Episode 20: THL Podcast Special Edition – Interview with the creator and developer of GearScore
The Hunting Lodge Podcast is a weekly World of Warcraft Podcast for the Hunter community. Part of theGaming Studio Network, THL Podcast is hosted by Brigwyn and Daewin of The Hunting Lodge. This duo will tackle and discuss everything WoW Related from a Hunter perspective. Make sure to check out our Live Ustream Feed ever Sunday at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. And don’t worry if you miss it we’ll have it up oniTunes, Zune Marketplace, our RSS Feed.
You know that add-on that you love to hate? You know the one. Yeppers! The one and only GearScore! Well, Daewin and I had the opportunity to sit down and do an interview with the Creator and Developerof GearScore, Arxkanite.
You can go ahead and listen now or feel free to download Episode 20 here (109) or on our iTunes, Zune Marketplace or Podcast RSS Feed.
Well, I can already see by the fact your cheeks are getting all red and blotchy that you’re like many others out there. Probably like me at one time. Let me guess. You probably feel that feel GearScore really has no purpose in World of Warcraft. Heck! You’ve probably even been the victim of someone misusing this add-on. Yes, I said misusing. See, I’m not so sure anymore if GearScore is the bane to everyone’s existence like I did before.
Not too long ago, but after sever truly awesome randoms, I had a very similar experience that I have heard other having. Only instead of getting voted out of the group, I just got whispered by someone that didn’t think I should run the heroic with them because my GearScore was too low.
TOO LOW? WTH!? Well we went through the entire thing and I’m happy to say my DPS was over the “1,500 DPS minimum,” I ended up with a nice shiny, and I still say the new Dungeon Finder is freaking awesome! (And before you say 1,500 is too low. Or how Nassira and I don’t exactly agree on this, let’s just say 1,500-2,000 is good enough and call it a day? Okay? Good.)
Anyways, back to our interview with Arxkanite and GearScore.
So Daewin and I didn’t really hold back any punches. We asked all kinds of stuff.
Things like what inspired Arxkanite to create GearScore. And how did he intend for GearScore to work versus how it’s being used. We also asked him to help explain the “How” not just step-by-step guide but what’s under the covers. (No, we didn’t go into the deep math, that would’ve just been boring.)
What about the claims about how accurate or inaccurate GearScore is? We talked about that also. How Arxkanite compared GearScore to iLevel and Blizzard’s own Dungeon Finder’s iLevel requirements.
I think, what impressed me most was how Arxkanite readily admitted to all the flaws in his current 3.0 version and was already working on releasing a 3.1 version. The best part of the 3.1 version is how Arxkanite coded the GearScore with the logic based on a progression philosophy. Now you can debate this philosophy (and I’m sure if you’re going after BiS itemization you just might.) but you have to admit it’s better than leaving it random.
All in all I really think this was a solid discussion and interview with Arxkanite. So much so that what was to be a quick 10-15 minute interview segment for Episode 19 (Go get it if you haven’t already. What are you waiting for?) of The Hunting Lodge Podcast turned into an almost hour long Special Episode 20! And at the end of it all? I honestly think that this may be one of the most abused add-ons out there.
But that’s my opinion. Why don’t you listen to the interview yourself? Then tell us what you think. My money is that by the end of the interview you’ll agree with me. I’m not saying you’re opinion on how people are using GearScore will change. I still think it’s being misused and abused, but I do think you won’t view it with the same venom you have now.
So go ahead, take a listen or download Episode 20 here (109) or on our iTunes, Zune Marketplace or Podcast RSS Feed and listen to it later.
And when you’re done listening why not tell us what you thought?
What did you think before listening? Has anything changed?
What about how it’s being used versus what Arxkanite designed and intended it for? Or just general stuff like should we have more special episodes and interviews?
Remember you can always contact us at:
- Voicemail and Txt Messages to: 213-537-8456
- Email: thlpodcast@brigwyn.com
- Hunting Lodge Forms
- Twitter: @Brigwyn, @Daewin or @THLPodcast
- iTunes or Zune Market Place
- The Hunting Lodge Contact Form or use just use the comments below.
As always you can listen now or feel free to go ahead and Episode 20 here (109) now or you can download it from our iTunes,Zune Marketplace or Podcast RSS Feed.
The Hunting Lodge Podcast is broadcast live each Sunday at 11pm Eastern/10pm Central/8pm Pacific. You can join us live on our Ustream feed or download it from our Podcast RSS, iTunes or Zunemarketplace.
After listening, I still think Gear Score is a load of crap. An utter waste of electrons. I strongly recommend the addon GearScore Breaker @ http://sites.google.com/site/gearscoreugh/ .
@Anchovy
I have to say that your posted comment surprises me.
After listening to how the add-on SHOULD be used. If you take that, along with all of the improvements being offered in 3.1.12. It can be a solid help to more casual and even some competitive guilds.
The “I’m more than a number!” Mantra is true. But that’s because of how it’s being misused. Not the add-ons fault.
Here’s what I suggest. Why don’t we write up a Point/Counter Point post. You’ve listened to the podcast and still have very strong opinions.
Let’s air those out in a constructive manor.
You hate the add-on. Your guild has banned it. But you’ve failed to explain why? How is it breaking the game’s TOS or promoting, encouraging, or allowing players to violate the TOS?
These types of dicussions are encouraged here. But blantant, DIAF I hate you and you make me want to punch kittens type trolling comments really aren’t a help to the community. There plenty of other blogs, forums, and sites that allow it. But not here.
I hate how the addon is abused. To use a metaphor, liquor is fine for adults, but if everyone who drank did so to the point of alcoholism, you’d be right to deplore liquor. GearScore, i have found, is vastly more often abused rather than used. I don’t think you can pretend otherwise.
In terms of the guy who wrote it — no beef. Too bad he made a Frankenstein’s monster. And too bad the villagers are cheering the monster on as he burns their town.
A guild is willing to spend 5 hours wiping on a single fight just to learn that encounter and to overcome it regardless of their gear level. 1-2 wipes in a PUG and the group disbands with everyone being angry. This leads to PUG leaders demanding outrageous requirements for their groups. If not GearScore they demand “3000+ Spell Power” or 9k DPS, or Must have [Insert Insane Achievement Here]. You will almost never see “LFM: Be skilled!”.
Back in Burning Crusade if a player wanted to PUG Karazhan they needed to complete an attunement quest chain that required they spent tons of money on a flying mount, and had to successfully run multiple instances. This gave PUG leaders some idea that a player who was attuned must at least know a bit of what they are doing, and have some experience in a group environment.
However now, in Blizzard’s attempt to increase the range of players who can raid; everyone and their mom can PUG now. There are no longer any requirements other then being level 80 to raid. So many players after hitting 80 become lost and don’t get the type of experience and skill that is needed anymore. This is because if they run heroics; sure they can get lots of gear but the other people there will be over geared and the person overall wont learn to much on how to play their class to the maximum.
All this combined with the fact that casual players have less available play time then hardcore players leads people to demand unreasonably high requirements for raids and to farm the raids as absolutely fast as possible.
In Cataclysm Blizzard is creating all kinds of perks when you join a guild, this will help encourage players to seek out a guild for raiding and for help. This will of course reduce the number of players looking to pug w/e content because they’ll just run with their guild now. And what will be left over is the people who need to genuinely run a PUG to learn the content.
If casuals have so little time to play, perhaps they would do much better to spend some of it finding people they like to play with and who can succeed in raids and heroics. You know — a friend’s list instead of a gearscore database. WoW is, after all, an MMO, therefore, part of the game itself is developing social contacts.
GearScoreBreaker really doesn’t work, and is a potential Disconnect / performance reducing addon. GearScore has protections in place that prevent anyone not in your guild from communicating with the addon, so at most you can use GSB to harass your own guild members.
Other then that the “purpose” behind GSB is very hypocritical, read:
http://gearscoreaddon.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=87
I still hate your addon. We ban it in my guild.
Gearscore is FAIL. It’s useless, arbitrary information that doesn’t accurately reflect the skill of a player – it merely reflects their ability to gather purple gear.
It doesn’t reflect if the gear is appropriate for the character, if the character has the appropriate enchants/gems/etc … it just has the lame, arbitrary number.
If you want an addon that actually SHOWS you if someone has a clue on how to play their class, try Elitist Group. Bad addon name, but a far superior addon to the flaming pile of drivel otherwise known as gearscore.
FWIW, Elitist Group used to be called Sexy Group.
@Grimtorn @Toliman
I’m slowly getting a “How to use GearScore” post put together. But in them meantime if you check out the details on the new version GearScore site you’ll see that EG and GS are very similar.
This topic is dying out so fast? I think there is a lot more to discuss. BTW, I’d be happy to come on the show and talk about GearScore.
I agree. And am Willing to continue this discussion in a constructive manner so long as Brigwyn doesn’t mind.
The post you made:
“If casuals have so little time to play, perhaps they would do much better to spend some of it finding people they like to play with and who can succeed in raids and heroics. You know — a friend’s list instead of a gearscore database. WoW is, after all, an MMO, therefore, part of the game itself is developing social contacts.”
Is 100% accurate. Players SHOULD be looking for a guild. However there are 2 problems. First the random LFD makes it so you can no longer build reputation on your realm. And second is that the game itself rewards speed-farming runs the most. There really should be some form of mechanic to rewards players for running a PUG with people who haven’t done it before. I do think that some of the changes made to the guild system in Cataclysm will help encourage players to join and maintain a guild and run with them instead of creating PUGs.
This addon sounds a lot like Recount. It’s a good tool for individual or known use amongst a group of people. However, when used willy nillie, and applied to all, things are blown out of proportion. The author seems to understand this thankfully. However, he can’t control the masses.
The new RSS Armory feed has the ability that the author is looking to implement in his next version.
There is no addon replacement for actual class knowledge and play ability. I still have no use for it, but others may.
I find this surprising.
The RSS feed only caches the last few updates to the achievements/stats, including a few new things like picking up gear, stages in an achievement, etc. using it to evaluate people in a glance or a split-second, is beyond the armory’s scope.
most especially, if you’ve been running heroics for a week, there won’t be anything about your raid progress in your recent history, etc. in the extended history, sure. but that’s also not available in any addon or UI features.
There will be more addons in the future to replace GearScore, especially if the coveted LFR system suddenly it’s head in the burning ashes of the LFD system’s overgearing of casuals.
So far, Elitist Group scans for the raiding achievements when you’re in close enough proximity to be inspected for achievements (and gear).
It seems to be the most promising replacement, but it needs to do a lot more to hit the same grand heights as GearScore’s infamy and instant adoption by the masses.
I dislike both due to user abuse, not the addons themselves. If such addons become the defacto measuring sticks for doing things in game then it may become time for me to stop playing.
@Nochecazador
This game has and will always have some measure of “Elitism.”
Before GearScore and Elitist Group you had people checking you out on Be Imba or WoW Heroes. If it wasn’t that, then it’s using the “Inspect” tool checking your spec and gear.
But honestly I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I think we’re seeing WoW become more of a “Social” MMO vs. being a “Gaming” MMO. But that’s just my opinion.
It takes some amount of effort to go to a website to look someone up or to actually look at their gear and make a judgement call. It’s less your score sucks, you can’t play for a wide audience, that may even include those that stack strength, spirit, and spellpower to make their pet and arcane shot hit harder.
You are right about some measure of elitism always being in the game. Maybe I’ve just never saw it possibly sitting at my doorstep so easily.
Brain ahead of hands.
Basically stating that those the stat themselves wrong can use such things to make incorrect judgement calls.
So far the only good point I’ve heard GearScore make is that it in using it, Leaders of Pugs have a better chance to get people who are geared enough to do the encounter. That the Number makes it easier and increases your chances.
True, people often demanded Achievements to things above and beyond what tier they were actually doing before GS got started – yet they got mocked for it relentlessly. People knew having the achievement for say…Naxx meant nothing when it came to doing a Heroic. But a GearScore..it’s so simple! So easy. Such a deceptively seductive way to get a good group to do something.
Yet like the Must Have Achievement X for Y days, people are demanding truly stupid ’scores’ and assuming that that the GS is equal to the skill of the player. Not only that, but now GS has become due to the simple of ease and relative remoteness of the number, well…if you just hit 80, good luck.
Yes. It is the player’s who use GS who make the outrageous demands. But you know what? Before GearScore, before The Number became king, it was possible to enter a Heroic Keep or Nexus with beginning 80 quality gear…and not have your group fall apart due to someone declaring your number is too low. So while the intent and theory may be to make getting that run easier, in truth and practice it doesn’t. It makes difficult, frustrating and damn near impossible – far more then ever.
That is why I don’t like GearScore. That is why despite the author’s rabid, feral defending of it, I think he’s missing the point.
It doesn’t work in practice because the people who use it don’t let it. He never intended the Number to become the end all, but in creating the addon he has.
Towards the end of 3.2 People Stopped running heroics because it was a complete waste of time. New players and alts couldn’t run anything other then the daily heroic. This was a major problem because people could no longer run Heroics to gear enough to run Ulduar anymore.
Blizzard’s plan to fix this issue was to give emblems of conquest to all boss kills, and therefore give everyone a reason to go back to heroics and help new players. This plan backfired. This is because the people who already had gear were sick of running heroics and didn’t need anything other then the emblems off the boss. So what did these people do? They formed groups with people in similar gear level so they could run chain-heroics and farm the most emblems / hour. So new players and alts STILL couldn’t get into heroics.
Thankfully 3.3 fixed this by creating rewards that are worth running heroics again. And allowing players who actually need the gear to group together.
The “GearScore Problem” is a social problem. This cannot be denied. The debate is how much, if any GearScore exacerbates this social issue. I admit and understand that GearScore does increase this problem to some extent. However, the cat is out of the bag and there is no way to go back. So instead of simply discontinuing the addon because a percentage of players use it poorly, I plan to improve on it to reduce misuse and abuse.
I agree – the GearScore problem is a social one and not one caused by the addon itself. People want quick rewards with little or no effort.
I will however, argue that Gearscore exacerbated the issue. Before 3.2 and the new badges for everything system, no one was leaving groups due to players not having the highest tier gear. Not only that, but players would take appropriate gear for their spec, and not simply gear to up a number. Again it’s a social issue, but by making it so easy, so simple to reduce a player to a mere number, Gearscore made the issue worse.
I would like to refute something though. Speaking as a Paladin main, I’m in ICC gear. I have yet to do a run where I don’t have 2 or more people via LFG who are beginning players – unless I do a guild run. When I do get someone in equal gear to myself, they normally leave, citing the gearscore of the dps or healer. Again social problem made worse via an addon.
I am glad to hear you’re planning on making it better to try to reduce the misuse of it (you did great at reducing the communication issue), but at this point there is no real way for the addon to reduce the abuse of it. The only way I can see to completely reduce the unintended damage, is for Blizzard to break the addon a’la Decurse. I hope not because it would be a shame for your hard work to go to waste, but I cannot see any other way to reduce the negative impact the use of Gearscore has caused.
@Esmi
I think encouraging Blizzard to “break” addons like GS isn’t the right way to go imho.
It really doesn’t solve the problem.
Also, like you say. GearScore has a lot of positive things going for it.
Maybe it would be better for more players, bloggers and podcasters educate people on the proper use of the add-on. But that’s just my opinion.
Thanks Emsi! I appreciate the comments.
The last part of the interview nails it.. the problem with wow today is people are not patient, their rude, and generally unforgiving… I’ve seen myself fall into this mindset after pugging a while. I spent some time in the hardcore raiding scene and it wore me out, but the only thing that I can think of that’s more tiresome and likely to wear me out faster is the Pug scene.. heck, even in ICC 25 man content, people just don’t have the patience to progress… two wipes, and the 25 man raid dwindles to 10 people inside 2 mins.. /sigh
@Sam
This is something that is truly an issue with the game. And we’re seeing Blizzard react more and more to this change by making things easier and easier and reducing the complexity.
I wonder if there is some way Blizzard can find the balance between addressing the 1 1/2 hr time constrained player and the complex fun that the “Old Timers” want all without having people requiring addons like this.