Matticus

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

Extreme Makeover – Matt’s UI: Part 1

by

My UI is an absolute mess. But somehow, I’m able to make sense of all that information and I’m able to act on it (usually). As a Priest, I spend most of my time with my eyes glued on the raid. With new encounters in Hyjal and BT, situational awareness becomes much more important.

Here’s a sample screenshot of the current state of my UI. It’s a complete and utter mess. There’s a lot of crap on my screen and a lot of it is redundant.

With that in mind, I decided to do a quick 2 parter before and after series about my UI. I figured I’d share my thoughts and my approach in overhauling my interface so that it’s more zentastic. Yup, that’s right. I intend to apply a minimalist zen approach to my UI. I play on a large screen. It’s quite tiring to traverse my eyes from the left side to the right. I want to start compacting information in one area so that I don’t have to scan the entire monitor for it.

Note: The addons I have below are those that can be visually seen.

Text Chat

First, I’m going to write about the non-addon related stuff: Namely, the text chat.

I’ve split up my chat windows from 1 window into 3 separate windows.

Left window: Handles general, trade, LFG, and Say chat.

Middle window: Raid chat, Guild chat, Healer Chat, and Priest Chat

Right window: This is meant for a separate channel that I share with my friends on the server. They’re all in different guilds but we keep in touch in our channel.

Addons

Aloft: This replaces the default nameplates that Blizzard has packaged with the game. You can see it in action over some of my guildmates on the right. Their health bar is colored to reflect their class. It also shows their mana bar below (or rage or energy). It’s very handy for me if I need to find a player and physically get to them.

Omen: Omen has replace KTM as my personal threat meter of choice. At the moment, I’m seriously considering removing it from my screen or disabling it. I’m almost never going to pull aggro. Knowing the threat levels of other players isn’t going to help me much in any way. I will keep the addon activated in order to transmit, however.

Bongos2: I use Bongos in order to manage my bars. As you can see, I’ve reduced my bar size to something fairly smaller than normal. I do most of my spell casting via my keyboard anyway. The alpha (transparency) has been set to 50%. XP bar is disabled, along with my bags, latency, and keyrings. I use Shift B in order to open all of them.

Elkano’s Buffbars: You can see my buffs in action on the right side of the screen. It shows buffs, debuffs, and durations. I’m trying to figure out how to disable that "Blessing of Demonstration" or whatever it is on the bottom.

Recount: I’ve mentioned Recount before but I mainly use it to analyze my own performance and troubleshoot player deaths. Note that the one linked is to Recount (Preservation). It’s meant for use in 2.4 but I believe it should still work for 2.3.

Pitbull: This is what I use for raid management. There’s a lot of options and a lot of flexibility and I need to spend some serious time going through it and messing with it. Those raid windows are large and I need to figure out how to shrink them among other things.

NECB: Natur EnemyCastBar is what I use to help track spell casts of other entities around me. I just need to find a better place to put it. Maybe to the right of the middle.

DoTimer: It can tell me at a glance how long before my HoTs and DoTs expire and when my cooldowns can be used again (Stoneskin, trinkets).

Targets

As you can see, I have target windows all over the place. There’s my player window, my target’s window, my target’s target window, my focus window, etc.

I don’t use focus macros that often, if at all. Therefore I’m considering removing that. I might move my own player window to the far left side. I plan on downloading a HuD eventually. I’m going to do away with Pitbull’s Main Tanks and tank targets window. I’ll probably axe pet targets and party pet targets as well.

You will also notice the raid in various states of transparency. That’s my range finder. If the player is transparent, they are not in range. If they frame isn’t transparent, then I can hit them with a heal.

Check back next week when I post the results of my modifications.

20 Characteristics of a Mature Guild Member

by

Our beloved WoW is full of many different types of players. The people behind them are people of all ages and all maturity levels. I’ve met my share of intelligent 16 year olds who have shown signs of wisdom and humility. I’ve also met 23 year olds who wonder why they’re shunned by other players. In my past guild, we would always debate amongst the officers if we should impose age restrictions. Eventually we did but it was solely because of the content and nature of our guild discussions at times and not because of maturity levels.

What exactly is a mature guildmate then? There are 20 characteristics that I can think of:

  1. Exhibiting patience and calm after wipes.
  2. Knowing that bosses do not go down right away after 1 attempt.
  3. Looks at the bright side of a wipe and learning from the mistakes that were made instead of trying to assign blame.
  4. Able to control their own temper.
  5. Is empathetic and is able to keep the feelings of other players under consideration before taking any actions.
  6. Is aware that being prepared for raids on time and always showing up is better then being skilled and talented.
  7. Willing to listen to negative feedback in order to become a better player.
  8. Has a high sense of self esteem and confidence.
  9. Knows that WoW can be a communication barrier as in game text does not fully communicate the emotion or feelings of the other person and does not hesitate to ask for clarification.
  10. Willing to ask questions until understanding is achieved.
  11. Willing to answer questions until understanding is achieved.
  12. Knows the difference between needing an epic and wanting an epic.
  13. Aware that World of Warcraft is like computer technology and that whatever you have now will be outdated later.
  14. Accepts responsibility for their own actions and mistakes.
  15. Knows the difference between confidence and arrogance.
  16. Realizes that there are real people behind the characters and treats them as such.
  17. Understands that gear is earned and not freely given.
  18. Behaves gracefully under pressure.
  19. Gives 110% effort in everything they do.
  20. Has an open mind and is willing to try anything.

Most importantly, mature guildmates will not object when they are asked to do something. They are aware of their own capabilities and limitations and they are downright dependable.

Raiding is Hardly Hardcore

by

I want to direct your attention to a post made by Galo, at Ardent Defender. The post is an example of the casual guild experience when they raid. In the last paragraph, he poses a question:

Am I hardcore?

It all depends on the measuring stick that is being used. But in this case, Galo, no you’re not. Here’s a pattern that I’ve discovered when I’ve raided with "casual players".

  • Ten minutes to buff
  • Not listening or following instructions in raids
  • Frequent AFK breaks
  • Ridiculously late start times (an hour after a scheduled raid begins?)

Behavior like that is just unacceptable to me. It proves to me that a player is lazy and unmotivated. No real raider wants to raid with players like that. They give "casual" gamers a bad name since that’s what they’re frequently classified under.

Here is my other question. Why are players who do the exact opposite of what I’ve listed above considered hardcore?

Namely things like:

  • A quick 30 minute buff after a player dies
  • Staying quiet and doing as the raid leader says
  • AFKing only when necessary and only on trash
  • Showing up on time

That’s not hardcore. That’s showing that you’re willing to work for your gear. Galo has no problem getting gear since he does heroics regularly with relative ease.

My advice

Join that Guild, Galo. They sound like the kind of players you will get along with and progress with. Sure you might not be able to make all their times, but the runs you can get in on them with deliver a huge thrill for you. It sounds like you actually want to go somewhere. I’ve had to make the tough choice of parting ways with some friends a long time ago to play in my guild now. But we’re on the same server and we still chat and I still play with them every now and again. Just because you change guilds doesn’t mean you change friends.

I guess one would say I’m a zentastic player.

But throw away those old stereotypes of raiding. Don’t be a casual raider. Don’t be a hardcore raider. Just be a raider.

Powered by Qumana

At Least it was a Win

by

I’m on my retribution paladin and I’m doing 3v3’s with a few friends. My team is 1300 rated. We just finished this EPIC battle against 2 rogues and a warrior. We were a Ret Paladin, Prot Paladin, and a Resto Druid. We beat the crap out of that team. Maces were flying, seals were being cast, bops were all over the place.

And all we got? 6 rating.

Liveblogging the Raid

by

I wanted to try something new today. It’s going to be a fairly eventful 5.5 hours tonight. It occurred to me that anyone who has never raided in 25 mans might not know what it’s like. The atmosphere, the players, the fun, it’s different then normal WoW playing.

15:55 – All the players are holding position outside the instance summoning stone. The plan tonight is to hit up SSC, TK, and Azgalor with whatever time we have remaining. This is going to be an interesting night since we’re trying out this Resto Druid and Resto Shaman. The mood sounds good. Everyone’s cheery and upbeat. Even though we’re tired of SSC and TK, we still have to do it for attunements and trials of these new players.

16:01 – We’re all in. Resuming where we left off at Leo.

16:04 – WIPE: The trash pack right before Leo? We killed off two of the mobs and one of our warriors blew a fear. It’s right next to his last stand. I’m guessing he panicked. One of the mobs feared directly into Leo’s goons. Cue Benny Hill.

16:15 – Leo engaged. We’re trying something new and using a Paladin tank instead of a Druid tank. The general thought here is that the Avenger’s Shield toss will help center Leo better.

16:22 – Leo down. Yup, worked like a charm.

Tsunami Talisman
Champion and Defender glove tokens

16:30 – Let the long Vashj explanation begin. Benching the Prot Pally and bringing in another Holy Priest. 3 new healers. This will be rough.

16:45 – Still explaining Vashj. We’re packing 8 healers today instead of 7. Might be a little longer then usual. At least these new guys are double checking. A couple of them have never done it but they know the theory. I’m going to say we do two wipes before we move on.

16:50 – Vashj engaged. It’s about time.

16:57 – WIPE: Some confusion on where some of the new DPS stands as well as positioning. We’ve had a player die in phase 1. Absolutely unacceptable with 8 healers. No one should be dying that early. Rebuffing and stuff now.

17:24 – WIPE: Badly timed net in the middle. Getting overwhelmed. I’m going to start up my fraps.

17:45 – Vashj down.

Krakken-Heart Breastplate
Lightfathom Scepter – Guild first. Went to our Resto Shaman
Defender and Hero token

17:50 – Forming up outside of Tempest Keep.

18:00 – Inside TK now clearing to Al’ar.

18:16 – Glancing at recount, our top 3 healers are within 0.4% of each other. They’re our resto druids and shamans in particular.

18:32 – Al’ar engaged.

18:41 – WIPE: Some idiot blew up the phoenixes during phase 1. Good game.

19:00 – Pseudo Wipe: Al’ar despawned. That’s the first time it’s ever happened.

19:17 – Al’ar down.

Fire Crest Breastplate
Talon of the Phoenix
Phoenix-Wing Cloak

19:48 – Trash to Al’ar cleared. Boy do I feel uneasy about this. New healers. Not only that, they’re new to the encounter. No amount of homework will ever prepare anyone for a boss fight. There’s about an hour and 10 minutes left in the raid.

20:14 – I got benched. We have one too many healers and we need to get these guys keyed. I spent the past 20 minutes explaining to each individual healer what to do, who they’re healing, and etc. I don’t normally handle assignments but the main guy’s sick so I opted to help him. What’s even stranger is that I’m doing this remotely. When’s the last time you heard of a healer assigning heals when he’s not in the raid?

20:21 – WIPE: Amazed they lasted this long. 35 minutes. Hmm…

20:44 – They’re on phase 5. Everyone’s still alive. I think they almost got it.

20:49 – Kael down. Wow, I can breathe again. Our MT died at 1% but there was enough alive to finish him off.

Royal Cloak of the Sunstriders
Twinblade of the Phoenix
Champion and Hero token

20:54 – We took down Vashj and Kael down in one day with 5 new players who have never done those fights before. That’s absolutely amazing. As a result, now we’ll hopefully never have to back and kill Vashj and Kael ever again. We’ve also signed a new resto shaman, resto druid and a mage to an entry level raiding contract. Score! Thanks for reading! (All 3 of you guys!)