To take personal umbrage on a depiction of a fantasy race, especially when other races have shown opposing qualities, leaves questions on the topic of hot-topic hypersensitivity and its impact on Gaming development. A subject not for here but I will drop a brief comment and move on:
I do not feel that it is right for developers to feel pressured to accommodate their customers personal desires based of political or sociological grounds. I believe that it is, in fact, harmful to genuine creativity and artistic licence. Developers should feel free to create what they feel, and feel that their audience will enjoy. I feel anything less threatens to betray the atmosphere of acceptance and goodwill that forward thinking individuals in both Game Development and Game Consumerism are attempting to grow.
I am willing to field further discussion on that topic privately.
Back on subject of the races and what sort of stereotypes they represent.
I feel that breaking each character down to such stereotypes does the game disservice. Calling the Midlanders  Japanese, archetype for one, strikes me fairly wrong as honestly I found them more to be a general human genenotype. I have to question why such a conclusion was reached. Was it the lack of pronounced facial hair?Â
Anyways, I felt that there was an aspect of archetypes that Au Ra fills, which is the more Japanese Animation style facial structure and culture. It seems to follow many of the demon tropes Japanese culture does and hearing that Japan is the inspiration for the naming conventions, the niche becomes fairly clear.
In which case basing the design structure off of Western archetype standards may be an error in approach. Even so, that people say that Au Ra females are only for the cutesy types I think aren't playing long enough with the Character creator.
I don't feel that Au Ra is in any way, shape, or form redundant in the context of what we have in FFXIV. The fact that it may point out to some the limitations of other character archtypes and styles could be used as feedback for future races. I, for one am not opposed to a Race in which the Female is depicted as physically imposing to its male counterparts. However I feel that mine, unintentionally took cues from the character Erza Scarlet and others of her character style. A beautiful-yet-strong character that does not require physical stature to be intimidating.
My FC leader has managed to create a feminine looking Miqo'te male and other such changes on the regular perspectives. So... I feel as if there is less credit than what is due given to the current options available - but pushing the limits of what you can do with these options are always going to fall short over arguments to add more options.
I'm just concerned that when people realize that SE's accommodation of this will be severely limited, based off of reasons that have already been described, that they will not know what to do with the passionate energy they have on the matter and it will serve to harm the community.
I do not feel that it is right for developers to feel pressured to accommodate their customers personal desires based of political or sociological grounds. I believe that it is, in fact, harmful to genuine creativity and artistic licence. Developers should feel free to create what they feel, and feel that their audience will enjoy. I feel anything less threatens to betray the atmosphere of acceptance and goodwill that forward thinking individuals in both Game Development and Game Consumerism are attempting to grow.
I am willing to field further discussion on that topic privately.
Back on subject of the races and what sort of stereotypes they represent.
I feel that breaking each character down to such stereotypes does the game disservice. Calling the Midlanders  Japanese, archetype for one, strikes me fairly wrong as honestly I found them more to be a general human genenotype. I have to question why such a conclusion was reached. Was it the lack of pronounced facial hair?Â
Anyways, I felt that there was an aspect of archetypes that Au Ra fills, which is the more Japanese Animation style facial structure and culture. It seems to follow many of the demon tropes Japanese culture does and hearing that Japan is the inspiration for the naming conventions, the niche becomes fairly clear.
In which case basing the design structure off of Western archetype standards may be an error in approach. Even so, that people say that Au Ra females are only for the cutesy types I think aren't playing long enough with the Character creator.
I don't feel that Au Ra is in any way, shape, or form redundant in the context of what we have in FFXIV. The fact that it may point out to some the limitations of other character archtypes and styles could be used as feedback for future races. I, for one am not opposed to a Race in which the Female is depicted as physically imposing to its male counterparts. However I feel that mine, unintentionally took cues from the character Erza Scarlet and others of her character style. A beautiful-yet-strong character that does not require physical stature to be intimidating.
My FC leader has managed to create a feminine looking Miqo'te male and other such changes on the regular perspectives. So... I feel as if there is less credit than what is due given to the current options available - but pushing the limits of what you can do with these options are always going to fall short over arguments to add more options.
I'm just concerned that when people realize that SE's accommodation of this will be severely limited, based off of reasons that have already been described, that they will not know what to do with the passionate energy they have on the matter and it will serve to harm the community.
