Race/Clan choice...why?

[Savarah]

Forgive me if this has been discussed already (feel free the link me and/or lock my thread), but I do have a question for the wide world of RPers.

 

Why did you choose your race/clan as your main RP character? Was it something about the lore, maybe the naming conventions or a habit from other MMOs (i.e. I always play humans/elves so the Hyur/Elezen are for me). Maybe you like playing the  least played race?

 

I'm sort of caught between a few. I always lean toward elves, and I almost never play humans because I live a boring human life everyday. I tend to shy away from whatever the most popular race is because I like to be unique. I also reject whatever the 'pervy' class happens to be (for example, Elin in TERA and maybe Miqo'te here). I'm leaning toward a female Duskwight Elezen, but for once in my life I'm so unsure. I have lore-specific names picked out for every possible choice, but I want to hear your stories.

 

Your opinions are valued; let me hear them!

[Azthran]

For me it comes down to wanting there to be playable mithra back in FFXI. If SE never added male miqo'te I would have probably stuck with a Duskwight Elezen.

[John Spiegel]

My XIV character is an adaptation of my (first RP character, like only long-term one) XI Hume of the same name: John Spiegel

 

So obviously if I'm adapting an old character to XIV, I'd probably pick the race/clan closest to him, hence Highlander! As you can read in the recent thread about naming conventions, I Highlander-iffied JJ's birthname but gonna keep JJ's name JJ's name.

 

He's depicted as a large, towering man covered with scars, bald due to an incident in his late teens and lost his right eye in his early 20s. Father of twins, a widower, lifelong fighter and a wanderer. He occasionally wears a yukata and a pumpkin on his head along with swinging a wooden sword about, loves pinwheels and has a fascination with round fruit that go boom. 

[Caysen]

Aesthetics and cultural backgrounds are big factors for me. There are races I won't choose for my main just because they don't fit the way I see the character. I carry the same basic character skeleton over through every game, so I find something that fits him.

 

Also, the clans differ in stats from the other. It differs for each race, but some clans have higher melee stats and the other higher magical stats, etc.

[Magellan]

For me its always been about elves.

 

I like the whole nature friendly, calm demeanor thing.

 

The ears ain't bad either.

[Gar]

I chose a male Miqo'te. Through most of my MMO/RP career I always rolled the human race. It was actually Tera that sort of broke me of that mold. Human guys on that game looked friggin' weird to me. Odd proportions. So I rolled a Castanic. Liked their look, their lore, and the fact they were sorta the male sluts. (Us guys don't get to be the slutty race too often, y'know!)

 

I'm coming over to this game with my best friend who I RP'd with in Tera. I was leaning towards Hyur again, but then she made me realize that my character's personality could have a lot more fun as a Miqo'te. He is bright and over dramatic and a little bouncy. So all-in-all it was the tail. My RP opened up a lot of different ways with another limb to play around with.

 

(Plus I think she likes having a big purring furball with a tail to play with)

[Popoko Poko]

I've always been partial to shorter characters in game. As someone who is not tall, I guess I associate with them on that level.

 

So I went with Lalafell. I'm a bit torn between Dunesfolk and Plainsfolk. I was DF in 1.0, but I may rewrite her backstory to go with PF this time around.

[FreelanceWizard]

While I'm not fixed to a specific character concept yet, I'm leaning heavily towards Miqo'te because of the significant RP opportunities that exist in their lore. Without repeating what I've written about this in other threads, I think there's a lot of cultural tension in and with that race, and that can lead to some very interesting RP.

 

Other races I've considered have been Elezen, as there's some interesting ways to play against type, and Hyur, since there's probably going to be a lot of the other races and relatively few Hyur relative to their large population in the lore. What can I say; I like supporting the normalcy of a world.

 

In beta 3, I'm playing a Duskwight Elezen, primarily, because I like the look of the character. Since I'm not RPing in this phase of beta, my choices are purely aesthetic.

[Savarah]

I also tend to lean towards races that generate a lot of conflict and/or interest. My SWG main that I loved to bits was a Lethan Twi'lek (for those who don't know, Lethan is a red skin pigmentation that is pretty darn rare, and Twi'leks are mostly viewed as a slave race).

 

It's much easier to pick up random RP encounters that can bloom into something more when you're something other than an average Joe.

[Poeros]

Well, I was going to be human and I had a set idea of what I was going to do... but on a whim in a beta I made a Miqo'te and did this emote and was sold on the race.

 

It is the small things that matter sometimes

 

 

[GuruNation]

For me I guess it's just that every other race did not ring all too well for me. I couldn't create a reasonably decent elezan for the life of me, roegaydn have incredibly odd movements when sprinting and I'm just not into playing the small-cutesy race. That left me with hyur and miqo'te; while I love the options for both, I guess I just see the hyur as more of a race that would fit for Paladins; and Miqo'te for another class I'll be playing.

 

I guess I just like choosing characters primarily for how they move and if they can impress me early on. It can be something as simple as an emote that can solidify a choice. ^_^"

 

Nonetheless, if I played FFXI before, I'm sure I would've wanted to re-create a similar character.

[Imsey]

I tend to play elves, and played an Elvaan in XI, but I remember back then wishing to play a male Mithra, and I suppose that stuck around for XIV.  

 

I can be rather fickle, and the silliest things will put me off a race (for example, I was really wishing the femRoe would be much bigger than they ended up, I'm sad ).  I haven't found too many races in most games that have lore I can't work with, so anything's a possible choice for me.

[Vashies Rosada]

I was bent on human midlander till i saw miqo'te males. Picking none human race is a change for me since no matter what game i play i all was pick human or some thing close to human.

 

Clan i pick the rising sun or what ever they call it since i cant recall it right at this moment and i'm to tired from work to google it ( not like its hard or any thing) but i picked it because i love the heat and watching the sun come up.

[Tivahlt]

Because I can!

 

No, really. That's about it. I've liked the designs for male Miqo'te and female Roegadyn since I first saw them. I actually made Tiv (as a crossdresser) in 1.0 just because I couldn't wait to have a real male Miqo'te (which at the time, I didn't know would even be a thing).

 

Also, I was sick of being a generic human representative from playing one for years in FFXI.

[Grott]

Huh. I've never been asked that before. Nor have I really wondered it.

 

In FFXI I dabbled with all races, except for Galka (Roegadyn here). I initially wanted to try out male Miqo'te simply because they weren't available in FFXI or 1.0 and I like animals. Being an avid hiker and mountain climber IRL, I chose Seeker of the Sun because I've got a rapport with Ol' Shiny. After the first phase of beta though I felt there were a lot of Miqo'te males running around and it was supposed to be "the solitary race". This wouldn't bother most people, but I'm weird so it bothered me. Next I tried Lalafell because they were underpopulated and I felt they had the expectation of being cutesy and mostly comic relief characters. I wanted to change that so I came up with a very serious and deep Lalafell Dunesfolk character. I shortly realized I didn't enjoy being three feet tall (unless I was a dwarf, which is my all-time favorite fantasy race) nor did I like magic, which was the premise of that character. So I canned him as well. Without any exciting ideas for characters, I fell back on my love for dragoons in previous Final Fantasy games. I started looking into Ishgard's lore and it struck me as very medieval, where most of this game has kind of a half-fantasy-half-steampunk feel to it. With this in mind, I drafted up an entire family tree of Dragoons from Ishgard called the Skystriders, with the youngest sibling of the last generation defecting and becoming disinherited by his family. Each one was given either a Nordic name (for Highlander members) or a name from Arthurian Legend (Midlanders). The only reason I really chose Midlander was to add to their numbers, as they're supposed to be the most populous, and so my character wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb as "That giant dragoon from Ishgard" in the case of Elezen or Roegadyn. Plus those races wouldn't fit into the names I've made as easily. That's really the only reason. Midlander Hyur aren't in the least bit interesting. They're just kind of the blank slate characters.

[Eva]

I've always been drawn to the more elvish races. I don't really have any concrete explanation as to why. I've always liked the lithe and elegant too - long legs and such. The elezen exhibit this nicely. And I liked what little history we were given about Duskwight culture. I wanted to make a character that had roots in that culture but who had also been separated from it enough that stereotypes might still be made, but that she would kind of work to defy that sort of expectation.

 

There are few things, to me, more classy than a well-dressed elezen of either gender/clan. I know everyone's preferences are different, but that's my answer~

[Savarah]

As much as I hate to say it, I went through character creation with all my races and I have to say my Miqo'te looks awesome and with the lore I could have a lot of fun. Totally caught between my Duskwight and my Keeper now. >.

[ArmachiA]

Mine was simple. I wrote up a complete personality profile and then picked the race it would be closest too. My intention was always to have Loki be a highlander, but the race was male only in 1.0 so I made her kind of a tomboy Midlander instead. Armi I rolled as an Elezen in 1.0 because I thought it fit best.

 

Getting a second chance at playing again (And hopefully lasting longer than last time, lol) Loki finally gets to be a Highlander. Armi, however, I'm changing from an Elezen to a Midlander Hyur, as I didn't much jive with the animations for Elezen female and decided to go with the next best thing for her lore.

[Averis]

If I'm honest, I usually go for the pretty races that look the most human. So for FFXIV that's Hyur, Miqo'te and Elezen. Then I look at things like animations, armor styles and character gen choices. With those in mind I look at what classes interest me the most. Sometimes I feel a race fits a class more than others. Add in any RP background ideas that may crop up, mix, angst, reroll and several days later I may settle on a race/character to play... or two.

 

A lot of it really is a "look and feel" kind of thing. Sometimes a few random choices in the character gen may suddenly spark a character idea.

 

So, as much as I typically like Elf-like races, the Elezen really don't work for me in XIV. I absolutely adore the Miqo'te animations, but that damn tail clips with so much of the armor. I'd likely play an Miqo'te if it wasn't for that little annoyance. Which leaves me mostly with Hyur at this point. I bounced between a Hyur and Miqo'te in 1.0. I'm hoping to stick to just one this time around. I currently have a Hyur that is coming together pretty nicely.

[Valan]

When I play at MMORPG i create my characters using some archetypes (race, name, class appereance) as drafts for every purpose.

 

In the case of sarah she is always a human female with a slender and slighty muscular body (and no tits) so in FFXIV the midlander hyur are the best suited clan for her.

[Orlog]

To put it simply, I really enjoy playing a female that looks like a rough bitch. Originally I went with the miqo'te because I thought they would be more like the mithra in FFXI, what with having a more feral look to them, but such was not the case. The female Roe look strong, large, and not entirely super feminine (unless you work to make them look as such), so they quickly caught my eye.

[Savarah]

To put it simply, I really enjoy playing a female that looks like a rough bitch. Originally I went with the miqo'te because I thought they would be more like the mithra in FFXI, what with having a more feral look to them, but such was not the case. The female Roe look strong, large, and not entirely super feminine (unless you work to make them look as such), so they quickly caught my eye.

 

I like your way of thinking. I like being underestimated quite a bit, but I love being a bitch when the times warrant it.

[Desphiria]

I'm kinna like Alice. I don't like being tall at all, in anything. I'm short myself and tall people just don't do it for me, well when it comes to RPing or playing an MMO anyways unless I HAVE to choose that height then I just deal with it. Otherwise, I'm short. Plus, have you SEEN how freakin ADORABLE the Lalafell are?! Hehe, I LOVE cute things too sooo, yeah.

 

If they can be cute and childish looking, they just make me go, EEEEEEEEEE! ^^ I was torn between Plains and Dunesfolk too but my friend said Izaria sounds desert-y so I'm most likely gonna try them. I just have to figure out what to put for her backstory though. I had an idea but, I really dunno. I can probably still use it but, I might have to fix it to make sense.

[Trickery]

I tend to pick the most underrepresented race that has an aesthetic I can deal with.

 

I actually like playing bigger/taller characters, so Roegadyn seemed like it would be a good fit (not as many of them and they're huge), but I can't stand playing weirdly proportioned characters, so I found I couldn't tolerate Roe for long. Elezen were tall, but I had the same problem due to their head size in relation to their bodies.

 

So, in 1.0, I ended up with Highlander, since they were a larger race and there really weren't too many of them around either.

 

In 2.0, I was originally going to try the male Miqo'te (hence the signature/avatar), but as much as I try, I just have a really hard time playing the most popular races. It's a habit I was trying to break, but for some reason it bugs me. It also doesn't help that Miqo'te are short as well.

 

Soooo, I'll probably end up going back to being a Highlander again.

 

In other news, though, I usually have a male main and a female alt, and the Female Roegadyn is pretty much my new favorite thing ever. I was the type of person that would rather play a female Aman than a Castanic or High Elf (for those who've played TERA). I just like the idea of being huge, strong, yet still feminine. It's super appealing to me. Plus, there really arent' that many of them and the only things that are truly out of proportion is their bust size (which can be remedied) and their flat booties (which seems to be a problem with every race).

 

So, basically that was a large rant saying I'll be splitting time between a new Highlander and a Female Sea Wolf. RIP Man'qote, I hardly knew ye.

[Savarah]

I was the type of person that would rather play a female Aman than a Castanic or High Elf (for those who've played TERA).

 

I hated Castanics females simply for the way they moved. I liked High Elves (I normally do), but those super awesome Aman females and those child bearing hips were too good.