because this is an impression that you, as developers, have left on most of us for the years to come so try to consider how this would affect your sales on future expansions as you reveal them and the overall lifespan of the game. And it's not just the two new races being gender-locked that the player base is upset about, there are other things worth mentioning.

I understand that maybe we all have too high of an expectation. Fair enough that maybe you guys couldn’t see how important it was to us. But now, as you read this, I really hope that you can see how much it would mean to us if you could fulfill our wishes for this game's upcoming expansion.

Anyways, with the release of Shadowbringers just being around the corner and upset fans like me all around, it must be a difficult time right now. And this little dying friend I have called 'hope' is driving me to type this out for your sake, the game, and us.

So before time runs out in these few months before the big update is pushed out, let's get to the main point.

Now why it was mentioned there won't be any male Viera — from what I was told (please correct me if I'm wrong, translations and all that) — was because it was lore-related. That the male Viera as an addition to the game would be awkward(?) for Yoshi, it would make no sense to add them to the game. That, or it was a poor business decision by Square Enix.
And it was here that I questioned that if you guys really tried to do anything about the male Viera's implementation, to put in the extra effort to see how you could inject their existence into the world of Hydaelyn as with all other things that makes FFXIV unique in its own world compared to all the other titles.

Yes, I have a full understanding that the male exist and are inferior to the females because of Viera tradition, that they are extremely rare and that they would be kept for only mating. If they end up being male, they would get kicked out into the forest with the other males to be trained with hunting and surviving. Here is an entire paragraph for the source of information from the Final Fantasy wiki.



What I and you have just read here was a seed that could be a jungle of opportunities for the lore. Heck, this could even be the very first game to reveal the male Viera if you guys tried a little bit harder. If you can write about going to another parallel universe, you can surely pave way for the male Viera to exist, and this counts for the female Hrothgar too. Now that's creative writing.

Additionally, lorewise do note how they were to be described as secretive, vicious, skilled hunters. So there you go people, we aren't just a bunch of soft, sad, willowy bunnies. We're independent badasses. This also means they aren't entirely weak to the females, and that the male Vieras also have a place and purpose in this world.

I mean, the players could make them soft if you wanted to and break the lore for the sake of aesthetics, and that's entirely up to us on how we want to enjoy this game because it's what gives us that unique experience to have a want to keep playing the game. I do also acknowledge that the male and female do not coexist as much as possible, but then again, anything can make sense if you tried hard enough. And don't even get me started on the Male Miqo'te and female Roes.

If it had to do with the coding of the game and the limited capacity for its assets, you could have maybe recycled the bodies of the Au'Ra due to their identical body shapes based on the previous concept designs, you could have released two races with two full genders if you had pushed back the release date for the Hrothgar too, and it would save the time for more optimization. Besides, furthering the development of the Viera instead of two very different races at the same time is clearly not as efficient as developing just one race of both gender, especially when they both have ‘high levels of customization’.

In the end, it would have been better if the male Viera was going to be released. The idea of having one race being gender locked would be awful because it's a bad sign for the future development. It would give you at Square Enix generally a bad reputation in the MMORPG community and it is definitely something that limits the game's enjoyability.

If you inspect my profile, yes, I am a fairly new player, but I am familiar with MMORPGs. And I knew nothing about FFXIV before I had begun to play a few months ago, nor have I heard any previous news about the Viera being gender-locked, but what I do know is that you at Square Enix developed the game we all know and love as FFXIV after its reboot. That you guys had really outdone yourself with 2.0 and how it really catered successfully to the fans. And I’m proud to be a part of the community now, especially with great developers making it happen.

Personally speaking, I really wanted to enjoy my journey in FFXIV playing as a male Viera, and plenty others would want to do that too. It was really difficult and heartbreaking to hear that male Vieras were not going to be added into the game. And it hurts to see that a decent portion of the playerbase does not support us because of how we reacted violently to it, and I apologize on behalf of the angry community, if not, all. I will choose to continue to stay optimistic up to the release of Shadowbringers and any latest news regarding the release of the Male Viera and the Female Hrothgar too.

So, please hear us out and at least give some form of response in light to this recent calamity.

Thank you,
Aelysian c:

P.S. This is what we could have had, something like this?

Art by Kome,
Tumblr : https://sugoi-kome.tumblr.com/
Twitter : https://twitter.com/frischenq

[XiroGear]

Masterfully said Aelysian, We need to keep the pressure on them in a positive/creative way. let's not let up. as long as we keep our voices raised, they will listen.

[AmemeAmeklin]

It seemed from interviews it was more about development time/resources and it was decided to do two half races or else lose the opportunity to introduce something like the Hrothgar. If Hrothgar are Ronso then they do actually have designs for females in other FF games.

As for the Viera themselves, I refuse to believe they exist until one tries to shoot me for sneezing in his territory. If we get fat Miqo'te in the story then I expect to see at least one very angry male Viera trying to murder me at some point.

[KylePearlsand]

We are going to the greatwood. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Male Viera as enemies.

[Shurrikhan]

P.S. This is what we could have had, something like this?

I'd be fine with losing that if only the Hrothgar actually had the option to look more like the leaner figures of Ronso, rather than limited to a (seemingly even squatter, somehow) Roegadyn model. Instead, we get reskins of a single model, and while that may be logical in terms of cost-effectiveness, it also makes the ceiling for breadth and depth of attraction in the new race (i.e. how many people will want to play the race, and how much will that choice be able to improve their play experience) stiflingly low.

[XiroGear]

I'd be fine with losing that if only the Hrothgar actually had the option to look more like the leaner figures of Ronso, rather than limited to a (seemingly even squatter, somehow) Roegadyn model. Instead, we get reskins of a single model, and while that may be logical in terms of cost-effectiveness, it also makes the ceiling for breadth and depth of attraction in the new race (i.e. how many people will want to play the race, and how much will that choice be able to improve their play experience) stiflingly low.

I'd still prefer to have both genders for both races, If they Confirm that they at least have plans on making them in the future, I'd be content with what we have so far. But as of now, I won't just sit idly by while development decisions that have long since fallen out of favor are beginning to grow and fester like a malignant cancer, otherwise I wouldn't be doing my duty as a fan and helping to make the game better by helping to push the devs away from harmful decisions such as Genderlocked races.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I'd still prefer to have both genders for both races, If they Confirm that they at least have plans on making them in the future, I'd be content with what we have so far. But as of now, I won't just sit idly by while development decisions that have long since fallen out of favor are beginning to grow and fester like a malignant cancer, otherwise I wouldn't be doing my duty as a fan and helping to make the game better by helping to push the devs away from harmful decisions such as Genderlocked races.

Ultimately that's the whole point of thousands of people commenting on this.
And several publications doing the same.

People just want some acknowledgment from Yoshi P that they hear all these people voicing their concerns.

[ObsidianFire]

Translations of interviews with Yoshida are starting to trickle out. I found this question and answer reveals a lot

Q: When did you decide to implement the female-only Viera and male-only Hrothgar?

Yoshida: It was during Return to Ivalice, around 3 months after 4.0. Viera was confirmed then, and Hrothgar came about at the same time when we were discussing plans with Matsuno-san. We were deciding whether to make a Hrothgar female or a Viera female, and after selecting Viera, work began right away, because otherwise we wouldn't make it in time. As mentioned before, the face parts are special and Hrothgar has big differences between its faces, like a lion face, wolf face, leopard face. It became a fixed model relatively recently. Viera was done right before Paris Fan Fest, and Hrothgar was done recently.

It's from this interview: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...79&sh=56ff3396