(09-01-2015, 02:04 AM)Flashhelix Wrote: But then we're just getting into an entirely separate argument of "Is there a plausible way in which a non-hyur or non-elezen could become a respected resident of Ishgard" and thus ten more pages of worthless non-argument.
Ignoring the WYSIWYG for the following reasons...
1. Many NPCs don't have names over their heads, but we assume they in fact have a name, and are not literally named Merchant & Mender.
2. If we take the world blatantly as presented, discounting PCs there are less than 10,000 humanoids on the planet.
3. Nobody poops, and nobody has to poop. No bathrooms exist in the game, and our toons lack any imperative to require consumables (and also lack any not-speculated means of waste excretion).
4. Everyone is immortal, because our toons don't apparently age. They also don't seem to have an imperative to rest or sleep.
5. Reproduction is impossible because males don't appear to have genitals (this may account for the tiny global population).
...need I go on... Suffice it to say, we can't use WYSIWYG as a basis for interpretation of the setting. We have no way to know if the developers intended Ishgard to be "only Hyur and Elezen" because of those being the only NPCs in Ishgard, or, if that was merely a technical design choice due to wanting to streamline load speeds by reducing the variance in NPC polygons being loaded. We do have evidence of these kinds of design choices being made at a technical level, since some quest cutscene moments have voice acting and others do not. Obviously, we don't assume that our characters sometimes mysteriously become mute in the middle of doing jobs.
That's why using the what you read, rather than what you see, is the better basis. The written words are chosen deliberately for the sake of telling the story of the game and the setting. In the written dialogues, there's reference to people eating and people needing to rest. We can therefore assume those are things that happen. People are said to have children, and they're said to be old or dying. Yay, we can gather from the text that we are in fact mortal and we do reproduce.Â
So, ignore what you /see/ in the city, because what you see is either 100% literal (in which case, Ishgard is actually a really tiny hamlet, based on the population) or it's 100% speculative. The written text isn't speculative, and in the written text, there's zero difference between what the NPCs say to you as any race - including the dragoon-specific quests. Nobody in those quests says, "Are you effin kidding me, an Au Ra is trying to become a Dragoon?"
Lydia Lightfoot ~ The Reliquarian's Guild «Relic» ~ Lavender Beds, Ward 12, #41
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?
This player has a sense of humor. If the content of the post suggests otherwise, please err on the side of amusement and friendship, because that's almost certainly the intent. We're all on the same team: Team Roleplayer! Have a smile, have a chuckle, and have a slice of pie. Isn't pie great?