Female Hrothgar as a playable race. Show your support!

[Iscah]

stuff like the /Hmm emote having Female C@S, Male Elezen and Roebros being the only ones with unique animations for it. Roebros normally get unique animations, but it would def make sense to factor in MV and FH into emotes like that if they're working on them)

The "hmm" animation long, long predates Viera/Hrothgar and possibly even Au Ra, even though it's only become a player-accessible emote recently (and I will forever hate that giant glowing question mark). I'm fairly sure we've been doing it in cutscenes since ARR; certainly since Heavensward.

I made a post a while back asking whether it was an emote, and took these screenshots as example:

Female Midlander and Roegadyn have very different poses, and (having since added Miqo'te to my character collection) I can say that the male Miqo'te pose is not the same as Au Ra's even though they are similar. There are only so many ways you can do an "I am obviously thinking hard" pose.

I haven't seen Viera or Hrothgar do it but they may copy Midlander/Roegadyn as they do for many of their emotes, and Lalafells might share mirrored versions of the same animations, as they do for many of their emotes. But – admittedly without being able to test everything – my impression is that overall each race has a unique version of it.

[reivaxe]

The "hmm" animation long, long predates Viera/Hrothgar and possibly even Au Ra, even though it's only become a player-accessible emote recently (and I will forever hate that giant glowing question mark). I'm fairly sure we've been doing it in cutscenes since ARR; certainly since Heavensward.

I made a post a while back asking whether it was an emote, and took these screenshots as example:

Female Midlander and Roegadyn have very different poses, and (having since added Miqo'te to my character collection) I can say that the male Miqo'te pose is not the same as Au Ra's even though they are similar. There are only so many ways you can do an "I am obviously thinking hard" pose.

Huh, seems I was wrong on that theory then.
But no, there are countless ways to make a "thinking hard" animation. You're only limited by the amount of time and effort you put into it as an animator. But here are the animations if you want to watch em.

[Starshower]

You may have hope... I want to have hope too, just don't get disappointed when live letter after live letter they aren't announced. That's why I think they'll come in 7.0, It's an expansion selling feature. I can't see them just adding it in a patch.

[Iscah]

Huh, seems I was wrong on that theory then.
But no, there are countless ways to make a "thinking hard" animation. You're only limited by the amount of time and effort you put into it as an animator.

I should clarify – it's clear that the "think" and "hmm" animations are for different purposes. The original think emote is a lot more varied and animated: characters pace around or show some personality. The hmm emote seems to be a more uniform "stand in place and make a thoughtful expression" that can reliably be used in cutscenes to show a specific emotion and not have the character wander out of shot while they do it.

[reivaxe]

That's kind of why I think that no matter what body type f Hrothgar will take they will be popular for the people who want that beast lady race. Small, large, high feminine, or brick breaking masculine those players will adapt and fanta.

Fem Roes don't really call back to any specific fantasy that has an established following.

Nah.
Hrothgar, as a race, were made as an attempt to make this game more appealing to the Western market. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that factored into why they have the silly WoW hunch (And to an extent why the devs interest in making a Beast race was sparked by player's reactions to Lupin's concept art ... yet somehow they went with Big WoW hunched Khajiit over "WoW hunched Wolf People" seeing as WoW has that. But that's completely speculative af, I'm sure not wanting to lock ALL headgear played a big part in them picking the flat-ish faced cats over wolves).

Many people who play MMOs and WANT to play furry females prob don't play this game yet, so reaching those people would be the goal. As for "playing no matter what" that's a big ol nope. It's been shown time and time again that people are far more critical of the female form, and it's appeal, than they are of males. WoW players meme about how "Female dwarves don't exist" and when asked why they are so much few in numbers people can list off reason after reason such as "Ugly!/ Bad animations!" and so on, but these reasons didn't stop people from playing male Dwarves.

You see it in GW2, where Charr males (last I checked) were basically tied for 2nd most played males in the game, yet Charr females were still by far the least played thing in the game. Heck, you see it in this very game, where Roe Bros and Elezen Males and Highlander males are more played than their female counterparts. Just look at what happened in ShB, people who wanted to play a REALLY tall woman only had Elezen and Femroe as options ... they didn't grit their teeth and play something they didn't like the look of, they simply played smaller females until SE released something they liked.

So no, I don't think there's anyway you can take the furry fanbase for granted on this. You can easily like furry females but have zero interest in playing a "brick breaking masculine" women with a furry face.

EDIT- This reminds me of why I'm so hyped for Female Hrothgar.
Cause ... I can't think of a single big MMO that tried to tap into that attractive furry look. ESO has a gritty, bland, realistic Euro-fantasy look so it's not trying to be a "pretty" game. WoW? Their Werewolves are snarling, rabies infested looking beast, and their other furries are either doppy/ goofy looking or they go for the cute smoll animal look with the Foxes. GW2? Charr also look like Snarling rabies beast (but this time as "Animal Monster" over "Animal person"). The only MMO that comes to mind when thinking of attempts at attractive furries is Bless with Pantera and that game is forever DOA. Closest I've seen to an MMO get was EQN with their Lion Race (never got to see the females but the dudes def looked like cartoon furries for the most part)

Hrothgar males though? They look like cute, attractive and dignified furries. This is likely in part because of the devs making them fit the FF14 "Everything is pretty" aesthetics. They very much match the Furry Bara style, and as such it's easy to see why so many who like that gravitate to them.

I should clarify – it's clear that the "think" and "hmm" animations are for different purposes. The original think emote is a lot more varied and animated: characters pace around or show some personality. The hmm emote seems to be a more uniform "stand in place and make a thoughtful expression" that can reliably be used in cutscenes to show a specific emotion and not have the character wander out of shot while they do it.

Ah, I get what you're saying now.

[Raskbuck]

So no, I don't think there's anyway you can take the furry fanbase for granted on this. You can easily like furry females but have zero interest in playing a "brick breaking masculine" women with a furry face.

As a furry myself (I know, burn me at the stake), I switched off Hrothgar because they were too bulky and big for my taste. So I can support what you are saying. Too bad we didn't get Lupin instead, I feel like their physique is better to work with.

[reivaxe]

As a furry myself (I know, burn me at the stake), I switched off Hrothgar because they were too bulky and big for my taste. So I can support what you are saying. Too bad we didn't get Lupin instead, I feel like their physique is better to work with.

I was going to bring this up! It's easy to forget after the player base has their new toys to play with, but I remember the state of the forums from long ago. How Lupin seemed like the driving force behind the "Beast Race" push that embodied a number of FF races back when we were all debating over Viera or something beast like. I remember checking up on many boards and communities after Hrothgar were revealed, and MANY people were disappointed. "This is the ONLY furry race, why do another cat race!?! Why are they so big? Lupin was right there, just fix up the model! At the very least, could they make a smaller clan that has a thinner frame?". Someone who was playing with a Lupin modded Human said they were gonna stick with their mod, and I could understand why.

That's why I find it so strange that ... YP cited people's interest and reaction to Lupin as the thing that got them to making a beast race, only to end up making WoW hunched Khajiit. Like, yeah, they def got the Cat Bara-furries attention, but there's many who are not interested and that body shape who were pulling for Lupin because they look more like their style which is more the norm.

I'm also a furry, and I also played Femroe from ARR up to ShB where I played Hrothgar for 5.0. I want to be able to play these females without barring over 60% of all tops in this game because they look bad on my character/ they make my character look like a dude. I don't want to go back to making 2B bottoms the theme to my whole wardrobe because "they're the only way to get curves". Furthermore, I want furries to play and enjoy them. This race shouldn't be for people who felt slighted by Roe's failings. (And before anyone brings up Roebro's serving as a base, Draggo bois def come across as "attempt at a better tall race" whereas the females are the most petite non-lalas in the game. Cause the point of that race is to be scaley/ demonic)

Like, we all know that people are hyper critical of female forms. Making a masculine, Femroe-buff-or-more female furry is just begging for them to be far less played than Femroe. Throwing away the potential to appeal to such a big and diverse group just because "they're not going to be popular, so why not throw the people who want a more masculine shape a bone?" just seems duplicitous. Everything about this game screams to me that the devs know how hyper critical players are of females and to some level feel it themselves, so that's why I think the mural and Queen's body are in the game. These are our signs at what to expect.

[Raskbuck]

snip

Thank you for the thorough response, that was a joy to read.

[Allegor]

Tbh I think people being overly critical of the female form speaks a lot more about the people, than the female forms themselves, but that's a whole other can of worms

[reivaxe]

Thank you for the thorough response, that was a joy to read.

Thank you for reading my Ted talk, I try to put a lot of thought into these rambles!

Tbh I think people being overly critical of the female form speaks a lot more about the people, than the female forms themselves, but that's a whole other can of worms

No, that's a can of worms you can open up here. This game has zero true body shape customization with in a race beyond how tall you are, your tail type (if you have a tail) and how big your boobs are. I believe WoW is pretty much in the same boat.
So when you make a race, you're asking everyone who can possibly be interested in the core idea of said race to also be happy with the 1 single body shape you give them (Tis why WoW has so much Sexual Dimorphism). That race's shape and animation dictate how everything in the game looks on them.

That's not a problem in something like PSO2, where you can make a tiny skinny girl or a huge, fat women from the same model. In NGS they doubled down on the "do w/e you what" freedom, you can use men's bodies for women or female faces for men or w/e you want. You can have your Chris Evens looking dude do female animations and runs.

Games like GW2 and Wild Star (RIP) are not as extreme, but take more of a middle road. They give you some wiggle room in how your character's body is shaped yet also maintain that X race generally has w/e aesthetic. You could make a skinny, TOP HEAVY rock women if you wanted to or a thick, pair shaped one or w/e.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the very core of this game's and WoW's CC systems encourages people to be hyper critical of their options. When you're that limited in options, if you don't personally like the shape of w/e race, there's just nothing you can do about it other than not play it. You combat this by giving people MORE freedom in customizing how their character's body shape looks with in the race. Give people the ability to make a curvy, feminine Femroe with more than 4 whole faces to pick from, and I'm sure more people would be willing to play them. If Elezen Females had an option for a body shape that had Viera head/ neck/ arm proportions, I'm sure they would be FAR more popular.

But this game, with its current systems/ engine, simply can't do that. I believe this is why YP said that if they ever wanted to add CC options to a race, they would have to be with in reason because if you change too much you would be better off making a new race for that amount of effort. That's what people should be asking for in the future with a new engine for FF14, not for SE to devote the time and man power to gimp the core appeal of a race just to please a niche inside a niche.

Poo pooing that people who play males are more liberal with their taste in shape than people who play females isn't really a stance to take.