Doma/Yanxia is still my favorite area

[Lauront]

If that were the case, then all of Kugane and Doma wouldn’t be filled with hyur with brown eyes and black hair. Every single far-eastern hyur has dark hair and eyes without exception.

TBF there's some blue and grey-eyed eastern hyur as well but yes, there is a rather singular aesthetic for them. Similarly with hyur from Vylbrand, which tend to be blonde, and Ul'dah with its more bronzed skin tones. It's worth noting eastern hyur, even though they look like them, are treated as a separate subrace to midlanders. We don't know much about the Nagxian NPC and Dalmasca, which isn't too far away, again has hyur that look a lot like the midlanders we see in Eorzea. It's possible that specific NPC is not ancestrally from Nagxia. Ditto with Thavnair and its embassy. I wouldn't read too much into it.

I never found the Ala Mhigans to be particularly sympathetic. Othard and Hingashi were far more intriguing to me and it's a real shame we only received three zones in Othard. I don't think Gyr Abania needed more than one, or perhaps two zones to reflect it.

Yeah agreed. I'd have liked to see some of those peaks the Raen inhabit, since inner Hingashi is probably off the cards for the foreseeable future, and not just the itsy bitsy little underwater village, although the palace with the scantily clad Raen didn't go amiss. I also would've loved to see Nagxia. I prefer the relative consistency over what we see sometimes...

[FrightfulNight]

My friends are always having to put up with me talking about how much I love Othard and Koshu. There has to be another expansion coming at some point with exploring things like Nagxia and the rest of Koshu. They keep bringing in Nagxian characters with Bozja and it makes me SO ANTSY to go explore it, because it is obviously not as barren and unlivable to the in game text makes us believe.

The architecture, music and lore is so good for these areas as well. Plus Asian themed things tend to do really well with the gaming market, considering the market it’s usually aimed at. I mean we’re all playing Final Fantasy at the end of the day.

In regards to someone saying that we should buy all of the eastern themed things on the Mog Station, I am predictable and buy up anything Doman related. I can’t help it.

Back to afking in Yanxia so I can have the music as background noise.

I would love a Orthardian expansion, one that focuses soley on the Far East, and not divided, there are so many places I want to visit, that yeah include more mountainous Raen villages. As a Raen player I want to learn more about where my character came from to better formulate her backstory. I also want to see the rest of Hingashi someday.

[Lanadra]

I would love a Orthardian expansion, one that focuses soley on the Far East, and not divided, there are so many places I want to visit, that yeah include more mountainous Raen villages. As a Raen player I want to learn more about where my character came from to better formulate her backstory. I also want to see the rest of Hingashi someday.

Would also be nice if NPCs actually acknowledge that your character is Raen. Because on that front, Sui-no-Sato was beyond disappointing.

[MikkoAkure]

There's Far Eastern NPC's who don't have dark hair, such as this guy in Kugane - and given his use of the word 'Ijin' he's definitely Hingan:

Hien's eyes are also green, not brown and Yotsuyu's eyes are a shade of blue.

YouGotMeThere.png

Still, the vast majority of NPCs except for important characters and a small handful of others all have the same sort of look.

Would also be nice if NPCs actually acknowledge that your character is Raen. Because on that front, Sui-no-Sato was beyond disappointing.

Well in that regard, even if you’re raen, you’re still a stranger since Sui-no-Sato doesn’t account for a large number at all of the overall world’s raen population. It’s just a tiny village and a castle that happen to be raen who didn’t join up with the other raen after a period of au ra wars. I think Yugiri is the only character mentioned who left Sui-no-Sato (besides the legend of a woman who gave birth to a half-hyur kid). Others have curiously went up to see what's going on or got blown away onto the beach, but they returned.

[Vyrerus]

Ehh, we got plenty of Far East if you ask me. Japanese culture creeps its way into the whole game, so it's not really that big a deal if we don't get more areas dedicated to it. Ala Mhigo on the other hand is mostly in game world type lore stuff, but I can admit they did kind of drop the ball with it.

Heck, they even have you gather far eastern fruits and junk in Gyr Abania with little to no explanation.

[Lanadra]

Ehh, we got plenty of Far East if you ask me. Japanese culture creeps its way into the whole game, so it's not really that big a deal if we don't get more areas dedicated to it. Ala Mhigo on the other hand is mostly in game world type lore stuff, but I can admit they did kind of drop the ball with it.

Heck, they even have you gather far eastern fruits and junk in Gyr Abania with little to no explanation.

Three maps of Gyr Abania was already two maps more than I wanted. But that is preference, I found all of the Ala Mhigo related content in Stormblood to be horrible and really only looked forward to the Far East portions of the expansion. Suffice to say.. having to deal with Zenos in Endwalker.. again, doesn't have me excited.

[EirolOcarrol]

I wish there was a way to chose nation of birth and ancestry. You're assumed for MSQ purposes to be an Eorzean Adventurer.

And even then, I've been made to feel like an outsider adventurer in Ul'dah. It would be nice to have at least someplace treat me like I belong. No wonder we're a "Wanderer" A.. um.. spoilers aside. No wonder we're 'them'.
No place at all treats us like we belong.

It would be really nice to see a change in that. To have a "birthplace" option when creating a character. And then have it be reflected in the way other characters address you.

[Edax]

Three maps of Gyr Abania was already two maps more than I wanted. But that is preference, I found all of the Ala Mhigo related content in Stormblood to be horrible and really only looked forward to the Far East portions of the expansion. Suffice to say.. having to deal with Zenos in Endwalker.. again, doesn't have me excited.

I suspect a Japanese company is going to have more inspiration and motivation on hand to create a fantasy Japan than having to invent a culture from scratch for Ala Mhigo. Even in Shadowbringers, I failed to grasp much of a cultural identity in the Crystarium. There didn't appear to be a government, a caste system, a religion, or even a specialty in certain trade goods. I can understand the tower just springing up out of the blue and forming an ad-hoc town around it means it wouldn't have much of a history, but than that means all sorts of cultures would come together in the city and clash. You'd figure there would be places like a Little Eulmore or a New Nabaath Areng for the survivors of the flood. You'd figure a cult might form around the The Crystal Exarch given he arrived with his tower and saved so many. Instead it's just a generic city with a cool aesthetic to it.

[FrightfulNight]

I wish there was a way to chose nation of birth and ancestry. You're assumed for MSQ purposes to be an Eorzean Adventurer.

And even then, I've been made to feel like an outsider adventurer in Ul'dah. It would be nice to have at least someplace treat me like I belong. No wonder we're a "Wanderer" A.. um.. spoilers aside. No wonder we're 'them'.
No place at all treats us like we belong.

It would be really nice to see a change in that. To have a "birthplace" option when creating a character. And then have it be reflected in the way other characters address you.

Actually it get's even more confusing when it is explicitly stated that, the PC comes from distant lands outside of Eorzea, hence the whole aether sickness thing and the Alliance leaders saying that the adventures in 1.0 and 2.0 were foreigners, you can somewhat circumvent this by saying you have been to your starter city before but I do kind of wish we could pick our land of origin like in Pillars of Eternity (which should also include Eorzean city states as well) for our character that gets them a little bit of unique dialogue here and there. It has somewhat been done before if I recall Xaela players got a few pieces of unique dialogue in the Azim Steppes (which made me even more disappointed Raen players got nothing). Maybe they could take a page from WoW's book recently (only in this regard) and give players a sub race specific quest for some new racial glamour that teaches you about the specifics of your race. Something similar to role quests but with your sub race.

[Lanadra]

I wish there was a way to chose nation of birth and ancestry. You're assumed for MSQ purposes to be an Eorzean Adventurer.

And even then, I've been made to feel like an outsider adventurer in Ul'dah. It would be nice to have at least someplace treat me like I belong. No wonder we're a "Wanderer" A.. um.. spoilers aside. No wonder we're 'them'.
No place at all treats us like we belong.

It would be really nice to see a change in that. To have a "birthplace" option when creating a character. And then have it be reflected in the way other characters address you.

It's kinda sad isn't it? The Far East treats you as an 'Ijin', an Eorzean Adventurer.. yet few would forget.. except maybe Yoshi P and team, that at the start of ARR.. you're also a foreigner to Eorzea. Which.. yeah, it really would help if you could indicate during character creation where your WoL is from. In the case of mine it would be Sui-no-Sato.