LAGWAR | GAMING'S BEST IN TOP NOTCH MEDIOCRITY

I have been persecuted.

I have been downtrodden, slurred, maligned, and separated – all for superficial reasons.  I was told that I had no value, and could not contribute.  I was informed that I was a burden on the greater group, that I didn’t fit in, that I was not worthy.  I was discriminated against without being heard, without a second thought, solely because of the color of my gearscore.

Another cow being lined up for inspection.

Alright, dispose of the overly dramatic introduction, but this gearscore phenomenon that is gaining popularity in WoW is about as much fun as a visit to the proctologist.  It is about as invasive too, imagine running around Dalaran and everyone chuckling at your gear simply by mousing over you!  At least give me the common courtesy of a “right-click -> inspect” first!  Have some decency please!  For those who are lost I will explain.  I play a newly minted 80 druid on Mal’Ganis – a server that seems to be completely obsessed with the addon “Gearscore”.  If you haven’t seen it yet, basically what it does is give every piece of equipment you have a gearscore, high is good, low is bad.  It then tallies up all the points to assign a player a gearscore – a handy little number with which your total gear picture, and unfortunately skill, knowledge of the game, and general worth to humanity are all assessed.  But what if you are too lazy to read the number it displays when you mouse over someone?  Do not fear.  The number is color-coded trash green to legendary orange so you don’t even have to take the time to read a number to gauge a players worth.  There is no escaping gearscore persecution either.  A remote lookup command allows players to see your gearscore when you are not even in the same area.

There is no gear score for actually knowing how to play.

I know, I know, Gearscore wasn’t developed as a way to boot players from an instance before it starts without justification or often even the decency of an explanation.  It was most likely developed to give players a rough approximation of what instances and dungeons they should feel comfortable playing in.  But if you give gamers a tool, I guarantee they will give you a way to abuse it.  I would have less of an issue with the use of the addon if it was just a tool to evaluate your gear, but on Mal’Ganis it seems to have evolved into a replacement brain for players to use.  Now rather than judge a player’s worth on performance we can judge solely on a color-coded number, and most of the time those players have no opportunity to redeem themselves from their score as they receive a quick group kick.  Ever seen GATTACA?  It’s kind of the same feeling – people being judged by some arbitrary number. People, use your brains!  Not Gearscore.  You don’t need TOC 25 man gear to do a 10 man Onyxia – its overkill and often not even accurate.  I could roll up into an instance to DPS on my druid with all healing gear on, and you know what?  No one would ever know.  Fixated by the color of my gearscore they probably wouldn’t even notice that I was carrying a big ass healing staff.  Oops.

High gear score, low gear score

Unfortunately Gearscore is just the most recent method of false evaluation in WoW.  Remember achievement linking?  “You can’t come to [insert raid instance here] unless you already have done it, oh, and done it without dying once.  So you better be able to link your [insert achievement name here]”.  That wasn’t even the first one either!  Take a ride in the waaay back machine and I will show you a time when players were unable to run 40 man Molten Core PUG’s because you weren’t revered/exalted with the Hydraxxian Waterlords (basically the equivalent of running MC &$^@#$^%&@^#$ times).  Are we setting up a scenario where you can’t get gear because you don’t have gear?  A scenario where the rich group together and leave us poor bluies and welfare epics to scramble amongst ourselves to fight for the scraps?  A scenario where you have to have some sort of “Great Expectations” style benefactor to hope to ever be able to break into the upper echelon of PUGers?  PUGers!  Not even raiders!

I resisted the analogy, I couldn't resist the picture.

My little resto-druid is certainly tired of being treated like the red-headed stepchild of every raid.  I have been replaced because of the color of my gearscore, and I am sure it will happen again. Hopefully this is just a fad, hopefully Gearscore junkies will be tempered in time.  Until then I will dutifully run my heroics and laugh at the 10 man Ony groups that boot me for a healer with a 100 point higher gearscore that has never run Onyxia before only to see him get roflstomped in phase 1 by an errant cleave.