I have been measured, and have been found wanting.
But hey, don’t I look heroic? (This stocky fellow is my “Alliance main”… I’d show my Tishtoshtesh character, but his pose lacks this fellow’s panache. One simply must put their best foot forward in an audit, after all.)
So… yes, I find the whole notion of a “Character Audit” rather… silly. I’m sure there’s a slippery slope in there somewhere, but for now, I’m simply amused that the new and improved WoW Armory has an Auditor. There’s a marked lack of a FaceBook button, though. Is it really enough that only the system gets to tell me I’m doing it wrong? Also, as yet, there’s not an Auditor in-game.
Yet.
Edited to add:
OK, here’s Tishtoshtesh, to show more silliness. Of all the things to complain about regarding that head armor, it whines about being non-leather (cloth) and unenchanted. I’d have started with “looks idiotic” and “caster stats, you Feral nitwit”. (So sue me, it’s the only head armor I’ve found so far.)
The Bilgewater Cartel tabard is so I can someday get a tricycle and motor around like this guy:
If I’m going to be absurd, why not? Besides, it reminds me of Bowser on a Mario Kart, and that makes me smile.
My in-game audit is just “You’re a few ilevels short of this instance/heroics, go l2p, noob”. Okay it’s more of a listing of current and required average ilevel, but I know what it’s saying.
What’s an auditor??
Sorry, should note sometimes pic don’t show for me – if the pic explains all, I’ll no doubt see it next time I cruise by.
An auditor in general is one who measures you and decides if you’re up to par. It’s commonly used in tax terms, as in a “tax auditor” who goes over your books and tells you if you owe the government money.
In this case, it’s the WoW database measuring your gear and other facets of your character and telling you that you’re lacking, and breaking it down into specifics, like gear without enchants, average item level, missing glyphs and/or gems, that sort of thing. It goes over your inadequacies in exhaustive detail, which would be funnier if it weren’t something that apparently warranted inclusion for some reason.
Armory has an auditor??? *goes to try it*
But why do you NEED a belt buckle for Hogger’s leggings?!
Well, Hogger was getting a little, shall we say, wide in the britches. A solid belt buckle should make his leggings fit a Dwarf a bit better. Humans would need suspenders, of course.
Automated peer pressure FTW!
Players have done these sorts of services before, it’s just official now. There’s also services like Rawr that scour the entire item database and derive optimal gear/enchant/gem combinations for specific encounters. I used it back in TBC and a Cataclysm-compatible version is due to be released soon.
While this may sound hardcore, it’s also very useful in getting the most bang out of your buck. If you only have a few hours available per week to update your gear, you will want to go for the items that provide the largest upgrades for the least effort.
It’s like making Gearscore official. What worries me about the audit is that it’s telling you your gear isn’t enchanted when you’re not even a max level toon and you’re replacing half your gear every few levels. I’d worry about a character that was always fully enchanted and had a belt buckle on a level 20 quest reward when they are your level.
@ZombiePirate:
I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s not like the jerky Gearscore people were going away from the game anyway.
There’s a lot of info about this game out there, and it used to not be terribly apparent to the casual player. Considering where I started out, I wouldn’t have learned half of what I know without the help of friends, especially early on – I mean, I didn’t know that the game had forums, or that there were blogs, an armory, wowhead, WoW Insider, etc.!
It seems as if Blizzard is trying to make information more available FROM THEM, both in-game and on battle.net, and I see no problem with that. It’s not a bad way to learn about gear enhancements, stats, armor specializations, and so on. – - It’s a tool to use, and how you approach it determines what you can get out of it.
I have alts that I’ve used differently from one another. On some, I’ve taken what the game gave me (cloth helm on a lowby hunter? CHECK.), because WoW is perfectly playable that way. For others, I’ve done the whole “dress him to the nines” thing, because that’s fun too.
ZP, yeah, it’s silly to call for enchantments on a lot of gear, as it’s replaced pretty quickly through normal play. That part baffled me, as did the belt buckle (those aren’t cheap) and the “empty sockets” bit… since sockets don’t exist in lowbie armor. It seems optimized for endgame characters looking for that min-maxing edge, totally ignorant of what low level characters actually have available.
Ultimately, though, I’m with Hirvox and Russ on this one; while I think it’s silly and have little use for it myself, it’s something players have to go looking for, and if they are looking for guidance (for whatever reason), one may as well get it directly from Blizzard.
That said, if it *does* get incorporated into the game proper, I’d be a bit annoyed by it, as it would be another tool for the Gearscore crowd to beat other players with. I’d ignore it for my own play, but I could see it being an annoying addition to the social fabric.
It’s sort of like the DPS meters and how people don’t understand numbers. I joined a Gnomeregan group last night halfway through the dungeon, and after downing Thermaplugg, the tank laughed at me for having low DPS. Well, yes, I probably had about half that of the other players, having only been there half the time, and taking care of those bomb adds so we don’t wipe means I’m not getting an optimal DPS rotation on the ol’ boss dude. Imagine the interpretation if I were a heavy CC class playing DPS.
Math just isn’t a strong suit for a lot of people. But hey, if the meters/Auditor says something, it must be true, hm? As Dblade notes, it’s automated, so there’s none of that pesky prejudice involved.
People always find ways to be jerks, but if the numbers help them, well, then they are justified. Numbers never lie, right?
Numbers do NOT lie.
42.
See? No lie!
As an ex player and ex ‘harcoarrr’ raider, the 3rd party gear editors (as mentioned – Rawr, and I even used the rogue DPS spreadsheets) were actually really handy to maximize your toon (ie: epeen pump).
Sarcasm aside, yet another thing Blizzard is adding from the community, albeit doesn’t look as useful (yet). On one hand I applaud them for taking the best out of mods/tools from the community, on the other I can’t help but think how much better they would be just integrating the existing ones (and crediting the person who created it.)
But yeah, uh, you suck. I wouldn’t let you in my Stockades raid even as a warm body. So there.
I had not seen this yet in the armory, will have to check it out when I get home. I did notice that with the gearscore add on it has a “player rating” embedded in it. It looks like other players who also use the add on can give you a postive or negative rating and it will show up when they inspect you. I can see the intent here, ninja looters and what not, but I think there is also a lot potential for griefing.
Dblade:
Automated peer pressure FTW!
Hehe, good call! I’ll remember that descriptor!