Kael

I've said it before, but in addition to all that stuff everyone else mentioned, it would be great to be able to hide shoulders and gloves like we do helms and cloaks. Shoulders are pretty central to the Warcraft style, I know, but I've never been a fan. I've been hoping I'd be able to switch them off for years, but now that we're being given ways to customize our appearance, it's never been more appropriate.

As for gloves, hasn't it struck anyone else as odd that the thousands of wrist items in the game all have their own unique looks, but that we can never see them? Some of them look really cool, and I'd also like to not have to wear big, bulky gloves that go all the way up to the elbow which just about all the gloves in the game do.

And because you never get to see shirts either, how about they allow you to transmog your chest piece to look like a shirt. Like those capital-city doublets they introduced at the Trial of the Crusader; the ones the salesgoblin said you could use to display your faction pride without a floppy tabard--now you'd actually get to.

Yeah, yeah, "slippery slope." I hear you. But I honestly think it wouldn't be the end of the world if we went way off the deep end and removed any and all restrictions so that someone could do a heroic raid in their underwear if they wanted to. I'm not advocating that, but so what if they do? Big deal. I don't see it as a problem at all.

Sometimes you want the tight-knit, spawn-then-die meat grinder experience of Call of Duty, then sometimes you want a wide open area to run, drive, and fly through and think strategically about. Good times all around, really. It's easier to co-exist peacefully than people make it seem--but that's not what these games are about!

I don't know how we got here, but as long as we're pitching ideas for a new playable race for the eventual expansion after Mists, I don't think it should be the recently-introduced Wolvar (as suggested here); the classic and venerable Gnolls should be the ones to join the Horde. Gnolls would be completely awesome, and you know it! Who would want to pass up the chance to play as a Gnoll like Hogger or Sayge?

As for the Alliance, I don't have any ideas. And I play Alliance.

@dogmaticatheist "WoW with lightsabers. You could literally replace all the character skins with Orcs and Elves and have no idea you were playing a different game."

That's just not true unless you removed companions, and had the whole conversation system replaced with text boxes, but then you'd be removing the game's key features and greatest strengths in order for you to be able to claim you "have no idea" you weren't playing WoW, and I don't see that as either valid or fair.

A lot of people jump on MMOs for having boring quest objectives, and that the quest designers are creatively bankrupt. Normally I don't think the "let's see YOU do better" comeback is even remotely valid or helpful, but in this case I think it could be a useful exercise; I want to see you write a small quest chain for TOR that doesn't have you killing X number of Y, fetching items from enemies or the environment, using things in the environment, surviving waves of enemies for a time, getting to a certain location, getting to and/or talking to someone, or anything TOR already has you doing in a quest, as any quest objective. I daresay that every game in existence has you do these things because that's how things work. You want to be blown away by MMOs and do things you've never imagined before; things outside the realm of mortal men, but why do you hold MMOs in particular to that standard? Because quests in MMOs used to have bad pacing. Each quest overstayed its welcome by a wide margin and so players tried to tear them down, and insult them and the quest designers for not keeping it interesting. People then stripped the game of its world and role-play and reduced the quest down to its basics without any kind of context in order to make it seem as dumb and as possible; "I just have to kill X of Y". People need to stop doing that and accept that a quest to kill X of Y isn't a bad thing! Explicitly or not, just about every single game in the world has you do that, and makes it FUN! And with TOR in particular, no MMO has been able to give you as much role-play and context for the things it has you doing.

I was a big Stargate devotee, but called it quits on SGU after the first ten episodes. It was as slow as molasses, just about all the characters were nothing but total scumbags, and the show had a huge focus on all their petty, banal squabbles. It was like watching an insipid reality show; they even talked to the camera about who they think is dumb and who's sleeping with who, and it was just trash. Even the very premise of the show had glaring plotholes that no one on the show called into question or addressed because they were too busy scheming, sleeping around and getting jealous and angry at each other. Screw that.

I've heard that the writers tried to right the ship later on and ended up with something that wasn't complete garbage by the time it was finally shut down, but good riddance. I've got nothing against the actors, and the people that made SGU had just come off of making two of my favorite shows of all time, so it was a huge surprise that it was such a huge letdown. I feel good about the Stargate brand, though, because I believe that one day, the franchise will be rebooted, and this embarrassing attempt at a Battlestar clone will be swept under the rug and us Stargate fans can be reunified by a great new Stargate show that'll be new and fresh but still hold on to what made us fans in the first place. I can't wait! :)

The timeline is actually extremely easy to follow. Metroid 2 comes after the first game, and Super Metroid comes after that. Then lastly, Metroid 4 (Fusion). I don't think I need to mention that Zero Mission is a remake of the original. And that's it. Very straightforward.

Oh yeah, there's this spinoff trilogy of shooters that, for some reason, squeezes itself between Metroid 1 and 2. As for Other M, I can't say for sure since I never played it (or even wanted to), but it looked like it's a prequel to the first game. Still pretty easy to follow along. Until you get to Metroid Prime Pinball; then it gets CRAZY!

Heroic Ragnaros, like all the heroic-mode end-bosses, isn't designed to be beaten. Not really. It's there to occupy you long enough for the new stuff to come out; even though this game is all about farming bosses, not just downing them once, Blizzard obviously doesn't want you to feel like you've "beaten" the game and have nothing to do. There's always that last challenge to conquer, impossible as it may be for you and your team.

Not that I necessarily agree that it's the best way to go about it, but I understand.

I've had a question about the raid finder that I haven't seen talked about yet: are the mechanics of the fights different from normal difficulty, or is it just that the bosses do less damage and have less health?

This game is one of the biggest motivating factors in my 3DS purchase, but I still haven't gotten Star Fox because even that is just too expensive.

I don't get how movies can cost studios hundreds of millions of dollars to make, but turn a profit selling them on DVD for $15, when the video game industry always feels pressured to ratchet up the price when MSRP on new games is four times that of movies already. Everyone wants to expand the market, but they keep the price so high that really only existing, dedicated fans and are going to consider paying full price.

If the industry decided that from now on, all new games for all major platforms would have an MSRP of $20, I think we'd all see a tremendous increase in sales volume that would easily make up for less profit-per-copy. Games already go on sale for $20 eventually, true, but the hype, interest, and communal sense of "what's hot" is always gone by that time, and more often than not, people will just pass on it when they would have jumped on it when it came out. Same thing if only one publisher were to do it; it would be viewed as a budget title, and overlooked. It needs to be the industry-standard price.

I don't have all the numbers; I can't prove anything. But I have a dream: I want to live in a world where brand new games are $20. I know for sure that I'd buy a heck of a lot more games as they come out. It wouldn't have to get a fantastic review score for me to buy in and give it a shot; so the smaller publishers and developers would certainly benefit.

Battlefield 3: a crummy single-player and a cool multiplayer I'll probably play for a few weeks? For $20, who wouldn't pick it up? Duke Nukem Forever: a dumb game delayed for a century, but a novelty from a by-gone era, for $60? Not on your life. $20? If everyone's talking about it, then maybe I will. Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D; a shallow minigame ripped from previous Resident Evil games sold on its own? Even at $20, that's a hard sell, but it's more likely than at $40. Star Fox 64 3D: a re-release of an ancient, but beloved N64 game that ultimately doesn't take much time to complete, for $20? Done deal. Resident Evil Revelations: a full Resident Evil experience with 20 hours of content for $20? You betcha. Some new, unproven game that isn't a sequel? At $20, it's not nearly as much of a risk for me to buy it and see if it's any good.

I assume this is being put in the game for transmog purposes, right?