Matticus

It’s going to be a busy week for me. I was supposed to shoot with the Twisted Nether folks last week but I caught a nasty cold or flu or a cocktail disease containing a runny nose, wet cough, and a sore throat. I’m slowly recovering and I should be good to go for the shoot. My greatest fear is that I sound too “nasaly” or something. Following that, there’s also the WoW Insider show on Saturday. I’m going to see if there’s an opening for me there as well so you can have a double dose of Matticus to kick off your weekend ;).

Breana’s already sent me a few questions that they wanted me to touch on. I’ll do my best to answer a few of those. Actually, if you want to take a quick look at what I’ll be answering:

• Why do you blog?
• Your main is a dwarf, how do you feel about the lack of dwarf children in the game?
• What motivated you to start writing?
• What measure do I use to know if someone is a good healer?
• Why have I never been Shadow?
• Why do I love healing so much?

On the other hand, I love doing things on the fly. They’ve opened up the floor for listeners to ask their own questions.

I told them specifically not to tell me what the next set of questions will be. Surprise me. I used to do a bit of improv in high school. We’ll see if that translates well over iTunes. If you have any burning questions to ask, the above link is the way to go. We might not have time to get all of them in, but I will do my best and make an effort to try.

By the way, if you want to play a fun drinking game, every time Matt says “eh?” take a drink. Every time Matt says “aboot” down the whole glass.

Heh, I know I’ll at least have one person interested in listening.

Dear WoW Bloggers,

I’m directing this post to you in the hopes that you will break out of your creative shell at some point. Blogs die every day for various reasons. The author no longer has the time or maybe they’ve lost interest. Another common reason is that they can’t seem to come up with anything “good” for their blogs so they give up because they fail to attract visitors or fail to generate discussion.

What is a good blog?

That doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about the “good” part until you get the “blog” part down. I’ve spoken to my share of bloggers on the internet and I have sensed a common ailment that affects every single one of them. It’s dangerous, it stunts growth, and it slowly eats away at them without their realizing it.

It’s known as fear of failure.

For bloggers, this is bad. They’re afraid of writing because they’re afraid of being rejected. I believe every blogger out there is capable of great ideas and great posts. I also know they’re afraid of writing it down and exploring the idea because they feel “it’s too stupid” or “boring”.

Realize now that no two readers are made the same. What’s appealing for one person may not be appealing to the other. For instance, I read daily posts on encounters, raiding, and guild business. I tend to avoid story posts where this boss was downed. You might have a nice personal story to share, but I’m not interested. I want to get something of value out of what I read. I want to learn something new. Not everyone’s like that. Others read to escape or to entertain themselves. Readers want to have fun and laugh at stories that bloggers share.

Sometimes, the headlines speak for themselves and I can skip over the story. Let me give you a quick example of how the removal of even 1 character can change the face and feel of the story:

“25-manned Gruul”

vs

“5-manned Gruul”

Now what do you think I’m likelier to pick and read? Even though the 5 manning of Gruul may not be real, it’s still an eye catching headline that will make people pause and read.

Don’t worry

Guy Kawasaki is a business man I look up to. At one of his infamous keynotes, he made a reference to Walt Disney. There’s a song in the Disney franchise called “Don’t worry, be happy”. Guy twists it around in his talk and tells innovators to instead don’t worry, be crappy.

Everyone works hard in the real world to maintain an image and to be the model citizen. They live to serve the expectations that society dishes out. The internet’s a great place to escape that pressure. Write something outrageous! Be daring!

When you first start blogging, you can’t expect an audience immediately. Blogging is a social thing which encourages interaction. You’re not supposed to be a lecturer.

You’re going to write something once in a while that isn’t going to fly with what your readers like. They’ll let you know. Use that reaction for the future. Again, you’ll never know if people will like a post or not until you pen it and publish it.

This is how it works

You write a post which happens to link to another blog.
This other blog’s owner finds out they have an incoming link coming from your blog.
The curious blogger then clicks the link to your blog and starts reading.
The curious blogger proceeds to either like or dislike what you have to say and mentions your blog on their blog.
Other bloggers and readers pick up on it and come to your blog.
The process repeats.

It takes a lot of time to develop. A lot of bloggers give up because they don’t have the patience. This post isn’t directed to them. This post is aimed at the bloggers who claim they don’t have ideas.

Wrong.

You have ideas, you just don’t have the confidence to follow through on them. I want to read what it is that you have to say. I can’t form an opinion of a post if it hasn’t been written yet.

Get over your fear of rejection and just start writing.

 
Image courtesy of RobK

After spending my precious non-WoW time on Age of Conan, I felt it was time for a break. For a blog post, why not write up the ABC’s of raid healing? But it was late. This column was penned at around 12 in the morning. 

For once, I needed help. A quick glance at the Blog Azeroth chatroom showed some idle activity but I found the name I was looking for. Anna, with speed that not even Nature’s Swiftness could rival, agreed to team up with me to write this post. She tackled the odds and I took the evens. Here’s what I came up with. Don’t forget to check out the other half on Too Many Annas when you finish!

Brain heal: When in doubt, bring more Resto Shamans.

Don’t lose confidence in your abilities as a healer.

Forget the naysayers. Break your healing problems down to the simplest level and try to solve each one individually.

Heal. Heal more. Heal fast. Heal smart. Heal now.

Just when you think it’s over and your raid will wipe because you’re fresh out of mana, the boss will die. Good work!

Line of sight. Don’t ever lose it. Precious seconds lost because you were readjusting to the tanks position could mean an imminent wipe.

No matter how tempting it may seem, don’t try to over extend yourself. You’ll end up burning up your mana faster when it should’ve been saved for your main assignments.

Prayer of Healing, Chain Heal, Binding Heal, Circle of Healing, and Tranquility are some of the best multi-target healing spells in the game. Understand the most opportune times to cast those spells on your group. Start forcing yourself to use them. A 3 second cast to heal the entire group is better then Flash Healing for 7.5 seconds to get your group to full.

Read up on raid strategies and boss fights before hand. Knowledge truly is power. By understanding what kind of damage you’re up against, you can develop countermeasures against it.

Use your Mana Potions, trinkets, and other mana returning abilities wisely. Time them well and the mana you get back will sustain yourself for the entire fight. Time it poorly and the raid will sit around not laughing as you stand, manaless, in the comedy spotlight.

‘Xamine your UI. Do you really need all that crap on your screen as a healer? What can you do away with? What can you not heal without? Are you being overloaded with information that you don’t really need?

Zealous healers make the best healers. It’s hard to show enthusiasm and excitement. But the ones that do are the ones your Guild wants to keep.