Recommended Posts

So.

Ever thought about the fact that this is the WoW thread zone and it's related to all things WoW, therefore, it counts?

Guess not.

I thought it was pretty cool news, and it goes to show just how awesome of a company Blizzard is.

It was a serious question, No need to get aggressive.

^^ Your Signature is linking to content that is against the ToS here on Neowin just saying.

I don't even see a signature :s

If the company was THAT awesome they they would stop robbing us blind and fix the god damn server lag issues that have plagued most of the EU servers since Christmas.

True Story.

Downed (or kept alive) Val Dreamwalker Last night, made stead progress on Rotface 10 man. Some Guildies are slacking a bit or we would have downed the Professor. Was absolutly devastated on the professor, healer dc'd and tank died at 3% or something and i think he healed up a bit.... so we wiped

As for 25 mans well 6/12 are on farm, not tried professor and struggled with Val. (I pug 25 mans they are not guild runs but i run with the same pug everyweek so it sort of is starting to feel like a guild run).

It also seems that a 5.2k GS is terribad for pugging 10 man icc :( bit of a shame as i started off on my main with a score of 5.2k and now im nearly at 5.8k. People do not understand that gearing up alts is difficult and you will not always have the achievement on it. Generally i have to log over to main to either link achievements or rub my Gear Score in other peoples faces.

The servers these days seem to swear by gearscore. Groups are so efficient they will not run with player less than 5k GS. I seen people spamming trade for over 5k GS for ToC10/25, made me laugh. I remember doing ToC10/25 with arounda 4.2k GS. What is worse is sometimes when you join pugs like this they fail due to nubs with high GS not knowing what to do. I think the whole Emblem system blizzard has failed on :( Bad, Terribad players can get T9 gear or equivilent, get into raids, not pull their weight and get good rolls on loot, whereas players who deserve loot miss out.

I have been in a few groups where the RL has said 4.5k Min DPS or no loot, or min HPS has to be 2.5k or something like that and the group has performed, slackers who get boosted obviously do not get any loot, which sorta seems fair, most of the time though most groups will not need any loot and they will end up getting it anyway.

Groups are so efficient they will not run with player less than 5k GS. I seen people spamming trade for over 5k GS for ToC10/25, made me laugh. I remember doing ToC10/25 with arounda 4.2k GS.

This is just "Must Be Geared" round two. The decisions about who gets to be in a pug have always been arbitrary. Having a number (like AP/Healing/Stam in TBC or sum of item levels in WoTLK) allows the group leader to offer some rationale for what otherwise boils down to "I don't like you" or "You'll compete with me for drops".

What it's all boiling down to is: "don't pug". Nobody really did it in classic because it sucked. The majority of pugs sucked in TBC too. Just because everything is so easy it can be pugged doesn't change the fact that you'll likely end up dealing with jerks.

I've been somewhat fortunate in this respect: I don't know what my gear score is and don't want to. I've been able to coast along on my guild tag - people see the name and instantly I'm a good player no matter what gear or achievements I have. Really, that's no worse than gear score: maybe I should invent a 'guild score' addon that assigns you a number based on the achievements of characters in your guild. Give it a catchy name like "skill score" and I bet it'd take off.

Blizzard needs to invent their own version of "gear score" and put WoW Heroes and the GearScore addons to rest..

They're player invented and they're hotly disputed about how much they suck.

I dont think they suck they give a rough idea of where a person's gear level is at, with the newer versions it also tells you Experience aswell like How much raids you have completed etc. The downside is when people ask for redicoulously high gs for easy encounters. My Pally, Hunter and DK all have over 5k GS so generally its not much of an issue for me to find a group but when i see stuff posted in trade again and again it gets annoying.

Blizzard could solve the problem easily by not letting people into Raids, so lets say for instance ToC10... you would need 3.8k GS to enter (this would be like an attunement) if you have less then your gear is not at the right level for the encounter, regardless if you are a good player or not (the bottleneck for a good player will be gear).

Sometimes i do think the Gearscore people have a point. 5k GS is easy to get. 1-2 Days of farming heroics you get Full Tier9 Set (ilvl232) and also you can get cloaks, rings, boots, wrists, belts too!

Makes me think sometimes bad players will always have bad GS, why take people to a raid who cant be bothered gearing up.

I dont think they suck they give a rough idea of where a person's gear level is at, with the newer versions it also tells you Experience aswell like How much raids you have completed etc. The downside is when people ask for redicoulously high gs for easy encounters. My Pally, Hunter and DK all have over 5k GS so generally its not much of an issue for me to find a group but when i see stuff posted in trade again and again it gets annoying.

Blizzard could solve the problem easily by not letting people into Raids, so lets say for instance ToC10... you would need 3.8k GS to enter (this would be like an attunement) if you have less then your gear is not at the right level for the encounter, regardless if you are a good player or not (the bottleneck for a good player will be gear).

Sometimes i do think the Gearscore people have a point. 5k GS is easy to get. 1-2 Days of farming heroics you get Full Tier9 Set (ilvl232) and also you can get cloaks, rings, boots, wrists, belts too!

Makes me think sometimes bad players will always have bad GS, why take people to a raid who cant be bothered gearing up.

Herein lies the problem.

If you run the GearScore addon, your gear score addon is different than that of your WoW Heroes gear score.

Also, if a plate wearer wears cloth, it will be higher.

My gear score went DOWN from when I upgraded from something that wasn't t9 to my t9 shoulders.

That's completely stupid.

I am rather upset with the whole gear score concept simply due to I can deal around 3.5 to 4k damage easily depending on buffs and on heroic randoms people will boot be due to my gear score and i have Full tier 9 armor (except for the legs)

Standup, you're not going to last here on Neowin if you continue to do that.

I've reported your post.

^ Don't say that.

As for gearscore, having Blizzard implement something like that would be retarded. It goes against their philosophy on how the game should be played.

@Minifig, I believe it goes by item level. Perhaps you had 245 offset shoulders and put on the 232 T9? Just a guess, but I'd assume that would be what did it. WoW-Heroes is a lot more accurate, hell even the creator of GS addon I believe recognizes this. Either way, all it does is increase the size of your e-Peen. Doesn't make you better in any way, except maybe how to gear yourself better I suppose with enchants/gems.

The only reason I use the GS is that it quickly helps me to figure out why someone's DPS is in the s----er. I'm very patient with under-geared players, especially if they know the fights. It's when I see decently geared people doing under 2k that ticks me off, or people who simply don't follow instructions.

Herein lies the problem.

If you run the GearScore addon, your gear score addon is different than that of your WoW Heroes gear score.

Also, if a plate wearer wears cloth, it will be higher.

My gear score went DOWN from when I upgraded from something that wasn't t9 to my t9 shoulders.

That's completely stupid.

What are you on about?

Gearscore goes off what Item Level Items one has. Gearscore has nothing to do with wow-heroes, just like wow-heroes has nothing to do with be.imba.hu. They should be separate theres no reason to merge them. Gearscore doing online ingame what wow-heroes does offline, scoring is different as wow-heroes gives scores for enchants and gems whereas Gearscore does not.

My hunter currently has ilvl245 Boots, if i was to replace them with Mail/Leather/Cloth ilvl264 my GS would go up regardless as they are of a higher item level origin. Sites like wow-heroes or be.imba.hu might tell me that im stupid for wearing cloth but gearscore wont.

Gearscore is a great addon, just Goto Recount, click left/right a few times until you Reach Performace/DPS or Performace/HPS and you will see who is a slacker or not. (this is once you have actually downed something in a raid and not in the process of starting one Based on GS.)

you would need 3.8k GS to enter (this would be like an attunement) if you have less then your gear is not at the right level for the encounter, regardless if you are a good player or not (the bottleneck for a good player will be gear).

That doesn't help as long as players are inventing shaper requirements than blizzard. Case in point: you can be sent to tank heroic halls of reflection with < 24,000 HP. It's possible to do it but if you zone in, 99% of the pugs will look at you and bail. For the average player tanks must have 35k HP (or whatever) in order to bother attempting that zone.

Case in point: Naxx was cleared by guilds where some raid members weren't 80 and everybody was in level 70 gear. Still you see pugs demanding people have some arbitrary amount of gear to pug patchwerk.

Makes me think sometimes bad players will always have bad GS, why take people to a raid who cant be bothered gearing up.

I'd much rather have the competent player in blues than the bad player in tier 10: dead rogues do no damage.

There are some roles where having certain levels of gear are required (IE: raids are less forgiving to under geared tanks than under geared DPS) but players still vastly over-estimate the gear needed for raids. You don't need 40,000 raid-buffed health to tank the first 4 in ICC. It's nice when you have it, but it's not required.

This is just "Must Be Geared" round two. The decisions about who gets to be in a pug have always been arbitrary. Having a number (like AP/Healing/Stam in TBC or sum of item levels in WoTLK) allows the group leader to offer some rationale for what otherwise boils down to "I don't like you" or "You'll compete with me for drops".

What it's all boiling down to is: "don't pug". Nobody really did it in classic because it sucked. The majority of pugs sucked in TBC too. Just because everything is so easy it can be pugged doesn't change the fact that you'll likely end up dealing with jerks.

I've been somewhat fortunate in this respect: I don't know what my gear score is and don't want to. I've been able to coast along on my guild tag - people see the name and instantly I'm a good player no matter what gear or achievements I have. Really, that's no worse than gear score: maybe I should invent a 'guild score' addon that assigns you a number based on the achievements of characters in your guild. Give it a catchy name like "skill score" and I bet it'd take off.

I think there are just as many jerks in guilds as there are in pugs, bad guilds are also a dime a dozen and they are just as bad as a bad pug. Usually pugs set a gear score requirement because it sets a baseline for the raid, its not an ultimate indicator of how well the player will do but it is still a good guideline. Yes the 5.5k gs requirement pug can still be full of bad players but I promise you it won't be as bad of an experience as the no gear score requirement pug full of bad players. I won't even waste my time joining a pug that isn't gear checking, weather it's gear score or something else.

Got my druid to 64 today.

395 +healing as resto

11.9k HP with Survival insticts up as feral.

I really enjoy playing it, much more so then my hunter.

It's insane to think I've spend 34 days /played just at level 80 on hunter.. I can't even force myself to log on him other than to cut gems.. I've completely disregarded the daily heroics and raiding.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Posts

    • Nope. That lack of surround sound capability (analog) won't fly with me. Sure, I use headphones most of the time, but still.
    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it by Steven Parker If you have been reading Neowin for any length of time, you may remember that I reviewed the Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro back in April. I found it to be an excellent budget sound card, even though it lacked support for formats such as DTS over the included SPDIF port. Anyway, Creative reached out to me again asking if I was interested in reviewing the Sound Blaster AE-X. It is a card mainly targeted at headphone wearers, which I'll get into a bit later. Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: Creative Labs provided a free sample without any review pre-approval. Here are the full specs of it: Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Dimensions: 179 x 126 x 18 mm Weight: 263g / 9.28 oz Platform: PCI-e DAC: ESS ES9039Q2M Connectivity Options Side: Rear: 1 x HD Audio Front Panel Connector, 1 x ⅛“ Headphone port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Left) port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Right) port, 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port, 1 x ⅛“ Mic in/Line-in port, 1 x TOSLINK SPDIF-in port Surround: No DNR / SNR: THD+N: 0.0001% Dynamic Range 130 dB Recording Resolution: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Direct Mode: Line Out (Stereo): PCM up to 32-bit  384 kHz Coaxial SPDIF Out: PCM up to 24-bit 192.0 kHz Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 384kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 Output Impedance: 1Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 8–600Ω, IEM: 0.5Vrms, Low: 1.5Vrms, Mid: 3Vrms, High: 6Vrms, Maximum output power: 350mW @ 32Ω (High), Maximum output voltage: 6Vrms (High) Front Panel Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128 Output Impedance: 10Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 32–300Ω, Maximum output power: 40mW @ 32Ω, Maximum output voltage: 1.9Vrms ASIO: ASIO 2.3 Total Harmonic Distortion: THD+N: 0.0006% Dynamic Range: 114 dB Scout Mode: Yes EMI shielding: No (but it passed all the FCC emission tests) Operating temperature: 0–45°C Input Power: 12V⎓0.5A Warranty: 1 Year (MSRP) Price: $179.99 / £169.99 The Sound Blaster AE-X was announced at the end of May, and it becomes clear that it is mainly for headphone wearers. I should also note that the card does not support DDL/DTS encoding technology, but it is said to support decoding through the coaxial SPDIF port. I was able to test this working with the classic Windows Sound properties, but I could not get a DTS (decode) signal through my Logitech Z906, it defaulted to 3D sound whenever I played DTS content through Plex or Emby. In addition, this card only supports two channels (stereo) over the speakers. The surround support is limited to the Headphone Amp, so before I get underway, what we have here is a card mostly intended for headphone use, especially with its SPDIF In (Toslink) port where you could connect another device like a console. So what about the highlights of this card? The AE-X is powered by the ESS SABRE DAC (ES9039Q2M), which is capable of a 130 dB dynamic range. In addition, it supports 32-bit/384 kHz playback for deeper detail and clarity. The headphone amplifier delivers up to 350 mW @ 32Ω, which admittedly far surpasses standard onboard audio, offering support for studio-grade headphones. DSD256 and ASIO 2.3 are also supported. What doesn't it have? No support for What-U-Hear, Super X-Fi, or the SmartComms Kit No EMI shielding, but it passed all the FCC emission tests (from the FAQ) I also want to make it clear that I am no audiophile. For me, it's purely subjective and it should just "work" out of the box. First impressions As I said in the introduction, I was a bit sad to see that the AE-X only supports stereo output, meaning it would not be on par with my ALC1220 over my speakers, as I mentioned it seems like this card is marketed toward headphone users. Since I am not an avid gamer that would rule me out as a potential customer, but I can still test its capabilities! The card arrived in a nice-looking box, as shown above. It's quite a bit larger than the Audify FX Pro that I reviewed back in April, and at first I thought the covering meant that it was EMI shielded, but it isn't as mentioned above in the highlights section. What's in the box: 1 x Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe card 1 x 3.5 mm CTIA TRRS to Dual TRS Headset Splitter Cable 1 x Quick Start Guide Aside from the Quick Start Guide, which someone at my age (I guess) needs a magnifying glass to read thanks to the tiny fonts, Creative Labs also has the manual online, which first requires you to prove that you're human in order to access it (so I can't direct link it). Anyway, the box is mostly made up of cardboard, and the only plastic in it is the anti-static bag for the card itself. Design Top Bottom The card itself looks pretty cool and actually wouldn't look out of place in an all-white build. There's only one connector, and for some reason it is awkwardly placed on the side (front-facing) that is for the front panel audio connector, which will let you use the headphones through the front PC audio jack. Since the front panel Headphone Amp has fewer capabilities than the rear headphone port, I decided not to use it. Rear of card PCI-e interface The rear of the card is completely open and is normally where you would find the front panel connector. The PCIe interface side is completely covered, which initially made me think it was EMI shielded. I/O panel Side (front-facing) with Front panel connector On the outer rear bracket side we have the TOSLINK SPDIF in, Coaxial SPDIF out, RCA line out (Right), RCA line out (Left), Headphone out, and Mic/Line in ports. On the front facing portion of the card itself is the F-panel connector. Usage Test System Our test system consists of the following: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (BIOS F12) Corsair RM1000x (2024) Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut (33x33x0,2mm) 2x 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000MT/s CL36-38-38-80 T-Force Z540 2TB (PCIe Gen5) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (NVIDIA) Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Windows 11 25H2 Pro I installed the card into the Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER which includes the RealTek ALC1220 onboard audio. For our subjective listening tests, I used the Coaxial SPDIF port to my Logitech Z906 speakers. For headphone tests I used the OneOdio Studio Max 2 Wireless DJ Headphones that I reviewed last month. After installing the audio driver, I installed Creative Nexus, which is a relatively new app designed for the latest Sound Blaster cards. Then I discovered the AE-X needed both a driver update from 1.00.15.0001 to 1.01.09.000 and a firmware update from 1.00.06.0000 to 1.00.06.0002, then I was set to go. It should be noted that the card did not work without the driver (not Plug and Play). As you can see above, you can manage the firmware, driver, and inputs via Advanced Settings on the Device tab. By default Nexus enabled "Direct Mode". Upon clicking on Acoustic Engine, the Equalizer can be enabled and set to four different presets, which are: Gaming Music Movies Footsteps Enhancer There's also a dedicated Scout Mode for gamers. I mainly used Tidal and Spotify in the past week to listen to some of my Liked Songs (which now total over 700) in Shuffle mode; there were no pops or interference that I could hear. I also found a 5.1 Surround Music playlist on Tidal that sounded really great over Studio Max 2 headphones. When I reviewed the Audigy FX Pro, I went out and purchased a Logitech Z906 set second-hand for €100 specifically to use with the card, but in this instance all I could get on the AE-X was the 3D output of surround sound through Coaxial SPDIF and although it still sounded great, it isn't quite as good as DTS Interactive via my onboard Realtek ALC1220. Conclusion So what have I learned? The AE-X lacks multi-channel support for 5.1/7.1 setups and drops support for modern surround technologies like Dolby or DTS, functioning strictly as a stereo output device. So to really benefit, you will need Studio-grade headphones to "hear" the benefits of this card. With that being said, I can imagine it will appeal to gamers who are switching between console and PC. By utilizing the SPDIF in port, you could just plug your headphones into the AE-X (front or rear port) and then switch between PC and Console without having to move the headphones to a different port. As I said in the Sound Blaster Audigy review, the EQ in the Creative Nexus app offers safe presets, which allows a user to further tweak the lows, mids, and highs for a personal listening experience. Of course it all depends on the headphones you hook up to it. Speaking of headphones, I kind of wish I had higher-quality Studio-grade headphones to really test this card with; I'm not usually wearing headphones in my day to day duties. The only time I will wear them is if I want to listen to music very late at night and I don't want to disturb my neighbors, so my rating (verdict) is based on this fact. Someone with a PC/Console setup and wears headphone religiously to game, and consume media will benefit much more than I from the high-quality Headphone Amps that are included in the AE-X. Once again, I do feel like Creative could have gone the extra mile to support the S/PDIF port a bit more. Why include it if you're not supporting the main popular digital formats? It seems like the decision was more of a legacy-based one, offering uncompressed 2-channel PCM audio, for users with high-fidelity audio systems and external DACs. Maybe I will be lucky enough to review a card that truly includes all these features in the future. I am sure readers with far more knowledge on audio systems than me will correct me in the comments below. I'll just say I am happy to learn what I don't know! Where to buy The Sound Blaster AE-X is available to purchase now in preorder for $179.99 on the U.S. Creative website, or for £169.99 on the Creative UK website and will start shipping to customers from June 25.
    • $80 or 90%, anything else would be financial suicide one way or another.
    • Or... just use Bitwarden. Free, and has on-prem option as well. Works both on desktop and mobile, wherever you are. The age of local password files is over.
    • Thanks
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      hhgygy earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      AMV earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      513
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      164
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      88
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      74
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      73
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!