Since the Fall Of The Lich King patch, many things have changed in the World of Warcraft.
The Looking For Group system, Tier10, Icecrown Citadel, New Boss in Vault Of Archavon and what not…
But the most affecting changes are certainly the GS (Gearscore) + Achievement madness.
One day a smart player brought up the GearScore AddOn which basicly inspects players and scores them according to the item levels their gear have. And Blizzard brought up the Achievement system which basicly shows what dungeons, raids or events you have and haven’t done.
While some players think that these two statistics show everything about you, some think they are just a way to start new fights and disagreements, and are useless.
I have thought over these two ever since they were brought up and now I dont care much about them at all. Old players know, in old times there was no such thing as GearScore or Achievement, and people still managed to clear raids and dungeons. Everything was based on a single inspect and a few words in /w.
But recently this madness has gone so far that some people dont even talk to you if you have low GearScore! They think you are a “n00b” without considering that the low GS might be because that is your alt char which just dinged 80 3 days ago.
All this madness and arguements also decreased the quality of pug raids. Nowadays everyone thinks GS + Achievement is everything. It seems like it never occurs to them that a player might have good gear and still not be able to show some decent DPS/HPS or Aggro, due to the lack of skills and brainscore.
These new requirements for raids also have seem to reduced the players kindness and patience for raids. People get kicked from raids pretty easy. New players who recently dinged 80 are basicly ignored and they have hard times finding raids.
You just wont get an invite to a raid without the achievement plus high gearscore.
People used to tell their raiding advantures as cool memories, and now all you have to do is link your fancy achievements. The stories turned into arrogant brags from innocent memory sharing and boasting.
Despite all the bad effects, GS has its own useful ways like giving you an idea about how much the player grinded high-end raids.
You will basicly be able to tell which raids the player can or cannot handle with that gear. It also saves some time from asking too many questions before inviting one to a raid such as stats. And it also shows what GS is required for all raids except icecrown citadel and Trial of the grand crusader.
But the thing is GS is way overrated and is abused by most of the players. I see at least 5 arguements in Trade Channel everyday, and I even explained my own thoughts and got ignored by a few people over this arguement! I know I’m not the only one being ignored over this…
Before this madness took over players, people used to fight about serious topics, but now its ALL ABOUT GS+ACHIEVEMENT! Players simply attack each-other over Trade channel, braggin about their own GS+achievs and insulting the other ones.
Personally I experienced mostly the bad sides of the whole GS+Achievement madness, even though I have high Gearscore (5.4K, 2/5 t10 At the moment) and some decent achievements. From my point of view, these have more disadvantages than advantages in the World of Warcraft.
We were all here playing the same game before all the GS + Achievement systems, when it was all about a simple inspect and a few moments of chat in /w, and we still managed to clear all the raids after all.
