Zhavi

the horns are just so big and noticeable. I notice faces most about characters. Faces and hairstyles. The horns are more prominent than hairstyles, to me. It's why I don't really get why they're facelocked, though given all of what everyone has said, I'm sure there's some practical reason. Not a deal breaker, just another one of those things that makes me go, 'awwwww '

To kind of echo this... my real life friends are not into video games, for the most part. Of the friends I have who are, they aren't into them the same way I am. I don't like official forums, as there's always a sense of strangers with the people you discuss things with. This forum is the closest I'm ever going to get to discussing irrelevant nerdish likes and dislikes with people I like or respect. I value the ability to read others' opinions and share my own on topics, even if it's pointless in the grand scheme of things and will be forgotten about in a day or three. But, back on topic . . . given some of what people have been saying about 1.0, I'm really starting to pin my hopes on 4.0 for more variety.

Even if it wasn't sliders, having some greater variations in the nose/eyes/jawline options would be nice and would definitely help to create more distinct characters.

The problem with them is more lore related than anything else, at least from my perspective of me being whiny. That and, I dunno, highlanders are fierce but in the way of a fiercely beautiful Greek goddess. Roes are closer but they're lacking something (and their lore isn't terribly appealing to me). What I'd like is something a little more inhuman, a little more rugged, and a little more badass with some options that go for 'tough' over 'beautiful'. I'm being exceptionally picky, but there you have it. *waves special snowflake flag*

Ke$ha. Essential oils and makeup after that, not in the use of them, but in how much I spend on them. The essential oils I can get around because I use them to make my own body oil/butter things, but I still sometimes feel bad for dat cost.

I think an easy middle ground would be to provide options within the race selections to add or discard characteristics like hair, or more chiseled/rugged features. I'd love to see them add things like that in addition to hairstyles (which I think someone else suggested, too?). Yeah. I wouldn't mind if for the next expansion they didn't add a new race and instead upgraded customization of current races. That way you're not cutting out time necessary for new gear and emotes and stuff (as the time/people who would be doing the customization would be doing that instead of building stuff for a new race), while still giving people something new to play with. That would tick off all the boxes of things that would make me happy.

Yeah, there's one that could go for late 20s, but overall displaying age on a female face seems to be a no-no for this game. Then again, it tends to be a no-no in most first-world societies, so I suppose I can't really blame the devs for that. I was wondering about how they age in general, too (separate from character creation) -- they seem to be very mysterious to me in terms of how they work. Hopefully we'll get some cool lore.

It's really hard to play rugged when no one has hair on their chest or legs. I am just saying. :bouncy: Hahahaha. Okay, for an example, the troll female faces (in WoW) besides the pretty one (pre the graphics update, I don't know what they look like now), could easily qualify for rugged. Weathered, lined, rough-around-the-edges, a little fierce: you can achieve this with roe to a degree, but with the Au Ra, with the horns and the scales -- I was just hoping for something taller and meaner and maybe a little less of the typical beauty. (I'm starting to realize from these discussions that what I want to see is a very narrow aesthetic -- but, I dunno, I'd be okay with fifth face options for races that go a little outside of the box for that race, which lets the devs have their target audience while still filling for the niche lovers)

But that's the rub -- for the Au Ra I wanted something tough and rugged. I don't normally play cutesy or small, I normally play big buff warrior women who can handle themselves, or at the least are old and washed up but can still bring it when needed. The idea that the proliferation of miqo'te are discouraging the devs from creating more races like roes or highlanders makes me cringe, because that's what I typically enjoy playing. That's what I would have preferred for my Au Ra. Zhi works, for what I made her for. But that's not the only type of character I want to play, aesthetically.

Oh, I don't disagree. The video game space is by definition very conservative, which means not taking a risk on an artistic decision when you could make a finance-driven one. SE has a bit more freedom than, say, someone being published by EA, but ultimately they're still beholden to their shareholders. If Heavensward doesn't produce a sub bump -- even if it retains the current player base -- it's not going to look good, despite XIV being a wild, runaway success for the company. The artistic choices are the ones you're more likely to see in indie gaming. That said, I'm still unhappy about it. My hope is that if Heavensward does really really well maybe the next xpac will have more breathing room in terms of art direction. Though, really, I suppose it might be grounds for a "keep doing what you're doing" mindset. Argh. It's frustrating to me because I picked catgirl because I wanted a runty street kid. And I like cats. And it was something that was very different from what I normally played: tall, muscular badasses (WoW troll 4 lyfe!). I was inches away from picking a roe, but in the end they were too big for what I wanted to do with this character. It pains me that Zhi is part of the problem. And now with the xaela being nomads, I'm being hooked for them. I think I'm gonna have to make a highlander or roe to even out my character creation karma. :<

The mmo I spent the majority of my time playing was WoW. I dabbled in rp with it a little before I got serious about raiding, and one thing that you'd see is that just about every single female troll would have the same face: the pretty face. And, before the barbershop was added, most of them had the same hair. Though I played Aion and spent huge amounts of time in the character creator, coming to FF I had about five minutes worth of disappointment in the beta when I saw that there were no sliders. But, even so, there was enough places to change things to be different enough. That's not to say that there isn't room for improvement -- every game has room for improvement over a broad array of areas. But it always seemed weird to me that people would complain the most about character creation. Maybe it's the years I spent as a semi-hardcore raider speaking, but the areas that always had the highest amount of concern for me was class balance (resto shammy in heroic firelands was one of the most miserable things -- the only time as a raider where no matter what I did, no matter how much theorycrafting or minmaxing I did, no matter how much I tweaked my stats or tried new methods, I was still only coming up with a small fraction of healing done compared to resto druid. This wasn't a matter of epeen; I genuinely felt I was letting the raid team down) and pve/raid encounters. Content mattered most. While I've hung up my raiding hat, I think content still does matter more to me. I want the art team spending more time on the landscape, on emotes, on poses, on new pieces of gear, etc over too much bling in the character creator. However, things like more noses, jawlines, and eyes would be beyond welcome, and I don't think that would require much in the way of changes on gear. And, actually, a dye system like what GW2 has would be omgamazing. I think I would actually prefer something like that implemented over changes done in the character creator. Times 1000. GW2's character creator is pretty decent to me, but in the short amount of time I played it, I spent way more time customizing each and every piece of gear that came my way and agonizing over what dye I could afford than I ever spent messing around with the sliders in their character creator.

The reason is quite obvious. Yoshi even outright stated that they designed the Au Ra (at least the females, I guess) based on how much people loved female miqo'te. Restating it a million times isn't going to change my opinion on the matter though. I still disagree with it. I still think there was a better way to go about it (split the design so that one clan appeals to one sense, the other appeals to another sense). People are just trying to share their view/opinion back with you, man. You enter discussions here, so people want to discuss with you! I don't think anyone expects you to change your opinion or anything; if anything I think they might just want to understand better. I know you've been on site for a while and have plainly stated your stance often, but there are a lot of new people who haven't seen your older posts and so will want to engage you to see where you're at and why. That said, I don't follow a lot of the dev stuff, I only pick up stuff here, so things being "obvious" or Yoshi "outright" stating things goes wayyyy over my head -- which is why I, at the very least, ask why people think things were done a certain way. I just didn't know! I like getting others' take on something! I do agree that splitting design, even if it was just for one or two faces or . . . somethign that wouldn't require as much work, would have been very appreciated. Still though, Idunno, it's hard for me to really criticize or justify anything without knowing the full story -- which you're only gonna get by being there behind scenes. So I'll just keep hoping that next time maybe they'll go for something a little more off the beaten path.

I actually do kind of believe had YoshiP been in charge from the start we wouldn't have Roes or Highlanders at all. That's ... interesting. Based on things he's said, or other art in ARR, or ? But, considering the flop the first one was, I could understand a director trying to do anything possible to continue financial success of some kind, including playing it extremely safe in character design. I did find a face that I can work with for my au ra, and will continue hoping that for the next new race they put out however many years down the road we'll see something a little tougher for the women.

Gypsy has been and can be used as a slur. That said, there are official Rom groups who use the term "gypsy" to officially describe themselves -- so as with many words out in the wide, wide world, your mileage may vary. I don't think it is a tremendously widespread slur -- but do remember it's slang for "egyptian" as back in the day Europeans thought these people were from Egypt and so kinda derisively referred to them as such (the etymology is pretty fun). (traveler or tinker is a decent alternative, but I still use 'gypsy' when I want to refer to a group of people who wander, have a specific set of skills, and generally aren't met with open arms) That said, this sounds like fuuuun. Nice concept idea!

Okay, well, I haven't gotten to play with the character creation, but . .. .I for one take it back after looking at peoples screens. Yes, okay, the female xaela have got that cool, reserved beauty going on and they aren't the rugged I'd hoped for, but they have this inhuman battle-hardened vibe to them that works. SO WHATEVER, I'LL LOVE THEM ANYWAYS. I'll just make a highlander if I get the itch for fierce and fabulous.

Eeeps, my mistake! The ones I've looked at (central eurasia and africa, though not all african groups, as there are many) all had been; southeast asia is actually an area I had never really delved into. Please note it was a self-preference -- I don't expect anyone to need to enjoy the things I enjoy. One of the things I very much enjoy in my rp is to pull from rl, and endlessly fixate on details. It's not something everyone enjoys, I understand, but I do very much enjoy it for myself and those who enjoy getting into the nitty gritty with me. edit - and too, most of my points were to demonstrate that there is room for tragedy in nomadic groups, certainly not to say or to encourage everyone to have to play that way. I've always encouraged people to play the way they want. It doesn't mean everyone will want to play with you, but there will always be others who will, and that's all that really matters.

Also, I mean, nomadic peoples alone have it rough. Even up to modern day -- weather will fuck you up. Look at what happens in Mongolia whenever they get a foot or two of snow (which is freakish for the steppes) : Their animals can't paw through the snow to get to the grass. You have mass starve-offs, which sometimes results in families no longer being able to function as pastoral nomads. If they aren't lucky and don't have family in the cities, they often wind up living in tent-cities on the outskirts, scraping by and trying to find work. Even without freak events like that, life as a nomad is hard and has its own tragedies. Accidents happen, and you're really dependent on the land. Now add some wars/raiding to that, and yeup, you've got plenty of room for tragic stories (a lot of tribal cultures regularly participated in slave culture. While typically this meant taking slaves for personal use (or taking extra brides, lolol), selling slaves off to other parties was not uncommon, either). But my thing has always been: if I'm sick of seeing something, I just create the polar opposite to it. Most of the time, that's why I try to make ugly, rough characters. But, you know, I think as long as people are enjoying their rp then it's okay, because that means they'll continue to rp and that means rp as a whole will flourish. Which is great, because I love seeing thriving rp communities. :3

When I first started here, I was hugely plot driven, because Zhi was always running around doing this or that, and always had some scheme going on. But I like both types of rp. I think I tend to plot more just because brainstorming gives me mindgasms, but pickup rp has plenty of its own charm, too. ALL THE THINGS!

I'm getting a really strong gothic lolita vibe from the females, which is a huge turnoff because nomadic peoples are freaking rugged, man. Whatevs! I made it work with Zhavi and the supercutesmoothbabyface miqote, I'll make it work for them. Plus they all have that sort of cool, reserved look. I'm edging more and more towards making a fortune-teller xaela who uses a modified form of shagai to tell her fortunes. Plus add some heavy superstition and maybe a pinch of xenophobia and a love of an oral storytelling tradition... and now all I need is some more lore to iron everything out and stuff and yayyy. This time I am not making a character locked to one city state. Ahaha. I don't think I'm ever going to do that again. and then I'll be ready to find her a tribe-sy. :>

My philosophy professor was very disappointed with my ability to distill arguments into a logical structure. Even after I watched and re-watched this beautiful gem. Still, I really like the idea of some threads with logical arguments in the premise (though I'll admit I don't understand the need for what appears to me to be some obfuscation in the general topic). I like reading them.

I idolize Ursula K LeGuin, so I've kinda always been conscious about it. And I'm a little bit obsessed with anthropology, so it's a factor dependent on character history and ancestral/regional background, for me. Zhi's I tried to sorta compromise between light and dark (though on the whole I'd say she's pretty light) as she avoids the sun whenever possible, but lol she lives on the coast and is around water all day. But then again, moon kitty, so I assumed she probably burns more than tans. edit - moon kitties can also be blueberry blue!

In that vein, one of my favorite sites to comb through for names, directly linked to their (admittedly small) section on Japanese names: http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/otherasian.shtml#japanese edit - actually, on a quick glance-through, there are a lot of male names used prior to 1600. Not as many female names, but still a nice list.

You have a point, except for one flaw: Just send a nice, polite, non-pressure request to someone you want to rp with. If you think they are busy, give them an easy out. "Hey, I really admire you for [insert praise about character/writing/attitude/whatever], and would like to rp with you. However, I think you might be really busy, so I totally understand if you don't have time! If you don't, absolutely no pressure and maybe I'll catch up with you in a month or so to see if you have more time. If you do and wouldn't mind rping with me, I'd like to see when would be most convenient for the both of us. Have a good one!"

To echo Dasair, to me, it's just about how distinctive people are. If you post something that catches my attention, or post in a way that catches my attention, I'll notice you. And then, when you post, prior experience has taught me that I'll enjoy reading (or, as is sometimes the case, it's something that is provocative in some way, or interesting, or something I can argue with) what you have to say, so I'll read it closely. People who are distinctive stand out, so people tend to respond directly to them. More and more interaction equals forming connections. Once those connections are formed -- especially if they're cultivated and the person is actively reaching out -- there's an appearance of someone who is active and surrounded by lots of people and it's happy and magical. And I think there's a lot to be said about what you do about your reaction to that, and how you temper your reactions and how you observe yourself. *shrug* After WoW, and a guild I became a leader in, and devoted almost all of my free time to, and burned out really hard on -- I decided I was going to come to FFXIV and be a lone wolf. And that is exactly what I've done. Nearly all of my contacts are ooc-rp; there are very very few who I've told personal stories to, and of those it's because I was actively rping with them and then suddenly stopped because of ooc circumstances (which I later divulged on because of a thread), and I felt I owed them an explanation, because I liked them as people. I dunno. I'm not a social butterfly. I'm an introvert, and too much social reaction will eventually burn me out. I can be super shy, I'm afraid of rejection -- but to me, you do have to do certain things in certain ways to build (and I use that word very deliberately) what you want to have. There's utterly no point in me looking at someone who seems to have an effortless time at something and thinking 'why can't it be like that for me?' (especially because what we perceive can so often be dead wrong) I have to work hard to get what I get. I think most people do. That's okay.