Now I want to play the race early...

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Although it will never ever happen. It would be cool to get a "prepatch" that releases the race and lore reasons why its showing up instead of bombarding us with a bomb all at once.

Taking a month to study lore and the lore of the race would be a good way to go into the new expansion.

[kyuven]

We've had an Au Ra running around for almost a year now.
Her name is Yugiri. She's from Doma. The lore behind the Au Ra Raen like her showing up all of a sudden is strong implied to be because they're part of the massive number of Doman refugees that came with her.
They were just on the boats til now.

The Xaela, though, well...they're nomadic. They just kinda wandered over. Some could also be with the Doman refugees.

I want more Au Ra lore.
I plan to begin roleplaying here in Balmung if they gave us more to go with.

Wouldn't expect much til the expansion launches. Most of the racial lore has either been revealed by "Word of God" posts or via in-game conversations, such as the miqo'te social structure (literally a dozen quests on the subject) or highlander eyebrows.

[Mugiawara]

I want more Au Ra lore.
I plan to begin roleplaying here in Balmung if they gave us more to go with.

[Ditto]

Having the race available early to those who have pre-ordered the game would be pretty cool. Limit it to only being able to fantasia to it maybe until Heavensward launches, and only if you already have the game pre-ordered and ready on your account. .

There are tons of reasons as to why an Au Ra would be there early on really, especially with the 2.0 story having ended. And lets be honest, after the expansion hits, new players who go Au Ra are likely going to show up the same way the rest of us did. On the carriage that brought us to the city of whatever class we took, with no identity as anything but an 'adventurer'. The story will be the same all the way up to 2.55.

[Kedrah]

Well, we'll have early access.