Which is why gear checks are not needed. Some players can still do fine if they're slightly undergeared, and others are hopeless no matter how good their gear.

I think your erring by assuming that 'not wanting to be inspected' is the same as 'not willing to be prepared'. I refuse to accept someone else's judgment over what is sufficiently geared vs my own. And I am willing to extend that courtesy to any who wish to join my group. This notion that there hundreds of level 50's are running around in nothing but greens is a silly one, particularly in TOR where acquiring blues and oranges is unavoidable via simply doing quests.

Let me clarify why your attitude is incredibly selfish and give pugs a bad name. I would feel the same way whether it was my gear you wanted to judge or someone else's. It's not very smart to assume that someone applying is in all greens, or even any. It's almost impossible to get to 50 without tripping over at least blue gear, if not modded oranges. Also, it's part of the fun to see if you can collectively overcome the challenge of an instance and not try to calculate, in advance, whether or not you'll succeed. That is boring to me. It's like saying "OK, we've figured out we're going to win. Now let's go through the motions."

I'm not sure you succeeded in keeping it short and to the point, at least not for these forums. Anyway, I certainly agree with this part. I NEVER pvp and AFAIC, there's already been one pvp-related nerf that's affected PvE play.

I agree with the responders and not the OP. I almost never read the quest text in other MMOs. I always listen to the the dialogue in TOR. More than that, I enjoy the fact that instead of clicking on a quest giver and automatically selecting 'accept quest', I actually get to make a choice or 3 during the process. Even if that choice has little (+15 companion affection) or no impact, I definitely appreciate the interaction vs the absence of it in other MMOs.

The instant someone asks for a gear check is the same instant I withdraw my offer to join that group. I'm playing a game, not applying for a freaking job.

Completely agree with this part. Completely disagree with this part. It's too slippery a slope. The very first time I hear someone say "You must have this add-on if you want to join", there will be a clubbing.

Been gaming since the Atari 2600. Frogger, Asteroids, etc., that era. I really enjoy the class quests, best part of the game IMO. I just wish they were a (MUCH) larger percentage of the overall quests. The crafting is somewhat fun but could use some tweaks, particularly the interface. Heck, if I could just figure out how to have my list of craftable items not show any greys, it'd be better. The game is plenty solo-friendly, but even for MMOs it's difficult for me to find one that's solo-friendly enough. After 4 alts I still abandon somewhere between 95 and 100% of the heroic quests, particularly the planetary 4-mans. I'm still waiting for ONE development team to invent a endgame that doesn't require forced grouping for gear progression. The leveling is 50/50 for me. Today I was doing a level 40 mission inside yet another nameless enemy base and upon entering I was dismayed to find I had to slog my way through dozens of trash mobs to reach the mission goal. Honestly, most of the time, I prefer to run/die my way there. That fact alone is rather telling. One issue I have with leveling is that with the moddable items, there is very close to zero chance that a trash mob is going to drop anything that's actually useful to me. Any green/blue that drops I don't even bother examining but I'm certain it's inferior to what I'm already wearing, and this is true from level 10 up. This completely undermines any 'thrill' there is to seeing a monster drop a 'magic' item. If I could make one change to the game, add a LOT more class quests to give us some alternate paths. It's like this game has most of the features of BW's great single-player games, with the annoyances (and few of the benefits) of MMOs thrown in.

A lot of that is because EQ1 had a lot of pointless timesinks, not because it had hours more content. Also, much of the content it did have required groups, which take time to form, more time not playing.... I see nothing good from artificial lengthening. The only way I'd be happy to take 50 days to hit level cap is if most of it was class quests. This quote boggles the mind. Chatting with others on the game is more important than playing the game? Maybe for you. If I wanted to meet others and blab, I'd go to such a service. I bought a game and I'm here to play it, not to hear about the weather on a different part of the continent. The more soloable a game is, the more likely I am to buy it, and vice versa. Forced grouping has been proven time and again to be a subscription killer. And these games are made for the purpose making money, not to facilitate making friends. That might happen as a happy by-product, but it is not their intended purpose, nor should it be skewed to be so. Unless they are going to offer us pre-placed apartments in cities, then a big no to player housing for me. If they can be put anywhere, it causes ugly sprawl. If they are in their own out of the way area (a la Lotro), they become nearly useless for the timesinks involved traveling back and forth. I think the OP makes some valid points earlier, but some of this stuff is certainly NOT wanted by many players.

If you require and/or insist on dps meters, threat meters, etc., I've no desire to join your group. I'm playing a game, not applying for a job.

I will not join a group that specifies "spacebarring". Aside from that, I will utterly ignore any and all pleas or demands to spacebar, to the point of turning off party chat if necessary. I'm not skipping. Period.

Exactly. So make group content scale, and get rid of this tired mechanic of requiring minimum numbers of people to make meaningful progress at endgame. I swear the first MMO to do this will reap large numbers.

Two questions: 1. Why 30? Why not 25, or 35? Or 40? What magically occurs at age 30 that makes a person mature enough, but not mature enough at 29? 2. How could a company possibly enforce this? Ask for ID over the internet? Yeah, that's bulletproof. Ignore and chat filters are your friends. Maturity or the lack thereof is not related to age. Unless you expect us to believe you are some carnival wonder who can tell people's ages by what they post in chat. No, it is much more likely you make a judgment call on someone based on what they post, and you decide to join/ignore/report based on that. See? You did it without a server filter.

If only this were true, I'd buy a lifetime sub in a heartbeat. I'd go so far as to say that that statement is incorrect for every single MMO on the market.

The real shame is the necessity of it. This is what happens when you A) create too many servers, and B) use tired archaic mechanics of 'forced grouping for endgame progression'.

^Exactly this. I've been playing MMOs since well before Wow, and assuming same server types, I've never seen a single server in any game have the slightest, tiniest hint of 'flavor' over another. Ever. Every PvE server in a game is EXACTLY the same as every other PvE server in that game in terms of community. The only thing that's ever different is population/distribution. There is no such thing as server community. Guilds have community, not servers.

I won't disagree. However, the day EVE offers PvE servers is the day I'll resub to that game. I'll never play a non-consentual PvP MMO.

I'd like to see the UI bars more flexible like they are in City of Heroes. Let me put them anywhere on my screen. Let me choose between 10x1, 5x2, 4x3, etc. Also, let me see my companion's entire bar without it having to be in place of one of mine. At the least, I'd love to be able to have 4 bars at the bottom instead of just two. If the flexibility were there, I think I'd have 3 bars on the bottom right and two on the bottom left, one of them being my companion's full bar. The 4 powers only bit annoys the heck out of me.

That is your opinion and one not shared by all. Much of it comes down to how much weight you give to the value MMO vs RPG. I suspect that those who prefer the former will agree with you, and those who prefer the later will not. One important fact is that the game currently allows you to switch specs. So really, the only argument is to how much that respec should cost.

IMO, respeccing is not something that should be done several times a day at a whim. The first respec should be free, then 100,000. Then add another zero every additional time. Make a decision and stick with it or create an alt.

I'm not so much anti-grouping as I am anti-waiting-around-not-playing. I'd much, much rather skip a 2man or a 4man than wait around trying to form a group or while others wrap up whatever they're doing and get themselves to the instance.

Agreed. These relics need to be increased by a factor of 10, minimum, to be considered truly useful

Endgame progression in most MMOs comes down to acquiring better and better gear until you have BIS gear in every slot. To lock this gear away behind content that requires 7+ others is an overdone and utterly unnecessary mechanic in any game, including MMOs.

^This.

AFAIC, it's too multi-player. There's nothing wrong with having some forced-grouping content, but to lock the best gear behind such is a tired, archaic design that MMO's need to move beyond. Grouping because you feel like it = great. Grouping because the game requires it for endgame progression = sucks.