Thoughts on the Au Ra?

[ArmachiA]

I'm planning on making my female Au Ra an underground prize fighter. Looks and personality don't have to match to me.

 

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.

[Eve Malusion]

I don't really understand the notion that the height difference makes them not look like the same race. My parents are the same race and ethnicity. My mother doesn't even reach close to his shoulders in height. My mother is also the boss of a large company, generally in charge and dominant in every aspect of her life I have ever seen, and all around one of the most strong willed people I have met in my entire life up to date. She is in no way dainty or fragile.

 

So I really don't find the height difference to make it look impossible for them to be the same race, or for that to be enough to determine that the females are weak and fragile. Height differences larger than that exists in our own species, so why is it unrealistic for them to in a fantasy one? I realise they're in the minority, but I think saying that they don't look like they belong to the same species is overdoing it. To post a picture again that Sylas did earlier, is anyone really going to look at this and say they cannot even realistically belong to the same species?

 

 

 

Now, I would agree that this pose makes her look very fragile and dainty. Drawn back, on guard, typical pose for trying to trigger a protective instinct in people.

 

 

 

 

I would say that the pose here on the left is pretty neutral, feminine yes, but not weak. The one on the right doesn't look particularly fragile at all, thats just a lady who is shorter than a man. Thats one of the wonderful things about FFXIV compared to a lot of other MMOs - we get different idle stances! Idle stances that can convey a different feeling from the character visually if we so desire!

 

It should be obvious but this post is entirely in comment on the height difference, not on how beastly or human they are. I realise thats a problem a lot of people have with them, but I wanted to convey my thoughts on this point in particular.

[Xiaoli Vorgan]

I don't have much of a opinion on the new race. I'm just glad there is a new option available to add to more diversity. As it is now, imo, you mostly see Miqo'te and Hyur in one form or another with the other races sprinkled here and there. I think once the Au'ra rage wears off, it might taper out. I've never race changed but I will be interested in making a new char just to see what it's like. I have a feeling in the very beginning it will seem like Au'ra has taken over Eorzea, lol it will be fun!

[Eve Malusion]

Oh in regards to something people were wondering earlier. It's pretty much indirectly confirmed that we get different horn styles if you look closely at Astrologian and Dark Knight previews. Some of the pictures have a male with slightly smaller horns, and a female with slightly larger, and also with different colours, but I can't tell if the colour is clan related. The skin tone on one with lighter horns does strike me as it looks like its from same palette as the au ra preview with darker horns though.

 

One of the images I mean in specific is this one

 

 

Note how it has the light colour, but a slightly larger style than the one with light horns in the Au Ra preview, a style more similar to the darker horns. It also struck me as that one of the clans has a skin tone similar to keepers of the moon in regards to lack of blush and pigmentation in the skin, and the other was more similar to the hyur / seeker palette. This picture looks more like the keeper colour palette to me.

 

One of the male dark knight pictures also has black horns with blonde hair, so it doesn't seem to be tied to hair colour.

 

[Seriphyn]

The argument that they have to look human otherwise they'd be considered a 'beast race' is pretty solid IMO.

[Berrod Armstrong]

The argument that they have to look human otherwise they'd be considered a 'beast race' is pretty solid IMO.

Yep! The 'races of man' are just that!

[Warren Castille]

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.

[Steel Wolf]

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. Like, I thought that was part of the dress frilly bits...

[Warren Castille]

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. 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.

[Kellach Woods]

I'd disagree! The males and females of the same races generally have the same motif: Highlanders are buff looking, Lalafell are cute, Midlanders are average blank slates, Elezen are lanky and elegant, Miqo'te are sporty and a little feral looking, Roegadyn are big with very square features... it doesn't vary any by gender. Male and female Au Ra, however, give off very different vibes. The men are fierce and ferocious and gruff looking, sharp and narrow features. The women are dainty and petite and elegant and doll-like, little and round features. I really enjoy the contrast. I like the contrast of the female Au Ra in themselves even--dragon girls with scales and bestial horns... and super girlish features.

I think this is where we're not seeing the same thing. I would have liked it if that contrast you're highlighting was more marked. Maybe I'd be less inclined to notice the height difference if they had similar horns, or at least horns that were more beastly, or scales that were more prominent.

 

More I think about it, more I think the concept art may have been drawn by two different people.

 

Also, no one is disputing height differences being that large IRL or that it's impossible ever. However, these are the first look that we have at the new race - they are the average of what an Au Ra is. In average, I don't think I've seen that much of a marked difference in height.

 

As I said before, if they're examples of the height slider's possibilities, then I'm probably gonna keep being fine with it. 'cause, y'know, I said I'd roll one (likely a dude, but I've changed my mind before) possibly.

[Kage]

Also gonna throw in... if anyone thinks the male Au Ra aren't sexualized eye candy... you are oh so very, very wrong (or maybe just turned off by a little scales and horns).

This lesbian has no qualms about saying the currently depicted male Au Ra are pretty hot. BAMFs if I remember correctly saying too.

 

Not to say that I fucking love how the female Au Ra look. Aesthetically. But I'm usually more prone to roll a male character than I am a female character for an avatar. /shrug

 

DA:I is the first game I've actually chosen to use a female @_@; And I think it was cause ROMANCE

 

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.

[Warren Castille]

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]

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]

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]

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!

 

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

 

 

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]

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.

_{They also hide the fact that they have no nipples that still weirds me out am I the only one.}

[Warren Castille]

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

[allgivenover]

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. 

 

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. 

 

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]

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.  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]

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

[ArmachiA]

^ 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!]

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]

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!]

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]

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)