Guide to Healing, Leading, and Progressing in WoW Raids
Every story, article, column, piece, and so forth on World of Matticus ever published.
Also as a reminder in case I forget. I wonder if that breaches the TOS. I suspect that there will be a lot of gold changing hands tomorrow (maybe). The Superbowl isn’t even here yet!
My Recount piece is almost done. Hopefully it’ll be up sometime around 1 AM.
I recently wrote a piece several days back on the problems with enchanting your items from the demand side. There’s also some issues from the supply side. We’re the only profession that’s not able to put any finished products on the auction house. Blacksmithers can put up their crafted items. Alchemists can put up potions and flasks. Leatherworkers and tailors have their own BoE blues. Even Jewelcrafters can put up gem cuts.
But enchanters? We need to pay house calls to players who want our services individually. Only face to face can we earn any gold.
Rumor has it that this will be changed some time in the future. I’m not sure of any details at the moment, but I’m thinking what they’ll allow us to do is create Enchanting “scrolls” that can be applied to items. It would be similar to a silver spellthread or those other leg patches. This way, we’ve got something tangible that we can then put on the auction house. If they want to prevent twinking on certain levels, it would be easy to do by adding a level requirement for the item or the user of the enchant.
We can only hope.
Sometimes it just goes to show that no matter how much time, effort, and preparation you undertake in a task there is always something wrong that happens. I spent the past month and a half working on a new design and a layout. It’s what I do when I’m not raiding or farming.
I just finished transferring the files from my beta subdomain and it is now officially live. But I’m a little disappointed because some things don’t seem to work the way I want it to. Instead of the new layout being polished, it’s a little rough around the edges.
So what have I done to my blog exactly? I’ve made it look simpler and complicated at the same time. The design and look has a lot more white space. There isn’t as much clutter or noise. It’s also more complicated in the fact that I’ve stepped up some functionality.
Hey! Where did the blog on the front page go? It went here. The front page is now static instead of having new posts dynamically changing. The front page now contains my favourite articles on the right and a listing of recent posts or pages on the left. Those of you with RSS readers (Google reader, even) will be unaffected.
I have way too many links on my blogroll. The stupid Google Reader export plugin doesn’t want to cooperate. My plan B? I installed an addon that harvested every link on my blog and displays it neatly on a new links page. I’m going to start getting in the habit of posting new blogs that I run into or posts that drill a point.
For the moment, I’ve put my favourite Priest and Raid Officer columns up as links on the front page. You can click on the tabs to choose between the two topics. I plan on adding more later. The articles there are what I consider the best I have to offer on those subjects.
They aren’t really ads per se. Those are just affiliate banners of companies that I’m presently using. I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t like them. If you want a more detailed explanation on why I’m running affiliate banners and information on the companies themselves, please read more about my recommendations.
I’ve cut my categories in half. I’m going to axe some more tomorrow. Right now as it stands, there’s a lot of categories that had 1 or 2 posts in them. My intention is to combine them all in to broader categories. This is one of the fatal errors that I’ve made in my blog. I didn’t give proper thought to the kind of topics that I would cover. Now I’m stuck with having to go through all my old posts and editing what category they belong under.
I think I’m going to do away with chronological archives altogether. I don’t know if anyones ever used them. I suspect that you, as a reader, would be more inclined to browse through my older topics via topic or category instead of month.
Updated the about page with a better picture of myself, a description of me, and what this blog is about.
Created a new contact page which offers multiple methods for you to contact me including a spiffy email form (because Outlook takes forever to load, right?). I don’t mind emails. In fact, I encourage them! Sometimes I’ll even post up a few on the blog here to help answer some questions.
I’m just getting warmed up. This is my new look for the new year. Let me know if something breaks or is non-existent or gets pointed in the wrong direction.
It’s 3 AM. I’m going to bed. I have this feeling when I wake up I’m going to get a dozen or so comments either a) liking the new look b) hating it c) finding some error. I look forward to it (after precious sleep).
… of 2007.
Tomorrow I will be out and about celebrating and counting down to New Year and all that fun stuff! I’m going to use what little time I have left today and tomorrow to finish up my new layout. It’s going to be simpler yet more functional. I hate coding. I transferred out of this profession years ago and having to modify this theme extensively for the past two months has reminded me why.
With a New Year comes new resolutions! Much like Honors Code who recently published his goals, here’s my list of things to do for 2008.
* Kill Illidan
* Kill Zul’Jin
* Obtain Epic Flying Mount
* Break the base 2000 +healing mark
* Break the 300 MP5 while casting with full buffs mark
* Obtain 5/5 Vengeful Gladiator’s set (Elemental)
* Finish out Vindicator’s pieces (Ring, Belt, Boots)
* Level fishing to 375
* Improve myself more in PvP
* Acquire Thunder
* Become viable in PvE as retribution (pigs might as well fly)
* Acquire a Flying Mount
* Become keyed for Karazhan
* Level blacksmithing to 375
* Become elixir specced
* Get reputation with Sporregar so I can transmute these useless Primal Earths to Waters
* Start and finish out example healing assignments in Mag/TK/SSC
* Write less, but frequent
* Write more, but less often
* Continue pushing myself to deliver quality, timeless references
* Studying smarter, not harder
* Studying instead of raiding
* Not suck
Those are my resolutions. What’s yours? I will see you all in 2008!
Have a Happy (and safe) New Year!
Boxing day shopping is one of the most grueling things anyone can do. It takes a lot of heart for someone to crawl out of bed at 3 AM to go line up in front of a store. This year I camped out in front of Best Buy to snag some swag.
This year I picked up some DVD-R’s (50 pack for $18.99), iLive iPod dock ($89.99), Rayman Raving Rabbids ($19.99 but dang if it ain’t an awesome game), 40 GB portable HD, and some other miscellaneous stuff.
I started this blog at the end of August because I was growing weary at the amount of Priests who were running around without a clue as to what they should be doing or the best way for them to maximize themselves as healers. BBB’s post accurately summarized my feelings on the topic.
Start your own blog (it’s free btw) and prove it. Write. Be brilliant. Show us how awesome you are and how crappy we are by comparison. Don’t just say it, DO IT.
What a brilliant bear. He’s way smarter than the average picnic basket to boot! He’s even secured a spot on WoW Insider!
I did exactly what he said. I went out, purchased my own domain and server because I had a vision. I wanted to help educate people and show them what works and what doesn’t. If they choose to follow my teachings, power to them. If they don’t, that’s perfectly fine. I wanted to be a resource for aspiring Priests and raiding officers. World of Matticus evolved from Priest topics to an interesting blend of tips, tricks, and techniques for the new GM or the officer (while maintaining stuff for Priests). The one thing that’s been a constant in all my guilds is a Holy Priest in a position of leadership. Maybe that’s just me. Anyways, that was my main goal: to help, to educate, and to teach.
I think I did a pretty darn good job for 4 months worth of work.
I never believed I could reach these kind of numbers by New Years. When I look at them, sometimes I’m still in a little bit of disbelief.
I’m not basing these on page views or popularity or the number of comments or anything else like that. I’m basing this list on what I feel is the best that I’ve been able to do.
If even one or any of my blog posts have helped you become a better player in any fashion, then I know I’ve done my job. Without your support and readership, World of Matticus would not be what it is today. I want to take a moment to thank everyone for reading my corner of the WoW blogosphere. There’s a lot of WoW Bloggers that I hold a lot of respect for even though we may disagree on some points. If I’m not able to read your respective blogs throughout the week, I would not be able to get through my lectures nor have (relatively) interesting topics to blog about. Galadria (whose been quiet lately), Ego, Fate, Megan, Mercuri (AWOL) Kestrel and Kirk for the Priests. Phaelia, Karthis, BBB have all been terrific. Gwaendar, Galohart, Rohan, who have done an admiral job representing my plate wearing brethren. Pike, One Among Many, and BRK of the sharpshooting variety. The insights of GMW and Leiandra continue to be valued.
There’s a lot more people I want to thank. All the Guests writers who have volunteered to help pitch in when I was not able to do so (Leiandra, Ryan, Brendan, TDQ’s Matt, etc). My bed looks enticing right now. There are more blogs I’m following now but I can’t possibly list them all. Next year, no doubt this list will increase in size. Some of you will retire from writing or WoW entirely and move onto other projects. But that’s getting too far ahead. 2008’s almost here and I can’t wait to share another new year of WoW adventures with everyone as well as reading about yours.
Okay, bed.
P.S., to all bloggers, I’d love it if you all highlighted your best posts from ’07!