The Queue: Fargo (the flood, not the movie)
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 19th 2010 at 5:00PM
Around this time last year I was off helping my area deal with a 500 year flood. This year it's struck again (although only 2 feet less, /cheer?). Pictured above is a shot from the live flood web-cams the local paper has set up, and it's kind of interesting to watch (for those wondering the water should be about 20 feet lower than it is now). Every once in a while you get to see a cop or some workers do something, and boy, is that exciting...
About as exciting as AoE pally tanking. /rimshot
Fornozo asked...
"How come the GearScore addon became so popular?"
There are a couple of different dimensions to its popularity.
First, it caters to the "quick and easily understood" information need. Everyone is reduced to a number that describes their worth. We can all very quickly tell that someone with a score of 5001 is better than someone with a score of 5000. This is very attractive to the "drive through" generation that makes up a very large percentage of the player base. Another way to put it, perhaps more troll-ish, is that GearScore caters to the lazy people who don't want to look at specs and understand why a 232 or 200 trinket is better than a 251 trinket.
Second, the addon uses some measurable facts to determine the GearScore number, namely the item level of the gear being worn. This makes it legitimate in some sense, and folks can attach onto this legitimacy easily. After all, someone wearing all 232 gear is going to do better than someone wearing all 187 gear.
Finally, the addon lets players think they're better than other players. It says "Hey you with 5000 GS, guess what? You're awesome compared to that scrub with 4500." People like feeling better about themselves, and in a game where gear no longer determines a person's worth, GearScore is the ultimate kick-back to the old days when someone in full tier-3 could walk around like a god.
And remember what they say, "If someone asks if you're a god, you say, yes!"
GearScore is saying yes.
Busuan asked...
"Why MUST we go to Black Temple to kill Illidan? From the quests I have done, I got the impression that the evil/demonic things Illidan had done was in the past, unlike Arthas who was zealously dreaming about dominating the whole world. There's no indication (so far as I know) saying Illidan was planning a new invasion to Azeroth or something like that, although the demons at the dark portal could have links to him. On the contrary, Illidan was upset at the fact that Azeroth people simply wouldn't leave him alone. So, why did we have to go there to pick on him?"
You don't just let bad guys live out their days and expect them to do nothing, especially immortal pricks like Illidan. And while he wasn't going to go all spaztastic on Azeroth right away, he did want to extract his revenge. Plus, you know, he was sitting in the very lands that the Draenei and Orcs once called home. That's pretty good reason to want to kick his butt to the curb.
Vaitu asked...
"Why are the statistics in the tab statistics in the achivements everything but acurate?"
They are mostly accurate. There are errors if your character was created before patch 3.0.2 when the statistics started being tracked. For example, the stats on my warrior tell me I've never killed Ragnaros, which is off by about 100. The other thing is that not all damage-in/damage-out/actions count for everything we think they should -- what Blizzard thinks is another matter.
Jfofla asked...
"While leveling alts in Hellfire, it dawned on me I did not know where the Fel Reaver comes from. Who made the Fel Reaver, and what is its purpose?"
All we know is that the Fel Reavers were made by Burning Legion engineers to destroy Outland. Those little oompaloompa like dudes that you kill in Shadowmoon Valley? They're the ones building them.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW.com crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column! Leave your questions in the comments and we'll do our best to answer 'em!Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 9)
Arminias Mar 19th 2010 5:04PM
"And remember what they say, "If someone asks if you're a god, you say, yes!""
I love ghostbusters...end of story
Kinka Mar 19th 2010 5:09PM
Meh, Gearscore is a drive through version of the armory in my eyes. While I personally hate the mod I have to remember that the same people asking for absurd scores, are, in general, the same that used to look at your armory like a hawk before an invite. It's changed nothing...just made it more glaring to the outside parties.
trefpoid Mar 19th 2010 5:18PM
dude, it's changed everything. I've seen people asking for 5600GS to go do Naxx for the weekly quest. What the hell is that? Everybody is measuring you with that thing and they don't give a shit about what u are wearing or if u are good, the number says everything. I've seen people getting invited to raids, leaving me behind, 'cause they have better GS since they are patching their gear with 264 wrathful armor pieces. That's just WRONG. People should worry about their Brainscore instead of the other GS.. the world was much happier when u got invited to a raid with a quick glance of your gear and nothing else. U know, I didn't even try to get into a raid before I got 5000GS only with 5-man drops. I just knew I wouldn't get invited anywhere if I had less than that. I hate GS, I will never install it (not only because it sucks, but because it spams the hell out of us who have 5 year old PC's, and we don't appreciate that) and I hope everyone that uses it like morons will suffer eternal pain in hell :D
devilsei Mar 19th 2010 5:46PM
Yeah, personally I'm sick of the Gearscore bull, as was stated some people wouldn't understand why the 232 (or even 212-219) trinkets are better than the 251+ ones, simply because they are looking only for numbers.
"GearScore is the ultimate kick-back to the old days when someone in full tier-3 could walk around like a god"
This though, I heavily disagree with. It isn't a kick-back, its the person trying to replicate that, where as back then having Tier 3 MEANT you were god, having a 5k gearscore just means you ran in there enough to either get gear, or badges for gear.
chyllyphylly Mar 19th 2010 6:39PM
Whats next? [LFG] LFG Deadmines must have a GS of over 1k.
I have a PVP GS of over 5k, therefore im great @ PVP....... erm, NO, I'm not
iammurlocftw Mar 19th 2010 7:01PM
actualy u can get into deadmines at lvl with 1k gs with heirlooms lol. anyway come cataclysm "LFG HDeadmines 8k gs and link achieve on 3 chars!"
wdsrmail Mar 19th 2010 7:38PM
My personal favorite is that gearscore actually ONLY takes into consideration average iLvl in its score. Instead of giving you the avg iLvl as a value (i.e. 234.5 or something) it will say "4892". If you equip the same iLvl gear, with useless stats (say, armor penetration and agility for a warlock) it will be the same gearscore.
If people are demanding a gearscore number, you don't want to run with them anyway. Try this sometime: When someone says "LF shaman for ICC 25, pst with gearscore" say something like "over 6k here" and they'll invite you instantly. YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO DUNGEONS WITH PEOPLE THAT INVITE WITHOUT INSPECTING OTHERS. They will be all ready to start, and finally realize they have a few under geared players, and then you have another 30 minutes wait to get started, only to wipe on the first trash/boss without end.
Gearscore FTL.
vaitu Mar 19th 2010 7:50PM
gearscore doesnt even look at sockets and enchants....
robert Mar 19th 2010 8:04PM
Sorry, but I actually like GS. IMO I think it is a great tool for determining who to bring to a raid. Good gear= Have done some dungeons=Can do the raid=YAY.
IMO I think most people who have a problem with GS are people with low score who don't get invited to things.
Yeah I admit GS is a little overused and people with skill but not as good gear should still get invites.
Aloix Mar 19th 2010 8:50PM
My biggest issue with GS, I think, is it seems to facilitate people making BAD GEARING DECISIONS.
In other words, choosing a gear *not* because it's the BEST upgrade for them but rather because it best INFLATES their GS.
I see this especially regarding EoF spending, as that's particularly when people have the most choice in gear.
Hoggersbud Mar 19th 2010 8:51PM
>gearscore doesnt even look at sockets and enchants....<
It does if you make an effort.
Try /gs
devilsei Mar 19th 2010 9:40PM
"IMO I think most people who have a problem with GS are people with low score who don't get invited to things."
Yep, I have an issue with GS, but last I've checked, I can get into raids no problem, done everything up to ICC, and run the latter on both 10 and 25man. I get invited frequently, long as I sign up.
Wait, that's cause I'm in a guild, maybe thats why. I don't like GS, so I don't have the Addon, so I don't know my GS, and since 90% of the people putting together pugs for raids make knowing your GS mandatory, I'm not able to go on their magical little journey to Wipesville.
poor me, guess you're right.
Piisuke Mar 19th 2010 10:14PM
BY Robert:
"IMO I think most people who have a problem with GS are people with low score who don't get invited to things."
Lolwut?
Yeah, that hunter on my server with 21% hit rating definitely agrees with you. So does that Shaman with 5.6k GS in PVP gear asking for groups to ICC25. Oh, that Rogue with SP gear and his 5k GS also wants to join raids for ICC25.
Do you think I made those things up? Sadly, I did not.
So yeah, I complain about GS, because my GS is low and the addon works perfectly fine and has now flaws and is used correctly by everyone. Oh yeah, cows can fly as well.
Seriously, get a grip on reality and use your brains and delete that abomination of an addon. Aside from it being utterly useless, it encourages people to make the wrong gear decisions, because on the addon page on curse it says:
"GearScore represents the maximum potential for a player to perform. The higher your GearScore the higher your potential to heal/dps/tank. Remember however, that is is up to the player's skill to match that potential. "
So, taking that nifty 251 trinket over a 230 trinket, which is known to be inferior, causes your GS to go up, thus, according to the creator, means your potential goes up as well, which is absolute bogus. GS does nothing but ruin World of Warcraft. It encourages people to make the wrong decisions, continuously communicates with the server, causes pugs to be even worse than they were due to the fact that it encourages people to make the wrong decisions, it causes people to forget/stop understanding raidleading/understanding classes, because that magical number is more important now and I can go on.
Useless addon made by a useless guy. If you can claim that a higher GS = higher potential and distribute it as that, then you're clearly not very apt in the game yourself.
Avan Mar 19th 2010 11:47PM
@Hoggersbud
">gearscore doesnt even look at sockets and enchants....<
It does if you make an effort.
Try /gs "
No, it doesn't. I can walk around on my warrior in all 251 gear, all ungemmed and unenchanted. It could be PvP healer cloth, and Gearscore will report a 5200 score. I could slap on my proper tank gear, with tank stats, gemmed and enchanted correctly, that is also all 251 and get the same 5200 score.
GearScore is a HORRIBLE addon for what it is supposed to do. It does NOT score your gear based on anything meaningful.
It.
Simply.
Sucks.
Barthaes Mar 20th 2010 1:31AM
Try updating it, then type /gs. It shows your gs for each spec, if you're hit capped or def capped etc, if you're missing gems, if you have stats which are bad for your character (spirit for hunters etc).
I still believe that used properly, it's a good tool. Pity many people seem to believe gs is the only factor of whether someone is good enough or not. I regularly beat people with a gs 500-800 higher than me in raids as a moonkin.
Xashen Mar 20th 2010 1:33AM
Not too long ago, I ran the weekly Patchwerk on my hunter. He isn't decked out in raid epics or anything, mostly heroic gear and T9, but he can put out 4500 dps easy. I have no idea what my gearscore is, but when I showed up at the instance i received a whisper from the raid leader saying that I had the lowest gearscore, and that I better be able to pull my weight or I would be kicked from the raid.
I then proceeded to top the damage meters.
kmfolino Mar 20th 2010 5:54AM
I ran ToC10 the other day on my Shaman with a 4.5k GS. She was THE lowest GS in the raid (with four players above 5k). She was 5th in DPS on recount, but amazingly, a close 2nd in total damage! Why you ask? I was the only one staying alive the whole time...one of the last to die twice on two Beasts wipes, one of four to be still standing when we finally killed Icehowl (also being through all that on my ICC geared mage doesn't hurt either). Seems that those badassed guys with the 5k+ GS just didn't notice the fire.....or they had the burning bile/paralytic acid.....or that they were standing in Icehowls path! My biggest complaint about LotLK is that it's too easy for unskilled players to get geared up....usually my farming heroics for emblems and the newer heroics for decent gear. Gearscore doesn't distinguish *where* or *how* you got your gear. I'd trust me on my undergeared Shammy in ICC long before I'd trust some of those other "well geared" players. I may not pump out the DPS, but I'd surely be standing longer!
Hoggersbud Mar 20th 2010 10:24AM
Avan:
>No, it doesn't. I can walk around on my warrior in all 251 gear, all ungemmed and unenchanted. It could be PvP healer cloth, and Gearscore will report a 5200 score. I could slap on my proper tank gear, with tank stats, gemmed and enchanted correctly, that is also all 251 and get the same 5200 score.<
On the tooltip? Sure. If you do what I told you to do...no, it doesn't. Try it. See what happens. Make sure the person you've got targeted is in inspect range. Look at see what you can find out.
Wow, you can see whether they have gear enchanted, or gemmed, you can see if any of it is inappropriate stats for their spec.
But only if you make an effort.
>GearScore is a HORRIBLE addon for what it is supposed to do. It does NOT score your gear based on anything meaningful.
It.
Simply.
Sucks.<
Or you simply do since you're bashing it in ignorance not awareness. You might as well be bashing a thermometer because it only tells you the ambient temperature, and not the relative humidity, precipitation, time of day or wind speed. But sometimes the temperature is all you need...and sometimes your tool can tell you all these things if you only know how.
curtisrutland Mar 20th 2010 11:45AM
Wow, I knew I'd see something like this. Every time GS gets mentioned on the WoW Forums, it turns into a 10 page thread on why it sucks so bad and all the things it doesn't do and wah wah wah it's such a horrible addon ruining the game AAAAHHH!!!!!!
I use GS for two things. First, when I tank randoms, it's nice to know IN A VERY GENERAL SENSE what the people I'm tanking for are capable of. Can I take really big pulls without losing aggro or not getting heals? That sort of thing.
And I've used it for putting together a 25 man PUG. I don't have time to armory every single person who whispers me, and we all know that the only way to determine player skill is to actually play with someone. Since I haven't played with 90% of the people on my server, I'm stuck. My options are (1) invite everyone that whispers. (2) armory everyone that whispers, and have it take so long that people start dropping. (3) use GearScore as a VERY GENERAL judge of ability. Sure, I know people can pad their score, but I'm not a douche saying LFM 5.5kGS MIN. I don't ask for a minimum, and I don't even ask for you to PST me with it. I use what's cached, and if you're not in there, then I armory you. And again, I'm not looking at a minimum, but if I'm putting together a ToC 25 run, people with a GS in the 3000s simply don't belong in there. They can't.
I'm fully aware of its problems, but what I use it for, it works well.
Vladeon Mar 20th 2010 12:20PM
I have a similar story to share about how GearScore isn't exactly indicative of the performance of a character. I went into ICC25 the other day on my Unholy DK (Loperamide is his name if you're curious) and I had a GS of ~4600, honestly it was around the middle of 4600, and i was #5 consistantly on the dps meters. Sure, there was a ton of aoe damage, and I was hitting 8-10k dps at times with heavy dps, but I was out dpsing 5 mages, all of whom had more than 5200 gearscores. The point of the GS addon is not to be an end-all-be-all indicator of your ability to dps/heal/tank, but rather a vague representation of the range of dps/healing/staying-alive that you can do. I mean, if you took the time to look at my DK, you'll notice that he has two blue quality items, a hunter weapon, and way too much hit (I've killed that scourgelord tyrannus guy 12 times and that damned axe still hasn't dropped. unbelievable, really) and I still managed to hold my own. I use GS to measure myself against others. If I'm doing the same dps as someone who has a higher GS than me, my first thought isn't to say, that guy must really suck, but rather, I must be doing something right. If however, I'm doing less dps than someone who has a similar GS than me, then I know that I need to re-evaluate my rotation or my spec, or my gems/enchants. You should never use the GS addon to say, "LFM DPS for NAXX. MUST HAVE 5400 GS!" that's not what it's there for, it's a tool for you to improve your performance.