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Memories of BlizzCon 2010

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Another year, another BlizzCon, and another set of memories. Even though there wasn’t a ton of breaking news from the convention, I had a huge blast. I saw some old friends again and made some new ones.

Most of the team that was from out of town stayed at Eden Roc. It ain’t exactly the Hilton, but for our purposes it was perfect. It had a dorm room type of atmosphere. We had 10 beds spread out over 3 suites (some rooms had 3, some had 5, etc). If you’re planning on going with a large group of people, I would recommend it. The wireless was limited to only a few areas but I spoke to the manager about it and I’m hoping there’ll be increased coverage next year. The staff was friendly and down to earth.

From my Guild

I met up with Viktory, Loganw, Erushia, Bisquic, Xonthebeach, Tessah, Ophelie, and Bruherd. Retired players such as Dannamoth, Mythik and Neru were on hand.

First thing we did when we all got there was get lunch.

I demolished my burger. The guild was stunned.

IMG_1296Getting iced – So apparently this is some phenomenon that’s been making its way around. I’d only just heard of it now. It’s a drinking game where if someone hands you a Smirnoff Ice or if you spot one, you have to get down on one knee and chug it. However, if you happen to be carrying one on you, you can make like a Mage and “Ice Block” where the attacker must then chug the one he planted along with the one the defender had.

This can happen at any time. The ice can be planted anywhere. The first person who sees it, and if they’re in the presence of someone else, must do it.

Why Smirnoff? Because its ugh.

My guild iced me once. I just got out of the shower and we were discussing stuff. They asked me about my Macbook. And sure enough, I rounded the corner and there it was right in front of my computer.

Guildies icing their GM. All I can say is, mango flavour sucks.

One of the perks of being on Conquest? I bought them all drinks.

“Hey guys, what do you want?”

“1 Jack and Coke!”
”Make that 2”
”Hey I want one!”
”I’ll take one as well!”
”Six!”
”Seven!”

Oh what the hell.

“HEY AJ! TEN JACK AND COKES!”

I am too generous. But they’re a great team.

Things to do next year

Business cards – Spoke with players who were interested in joining a steady guild looking to progress. I’ll need to be better armed next year with guild business cards. All I had were blog cards. Judging by all the recent apps, it seemed as if the people I spoke with were mostly Death Knights.

Track jackets – Heh, this I had a nice chuckle about. The team wanted guild shirts for next year. One of the guys said “Screw tshirts. Let’s go for Conquest track jackets!”. Not a bad idea. Something I’m going to look at for the future. Then Lodur comes along asks “Can I be an honorary Conquest member for a jacket?” Totally, it can be done. But that got me thinking, maybe I should get a Team Matticus track jacket instead for both friends and guild members that might be interested.

The convention

Most of day 1 was spent observing the panels.

2sbw

Some people call it taking notes. I call it analog live blogging.

As for the demos, I didn’t bother with Diablo 3. The line for that was longer then the line for the mens room. Checked out Starcraft Bejewled and Blizzard DoTA though. Those were fun maps. Can’t wait for them to come out. Met with an editor from the WoW Magazine.

The meetups

WoW Insider Reader Meetup

Had the whole patio and the whole pool area. Unbelievable turnout. It was great to see the whole WI crew in person once again. Managed to snag a picture with Felicia Day and Ghostcrawler! I got to meet and hang out with Dawn and I saw Lodur there. The guy forgot to give me the list of movies I need to see to get pop culturally educated.

181074751 IMG_1206

* I still owe the SC2 guy a drink, but wasn’t able to hunt him down. You know who you are! Next year!

Twisted Nether Meetup

I dropped by to say hi to the TnB folks again at Bubba Gump. It was good to finally see Stop, some of the Big Crits fellas, Beru, Hydra, Saresa, and others.

Raid Warning Meetup

Hung out with Brian, Seven and more people. It was located at Dave and Busters in a nice 200ish seat VIP room. Roomy and spacious. Somehow, I got conned into a drinking contest. The person who could beat me downing a Corona got a 30 day time card.

And there were a lot of people that wanted that time card. Like seriously, it doesn’t take much effort. I knew there was no way I was going to get it. Not with that lime that was stuck in the neck of the bottle. 20 minutes later, I finished the Corona. Yay!

I also wish to extend my gratitude to both Dannamoth and Erushia for giving the new friends we met a lift home. Way to represent. Very proud.

I was extremely humbled by the amount of people who recognized me and who came up to say hi, exchange handshakes, high fives and hugs. Thank you for making it a truly surreal experience.

Good seeing Daewin, anafielle, Saresa, BeruHeals, EntropiaWoW, Shandris, StoneyBaby, ModernMage, StoppableForce, Fimlys, Shadowembrace, Strio13, Hydra, Brian, Seven, the entire WI crew, some of the blues, and there are undoubtedly more people that I missed.

 

Can’t wait for BlizzCon 2011! I hope to see you again next year (or for the first time)!

 

 

What were your most memorable moments from BlizzCon? And more importantly, do you plan on going (again) next year?

Blizzcon Meetups and my Schedule

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Time’s winding down and I’m frantically trying to finalize everything. Guess who has exams on both sides of BlizzCon.

Yeah.

Meetups that I know about

Anyway, here’s the list of meetups that are going on which I’ll be crashing attending.

Thursday 21/10/10

7:00 PM – WoW Insider BlizzCon Reader Meetup

Where: The patio near the poolside of the Anabella hotel
When: Thursday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m.
What: Mingling, toasts, guest stars, joy

I need to get a picture with Nog.

Yeah. That Nog.

Friday 22/10/10

9:00 PM – Twisted Nether meetup

When: Friday, Oct 22, 2010 9:00pm
Where: Bubba Gump Shrimp (head to the bar if you see no signs outside)

9:00 PM – Raid Warning Live Show meetup

When: Friday, October 22nd, 2010. 9PM – 1AM
Where: Dave and Busters: The Block at Orange 20 City Blvd. G, Suite 1
Space for TWO HUNDRED people!

My schedule

I’m trying to plan out my itinerary. Something tells me I’m not exactly going to stick to it.

Thursday

11:11 AM – Land in LA
11:15 AM – Clear customs (Hopefully).
11:45 AM – Meet up with guildies and get carried picked up
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch! (Perhaps In and Out as I resolve to have it at least once while I’m here)
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Drop stuff off at the hotel. Buy some beer. Maybe nap.
2:00 PM – 5:00 PM – Lineup for tickets.
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Nap some more.
6:00 PM – 11:00 PM – WoW Insider meetup! Worried about what stunt my guildies will pull. They randomly chanted “Matticus!” last year during the meetup. The team was confused and had “WTF” looks. I had no idea it was them until they told me.
11:00 PM – 1:00 AM – Poker with the guildies.

Friday

6:30 AM – Wake up, shower, coffee x 3
6:45 AM – Breakfast. More coffee.
8:00 AM – Lineup to enter BlizzCon.
10:00 AM – Actually enter BlizzCon, ninja seats for opening ceremony.
11:00 AM – Wander around, and then camp seats for Dungeons and Raids panel, camp seats for Quest and Lore, then check out various demos and cool stuff.
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM – Dinner! Maaaaybe with the guildies? If they behave. And not embarrass me.
9:00 PM – 9:30 PM – Check in with Twisted Nether folks and say hi!
9:30 PM – 12:00 AM – Raid Warning meetup next. (I went to the Twisted Nether meet last year)
12:00 AM – 1:00 AM – Rock Band party in our hotel room

Saturday

6:30 AM – Wake up, shower, coffee x 3
6:45 AM – Breakfast. More coffee.
7:00 AM – 9:00 AM – Blog for a while, relax for a bit.
10:00 AM – Enter BlizzCon, check out more demos (TCG and the magazine areas)
11:30 AM – 2:30 PM – Class Q&A, Open Q&A

That’s all I got planned for now. Probably going to go out the window. I better make sure I sleep with 1 eye open. I have a feeling I might get sharpied.

4.0.1 shaman glyphs and an Ode to Sentry Totem

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Sentry totem is gone. Too often those who love us and hold us dear go before their time =(. Seriously though I already miss sentry totem. I did use it for a few things, like disarming bombs in SoTA. My recent grief over the loss of my beloved companion sparked the idea of composing an epic poem to commemorate its passing. Special thanks to @ianbroadfo for the inspiration on this one, and William Blake for composing the original.

Totem! Totem! sitting tight;
in the flag-room, on the right.
What designer’s hand or eye;
dare remove you from my UI?

In what distant Aerie Peaks,
What found on weathered wing and beak?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize desire?

And what purpose misunderstood.
Could twist the grains of thy wood?
And when thy eye began to seek,
What dread loss, this feeling bleak?

What the stone work? what the gain?
In what forge was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread light?
Do steal this purposeful insight?

When the Titans threw down their blaze,
And blinded heaven with their gaze,
Did they smile, this lost to naught?
Did they who made the totem wrought?

Totem! Totem! sitting tight;
in the flag-room, on the right.
What designer’s hand or eye;
dare remove you from my UI?

So yes, I will miss sentry totem. That little bugger was actually pretty useful. With the new patch, not only did Sentry Totem go away, but we got a bunch of new glyphs and a new glyph system. Check out Matt’s post on the the new system and priest glyphs for the run down. So what do shaman glyphs look like after the patch? Let’s take a look!

Prime Glyphs

Prime glyphs are the ones that give you the most improvement to your specialization.

Those are the prime glyphs you’re likely to be interested in. The restoration ones are pretty self explanatory, but you’re likely asking; “But Joe, why is Shocking and Lightning bolt on the list” ? Easy answer, because of Focused Insight and Telluric Currents. Let’s face it, if you get to a point where you out-gear a fight, you’re likely  throwing around some DPS to help out. At this late in the current expansion, unless you are a fresh 80, you’re likely to have content that you out-gear. Whether it is a heroic or a raid, these may be choices for you depending on what you’re doing. The most common setup I’m seeing among resto shaman is Earth Shield, Riptide (which just makes the spell ridiculously efficient) and Earthliving Weapon. Plan to move one of them to Water Mastery when Cataclysm drops, but until then mana isn’t an issue.

Major Glyphs

They augment your abilities, but not a large degree as prime glyphs.

Some interesting options here. Grounding Totem is in the list simply because there are a surprising number of boss abilities in heroics and raid that can absorbed by grounding totem. The fun of the glyph is that it makes it into a spell reflect. Nothing says I love you like throwing a fireball back from where-which-it-came-from. Hex is on the list because, well, we have a CC and its awesome. If you find yourself using Hex a lot *cough*heroicladydeathwhisper*cough*, this may be a good choice for you. Frost Shock is on the list again because of FI. Most common setup I’m seeing throughout the resto community is Chain Heal, Healing Stream Totem and Healing Wave. When Cataclysm goes live, you may want to swap one out for Totemic Recall just for mana conservation purposes.

I have to be honest, out of all the glyphs we got, I like the Healing Stream Totem one the best. I mean, I’ve always been a fan of HST, even before it was the cool-kids thing to do. The fact that it can add a series of resists is just beastly. It heals, it provides resist auras, it’s like a pocket paladin but with less QQ (I kid, I kid!).  With about every fight now having some form of elemental damage, there’s no reason not to have this glyph.

Minor Glyphs

These have little impact on your chosen role.

Basic stuff really, removal of reagent needs, and a shortening of our character class hearth cooldown. The new kid on the block though is Arctic Wolf. This turns your Ghost Wolf into a ghostly version of the winter wolves found throughout Azeroth. This glyph was originally slated to be released in Wrath alongside another glyph that allowed you to transform into a black wolf. They were scrapped before release, but at least one has found its way back. This is important for two reasons. One, it marks the inclusion of fun flavor items to help personalize your character. Two, it just looks cool!

Glyphs are becoming more about personal choice rather than what is best, which quite honestly is how it should be.

How has your patch 4.0.1 experience been so far? What do you love? What do you hate? Do you miss Sentry Totem too?

A Fresh and New Blog Design

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Welcome to the new World of Matticus! As you can see, the blog has undertaken an entirely new look. Special thanks to Brian Hough from Raid Warning and The Creep for his design work and Brandon for his development work. Those two know how to work miracles. I know that No Stock UI has seemed largely abandoned for a while right now but it will also be undergoing a design reboot and that will also be happening some time soon.

So what exactly is new?

Updated featured posts list – See the featured articles scroller at the top? Its been updated and modernized. Dare I say it looks much more slick.

Comment threading – It’s finally been enabled. You can now directly respond to other comments that have been left on posts. It’ll show up right below it.

Updated footer – There’s a new interact section with a few blogging guidelines and a brand new Plus Heal section. If you’re out of things to read, there might be a topic in the footer that you’ll find interesting.

The hotness – Oh yeah, it looks hot. Real hot. Ragnaros hot.

If you happen to spot any major bugs or errors, feel free to leave a comment below along with the page you saw it on (and what browser or platform you were using to view it with).

POLL: Will you raid 10 man or 25 man in Cataclysm?

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One of the best — or worst things depending on your view — to happen to raiding in a long time was the inclusion of smaller group sized content. I talked a little bit about this over on BDTU with my pieces on the Evolution of WoW part 1 and part 2.

The trend started with the addition of Zul’Gurub, a troll instance of now infamous reputation, when it broke from the 40-man raid standard and offered 20-man content. It hailed back to the days of Blackrock Spire being a multiple group raid, and people loved it.

Karazhan further stoked the fires of the smaller group raid desire, and did so while offering epic and story filled content. Players loved it so much that the forums were filled countless replies asking for more smaller group . With Wrath came the revelation that all raid content would be be available in 25-man flavor as set forth by Burning Crusade, but also  in new raid 10-man flavor (all of the raid, less than half the calories). Different levels of gear purchasable by badges came out (as well as loot tables that varied between 10 and 25 man), and both 10 and 25 man raids dropped the same badges. The trick, and the problem, was that people felt compelled to run both 10 and 25 man versions to maximize badges. Some people felt that you absolutely had to run both to “beat the game”.

This is also a result of how loot was distributed. Badges gave you the entry level gear for the items at the end of this expansion cycle. Badges gave you the “entry level” piece for the tier set, this was considered the 10 man version of the tier. Tokens in 25 man raids would drop that allowed you to upgrade the 10 man piece to the next level up. Heroic 25 man dropped yet another token that allowed you to upgrade it to it’s maximum potential. You can see how it would be assumed the more badges you had the better gear you had and the quicker you could climb the gear ladder right?

Well, the devs didn’t like that, nor did less hardcore players (or those of us who don’t have the time to devote to constantly running raids all week long) and a new system was proposed for Cataclysm. The system says that the same content will be provided for 10 and 25 man versions, and the reward levels will be the same. That is to say that the Ilvl of gear will be on par between versions, and they will share the same loot tables. The major difference will be that 25 man will have more damage and more health to worry about in boss fights and such, and you will get MORE loot drops than the 10 man content does. Also, a raid regardless of being 10 or 25 man, all share the same raid ID and lockout. Do a  25 man version and kill a boss? Cool. Split into two 10 mans of the same thing and that boss is still dead for both groups. You can’t up-convert from 10 to 25, but you can down-size if attendance becomes an issue or some such.

So this brings up an interesting question for a lot of guilds and raid groups right now. Is it worth it to run 25 man content if the rewards for 10 are the same? Is the extra loot enough of a benefit to keep you raiding in 25 man content or do you give up and just say screw it? I know a lot of guilds are going through this debate right now. I know some of them personally. This happened in a smaller capacity when Wrath was announced to have 10 man content. Some guilds decided the smaller size was for them and paired down into tight-knit, more tactical 10 man groups. So now that the gear is equal level between 10 and 25, aside from quantity, I know many guilds that have weighed the pros and cons of both formats and decided to go for the smaller size.

My guild Unpossible recently had this discussion. We pulled all of the officers into a private vent chat and hashed it out. it was about even split on the case of 10 vs 25, and there were a lot of good points made. After a good half hour discussion, we decided that we would stay a 25 man raiding guild. Our structure was already in place and had been since the release of Burning Crusade, and it has been stable and working since. We have a dedicated group of raiders who love the group we are in and the dynamic we have going. We also decided that we just felt more comfortable in the 25 man environment.

For me personally, I voted in favor of keeping the 25 man raid group. I love the logistical challenge of tracking so many players — and yes I know it’s not the 40 man content or raids from vanilla but I served my time in those — and the dynamic we have set up between all the various parts of the raiding group works well together, and I’d hate to break that up. I also didn’t like the idea of balancing multiple 10 man groups. Something I’ve seen over the last few years, people have an easier time being benched for a raid than they do taking part in a raid that is behind another group. I didn’t want to breed an environment of Group A vs Group B and cause any unnecessary drama.

So with Cataclysm on the horizon, has your guild discussed this at all? Has your raid group decided whether it will raid 10 man or 25 man content? Were you already raiding as a 10 or 25 man group? What do you think the benefits of both are? What about the drawbacks? I’d love to hear your opinions on this and see how the community as a whole has decided.

Will your guild raid 10 man or 25 man content in Cataclysm?

  • 10 Man / 10 Man Hard Mode (68%, 346 Votes)
  • 25 Man / 25 Man Hard Mode (20%, 103 Votes)
  • Banana (12%, 61 Votes)

Total Voters: 498

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Until next time, happy healing!