So the set of (animated!) emotes available to players has largely remained the same for many, many years. These range from small things such as /nod, /wave, etc. to /cheer and /dance (which is its own can of worms given the Dance Studio from waaay back when). Despite this, though, NPCs have gotten a very large variety of exclusive animations, some of which became highly desired by the community, such as the poses that Guard NPCs perform while, well, standing guard, or the way some shadier NPCs lean back on walls, sometimes flipping a dagger in their hands! Dragonflight added quite a few new ones too, which allowed the world to feel more alive by having its inhabitants perform all sorts of activities.
The addon Narcissus is particularly useful in seeing how many of these animations actually exist, as it allows playing them back on the playerâs own character (provided the NPCs that have them are of the same race, of course). Turning these already existing animations into emotes of their own that are available to players would be an easy way to expand the list and increase how they can express themselves (and would be a great big addition for the RP community in general)! Some have actually been added in the form of toys as well, such as the Championâs Salute and Malfunctioning Stealthman 54, though these do end up suffering from the same issue mentioned in Do Transformation Toys really need the excessive cooldown?.
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With the advent of the new patch(es) since this thread was made, quite a few new or previously unused animations were added to NPCs, such as a few variations on the coveted leaning back emotes or some profession-related animations for skinning and cooking (that will maybe see the light of day soon anyway?).
Also recently, there was another interesting toy added, the Torch of Pyrreth, which actually did make the player hold up the torch as if it was, well, an actual torch, when near a secret! Understandably the goal was to make it a gimmick of sorts, to help with finding secrets, but having the option to actually have an animation like this on demand would be a great addition as opposed to holding a torch lamely by our side like any other weapon. Give players the vibe of explorers they crave by holding that thing to the darkness!
Every now and then a new toy is added that brings to the table a new interesting animation for players, and the two I mentioned in the first post have been big favorites.
Itâs been a long time since players got new emotes, and thereâs maybe an argument to be made about how, e.g., using the leaning animation against thin air might raise an eyebrow, but it also just opens up the possibility for two partners in crime to lean against each other. Theyâre already there for NPCs with our races, so would converting them to emotes be so big of an issue? 
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Turns out 10.2 added a couple new animations of this sort to races that previously didnât have them, though there are a few that still lack them. This thread on Twitter highlights a lot of the current ones:
Along with these, there is a large number of âstanding guardâ animations currently used by a lot of guard NPCâs that are highly coveted by a lot of the RP community for the air of authority they give off, and people in these communities often seek ways to replicate this through other items. All of these would make for great additions to the current, stagnant collection of animated emotes available!
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