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Matt’s Monday Morning Muses: What a Blogger Wants for Christmas and More

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Good morning! It’s the sweet taste of school freedom for me (and the beginning of Winter’s Veil for all of us). Stealing a page from Anna and Wynthea’s deep thoughts (who has also been far too busy for deep thoughts).

* I finished out Sunday’s weekly Spiritual Guidance post. This week I wrote about the Circle of Healing nerf, some initial thoughts on it and how to counteract or compensate for it when the changes were live. Woke up to almost 60 comments and some of them are depressing. I’ve come far too close to calling it a career on WoW Insider too many times. But then I realize that the number of times the post is viewed versus the actual number of comments is like 0.5% (literally). There another Priest out there that wants to try their luck at it?

* On another note, to the guys that are speccing out of Wild Growth and Circle of Healing, are you sure about that? Like, there’s still going to be AoE raid encounters. If anything, they become even more important now than they were before. Every AoE healing spell from Chain Heal to the Holy Light Glyph to Holy Nova and such will have to be used. I can understand not using it if you’re not in a raid situation. But like, seriously? Everyone needs to pitch in now more than ever and if you’re going to drop them out of your healing lineup, I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

* Stick to your guns. If there’s anything school’s taught me is to always stand firm in what you believe in and take a stance. I’m inclined to respect someone more if they take one stance and stay with it. I wrote about it briefly on my Twitter this morning. It started off with a tweet from @ryannaka (WoW Twitterati, there’s another one for you to add):

@mattycus It seems you hit a nerve with that post [The Spiritual Guidance one]. The complaints in the comments section always make me lol.

And he’s got a point. I did hit a nerve. But I’m not going to argue one side and then double back and argue for the other. I’d rather pick a stance and stick with it and let someone else come up with the counterarguments. Fellow WoW Twitterati @roflwolf said it best:

@mattycus it’s the whole "non-biased opinion" thing. no one wants to pick a side because it’ll push away an audience.

So to all the aspiring bloggers out there, you have an opinion to write and a brain to help you critically think. Don’t be all wishy-washy and try to cater to everyone. Sure you might lose guys that don’t agree with you because they might unsubscribe and stop reading. But the ones that do are your real fans and they’re the ones that care about you the most.

Notable heated exchanges include the following topics:

“Greedo shot first!”
“No Han did!

“Dude, Picard saw FIVE lights!”
“Did not! He saw FOUR!”

“Vader would totally kick Arthas’ ass”
“Hello? Army of Stormtroopers versus Army of Undead? I think not!”

(I might’ve made up the last one but the others are true)

* I don’t care what anyone else says. 33/40 on a final exam worth 45% is NOT good enough for me. SIGH!

* I stopped putting up a Christmas tree when I was 12. I still have a pang of enviousness whenever I go to a friend’s house. Yeah, you know who I’m talking about. That friend. You know, that friend who’s decorated his entire house and has candy canes on the front lawn with enough lights to drain the power grid of Los Angeles? And they have a Christmas tree inside with loads of gifts and stockings over the fireplace.

But nah. I’m not bitter. Not at all.

* Speaking of Christmas, wow what is up with the mega commercialization of Winter’s Veil this year? Small Eggs are used in the creation of Gingerbread Cookies. And they’re on the Auction House for 15g this morning. FIFTEEN GOLD FOR AN EGG! What is up with that? Why are you sucking away the spirit of Winter’s Veil by marking up the prices of all this stuff? You’ve got players that just want to make some simple gingerbread cookies for Father Winter. And that can’t afford things like simple eggs! They just want to give it to him as a gift, that’s all!

Interesting how the virtual world can sometimes reflect the real, eh?

* Lots of emails for more Naxx guides. Seriously? WoWWiki and Boss killers have them way more detailed. I’m just giving you what I think is really relevant for healer material. Need some for Malygos or OS as well?

* Speaking of Christmas, some of you might be scrambling last minute to get gifts for that favourite geek in your life. If you need some help, feel free to take a look at my personal Amazon.com wish list. Some of it is Matt specific, but the rest should work for anyone else. There are some things not on the list that I forgot to add. It’s not all non-fiction books. Apparently there’s this series called A Game of Thrones that’s a really solid fantasy series that people keep bugging me to read.

On the other hand, if you’d like to donate to your favourite WoW blog:

By the way, scratch Dark Knight off the list (Thanks Joyce!)

matts-dk

* Need to comb my hair before I take these shots especially on the sides. It’s all leaning towards my right.

* Shopping for women is hard no matter who they are.

* Need a suggestion for a good electric powered razor with a cradle and recharageability. I’m seriously getting one this year. excellen

* What the heck is this craze about this whole Twilight business?

Malygos Down and the Gearing Phase is Over

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We took out Malygos. A job well done to everyone that showed up tonight.

With this kill, we now set our sights on Sartharion with 1 (maybe even 2) Drakes up.

Upping the bar

It’s been decided that we’ll be looking hard at shoulder enchants and head enchants of all players who wish to raid. It should go without saying that players should already be working on the necessary rep on their own time. I’m extremely impressed with the quality of players and raiders. There is still room for improvement for a number of them.

Thankfully, my exams are over now which means I can turn back full time to the blog for the next few weeks.

Being the generous boss I am, I could give them the entire winter vacation off. I’ve got some ideas stewing around on assorted Post It notes. If there’s anything you’d want to read about or any questions you may have, make a comment here.

Yes, my thoughts on the CoH nerf are on the way.

What’s In a Name

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My guild made the decision to transfer to a larger server – seems like the opposite of the trend right now, what with all the free transfers to small servers, but we’ve found that recruiting and raiding at an end-game level are infinitely more difficult when your ONLY recruiting source is off-server, and you have to do all your own farming due to artificially high AH prices.

A few days ago, our officers told us they had narrowed it down to two servers, and the idea was bandied around that we may want to reserve our names.

“Silly. I’m the only Wynthea on the armory, and have been for years. The level 11 is my alt. No one will have my name.”

I’m sure you can guess where this is going.

Someone – either in my own guild as a joke, or, more likely, from our rival guild on our old server – registered my name.

I am not amused.

(before you ask why I think it might’ve been the other guild, quite a few of our more prominent members’ names were also registered. Uncommon, not found on a cool t.v. show or book names.)

Aside from my identity as associated with World of Matticus, I have an email address, a twitter, and a close affinity with this name. I know many people *cough*Matt*Cough* are perfectly comfortable hitting the “random” button, and wearing whatever comes out of it for the rest of their toon’s life.

I am not. I spend, quite literally, hours naming a character that I plan to play extensively. Hours.

I research the meanings, the language of origin, and imbue the name with a personality before the character selection screen even comes up.

Trivia, for the interested: Wynthea, meaning “healer” is a Welsh-spelling of a Hebrew name. My mother’s family is Welsh, and my own real name is Hebrew. The name holds quite a bit of significance for me.

My character is currently named “Wynthia.” Not a huge distinction, I suppose………. and one that I will remedy as soon as possible. But it bothers me. A lot.

Anyway, if you’re looking for me, I’m currently Wynthia *wince* on Firetree.

Oh, wait, I guess I should make this more than a Rant-post.

If you are considering creating a character, for RP purposes or not, but you want a name that actually carries weight, and means something – “noobpwnerx” I’m looking at you – there are some really great resources on the vast interweb. First, though, you need to have an idea of what you want.

Wyn’s character-naming guide

1. Start thinking about what you want the character to be, and to do. Before I name a character, I come up with an attribute I’d like the name to mean.

For example, if you’re creating a character to PvP, you may think about words like “Victorious” or “War-like”

For a bank alt, you may want something meaning “Wealthy.”

Just think about words that mean something you’d like the character to embody.

Whatever you do, do NOT name your character after something you really liked in a currently-popular book or movie. Old books are fine – for example, Renwein (my Human Priest) is named after a relatively obscure character in Arthurian Literature. It’s also possible it wasn’t even her name, but just a generic word for “maiden.” Bonus points if you go look it up.

2. Pull up a baby-name website.

This one freaked my last boyfriend out when he found it in my internet-history. One of my favorites is Baby Names World, because it allows you to search by meaning, and create lots of fun filters.

It also allows you to filter by gender and language of origin.

3. Google a search like “Names meaning….”

If you don’t like anything on a standard baby-site, just give Google a shot. This is actually how I found Wynthea.

4. Refine your choices.

You need to pick a couple. If you’re creating a Female Human Prot-Warrior, and like Irish names, be aware that “Bridget” (means Strong) will probably already be taken.

Say them out loud a few times. People will be trying this on vent, so don’t spend all this time creating a name just to hear it butchered every day.

See what abbreviations you come up with. Wynthea shortens rather handily to Wyn, which is an awesome nickname. (Full of wyn, for the wyn… it’s an unexpected thing I really love about the name.)  

Make sure it’s relatively easy to type. Elves especially seem to have a hard time with this one. I had a friend named Randirardhon who a) hated to be called Randi, and b) couldn’t figure out why people had such a hard time typing it out.

5. Name your new best friend.

Or alter-ego. However it works for you.

Then get really upset when some Jerk steals your name. (Yes, I know that reaction is probably exactly what they wanted….. )

 

My next post(s) are coming, as promised. I just can’t believe you guys wanna read about REP FACTIONS. That’s not one I had 1/2 prepared. That was “no one will choose this” poll-filler. Argh!

 

Luv,
Wyn

Gone for the Week and an Optimal Mana Regen Tool

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future-post Hey readers, just wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be gone. As I’ve hinted recently, I have exams to study for. My last one will be on Friday the 12th. But don’t worry, I do keep a reserve of posts for rainy days so you guys will have something read during my absence.

It’s like I’m still here when I’m not really here!

I’d like to extend a special thanks to both Devon and Calogero for answering the bell when I put the word out for guest posts. I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I have. Be nice in the comments!

I’m sure Syd and Wyn will also supplement my posts with some of theirs and I’m sure they know not to publish anything at the 6 AM server time slot because that’s when all these posts will go live over the next week.

But I want more!

Have you been visiting the Plus Heal forums recently? Posts are slowly cropping up about gear, quests, and handling raid bosses. Players are now getting back into the swing of things and there are a ton of active discussions going on and here’s but a small sample:

  • For the lore junkies, Zellea’s asked for some recommended readings
  • Shammymammy needs some help with the mother of all bosses, Patchwerk!
  • Sapphiron is serious business as sunsoar discovers. Would 4 healers work in 10 man? Join in on the discussion!
  • Turns out you can Hex mobs off of horses and drakes. I had no idea!
  • Zusterke likes to make my head spin by outlining the delicate balancing act of Spirit and Intellect!

Speaking of Zusterke, he’s released an online tool for us Spirit users! I won’t claim to be able to understand it but it looks impressive. I know Wyn was taken aback by it when I showed it to her.

I believe her reaction was “Squee!” and that’s a good sign.

I wish I could help out in some way, but I just don’t have the necessary skills :(. So I’m going to help in the only way I can do best which is by spreading the word!

He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m probably going to end up interviewing the guy at some point in the near future. It’s been a long time since I interviewed anyone at all, come to think of it.

So what does one ask theorycrafters?