Garlean Playable Race (?)

[Theodric]

As an aside, I don't think that concepts such as male viera are much of a stretch to begin with. The idea that not a single male viera decided to take his leave of the forest would be far more jarring to me.

It's also interesting how this sort of strict adherence to the lore isn't really applied across the board. For example, up until recently it was believed that there was no cure for Tempering and that traveling between worlds was nigh impossible - but both situations proved to not be the case as the story evolved.

I'd also note that the game has a very sizeable number of role-players. The sort who prefer to play inhabitants of the game world within the confines of the lore. So you might see someone play a Hingan merchant, a Buduga warlord or a Garlean Pureblood. These individuals generally don't play as the Warrior of Light. The MSQ's are just a 'what if' scenario to them, as they see the canon Warrior of Light as being the guy from the cinematics and promotional footage.

Personally I'd be fine with more options to support role-play. They're generally subscribed to the game even through dry patches with little to no new content.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I have nothing against Garleans, I already stated I find them and their culture and tech quite interesting, and have wanted the ability to learn Garlean jobs for a long time.

In other threads I'd even be arguing that people generally underestimate the Garlean capacity for magic and aether manipulation, and that limited is not the same as zero.
However, a limited capacity doesn't mean it suddenly makes sense for them to be freely darting around an Eorzea that spends most of the game embroiled in a war with Garlemald, spamming holy and flare and teleporting all over the place, with nary an eyebrow raised by anyone at just how exceptional it all is.

-----

Male Viera make a lot more sense, their lifestyle has two crucial factors to it that makes becoming an adventurer very plausible.

1st of all, it sucks, it sucks big time. "Hey there kid, noticed you've got a penis now so time to be banished, enjoy living solo in the woods for the next several centuries." Meh, I'd bin that nonsense off straight away.
The 2nd, said loner guardian of the woods lifestyle might suck, but it does create a very solid foundation for becoming an adventurer.

Viera lore kinda sucks IMHO, but the fact it does kinda suck weirdly makes it better. The way they've organized their civilization is pretty stupid and seems incredibly implausible, which incidentally would explain why so many Viera adventurers are appearing, their society is basically collapsing in real time as the races are released.

Except a part of the lore is that literally no one has ever laid eyes upon one. Yet here comes hundreds of thousands of WoL male viera appearing out of thin air. So yeah...they don’t really care much about the lore when adding something the playerbase wants. It doesn’t make sense. But there are a looooot of things in the game that don’t make sense, even msq wise. There’s plot holes and plot armor everywhere. Again, it’s to be expected. The lore can be bent whenever.

[Jandor]

Except a part of the lore is that literally no one has ever laid eyes upon one. Yet here comes hundreds of thousands of WoL male viera appearing out of thin air. So yeah...they don’t really care much about the lore when adding something the playerbase wants. It doesn’t make sense. But there are a looooot of things in the game that don’t make sense, even msq wise. There’s plot holes and plot armor everywhere. Again, it’s to be expected. The lore can be bent whenever.

Viera males aren't seen due to their societies rules, it's not like it's physically impossible to see them. The rules can change and/or more Viera can decide to break them.
Also, as much as I do like my Viera, as a race they're not important to the story.

Garleans can't really use magic because of their biology, it's not something that can be waved away with some excuse like "they changed their minds lol."
Garlemald is also, unlike the Viera clans, pretty important and functions as one of the stories two main factions of antagonists.

[Theodric]

As an aside, I don't think that it's true that Pureblood Garleans are not visually distinct from the other playable races. Barring Raen, Xaela and Hrothgar pretty much every other playable race is already just a taller or shorter 'human' with some additional features tacked on. You could even argue that Raen and Xaela should be included in that category.

It's also been a common request for a taller, conventionally attractive option to be added to the game for those who like to play male characters. Indeed, major streamers and many fans of the game such as myself have long stated that we've felt there aren't enough options on that front. We know from the game's established lore that Pureblood Garleans are physically imposing and as we've seen from the likes of Gaius, Varis and Nero they have distinct facial features and are arguably pretty handsome.

They likely won't appeal to the same crowd that is content to play a dainty character, certainly - but tastes are broad and there's many ways in which the selection of playable races could be expanded to appeal to more individuals.

I'd be playing a Highlander since I like their physique and height, though their faces and lack of eyebrows leave much to be desired. Garlean Purebloods, designed correctly, could fill a niche between Midlander and Highlander. Similar builds to the latter, handsome faces like the former.

At any rate, this just circles back to the claims that male viera would never happen because of 'lore', or how we'd never get a darker themed job because of the 'lore'. Yet both happened due to popular request. Given the game is supposedly set to have development support for at least another decade, that's plenty of time for things to change substantially as it progresses. For all we know, there might even be a new point of entry for the MSQ's. Or we might get fresh reveals once we reach Garlemald itself in the upcoming expansion.

The development team may just decide to add something based entirely on the 'rule of cool' basis - which is basically why Hrothgar came to be due to Yoshi-P wanting to see a more bestial playable race.

[Allegor]

Garleans are literally Elezen customized models - the race doesn't even have a "base" design other than being 'taller Hyur', so it'd be miles easier to just add their forehead pearl things as a glamour option than add them as a whole new race that would bring problems from all sides, from lore to coding.

[Theodric]

Garleans are literally Elezen customized models - the race doesn't even have a "base" design other than being 'taller Hyur', so it'd be miles easier to just add their forehead pearl things as a glamour option than add them as a whole new race that would bring problems from all sides, from lore to coding.

WoW is a much older game and went to the trouble of updating dated NPC and character models on multiple occasions. If FFXIV struggles to do the same, it isn't a ringing endorsement to me. For example, here's the original High Elf model in WoW:



It was later updated to be along these lines:



There's many other examples that could be drawn upon, be it regular monsters to critters throughout the game world.

So it wouldn't be impossible for Pureblood Garleans to be given their own distinct model that later could be turned into a playable option. There's precedence for it elsewhere in much older MMO's and it doesn't seem like Garleans are lacking in popularity - I've met a lot of Garlean fans over the years that I've played this game.

[Lauront]

Garleans are literally Elezen customized models - the race doesn't even have a "base" design other than being 'taller Hyur', so it'd be miles easier to just add their forehead pearl things as a glamour option than add them as a whole new race that would bring problems from all sides, from lore to coding.

The lore part of it is not difficult to surmount at all. In terms of whether there would be more efficient ways to represent them as a race given the rather severe limitations this game seems to suffer from thanks to how it was designed? Yes, no doubt.

[Allegor]

It's not impossible, but Blood elves are visible different than Night elves, aside from actually being different races despite both being elves, while Garleans are just taller Hyurs/shorter-eared Elezen. The fact that the few allied Garleans we have can pass off as Hyurs by hiding their pearls is a pretty clear indicator that even in universe they're seen as practically the same race.

Once again, it'd be far, far easier to just add the pearl as a glamour, or even give Hyurs a graphic update, than making them a whole new race

[SannaR]

You have to separate game play and the things the game has to allow for it to game from what the lore says. The whole reason you see way more cat boies and a few running around with Nuhn as their last name is because the game allows it. Same with all of the other races and jobs that shouldn't have so many or more than one.

In your play through the msq and the job/class quests only you are the exception. The fact that some of you don't want to see that split or accept it as a split shows how much you rely on it as a crutch for your argument for wanting it.

[Jandor]

You have to separate game play and the things the game has to allow for it to game from what the lore says. The whole reason you see way more cat boies and a few running around with Nuhn as their last name is because the game allows it. Same with all of the other races and jobs that shouldn't have so many or more than one.

In your play through the msq and the job/class quests only you are the exception. The fact that some of you don't want to see that split or accept it as a split shows how much you rely on it as a crutch for your argument for wanting it.

Miqote are fairly common in Eorzea and 1 in 10 of them are male, it'd be weirder if we didn't see cat boys running about. Moon cat fellas are out making a name for themselves to impress the moon ladies, and Sun cat fellas are out getting stronger so they can lead their own cat girl harem one day, both perfectly logical excuses for why they're so over-represented in the adventurer job market.

It's far easier to stretch plausibility for seeing Miqote men hanging about everywhere than it for seeing Garleans chilling on every street corner. You could argue they've pushed up against the lore a little bit for things that were in very high demand, but that's not a particularly good reason to just plow straight through it, especially for something that doesn't really seem all that popular anyway.

I went and did some looking. Perhaps she did at one point in time, but now she just stays on the sideline the whole time, untargetable, issuing orders, never participating in combat. Conjurer Temple Knights spawn on top of her a lot though, and they do sometimes start out casting cure on other temple knights.

In the Grand Melee when she becomes the target of The Fury's Gaze or whatever, she uses an Aqua Vitae, and then runs off, shouts, "Fury Protect Me!" and then uses Rampart.

She definitely used cure at one point, if it was edited out then I think that makes it fairly obvious where the team stands on magic using Garleans.