Garlean Playable Race (?)

[Lauront]

Even if you could play a super-duper special snowflake pureblood Garlean who could use magic, there's also the problem of not having your race brought up once in the 80 or whatever hours of story content where the race as a whole is represented as "the enemy", in a land that has been at war with them for 20-some odd years. The main "good guy" Garlean gets passed that and hides his eye from everyone and is a genetic freak who is a head shorter than other Garleans with different proportions.

Handwaving au ra is one thing, but handwaving you playing as the race that up until the 2nd expansion is only ever represented as the villains trying to destroy the world and cannot use aether normally, as the hero in Eorzea where every single jobs' abilities are described as aetherial manipulation is a pretty big handwave. And that's not taking into account all the technical limitations and the fact we're never getting another race again.

How about handwaving male Viera?

The WoL is already rarefied enough to be the sole WHM out there, one of the precious few BLMs (needless to say what reputation this job has until it's later rehabilitated), a speshul snowflake Azure Dragoon, etc etc. So this commonly regurgitated objection strikes me as being very feeble.

Fail to see how a Pureblood, who could arguably hide away their third eye with magic glamours, is more of an issue than any of the above. And in case being nearby one with their third eye on display breaks muh immersion, how about a WoL in a chicken suit?

"Never again" is a strong statement in the context of a game with a projected/hoped-for lifespan of 10 years, which may well be seeing an upgrade to its graphics engine that could see future racial additions become easier. I wouldn't be so confident in it if I were you.

For the people claiming they cannot use magic:



Read that carefully. It matters little if one thinks this is a "retcon" or whatever else; it is the current understanding on their ability to wield magic, and it allows for some exceptions, which the WoL could certainly fit without any handwaving over and above the usual - all without even requiring the contrivance of the Resonance. As for the Echo? Unless Garlean Purebloods don't share the same type of soul everyone else does, they too should, in principle, be able to have the Echo awakened within them.

[KizuyaKatogami]

And that's not taking into account all the technical limitations and the fact we're never getting another race again.

I love that you’re stating this as fact when you’re wrong. Yoshi P himself stated beforehand they said they couldn’t do anymore races, however recently they’ve been given more lee-way and there is the possibility of them in the future. So that’s a false claim right there.

[MikkoAkure]

Fail to see how a Pureblood, who could arguably hide away their third eye with magic glamours, is more of an issue than any of the above. And in case being nearby one with their third eye on display breaks muh immersion, how about a WoL in a chicken suit?

Read that carefully. It matters little if one thinks this is a "retcon" or whatever else; it is the current understanding on their ability to wield magic, and it allows for some exceptions, which the WoL could certainly fit without any handwaving over and above the usual - all without even requiring the contrivance of the Resonance. As for the Echo? Unless Garlean Purebloods don't share the same type of soul everyone else does, they too should, in principle, be able to have the Echo awakened within them.

Last I checked "eluded all but a few" in regards to an entire race means exceptionally rare and we still have yet to see a single Garlean even among the special NPCs who can natively wield magic. The Encyclopedia also isn't exactly an all knowing source since it's written in-universe and has been wrong before. Still though, that's a whole lotta reach to make a race that's not even that aesthetically different from what we already have just to play something that's even edgier than male au ra.

I love that you’re stating this as fact when you’re wrong. Yoshi P himself stated beforehand they said they couldn’t do anymore races, however recently they’ve been given more lee-way and there is the possibility of them in the future. So that’s a false claim right there.

False claim how? They've already been up and down on the technical limitations and that the time and labor costs increase with every additional race/gender added. While they said we're getting male viera in 6.0 and female hrothgar "later", they also said that the work to make male viera was done on the graphics team's free time. Us getting male viera isn't going to magically allow us to get everything under the moon. They didn't open the floodgates to new races as much as they somehow actually managed to squeeze a few drops of blood from a stone.

Right now as the game exists, it's going to be extremely difficult to add anything new for races. To think otherwise for the game's current state is being delusional. Yeah, they have talked about an overhaul, but the amount of work required for that would delay an expansion at best and we have no real leads at all on guessing when or if that may actually happen. EW will be the end of the current story and the beginning of a new one, separate from the rest. Does that mean that 7.0 will be the overhaul for new players incoming? Maybe, but we haven't even heard whispers about that and EW isn't even out yet so there's nothing we can do except fruitlessly argue on the OF and I've been in this game for over a decade now and learned a long time ago that there's no point in wasting mental energy on maybes and hoping to get everything you want.

Even if all of the above happened and we got our overhaul and they were going to add a new race, do you think Garlean would even be on their list? I personally don't think so, looking at au ra and how they preferred hrothgar over viera, which was tacked on for the fanservice. Garleans don't give us anything new at and are just hyur-eared elezen with a white ball stuck in their head.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Right now as the game exists, it\\'s going to be extremely difficult to add anything new for races. To think otherwise for the game\\'s current state is being delusional. Yeah, they have talked about an overhaul, but the amount of work required for that would delay an expansion at best and we have no real leads at all on guessing when or if that may actually happen. EW will be the end of the current story and the beginning of a new one, separate from the rest. Does that mean that 7.0 will be the overhaul for new players incoming? Maybe, but we haven\\'t even heard whispers about that and EW isn\\'t even out yet so there\\'s nothing we can do except fruitlessly argue on the OF and I\\'ve been in this game for over a decade now and learned a long time ago that there\\'s no point in wasting mental energy on maybes and hoping to get everything you want.

Even if all of the above happened and we got our overhaul and they were going to add a new race, do you think Garlean would even be on their list? I personally don\\'t think so, looking at au ra and how they preferred hrothgar over viera, which was tacked on for the fanservice. Garleans don\\'t give us anything new at and are just hyur-eared elezen with a white ball stuck in their head.

You can say the same for literally every race. Hrothgar are just hairy roes. Viera are just elezen with bunny ears. It’s just funny to me people are so quick to shut these things down, but then cannot even back up their claims with accurate lore or things the devs have said. Yoshi P himself said while before they didn’t think they could add more races after hrothgar and viera, now that they’ve been backed more, it is a possibility in the future whereas before it was a hard no. All they’ve done is reached for lore things. They literally bend the lore all the time. They did it for female roe, they did it for male miqote, they did it for male viera. This isn’t anything new. People still using the idiotic lore excuse despite Male Viera literally being here. I thought y’all would have learned lmao.Also, hilarious to me you say there’s no point “wasting energy on maybe’s and hope you get what you want.” Yet...guess what? Omg that’s exactly why we got Male Viera! Idk what this clownery line of thinking is...but it’s literally been refuted in multiple instances.

[Iscah]

They've already been up and down on the technical limitations and that the time and labor costs increase with every additional race/gender added. While they said we're getting male viera in 6.0 and female hrothgar "later", they also said that the work to make male viera was done on the graphics team's free time. Us getting male viera isn't going to magically allow us to get everything under the moon. They didn't open the floodgates to new races as much as they somehow actually managed to squeeze a few drops of blood from a stone.

This. This is important to grasp.

They said that they couldn't afford to add more races. And then they have looked at their resources and decided "okay, maybe we can squeeze just one more in to complete what we already started".

That is not a sign that they can add more again. That's a sign that – unless the resources available to them change – they can't add anything more because they just used up their last bit of wiggle room.

The existence of one extra thing does not automatically mean they can add every other thing people want to suggest, because it has taken up the resources that might have been needed to fund the other thing and you can't have both.

[Theodric]

This. This is important to grasp.

They said that they couldn't afford to add more races. And then they have looked at their resources and decided "okay, maybe we can squeeze just one more in to complete what we already started".

That is not a sign that they can add more again. That's a sign that – unless the resources available to them change – they can't add anything more because they just used up their last bit of wiggle room.

They've said many such things over the years and then changed their stance later on.

Out of curiosity, is FFXIV your first MMO? I ask because it wasn't at all uncommon for the development team in WoW to claim that they weren't going to do something or couldn't do specific things only to mysteriously find a way to implement those elements - quite swiftly - when subscription numbers began to decline.

Indeed, that was very much the case for character customisation WoW. A much older game which has managed to add multiple new playable races over the years and expanded character customisation not once, but twice throughout the game's lifespan.

[MikkoAkure]

You can say the same for literally every race. Hrothgar are just hairy roes. Viera are just elezen with bunny ears. It’s just funny to me people are so quick to shut these things down, but then cannot even back up their claims with accurate lore or things the devs have said. Yoshi P himself said while before they didn’t think they could add more races after hrothgar and viera, now that they’ve been backed more, it is a possibility in the future whereas before it was a hard no. All they’ve done is reached for lore things. They literally bend the lore all the time. They did it for female roe, they did it for male miqote, they did it for male viera. This isn’t anything new. People still using the idiotic lore excuse despite Male Viera literally being here. I thought y’all would have learned lmao.Also, hilarious to me you say there’s no point “wasting energy on maybe’s and hope you get what you want.” Yet...guess what? Omg that’s exactly why we got Male Viera! Idk what this clownery line of thinking is...but it’s literally been refuted in multiple instances.

I'm not sure if you actually read what I said or if you just like saying "lore" over and over again, but ignoring the technical aspect of new races, my argument on not getting Garleans specifically leaned more on them being the bad guys and not being visually distinct than "99% of Garleans can't even cast aero lol". I'm 100% fine with male viera. They're not going to add them in without a reason. But male viera haven't been going around being Cpt. War Crimes on our little continent for 20 years. SE won't give us glamour in the Mogstation for any of the villaians, what makes you think we'll get the whole race a lot of them belong to?

You're also comparing hrothgar to roes but at least they have major facial differences. Except for a small handful of special NPCs, Garleans are just elezen with hyur ears and a dot on their head. In ARR content, Gaius, Livia, and other Garleans who keep their helmets on literally are just Elezen underneath.

I guess that would make them easier to add them as playable, but why? In EW, we're going to Garlemald. It would be thematically OK for us to get a fake head pearl item sometime during the expansion, whether it's something in the story, or a rare fate, or something else. Pop it onto your character and you're instant Garlean-ish. What is the point of anything more than that? They're not going to bend over backwards to edit the whole MSQ up until now to give special dialogue or events for a Garlean WoL. What will having "Garlean" in your character data accomplish? Male viera at least bring something new and different to the table as a race that can't be replicated by SE deciding to use an existing asset as a glamour item.

[Theodric]

I'm reminded of the arguments used to shut down requests for male viera and combat jobs with a darker theme to them, which incidentally were often touted as 'impossible'. At least until they weren't.

I'd be inclined to agree that a third eye glamour would be an efficient compromise, though it wouldn't be terrible to take the opportunity to give Pureblood Garleans a proper model in-game for both NPC's and playable races. That is, again, something that WoW itself had done over time - taking dated models for characters/enemy models and revamping them to look better.

With how dated some of the character models are looking, it could be something potentially pursued in the future across the board.

The concept of 'war crimes' is also irrelevant in my opinion. A clear distinction is made between Imperial Pureblood Garleans and those who are not aligned with Garlemald. Even then, we've found common ground where Imperial Garleans are concerned.

Furthermore, as Yoshi-P has stated in a number of interviews the game is not intended to be taken in a manner of black or white morality. So whether the Garleans are the bad guys or not is in itself entirely subjective. To some, that'll be the case - to others, it's just another conflict in a story with many different conflicts.

In addition, the Dragonsong War lasted for a thousand years. Garlemald's campaigns have lasted for far less than that. Given that the former scenario was forgiven, I'm sure the latter will be as well. Especially since Eorzea itself came to exist in its current form through many conflicts and territorial disputes. As did Doma, Hingashi and many other in-game locations.

[kaynide]

This topic pops up every couple of months.

Here’s a link to the last iteration of that’s of interest. No hate on just using the old thread or whatever, just providing information.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Garleans-Race?

[KizuyaKatogami]

I guess that would make them easier to add them as playable, but why? In EW, we're going to Garlemald. It would be thematically OK for us to get a fake head pearl item sometime during the expansion, whether it's something in the story, or a rare fate, or something else. Pop it onto your character and you're instant Garlean-ish. What is the point of anything more than that? They're not going to bend over backwards to edit the whole MSQ up until now to give special dialogue or events for a Garlean WoL. What will having "Garlean" in your character data accomplish? Male viera at least bring something new and different to the table as a race that can't be replicated by SE deciding to use an existing asset as a glamour item.

What kind of logic is this? In that case we don’t need Viera. People can just plop on the gold saucer bunny ears and call it a day hm? Hrothgars literally use roe skeletons. They are literally furry roes with slight model differences. No different than Garleans being elezen skeletons/models. I don’t really see what war crimes had to do with anything. Every race has committed “war crimes” of some kind. Thats a strange argument to make lmao.