All Stories

Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.

Breaking News: Internet Cables cut

by

Via EnGadget

There are 4 cables that run under the Mediterranean Sea to connect the internet servers in Europe and Asia. 3 of them have been severed – we don’t know how or why, although it’s probably a shipping accident. There are a couple of impacts to this:

  • The three cables involved carry about 75% of telecom traffic to the region. A lot of the traffic between Europe and Asia is being re-routed through the US.
  • This means your guildies playing from New Zealand and Australia may have connection issues until this is resolved, and anyone playing on Asian servers from North America will have similar issues.
  • Heavily loaded US servers may run more slowly

Thought you’d like to know – I’ll update as more information is available.

Luv,
Wyn

Epic Guest Posting Guidelines for the Matticus

by

SONY DSC

Would the World of Matticus ever feature a guest post from you?

In a word, yes. The first thing you have to remember is that in the World of Matticus, there is but one god: Matticus himself. Guest posts usually happen when I put the word out that I needs help.

In the past year, I’ve opened up guest posting to bloggers and writers that were interested in getting their feet wet. Today, I’m officially announcing the green light for open guests posts as well as setting down guidelines and suggests for writing them. Here’s a few examples for you to consider.

While I admit that my standards are high, I’m not asking you to solo Illidan or do heroic Occulus. What I do want is to illustrate reasons and qualities for a World of Matticus guest post.

Why write a guest post?

Exposure – By writing compelling articles, stories or posts in general on other blogs (not just mine, mind you), you increase your own visibility and exposure. View it as a chance to promote yourself and your work! Now you be thinking to yourself "why write on someone else’s blog when I can augment my own?" I encourage you to think in a different direction. By writing an insanely awesome blog post for another blogger and having it published, that blogger’s audience will want to know more about you and what else you have to offer.

Trial – Not sure if blogging is the right thing for you? At the very fundamental core of blogging is to communicate. You are translating your ideas and visions from your mind onto the screen. Don’t spend time establishing a blog only to discover that writing is difficult for you or that your interest has waned. Do the writing first then build the blog. Try writing a sample post and determine if it’s something you think you’ll enjoy down the road. Web sites come in all sorts of designs and styles. The one thing that all blogs have in common is the display of information.

You’ve decided to write a guest post? Excellent! Here’s a few things you might wish to consider:

Consider the audience

In the beginning, this blog catered towards Holy Priests. As time went on, it slowly included aspects for the raiding Holy Priest. Guild business and leadership was mixed into the blog. A Resto Druid was added. Now it includes material that Guild leaders would be interested in reading.

The majority of readers on World of Matticus are primarily healers, raiders, and bloggers. That’s a pretty wide sphere of influence, if I do say so myself. Keep the audience in mind when you’re writing a post. For example, most healers may not understand certain tanking concepts and you may wish to elaborate more on terms that you’ll be using.

If you’re writing about the nature of Hunters, PvP skills for Warriors, or the latest fashion news on Death Knights, you’ll want to consider another blog unless you can make it relevant for the World of Matticus readers.

What makes this blog appealing for you? Chances are, your answer will be the same as the other many thousands of readers. Browse through the archives to find some of your favourite posts and you’ll get a handle for what works and what doesn’t.

Matticus is beneficial

The one thing I stress most from the team here is to make your information useful. Give the reader something to take with them when they finish.

How does a Discipline Priest react in this raid situation? Did your GM handle a particularly difficult problem in a smooth fashion? Topics like that would be right up the alley in the World of Matticus.

Content in the World of Matticus should help answer problems that players find in the World of Warcraft.

Matticus is professional

I don’t care if you’re on the top 5v5 team in the world, or the best ranked Ret Paladin on WWS. I’m not expecting you to be Dan Brown either.

Sydera, Wynthea and I are really picky. Syd’s a teacher (not high school, but the best one can professionally be). Wyn usually shreds my posts because they’re not technically correct or sound. I harp on the other two if their posts do not look good.

Keep the post as clean looking as possible. White space is good. If necessary, format the post and add images to help spice and liven it up more.

Check your tone. Have a unique style. Make sure what you write can be understood. This isn’t a journal or a computer operations manual. Be clear, be concise. Add some personality. Don’t be afraid to write as if you’re speaking. Be interesting and humorous. Feel free to tell a story to get your point across.

Most importantly, spend as much time on thinking of a title as you do on your post. No other WoW blogger puts as much thought, time or emphasis into post titles as Matticus.

Spell check it.

Fact check it. If you’re not sure about spells or abilities, use WoWHead.

Not all of us are blogging gods by any means (but that Matticus comes close). We’re not the best. We’re only human. Typos will creep in or lawn gnomes will occasionally break a few things. All of us invest a lot of time and care into making our post the best as possible.

Some guest bloggers in the past have been rejected and told to rewrite. Go through multiple drafts. Ask someone in your guild to look it over. World of Matticus does not involve writers who write drafts then immediately publish them. Posts will stew around for days or even weeks if they do’t feel right until a “Eureka” moment strikes.

Sounds great! How do I sign up?

Drop me a line on my contact form. You can include a post within the body of the form there or get in touch with me first and float an idea my way to see how it sounds. I’ll respond with a confirmation and a giant thank you! If I don’t respond within a week, I must’ve not received it or I completely forgot about it. Feel free to poke me with a gentle reminder!

If you have a blog, it’s a good idea to link to your best blog posts. Note that it’s not required that you have a blog.

Image courtesy of Cierpki

Stare Decisis in Loot Council

by

Just about a month has gone by in the formation of Conquest. Loot council continues to be an interesting challenge because the council never knows what sort of situation will present itself.

In today’s post, I wanted to talk about an important concept that’s not only valuable in the legal arena but also in an LC guild.

Stare Decisis

This is a legal principles where judges have to follow precedents established in previous decisions. How does this apply to WoW with respect to loot council? Because the decisions we make in how we hand out loot are expected to be binding. I’ll typically follow the principle of Stare Decisis but ultimately, I won’t hesitate to go a different way in decisions of loot for progressive reasons.

Unfortunately, the reality is that virtually no two decisions are going to be the same. You will have similar cases and they’ll be decided similarly. For example, we awarded a tier piece to a Resto Shaman completing his 4 set (because Chain Heal is still whoa). But if I had my 3 piece and a 4th Priest token drop, I wouldn’t award it to me purely because of the bonus (since I don’t use Greater Heal that often to justify it). It literally is a case by case decision. This is bad in that we’re not following a precedent but good in that we’re willing to remain flexible. Remember that this is a loot council not a court of law. Items will drop again.

Decision to Reward vs Decision to Gear

For guilds that have started progressing through different raid instances, realize that you’re going to come across a dilemma and I guarantee you that it will happen. Every member on your loot council is going to ask themselves the following question when an item drops:

Should I award this item to the player who has run all the 10 mans and done all the heroics or should I award this item to the player who dinged recently dinged 80 and hasn’t had the time to get as geared as the other players?

There are two schools of thought on this and let me tell you what goes through my head every time.

Reward: I like to reward players for their efforts. They hit 80 earlier on ahead of the curve. They’ve managed to work their way into pug groups to get themselves geared. Without their efforts, the guild would not be where it is right now. Their contribution is important and I want to recognize that.

Minimum standard:  The other perspective is to gear up the weaker geared player since that player hasn’t had as much time to get where they should be at. Especially for progression kills, there’s a minimum standard that every player regardless of class has to meet. To make life easier on your raid group, the weaker players have to be brought up to speed.

The past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun for all of us (I hope). Everyone has either reached the minimum benchmarks that have been set in terms of performance (2000 DPS on Patchwerk) or have exceeded it (5000+ DPS on Patchwerk). Now that the minimum standard has been reached, I can further lean towards rewarding players that can use items off of the second level bosses such as Kel’Thuzad and Malygos.

Mind you, I’m still just one person on Loot Council.

Mixed messages?

Following a decision that was made earlier for loot is good, especially when deciding on subsequent items. But don’t chain yourself to it or lock yourself.  Keep your loot council flexible because they have to adapt.

Don’t hesitate to acknowledge mistakes.

Don’t commit.

Don’t promise.

Don’t over deliver.

Don’t bind yourself.

So like Amava says, consistency does matter.

There was a case last week where a tanking neck dropped. Both of our tanks expressed interest. We were at a dead lock. The tanks wore the same neck and they could’ve equally benefited from it. We were taking too long. I gave the instruction to roll it.

I realized later on in the evening after the raid was done that it was a bad idea. Upon further reflection, I doubt I’ll give that order again. The exact reasons that crossed my mind were the same ones that Amava listed. This would’ve been the only time (not counting our first unofficial raid) that rolls were used to decide loot. Our current tiebreaker is an officer who is not a part of the loot council and does not wish to take part in decisions. That’s a temporary fix that I need to address. My options are to elevate another player to the loot council (a DPS cloth wearer, perhaps) or set it so that in the event of a tie, my choice wins (Overlord Matticus, hmm). 9 times out of 10, we do reach a consensus. But things like tier tokens always take a bit longer since they’re useful for so many players.

By the way Amava, yes I do read your blog when I can. I read it so that you can keep me honest. Keep doing what you’re doing. I won’t punish you for speaking out or voicing disapproval.

Some more food for thought for players looking and still deciding upon their loot systems.

10 Guides and Post for the Winter Veil-icious Reader

by

Did a quick search on Google (reader and the search engine) for any guides or posts related to Winter’s Veil. I would’ve wrote something up like this myself but holiday guides just don’t scream Matt on them. So instead, I linked to others who have already done so!

Of course, for Winter Veil related posts:

  • Destructive Reach: Can Warlocks Even BE Merrymakers? (From my faaaaavourite Warlock, Sar)
  • Game Dame: And here’s GD dancing on her Death Knight
  • Altoholic’s Are Us: A… stripper Christmas? Really? Ho, ho, er *cough*

Spotlight: Loot Council, a New Upgrade Comparison Tool

by

loot-council-banner

If you’ve ever been in the hot seat during a loot decision like I have, you already know that it’s important to assess the relative value of the upgrade for all interested players before you weigh in on who should be awarded the item. What if there were a tool that you could use to research upgrades for all your guild members and compare them to each other? That would be pretty cool, right?

My friend Bonkers of Vek’nilash has just developed such a tool. It’s name is–not surprisingly–Loot Council, and it will help any WoW player investigate the gear from a certain dungeon and decide when to pass, and when to bid for an item.

How to Use Loot Council

Once you get to http://loot-council.appspot.com/, you’ll find that you have a form to fill out. To get the most out of Bonkers’ fantastic creation, put in the names of two or more characters of the same class and spec in your guild, separated by commas. To test out the LC tool, I used the names of Conquest’s three resto druids. Then, select a ranking type (Wowhead is working best at the moment) and a dungeon. I put in Naxxramas Heroic. Some Naxxramas normal stuff may still show up–I think Bonkers is working on that.

What you will get is a list of all the items in Naxx that might be of interest to a resto druid and a summary of the comparative upgrade for each player. As with all generic rankings like Wowhead, it can’t tell how important spirit or intellect is to a particular player. However, I find Loot Council’s suggestions to be helpful, especially when I know that I personally want an item. What it helps me see is whether someone else on my team would benefit from getting it first.

Sample Entry

Here’s what you will see when you scroll down to the items that you’re interested in. Even though I’d like to have this item, it looks like a pass to Burningpaw is in order the first time it drops.
loot-council-example

Why Use the Loot Council Tool?

Either for Loot Council members deciding how to award prizes or for individuals deciding whether to pass on an item or spend dkp, the issue of fairness is very important. I always urge people to research their gear, and this tool lets you do that–and, at the same time, research your friends’ gear. Raiding isn’t just about loot–or, in any case, it shouldn’t be. It’s also about friendships, and sharing is one of the things that helps build those bonds. I think it’s no coincidence that the opening page of the Loot Council tool features Oliver and Otto, Bonkers’ two cats–or, I should say, two greedy little piggies who happen to look like cats, and who also happen to be best friends. Oh, if only WoW raiders could be like that. No matter how much we want the loot, we’ve got to learn to share our kibble.