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Warren Castille · **12-23-2014, 10:23 AM**

(12-23-2014, 10:19 AM)Kage Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 05:24 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: I'm confused at what we're talking about here though. Are we talking about Au Ra within the FFXIV bubble or the Au Ra within the reaches of the ENTIRE gaming culture? Those are two very different conversations that I think people are trying to have.
I'm curious about this myself.

Whichever is a more convenient a flag to fly at the time.

Berrod Armstrong · **12-23-2014, 10:26 AM**

(12-23-2014, 10:23 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 10:19 AM)Kage Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 05:24 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: I'm confused at what we're talking about here though. Are we talking about Au Ra within the FFXIV bubble or the Au Ra within the reaches of the ENTIRE gaming culture? Those are two very different conversations that I think people are trying to have.
I'm curious about this myself.

Whichever is a more convenient a flag to fly at the time.

I wanted to talk about Au Ra male stomachs but noooo

Kage · **12-23-2014, 10:27 AM**

I fucking love the Au Ra male chests and the way the starter clothes make them look.

AlSO The starter clothes for the males are unf.

Yes, yes, Japanese designs like the belts and stuff..

THEY CATER TO ME OK.

ArmachiA · **12-23-2014, 10:56 AM**

Yeah. The males are pretty much eye candy. Not even gonna front on that.

What it kind of looks like to me is that they designed the race to appeal to the opposite sex.

The Males are tall, lithe, muscular, kind of broody looking, with handsome faces. Basically, the males are the entire cast of FREE!

[Image: rei.nagisa.rin.haruka.makoto.Free!.Iwato...0x1200.jpg]

[Image: rei.nagisa.rin.haruka.makoto.Free!.Iwato...0x1200.jpg]

FREE! was designed to make Fujoshi lose their mind ON PURPOSE (The company that did K!ON decided there weren't enough anime geared toward females and, in response to the Moe boom, FREE! was born)

The females? Moe. Totally Moe. Short, cute, adorable, you want to hug them. Moe. They are basically the cast of K!ON

[Image: konachan-com-109156-akiyama_mio-hirasawa..._ritsu.jpg]

[Image: konachan-com-109156-akiyama_mio-hirasawa..._ritsu.jpg]

Moe (pronounced "Mo-eh") for those who don't know the term: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Moe

This is a race of the sexualization of BOTH sexes here. Not just the females.

(And before you get your gander up: I'm a huge ass feminist who has a lot of crits against the gaming industry. But, I can tell that whats going on here isn't just singling out the girls, the boys are also getting sexualized. But because men and women like very different things, the race looks a little off from gender to gender)

Eve Malusion · **12-23-2014, 11:06 AM**

(12-23-2014, 10:26 AM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 10:23 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 10:19 AM)Kage Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 05:24 AM)ArmachiA Wrote: I'm confused at what we're talking about here though. Are we talking about Au Ra within the FFXIV bubble or the Au Ra within the reaches of the ENTIRE gaming culture? Those are two very different conversations that I think people are trying to have.
I'm curious about this myself.

Whichever is a more convenient a flag to fly at the time.
I wanted to talk about Au Ra male stomachs but noooo

I can talk about Au Ra male stomachs. I love that outfit, it looks great. I will admit to having an appreciation of bare midriffs on both genders if executed properly, and here it is executed properly. They have toned abs but not too toned, so they still look comfortable to cuddle against.
[sub]They also hide the fact that they have no nipples that still weirds me out am I the only one.[/sub]

Warren Castille · **12-23-2014, 11:14 AM**

Reminds me I need to post a picture of my ninja set.

allgivenover · **12-23-2014, 11:27 AM**

SE is in this for player appeal, and their own numbers coupled with personal observations is pretty convincing. Pretty, "dainty", female characters outweigh the Roegadyn females, Highlander females, and Elezen females by a huge margin - though not as widely with Elezen females. Past research in MMOs has demonstrated that players who choose to play male characters more often than not prefer to be tall and buff looking, while players that choose female characters gravitate towards pretty and petite. Even when the player base complains about sexual dimorphism the trend remains.Â

SE wants the appeal of XIV to continue to build, and appealing to players desire to play petite, cute female avatars or a ridiculously tall piece of man is a good way to do it. Are their exceptions? Of course there are, but honestly it's remarkable we even have something like Roegadyn females as a choice at all.Â

The past few years has seen a lot of blame pointed at the video game industry as a source of sexism and misogyny, but video games are just a product of culture, they're not a starting point. They reflect what's already there, and anyone looking to build player appeal in XIV can see plain as day what most people want to play as.

I just consider us lucky that they have scales.

Flickering Ember · **12-23-2014, 11:28 AM**

(12-23-2014, 09:37 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 09:32 AM)Steel Wolf Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 09:21 AM)Warren Castille Wrote: I didn't even notice the astrologian picture featured a female Au Ra. Seriously, I had to squint to realize the horns weren't hair/hair accessories.

Funny you say that, I only just now saw the tail. Â Like, I thought that was part of the dress frilly bits...

THERE'S A TAIL?!

I'm not exaggerating. For all people have claimed miqo'te are just "humes with cat features" they at least look different at a glance.

Wait....the astrologian is an Au Ra? I had no idea. Looking at the picture, I still can't tell where her horns are.

....

Kismet · **12-23-2014, 11:39 AM**

Poor choice of skin/horn/hair color by the promotional team is partly to blame for that, imo.

ArmachiA · **12-23-2014, 11:44 AM**

^ Yeah not sure why they decided White on White was a good idea to show off the Scales >.>

They really should have went with the OTHER girl with the blue scales. She looked more foreign and weird and we only got to see her for a nano-second.

Oli! · **12-23-2014, 11:50 AM**

At the very least, let's agree that the females are dainty as hell. Don't know how I feel about that personally but whatever, I already stated I'm not a fan because Bleh.

The daintiness does make me want to make an Jeeves-style Au Ra butler though.

That also swordfights because gotta protect the homeland.

I'll put her in a suit and everything. It'll be such class.

Aldotsk · **12-23-2014, 11:57 AM**

All aside from the tail and horn, I personally like both races in their structure. It still followed the JRPG/Japanese player appeal comparing to Western style RPG structure. (In fact, many Japanese players still are not huge fans of Western RPG games due to the way they look. 2ch was trash talking about DragonAge: Inquisition about how ugly characters looked).

This game was to appeal JRPG fans and mostly Japanese players and Western players who appreciate Japanese anime type of looks... but with actual promised legit proportions. (Unlike PSO2/Boobs and Soul).

Oli! · **12-23-2014, 12:00 PM**

(12-23-2014, 11:57 AM)Aldotsk Wrote: All aside from the tail and horn, I personally like both races in their structure. It still followed the JRPG/Japanese player appeal comparing to Western style RPG structure. (In fact, many Japanese players still are not huge fans of Western RPG games due to the way they look. 2ch was trash talking about DragonAge: Inquisition about how ugly characters looked).

This game was to appeal JRPG fans and mostly Japanese players and Western players who appreciate Japanese anime type of looks... but with actual promised legit proportions. (Unlike PSO2/Boobs and Soul).

This might actually be less of a visual difference and more of a gameplay difference.

Skyrim, one of the most Western-Looking things out there (and arguably kind-of ugly looking in general when unmodded) was apparently the first western game ever to get a perfect score from Famitsu.

And that's a big deal.

(It's also funny to note that Gears of War 3, known in some circles as Buff Western McManMeat: the Video Game, scored a 39/40.)

Aldotsk · **12-23-2014, 12:02 PM**

(12-23-2014, 12:00 PM)Oli! Wrote:
(12-23-2014, 11:57 AM)Aldotsk Wrote: All aside from the tail and horn, I personally like both races in their structure. It still followed the JRPG/Japanese player appeal comparing to Western style RPG structure. (In fact, many Japanese players still are not huge fans of Western RPG games due to the way they look. 2ch was trash talking about DragonAge: Inquisition about how ugly characters looked).

This game was to appeal JRPG fans and mostly Japanese players and Western players who appreciate Japanese anime type of looks... but with actual promised legit proportions. (Unlike PSO2/Boobs and Soul).

This might actually be less of a visual difference and more of a gameplay difference.

Skyrim, one of the most Western-Looking things out there (and arguably kind-of ugly looking in general when unmodded) was apparently the first western game ever to get a perfect score from Famitsu.

And that's a big deal.

That's debatable. Skyrim from Famitsu had a high rating because of the PC version and most fans in Japan already bypassed the coding to alter their character models (Lightning from FF13 ie.) - and most of the Japanese players do love their games that they can alter the models in games. (Technically FFXI .DAT model modifications were also founded by Japanese too anyways)

Berrod Armstrong · **12-23-2014, 12:03 PM**

(12-23-2014, 11:50 AM)Oli! Wrote: At the very least, let's agree that the females are dainty as hell. Don't know how I feel about that personally but whatever, I already stated I'm not a fan because Bleh.

The daintiness does make me want to make an Jeeves-style Au Ra butler though.

That also swordfights because gotta protect the homeland.

I'll put her in a suit and everything. It'll be such class.

Dainty looking as hell, because we saw Yugiri kick ass and it wasn't at all in a dainty fashion!

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Thoughts on the Au Ra?

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