Matticus

Matticus is the founder of World of Matticus, a World of Warcraft blog.

Cosmo Challenge: Your Responses

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Two weeks ago, I issued the Cosmo Challenge where bloggers were asked to rephrase titles from magazines and apply it to their WoW blogs. They’ve responded admirably!

16 New and Sexy Additions in 2.4 – Altitis
The "Friendly" Arena Advice You Should Never Take – Out of Mana
12 Ways to Get Ahead in Your Guild – Perpetuusmos Guild
Little Mouse Moves to Make Encounters Hotter – Frost Mage
Be an RP-Sex Genius! – Too Many Annas
How to Get Some Tail – Pure Shock Value
Be a Shamanistic Genius (while you level!) – Too Many Annas

Thanks for participating, guys! I have no idea what magazine to try next. Any suggestions?

Ask Matticus: Should I Leave my Guild?

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Cathia recently responded to one of my latest posts in order to ask me an important question:

Hey matticus,im replying not because of iRaid but because i have an question,i role an holy priest myself and i have 1850 bonus healing but i still do kara and grulls only and i realy want more then that.Im waiting for my guild to go for 25 man raids but seems like is going to take more time before they start them.Should i leave them and adventure on an new guild or will that be incorect to them.Thx for your time

Well, you’ve just answered your own question. Your Guild will obviously want you to stay because your healing is an asset. But like you said, Cathia, you want to do more than what your Guild wants to do right now.

So what’s a guy to do right?

I was in your exact same situation almost a year ago. I was stuck in Karazhan and Gruul for about 3 months and I was getting tired and bored of raiding the same places. The first opportunity I had to depart the Guild, I took it and have never looked back since.

You can either stay in your Guild and raid unhappy or leave and try to find a new Guild that will satisfy your craving to raid. But do make your intentions known to your leaders, at least. Try to work out why you’re unhappy and what’s going through your mind.

I’ve got some bright readers here. Why don’t you folks chime in and let Cathia know what you think? Should this player leave for greener pastures?

6 Reasons Why I Haven’t Killed Archimonde Yet

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archie-sad
Image courtesy of KLatham

Note: If you are against WoW players with elitist attitudes, don’t read this post.

"No sacrifice, no victory!"
Sam Witwicky (Transformers, 2007)

I’m sure you’ve read about some of the frustrations that I’ve had with Archimonde in the past few weeks that we’ve worked on him. I wrote off the first few wipes as attempts on learning. Following one of our recent raids, a raid leader asked me for my thoughts on the issue. At the time, I did not know what to say because I did not put a lot of thought into it. After a few days of reflection, I’ve come up with a list of reasons about what our Guild is missing and why we aren’t getting things done.

Willingness to bench players

Remember Bruce? He’s an active member of our 25 man teams. When I mentioned to my raid leader that we should be switching out players that aren’t cutting it, he responded by saying that it isn’t going to work all the time. This is true, I will admit. But this is a progression encounter and we need to bring our best players in at all times. The fact is, Bruce doesn’t qualify as that yet. I respect the fact that he decided to go hemo spec to further help the raid. Unfortunately, I don’t for a second believe the DPS output of the raid has increased to offset the amount of potential damage he can do if he’s not hemo. For a melee player on Archimonde, he has to perform more damage then that.

When we first started on Archimonde, the raid leader said he was going to keep a list of names on who was dying and why. Enough is enough. It’s time to put that list to good use and bench the players that are at the top of the list. I don’t care how good or reputable that player is. If you’ve died many times, then you’re only gimping the raid. Hell, if it were me holding up the raid, I would voluntarily sit out because I know that I suck.

But there are certain players who make me groan to myself everytime they raid with us. It’s because they’re stupid or they don’t listen or they don’t pay attention. I’ve had to mute myself on numerous occasions because I have one hell of a temper. I don’t mind occasional wipes as long as we learn from them and it doesn’t happen again. Those are called progression wipes, and we learn best by experience. Yet if the same players continue to die for the same reasons, why are we bringing that player to a progression raid?

Examples:

  • Players unable to time their air burst tears
  • Shamans who don’t stay with their group for decursive purposes
  • Paladins who can’t seem to listen or understand their assignments

Lag cannot continue to be an excuse

Several of our players were affected by lag issues (no doubt stemming from 2.4 patch related problems). But even before then, some players were complaining about lag affecting their timing. Those players have got to go. We cannot blame all problems on lag. If you cannot compensate for lag, then the law of probability dictates that sooner or later you will get air bursted, die, and subsequently wipe the way. In fact, based on the amount of players that were lagging that day, we should have done something more lag friendly instead. But my point here is the fact that if you’re experiencing connection problems, bow out of the raid and watch some TV.

Healers are being blamed

The whole blame healer excuse also needs to stop. Every once in a while, if it genuinely is a fault of one of ours, I know that our healers are man enough to accept that they had a brain fart and lapsed. But in an encounter with Archimonde that has Doomfires that snake out from Archimonde at a slow speed? We have the best healing corps, in my opinion. Yet a lot of pressure has been directed at us. Statements like "I need heals through doomfire" or "I wasn’t getting any heals" don’t cut it here. As a survival fight, there is no reason for any player to be suffering through doomfire. Healers might be able to compensate for one player getting it, but not when multiple players are getting hit. And they have the audacity to say that they’re not getting the proper heals? Why are you eating doomfires in the first place?

Consistency

In hockey, goalies that are on fire continue to play. Goal scorers that continue to score are paired with the same players. Why? Because of this magical thing we call chemistry. Those same players continue to deliver the same results night after night.

We’ve had nights where we one shot the first 4 bosses in Mount Hyjal with absolutely no problems on trash within the first 90 minutes.

If that’s the case, why do we change up our roster when we get to Archimonde?

The raid leaders said it themselves. This is not a DPS fight, this is a survival fight. We can afford to keep certain classes that might not boost our DPS up a lot because we know they’re not stupid. Instead, we bench those players to bring in players who aren’t as good but we unfortunately need their buffs that they bring to the table. I’d rather take an extra Shadow Priest or a Ret Paladin instead of an Elemental Shaman or Holy Paladin. I know it’s extremely hypocritical for me to say that after I mentioned Bruce earlier above. But that case is an exception. Melee players are the rare few who get to go all out on Archie without much fear of anything happening to them.

I will take veteran experience over buffs any day.

Where’s the focus?

Everyone needs to be present and on the same page. I downshift my focus on trash, but I still go through the motions. However, when we get to bosses, my back is straight, my door is closed, and my cellphone is off. One small mental slip in concentration will result in a wipe. In an area like Hyjal, it is often disastrous.

One of our Warlocks once pulled aggro on Azgalor without realizing it. The raid promptly died and it was 5 minutes to the end of the raid which lead to the raid being called. That’s 30 minutes wasted. For a guild that only raids 11 hours a week, every minute is precious.

One voice

It’s nice to have 2 or 3 authority players who are leading the raid. But there are times when too many cooks spoil the broth. I’ve seen times where one person said to do this, and another player told that same person to do something else. Both players hold rank in our Guild. We cannot afford to have more than one person directing the play. Uncertainty is going to kill us. Those raid leaders need to get together and pick one person to lead quarterback that play and be done with it. If he’s wrong, then it’s another lesson to add to the playbook. The point is that he picks a clear direction for the player to proceed in with no hesitations.

This is one of my harsher posts and it’s for good reason. But the tone of this post pales into comparison to the moods I’ve felt after some of the recent raids. I’ve tried to structure this post in a way that can reasonably convey how I feel about our Archimonde attempts with some reason and thought behind it. My tolerance level is quite high. I’m not at the point where I’m openly going to criticize my raid leaders (yet). This is just what I think and my vantage point is different than everyone else in the raid.

In review, I believe my Guild needs to :

  1. Toughen up and crack down on underperforming players
  2. Stop subbing out players
  3. Not blame lag
  4. Bring back the focus and turn off the distractions
  5. Have one leader that’s clearly in charge of the operation

BREAKING: Introducing the iRaid

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I’m working frantically on an essay right now which is due tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t have a lot of time. I don’t want to reveal my source about this, but you know how Apple’s opened up their API’s and such for third party developers?

Yup, you guessed it.

World of Warcraft is now on the iPhone. In fact, Apple’s secretly working on a product that completely strips every component they have from the iPhone to create a new device that is far more superior than it’s predecessor in any way shape or form.

This new product is called the iRaid. You people with lives, yes you the ones that bail out at the last minute, now don’t have any excuses to skip out on raiding anymore! With the portability of the iRaid, now players can literally raid whenever they want wherever they want. It’s perfect for players whose lives are way too busy.

On top of that, the interface has been completely re-written. Actually, it’s been completely removed. Now World of Warcraft can be played without having to mash any buttons or observe any tool bars. Everything has been designed with simplicity and automaticity in mind. There are no bars at all, raid frames, or meters to worry about. Threat is automatically calculated and should you hit the cap, then the iRaid automatically locks up preventing you from casting any further spells. There’s a nice heads up display which shows useful information such as nearby players their information, nearby enemies, and their range.

How it works

Using Apple’s intuitive touch interface, players can simply create motions with their fingers to perform certain actions.

For example

  • As a Mage, drawing a circle with the letter "S" inside generates a portal to Shattrath
  • As a Shaman, drawing an "X" over an enemy target will automatically trigger chain lightning
  • As a Priest, drawing an oval creates a Power Word: Shield around the target
  • As a Warlock, tapping an enemy target followed by a fast jab in any direction results in a fear
  • As a Warrior, drawing swirls will trigger whirlwind
  • As a Paladin, drawing a square with the letter "B" adjacent to it activates Divine Shield and your hearth stone
  • As a Rogue, repeatedly tapping anywhere on the screen while adjacent to a target causes your rogue to perform sinister strikes
  • As a Druid, targets you tap on will get moonfire spammed

And it gets better! During raids, all that needs to be done is for you to tape a person’s health bar and it will cast the most mana efficient spell in order to heal that player. Heck, if you’re busy, you can always toggle the "lock" switch which locks your iRaid device and sets it on autopilot. It will not register any taps or presses on the screen and perform the logical actions. The new iRaid essentially RAIDS for you so that you don’t have to do a darn thing!

Chat Interface

The chat interface doesn’t deviate much from the normal iPhone. It uses the same interface which you can rotate in either direction. Based on the nature of the message, the iRaid is capable of determining what chat channel or person to send your message to.

 

Other useful stuff

iraid2The iRaid comes with extra features like a "death time counter". It tracks the amount of time that you spend as being dead so you can prove to the rest of the raid just how useful you are because you spend such little time being dead.

There’s loads more of other stuff, but it’s either still under development or under wraps.

No one knows when this product will debut, but my guess is that we will not be seeing it for a long time. It’s wonderful to see top companies collaborating together and combining innovative technologies and software to deliver even more fun addictions.

In order to maximize space, useless things like calendars, music players, browsers, and the like have been removed. Since the iPhone still has a mic and an ear section, voice communication has been built in to allow iRaiders listen to the praise of their raid leaders on what an excellent job they have been doing throughout the raid.

The all new iRaid: Buying skill is now a reality.

8 Non-WoW Related Blogs You Should Read

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“Variety is the very spice of life that gives it all its flavour.”
William Cowper

I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but sometimes I get a little bored after reading nothing but World of Warcraft blogs all day. It’s bad that I get to the point where I cry out in frustration and “mark all as read”. Like my diet, I need a bit of variety once in a while. It’s also not easy being a writer and there are times when ideas are few are far in between. Sometimes reading about different topics once in a while can get the creative juices flowing. With that in mind, check out a few of these other non-WoW blogs:

1: Waiter Rant – These are the adventures of…. a waiter. He writes about day to day trials and tribulations of being in the restaurant service agency. While on it’s own you might think it’s boring, his ability to create interest and his tales from the kitchen make it an entertaining read. In fact, he was voted on Performancing as the 2nd funniest blog on the internet.

2: Presentation Zen – As a student, delivering presentations is a valuable skill to have. The ability to communicate powerful messages is one that any person working in multimedia should learn. Garr Reynolds principles of minimalism and getting straight to the point as much as possible are points that I try to work in my blog and my presentations at school. It’s a good blog to follow if you’re generally interested in public speaking. For college students, corporate people, AND ESPECIALLY PROFESSORS!

3: Skelliewag – Skellie’s a professional blogger based from New Zealand. Any blogger who wants to perfect their blogging and writing would do well to subscribe to Skellie’s blog. She’s got some great tips on how to not lose your sanity when writing along with other general blogging tips.

4: Study Hacks – This ones an education blog meant specifically for post secondary or even high school students. I keep the sections on “Study Tips” and “Student Productivity” bookmarked. When you’re trying to balance raiding, sleeping, blogging, and school, you need every advantage you can get.

5: Issues of Life – Life is definitely not easy. There are always different challenges and obstacles in the way that seem to affect the direction that you are going. Thankfully, Luke Houghton has a with approaches to problem solving, being creative, effectively managing relationships and “how to cope and succeed in life”.

6: Guy Kawasaki – I’ve known about Guy Kawasaki for a while but I’ve only recently begun following his blog. He’s a venture capitalist who invests in small startups and profits on them if they turn out successful. I watched one of his keynotes and he told a story about how he had a chance to become the CEO of Yahoo! but turned it down because of the 1 hour drive to work. Extremely interesting person and also delivers outstanding keynotes.

7: Write to Done – Another blog aimed at writers. Although not specifically targeted towards bloggers, I’ve grown to apply some of the tips here on to my blog and writing in general.

8: Zen Habits (URL fixed, thanks Becca and Anna) – Another recent addition to my reading list, Zen Habits has blog pieces directed towards zentastic views and philosophies toward life. Definitely another blog to read on life, relationships, and productivity (3 areas I could use pointers on). This blog is also by the same guy who does Write to Done.