National Geo

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Originally Posted by Controller

Ok you got me there... I loled. I was sitting here thinking of a title that wouldn't make people think I was asking a woke question since the state of the US right now. :C So here I was thinking and thinking and the only thing that came to mind since I was thinking about how animal like the races are, was National Geographic. I couldn't think of a better one. I'm sorry.

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Okay gotcha.

As for different racial animations, miqote do actually do different things with their tail. I know on this character, when she laughs or is surprised her tail goes strait up. Don’t know about the other races, though.

That'll be cool if we got more tail emotes. Or in my case ear motes. Still getting used to being a bun

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Originally Posted by Controller

You know what... I'll be honest. I was thinking about this from the PC's pov. I didn't even think about lore wise. And damn you're right, lore wise they would hardly if ever meet to form any kind of opinions. With that said though, how do you feel about them? Should they be more animal like? Should they have more emotes with their tails or ears in the case of Viera? Or should they remain pretty much anime people with anime animal ears? I kindof wish we got more random stuff ingame.. like their sleeping habits or whatnot. I dunno why but I'm digging myself a huge rabbit hole with this train of thought.

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To speak from the WoL point of view, I dare say that our character has seen stranger things than Au Ra and Viera... and you can obviously roleplay as a Mi'qote who thinks that Viera and Au Ra are beneath them (not saying you do, just that you could)!

I'd also have this vague collection of reading somewhere that Mi'qote (lorewise) arent to fond off being associated to cats, but I just cant find it - so that might be some fanfic-canon type of think (but anyone can point me to the official source that I might got this from, I'd be glad!).
Either way, I would assume that the races dont think of themselves as "humans with animal parts"...

Personally - and this is very personal opinion, but you seem to ask for it - I dont care much for any of those races. I'm a fan of a certain very cute Mi'qote emote (/grovel) that has a very cute animation for female Mi'qote and I can understand the wish for better ear/tail animations.
But even that wouldnt change the fact that Mi'qote and Au Ra arent for me personally - they're to cute for my taste (...that sounds weird, sorry!). Viera might have had a chance if they'd been there at release, but I've found my ideal character with my FemRoe. I'd imagine that the whole lack of tail/ear-animation is much more noticeable if you see them (or not see them, I guess) on your character everyday, but since I've never experience that and dont ever plan to, I'll take the very personal and ignorant stance of saying: I dont care. I understand why others might, though.

So, I guess... I dont really feel about them at all? /shrug
I was mainly trying to answer a lore-questions - that something I care more about than animations of races I have no intend of playing, sorry!

I think some of the models have less animation to their animal parts that others. I can only speak for what I've played, but male miqo'te have options in the emotes to wiggle their ears, wag and/or angrily thrash their tails, "bristle" their fur, and a paws-up-ears-down frightened pose. Certain poses will make the male miqo'te ears stand up in surprise and IIRC there's at least one other pose that looks a bit like a cat washing its face. I noticed when I fantasia'd to female miqo'te for a while that the tail seemed a lot more "dead" and not very animated in comparison.

Got an Au Ra alt and Au Ra tails... are just... there. I don't think there's any emotes I've seen so far that especially take advantage of Au Ra's non-human parts. (Why do they not have an emote to nervously scratch at their scales???)

In terms of lore, I do kind of wish they'd do more with it. Like, Au Ra players just strolling into Ishgard looking like dragons with no problems, and Encyclopedia Eorzea had a whole "in-universe" news article about how miqo'te are basically a beast tribe and yet none of the characters treat us remotely differently. My fur is nice goddammit, someone should comment on it. I wish there were some side quests that related to each race or that changed based on your race so that the game had some spot to actually acknowledge the PC's race choice.

As for the races themselves, the only thing that I always found odd was that Viera are based on rabbits, one of the quintessential prey species, and yet they're ferocious hunters in FF lore. Nature is confused. Adding hrothgar also made me wonder if miqo'te really are an entirely separate race or if, over time, they could have evolved as a the result of hrothgar marrying into other races like hyur. Or perhaps a common cat ancestor... I also feel like the Au Ra backstory is under-developed. Like miqo'te and hrothgar are obviously cat/big-cat-based, Viera obviously rabbit-based... Au Ra... are lizards? Have the very similar horn trait that lots of dragons in-game have but apparently aren't dragons? Were supposed to be based on voidsent and then that got scrapped? They're just kind of generic scaly people and I wish they'd gotten more story or at least in-game speculation about how horns and tails developed for in their race.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

I wish there were some side quests that related to each race or that changed based on your race so that the game had some spot to actually acknowledge the PC's race choice.

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Just to point out how bad the game really is at taking the PCs race into consideration: I used to play a Duskwight Elezen - as someone already mentioned there are certain... stereotypes about Duskwights, one might even go so far to go to discrimination and racism.
Anyways, there is this one mail-moggle questline in Ul'dah, revolving around the gladiators you fight at the end of Halatali HM. One of them is a Duskwight Elezen and I dont recall the excat circumstances but some kind of crime has happend and it gets blamed on said Elezen on the grounds that he is a Duskwight and therefor cant be trusted. All of that is discussed with/in front of your character - in my case a bloody Duskwight Elezen! And fair enough, my character is the Warrior of Light, blablabla, but it still made for a very odd moment...

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Originally Posted by Vidu

To speak from the WoL point of view, I dare say that our character has seen stranger things than Au Ra and Viera... and you can obviously roleplay as a Mi'qote who thinks that Viera and Au Ra are beneath them (not saying you do, just that you could)!

I'd also have this vague collection of reading somewhere that Mi'qote (lorewise) arent to fond off being associated to cats, but I just cant find it - so that might be some fanfic-canon type of think (but anyone can point me to the official source that I might got this from, I'd be glad!).
Either way, I would assume that the races dont think of themselves as "humans with animal parts"...

Personally - and this is very personal opinion, but you seem to ask for it - I dont care much for any of those races. I'm a fan of a certain very cute Mi'qote emote (/grovel) that has a very cute animation for female Mi'qote and I can understand the wish for better ear/tail animations.
But even that wouldnt change the fact that Mi'qote and Au Ra arent for me personally - they're to cute for my taste (...that sounds weird, sorry!). Viera might have had a chance if they'd been there at release, but I've found my ideal character with my FemRoe. I'd imagine that the whole lack of tail/ear-animation is much more noticeable if you see them (or not see them, I guess) on your character everyday, but since I've never experience that and dont ever plan to, I'll take the very personal and ignorant stance of saying: I dont care. I understand why others might, though.

So, I guess... I dont really feel about them at all? /shrug
I was mainly trying to answer a lore-questions - that something I care more about than animations of races I have no intend of playing, sorry!

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Why are you sorry, Both answers are great. I'm not a karen :D All jokes aside, I didn't know the lore even went into that much detail, it's hard to view miqo's and Vieras as rare when we're all over the place. Though you made me think about something else... but I'll leave that for another day.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

In terms of lore, I do kind of wish they'd do more with it. Like, Au Ra players just strolling into Ishgard looking like dragons with no problems

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Oh, there's definitely lore about Au Ra strolling into Coerthas looking like dragons ending poorly; Sidurgu Orl would have opinions on that topic. You could assume that an Au Ra PC skates by virtue of being a ward of House Fortemps and thus protected by them, but I do agree that Au Ra seeing some different content in interacting with Ishgardians—and possibly even the heretics—would have been interesting.

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Originally Posted by sarehptar

I wish there were some side quests that related to each race or that changed based on your race so that the game had some spot to actually acknowledge the PC's race choice.

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I've never played a lalafell, but I've been told some of the dwarven content in Shadowbringers does change when you're a lalafell, and I've been shown that some of the incidental dialogue in the Monster Hunter crossover questline in Stormblood is different for miqo'te. And there have been nods in some questlines/cutscenes since Stormblood to the job you're playing at the time (Krile acknowledging you're a healer in one cutscene, Scholars having an additional response available during one part of Eden, etc.), so they might be edging towards doing a little more conditional content like that?

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Originally Posted by Vidu

Just to point out how bad the game really is at taking the PCs race into consideration: I used to play a Duskwight Elezen - as someone already mentioned there are certain... stereotypes about Duskwights, one might even go so far to go to discrimination and racism.
Anyways, there is this one mail-moggle questline in Ul'dah, revolving around the gladiators you fight at the end of Halatali HM. One of them is a Duskwight Elezen and I dont recall the excat circumstances but some kind of crime has happend and it gets blamed on said Elezen on the grounds that he is a Duskwight and therefor cant be trusted. All of that is discussed with/in front of your character - in my case a bloody Duskwight Elezen! And fair enough, my character is the Warrior of Light, blablabla, but it still made for a very odd moment...

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Yeah, if you're playing Au Ra and you do the DRK questline you have the awkward opportunity to hear all about how Ishgard slaughtered all the Au Ra refugees except for one... and you... And yet no one in Ishgard will say a word about you being blatantly covered in scales.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Oh, there's definitely lore about Au Ra strolling into Coerthas looking like dragons ending poorly; Sidurgu Orl would have opinions on that topic. You could assume that an Au Ra PC skates by virtue of being a ward of House Fortemps and thus protected by them, but I do agree that Au Ra seeing some different content in interacting with Ishgardians—and possibly even the heretics—would have been interesting.

I've never played a lalafell, but I've been told some of the dwarven content in Shadowbringers does change when you're a lalafell, and I've been shown that some of the incidental dialogue in the Monster Hunter crossover questline in Stormblood is different for miqo'te. And there have been nods in some questlines/cutscenes since Stormblood to the job you're playing at the time (Krile acknowledging you're a healer in one cutscene, Scholars having an additional response available during one part of Eden, etc.), so they might be edging towards doing a little more conditional content like that?

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Yes, that's what I meant. Ishgard killed all their Au Ra refugees but one, then when you walk in the door with horns and spiky scales they're like "I'm looking away. I do not see." Not even a word from Estinien either. XD

Yes, I did hear about the dwarf content changing a bit for lalafells (plus the lalafell-only house) and the Monster Hunter dialogue option was hilarious, but I think what I'd like to see is something specific to each race; for example, if you're playing miqo'te you get invited to join a miqo'te tribe's special hunt, if you're playing lalafell you get to go on an expedition into Nymian ruins or something, if you're playing a Viera on the First maybe you get to travel with a Viera who is leaving the forest for the first time and introduce her to the cool things/people you've met on the First. Stuff like that, where being part of the race would change how the experience is viewed.

Forgotten Springs in Southern Thanalan is sort of an ethically-linked place. All Miqo'te of one tribe.