Before the change (I don't know how recent it is) certain emotes enclosed in [square brackets] would trigger animations. After the change doing this requires putting an asterisk in front of the word you want to trigger an animation. The asterisk breaks up the normal emote format and looks weird, turning [raises a brow and rubs his chin thoughtfully] into the now necessary [raises a brow and *rubs his chin thoughtfully]. This was presumably done to put a stop to awkward moments when somebody [lets their hair fall down to their shoulders] and faceplants in the mud, but these were hardly much of a nuisance and mostly just kind of funny when you saw it. Assuming the change is intentional, it seems mostly pointless.
Also, a lot of the emote abbreviations are outright broken now whether you use an asterisk or not. I used the example of [*rubbing your chin] but it doesn't even work. Nor do [*crossing your arms], [taking a *drink], and several others that I know used to work fine. Here's a list of the broken emotes that you can now only get by using the @emote command and the number:
1 hips Juts out hip to the side
5 looks Look into the distance
10 knocks Knock on the door/window
12 settrap Mimic setting a trap
13 unlock Mimic using/unlocking an item/door
15 dizzy Dizzy
21 pipes Play pipes
22 guitar / lute Play guitar/lute
23 drink Drink
24 extend Extend hands
25 pushup Perform pushups
26 dance Dance
27 handsback Hold your hands behind your back
29 push Act as you're pushing something big
30 feed Take hold of and feed upon your prey (Useful for MPC's)
32 chin Hold your chin, other hand on hip
33 cower Cower in fear
34 crossarms Cross your arms
38 hang Hang from chains
39 chop Chop wood
41 mounthorse Mount Horse (horse not included)
