Gaming and Society

Why Play a Healer?

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why-play-healer

This is a guest post by Professor Beej who describes his healing epiphany.

Being the guy or gal standing in the back of the raid, tossing heals, mezzing, fearing, buffing, shielding, and just doing everything we can to keep people alive and the raid moving smoothly is a thankless job.  The battle-cry of "blame the healer" is our bane, yet also our motivation; it keeps us on our toes.  Our gameplay consists of clicking on colored bars whenever they turn not-green and never getting to look directly at the dragon we are told we are killing.  We know that going in, and we accept it.  In fact, we thrive on it and love it.

But why?

Are we gluttons for punishment?  Masochists who just love having less fun than the people we play with? Do we feel some sick need for penance (even those of us who aren’t Priests) that we voluntarily play the MMO whipping boy?

I don’t think so.  I think we do what we do because it is, far and above, the most fulfilling role in MMO gaming.  Unlike DPS and tanks, healers get to directly interact with those whom they play with.  Sure, tanks taunt off silly DPSers or enthusiastic healers, and DPS help out by blowing things up, snaring the occasional runaway, or tossing occasional buffs around, but healers are the only archetype in gaming where the vast majority of our time is spent interacting directly with our friends and teammates rather than through an intermediary.

I didn’t realize it when I started, but I have always played a support character, if not a healer, in MMOs.  In Ultima Online, I was never the duelist my friends were.  Instead, I had Grandmaster Hiding and would pop out unexpectedly from the shadows to throw my allies a heal or cure or cast Wall of Stone between them and their pursuers for some breathing room.  In Star Wars Galaxies, I did everything I could to work my Jedi Holocron grind around maintaining the Doctor (or at least Medic) tree in my template for as long as possible.  I even toyed with a high elf Paladin in EverQuest.

Then came Warcraft.

WoW made me aware of this tendency.  I had rolled a Warlock during release week, thinking DoTs and demons were my flavor.  I pushed hard to get him to 40 just to get his free mount (remember, 100g was an absurd price to pay in November 2004) and promptly got bored. I couldn’t decide what class I wanted to play next, so I rolled a Druid because he would be able to fill any role he needed to.  I leveled Balance and around level 42, I did Uldaman for the first time, and my group needed a healer.  Not even having a single point in Restoration, I healed my group through Archaedas and was given the compliment of "you’re the best healer I’ve ever grouped with" from all 4 other people.  And thus my career as an MMO healer was solidified.  While I eventually switched from the Druid to a Priest to a Shaman and back to the Priest, I have always been most comfortable playing a class that could heal.

To me, the reason the healing role stuck was three-fold:

  • I was good at it.  Very good at it, from what I was told.  And I’m the kind of person who avoids doing things I’m bad at.  So finding something I excelled at made me want to keep doing it.  I think that applies to everyone.  I know some healers who only heal for the prestige, but I know many more who do so for the love of the game and because they try their hardest to be their best.  
  • It made me feel important.  Let’s face it–DPSers are a dime a dozen.  Good DPS is harder to find and exceptional DPS might as well be mythical, but just finding someone to pewpew a Heroic is simple.  Being a healer and thus always being in demand was part of the ego boost, but it was also the idea of "these people’s [virtual] lives are in my hands and mine alone.  I’m responsible for them."  It made me feel good to know I was, in many ways, the most pivotal person in the group. Most healers can pretty easily keep the group alive if the tank loses aggro or CC breaks, but it’s much harder to keep things going smoothly if the healer drops and things go haywire.
  • The focus was not on me.  Healers get to stand in the back, do their thing, and rarely be bothered.  For the hardcore introvert like me, there is no purer gaming bliss. I don’t play games for drama; I play games to unwind and have fun. I don’t care if I get top 5 on a meter, nor do I have any urge to yell "BOOM HEADSHOT!" on vent every time I a spell crits.  Even though we occasionally deal with "blame the healer" drama, most of a healer’s life is spent in the background being ignored.  And that’s just fine by us.  Sure, every guild has their token prima donna healer, but most of us are content to sit a few rows back and let the extroverts have their spotlight while we do some real good.

The Mistake and the Revelation

When Wrath of the Lich King came out, I tried to switch from healing to DPS.  I leveled my Death Knight to 80 first and realized within a few raids that it was not for me and finished my Shaman’s grind to 80.  So now, whenever I try out a new game or start a new MMO, I always go for the Priest/healer archetype first.  I know it is what I’ll end up playing anyway, so why should I delude myself and think I will play any other archetype as anything but an alt?

So what about y’all?  Is there a particular reason you play a healer (or a reason why you don’t)?  Is it simply preference, a guild need, or something more?

Image courtesy of Crafts N Things

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

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steve_phixr

Avast you scally wags!, happy talk like a pirate day from us at World o’ Matticus, shiver me timbers! Hope you have a fun day and don’t forget t’ get your achie’ement in Booty Bay. Tis’ quick and easy. Fly t’ booty bay and head o’er past the horde flight point. Jump up ont’ the roo’ and talk t’ Dread Captain Demeza, argh! Get your free pirate costumes and then find some wenches and raid some ta’erns!

From Blizzard

Yarrrr matey, it be Pirates’ Day! Commoners wearing pirate garb have appeared in all the world’s cities with the news that the Dread Captain DeMeza and her crew have landed in Booty Bay and declared it Pirates’ Day! If you are brave enough to share a drink with her, you may have what it takes to become an honorary crew member for the day.

First, talk to any pirate commoner to receive a costume to help you get into the spirit of Pirates’ Day. Once appropriately attired, head down to Booty Bay to join in the fun. There, look for Dread Captain Demeza and her crew, who have taken over the roof of the Booty Bay bank and auction house. By talking to Captain DeMeza, players become an honorary crew member and transform into a pirate of their race and gender for 12 hours. This costume buff may be clicked off but persists through combat, mounting, death, and so on. Other highlights of the holiday include:

  • A large crowd of pirate revelers (“Dread Crew”) who dance, talk, eat, drink, laugh, and shoot fireworks. Ask Baron Revilgaz what he thinks of the visitors.
  • The Tauren First Mate Hapana and his giant South Seas assault parrot, Nyuni.
  • A trio of cannons and cannoneers who periodically fire out into the bay – at times, just barely missing the sails of the incoming transport. Those crazy corsairs.
  • Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket, two curiously-named pirates.
  • Lively pirate-themed music that plays upon the rooftop.

so what be you goin’ t’ do this fine holliday? Goin’ t’ any pirate theme parties? Breakin’ out the de’iate delights and raidin’ pirate style? Rollin’ around with your admiral’s hat? Aye, me parrot concurs th’s be soundin’ like good fun!

Share with us your Talk like a pirate day pictures, your favorite pirate joke or just feel free to chime in with some good old pirate speak! YARRRRRRRRRRRR!

Edit, I’ve been informed this post needs more pirates. So in honor of my guild master


SigPP116

Image courtesy of Fox Studios (PIRATE WASH FTW!!!!)

Putting The RP in MMORPG

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dice_phixr

So, recently I’ve been talking more and more about the story and lore of gaming. The games that create a rich background and intricate story for you to be a part of. As such I’ve been talking with a lot of RPers lately. I’ve been reading very interesting RP posts, and fan fiction stories, and have even begun writing my own for Lodur’s background. It can be a lot of fun to think about where your character has been and where they are going and how they might interact with their fellow raiders. This side of the game does appeal to me as I’m an old school D&D Role playing geek. It is however something I haven’t fully explored in game yet.

Blizzard has set aside entire servers for people to Role Play with each other, and no I’m not talking about the seedy dirty stuff, but honest interaction between players acting out their characters. There are a few different types of Role Playing you’ll come across in the game.

Spontaneous RP

This is a spontaneous act between two or more players who play out a short scenario on the spot. These players typically do not have background stories that cross paths and have a low likelihood of interacting again in a role-playing context. This is coming across someone randomly while questing or bump into in one of the major cities. These RP sessions can sometimes lead to further contact later on and might develop into character friendships later one.

Deliberate / Planned RP

Some role players will set aside specific times to be online to interact with others. This can be in a raid, a group that quests together as a party or simply a meeting in the local inn to throw back a pint or twelve. Many interesting interactions happen here. Friendships are made and lost, sometimes characters pair off in the way of couples, and sometimes they break up and throw bottles at each other. I have a group of friends I talk to on a regular basis that do set aside specific time to role play during the week, and I always enjoy hearing about what happened afterward.
Out of Game RP

Probably one of the more important things to mention here. Out of game RP happens in emails, forums and blog posts. This exists between spontaneous and deliberate RP events and honestly has no true end point. These can serve to flesh out backgrounds for your character, can help turn spontaneous RP encounters into full on character relationships and can really give some creative license to tell a very intricate story. I’ve seen posts that filled in the gaps of a raid, and some rather humorous explanations for why the group wiped on a particular boss fight. The forum posts I’ve run across or have been linked to are often the result of people working together in emails to get the story together before it’s posted. People have even created twitter accounts for their toons so they can RP with other characters through that media as well. The results are almost always a very very fun story to read. It’s like being an actor in a movie and really getting into your role, or playing out a scene in your favorite books. You get to be a part of a story of your making.

The community surrounding MMO’s has always interested me, it’s one of the most important reasons I got into MMOs in the first place. We make friends as we play the game (or enemies) and we get to share our triumphs and defeats. There’s something very gratifying about working with 24 friends and downing a big nasty boss. The community that has sprung up from the Role Playing elements of Warcraft is very strong as well. The people that RP have most definitely set up a community for themselves (and their characters) within the game. You can sit on twitter and see just how deep the interactions go. To them there is more to the game then the grinding of levels or the end game content. Now it’s not to say that all they do is interact in character, many times the OOC (Out Of Character) chat channels are hillarious with the Real Life interactions. It’s refreshing sometimes to take a step back and look at the other side of the fence.

Does this mean you’ll see posts here about role playing in game? Possibly, depends on how deep down the rabbit hole I go. (or how far @justanna from toomanyannas.com can drag me =P)

So, what about you? Have you tried RPing? Have you ever written a fan fiction about your character? Have you thought about it? What would your characters background be?

That’s it for now, I’ll have more for you later this week. Until then, Happy healing!

Sig

Image courtesy of madbrewlabs.com

Faction and Race Changing, Lodur’s Thoughts

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440px-In-Betweener_Head_phixr

As I’m sure you know by now, one of the long awaited features has been implemented. Faction Change is here! I know a lot of people who were waiting for this for a long time. A few of my guildies had high level horde toons that they are swapping over to alliance and bringing into the guild. I also know a lot of people that I follow on Twitter have gone through the switch or are considering it as we speak. I also know a lot of people who have been dreading it, afraid that faction balances would be blown away or that guild ninja looting will skyrocket. Others are using it a point of recruitment. Trying to get their real life friends to swap factions and join their raid groups.

So I’m here to offer my opinion on this one, first though lets take a look at the facts.

Faction change is a one way change to the opposite faction

You can only choose a race that your current class is available to (example Horde Shaman hopping over to alliance will have to be a Draenei)

  1. Can only faction change one toon at a time
  2. Character has to be minimum level of 10
  3. PVP real restrictions do not apply
  4. Can faction change once every 60 days.
  5. Every time you want to faction change, you have to pony up the $30 bucks.

There’s several more, hit the FAQ page for all the details, these are just the “highlights” if you will.

Personally I like the idea of faction changing, I mean with the technology they are implementing it makes perfect sense. If I can change my gender why not my faction? It’s all just shifting pixels and databases around. I think people who fear it are unfounded. Honestly the argument of “what is going to prevent them from joining my guild, looting the bank and then faction changing?” is kinda moot. People have been doing that for a long time before faction changing, you can always hot foot it over to wow.com and their guild watch articles to see that for certain. If people are going to do it, they are going to do it, regardless of faction change. I look at the faction change as a chance for people to start fresh, but also as a chance for people to bring favored toons with them to play with their friends. I have a good friend who plays horde side, we’ve been talking about the faction change for a while and I would love to have him come over to alliance on my server so we can both enjoy the game.

Now for the real meat of this article, race change. People have been asking for this since Burning Crusade. The ability to change your race, but keep your class and faction. With the announcement of the new class race combination, there was renewed interest (there was a pretty big roar when Gnome Priest was confirmed). Me personally, I want to make my blueberry a Dwarf Shaman when Cataclysm comes out (or 4.0 if they do it then). I made my toon a female back when it was first offered because I kept getting stuck under the platform for The Lurker Below, and well… I got tired of it. Enter sex change and no more getting stuck on terrain. Being a Dwarf though would fit me more, and would fit my naming scheme better. Basically I’d be a happier Shaman. My interest in this sparked a conversation with the officers of my guild. Swapping your character race could have an impact on your raid. I’ll use myself as an example here.

Draenei currently have a few racials that are beneficial to a raid. First on the list is Heroic Presence. This racial grants all players in the group with the Draenei a 1% hit bonus. This might not seem like a lot but when you are hovering around the hit cap, that 1% can make all the difference in the world. Second on the list is Gift of the Naaru. This is a free Heal over Time that all Draenei get. The amount healed increased with attack power or spell power values. On fights like Vezaxx where watching your mana consumption is critical, this spell can help save the day. It costs no mana, has a 3 minute cooldown. So, if I race change to a Dwarf, my raid loses 1% hit for one group and a free heal. That 1% hit can be a bit of a bitch to lose, but in my opinion a raid shouldn’t be dependant on it. If I’m not on for a raid the raid doesn’t have that 1% hit anyways. So why gear expecting it? Yes it makes things easier on that one group, but still. I think this holds true for all the races. I don’t feel the vast majority of the racials are make or break for a raid, and with the potential revamp of racials coming (confirmed by the devs at blizzcon) there may be other more beneficial racials available soon.

In the end I don’t think either will have such a large impact on the game as a whole, I do however think that it will have a huge impact on individual player experience. It’s kind of like work, a happy employee is a productive employee. I don’t really think it should matter if a player wants to play a different race or swap factions as long as they are happy.

What do you think? Are you pro or con faction change? Pro or con race change? Do you think it will be largely game impacting? What are your concerns or the something you look forward too the most? Any racials you think a raid relies on?

That’s all I have for today. Until next time, Happy healing

Sig

Image courtesy of Marvel.com

Your Opinion: Is Raiding Too Easy? Or Just Accessible?

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Here’s a post that an officer of mine wrote on my guild forums. I wanted to share it with the rest of you to generate some discussion as we head into the long weekend. Check it out! Do you agree? Why or why not?

If you partake of the wow forums you will notice a large number of QQ threads lately that divulged from the nerf wars that usually take place.

ToC is too easy!

That is a huge complaint from a very small minority!

Now its not that I disagree with the statement but I disagree with the reasoning. It is my belief, and I think it is very very true, that the main reasoning people complain about the level of difficulty of ToC stems from the following basis.

People love to lord over other people.

It is that above statement which drives a majority of people that do raid. That statement is slowly being crushed by Blizzard’s belief that all of its subscribers should have the opportunity to do content.

Now if you do not quite understand what I mean by that I will explain it out fully. In Vanilla WoW on my old server, my guild was the only guild to be able to fully clear BWL, AQ40 and most of Naxx. We had roughly 40 or so people in the best gear. Every other guild that raided struggled with Molten Core and could barely kill a few bosses in BWL.

The ego that goes along with that level of success was amplified greatly. Believe me I had every hunter on the server drooling over my gear and asking me all sorts of questions. In BGs, it was common for me to rack up 120 killing blows and 0 deaths. I could one shot people and to be perfectly honest, it felt very good.

Blizzard realized soon after the release off Naxx 40 that they had indeed made a mistake. They released the best raid they ever built and no one saw it. Only a handful of the total population ever stepped foot into Naxx. They then decided they needed to change the game and they did just that.

We are now in the world of easy epics and 10 mans. It is relatively easy to see most of the bosses in game and actually kill them. Epic gear is widely available and if you only play a few hours a week you can conceivable have a raid ready character in a month. The casual players rejoiced.

But those few hardcore people did not.

They were no longer lords and masters of there respective servers. Thus their ego shattered and the crying began in full force.

I don’t know what kind of person can define themselves by this game. I define my hobbies as something I enjoy doing. I enjoy the game and I enjoy the camaraderie of the people I play with. It’s much the same with any of my hobbies be that golf or hockey. I don’t define my existence around it though. I don’t sit around work and brag about killing C’thun in Vanilla wow or being 6 of 6 Sunwell pre nerf. But I think many of these people who do have this perception about themselves where this game defines the type of person they are.

I find that very odd and disturbing but it in it self is nothing more that human nature.

The guy who buys a Corvette because his neighbor bought a Mustang would be that person. He defines himself on what he has as compared to others around him and that very concept drives many WoW players.

It’s a strange world we live in.