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!!!!)

Healing Crusader’s Coliseum: Val’kyr Twins

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valkyr-twins

Val’kyr Twins is one of the more interesting fights in the Coliseum especially for healers. The encounter consists of two Val’kyr who share a relatively large health pool (28 million+). This encounter requires relatively decent buff management along with snap DPS switching in order to get through it.

Setting up

Divide your raid equally in two groups. Split the tanks, DPS, and healers down the line. One group will be on the left, and the other group will be on the right. For the sake of healers, use groups 1 and 2 on the right, groups 3 and 4 on the left. Doesn’t matter which groups. Just have it set in such a way that group positions match group numbers.

twins-essence

How the essences are positioned

Right clicking on the color provides the appropriate essence buff. Your DPS will wish to pick up the buff that is opposite the twin they are engaging. Healers may wish to collect the same colored buff as the twin their DPS is attacking.

Example: The half of the raid that is attacking Fjola Lighbane will be picking up a dark buff. The healers on that side will wish to pick up the light buff.

Main abilities

Vortex

Each twin has a vortex that will do ~6000 damage per second every 5 seconds. It’s an 8 second cast. The best way to mitigate it is to gain the same colored buff that matches the twin who is casting the vortex.

Example: Eydis Darkbane is about to case Vortex. The players who are attacking Darkbane should immediately pick up the dark buff to mitigate incoming damage until her channel is finished.

When I did this encounter as DPS, I would stand next to the buff that was opposite the one that I currently had. This way, I could switch easily and DPS the opposite twin.

Twin’s Pact

One twin will cast a shield on themselves. It absorbs ~700000 damage. While their shield is up, they will cast Twin’s Pact. It takes 15 seconds for them to cast that and when it goes off, 20% of their health is restored. The idea  here is to have the entire raid switch to the twin who is casting Twin’s Pact and break their shield. A Rogue or a Shaman can then interrupt Twin’s Pact.

Example: Fjola Lightbane just cast Shield of Light and is channeling Twin’s Pact. The DPS attacking Edyis Darkbane will run behind her, pick up the darkness buff, and start opening up on Fjola. MacktheKnife, a Rogue, manages to kick and interrupt Lightbane from healing.

Surges

Surge of Darkness and Surge of Light are raid wide “auras” that inflict damage to everyone who is of the opposite buff. Light buffed players take damage from Surge of Darkness and viceversa. Nothing can be done about it.

Incoming balls!

Periodically throughout the fight, there are going to be balls that come in from all sides. You’re going to have a dark ball and a light ball. If a ball hits a player who has the same buff as the color of the ball, they will gain a buff. If the ball hits an opposite coloured player, they take damage. The balls will naturally be drawn toward the twins.

If you want some practice for hard mode, have your healers run interference with their colored balls so that the DPS won’t get hit by them.

Example: Matt’s healing the side that’s DPSing Darkbane. Matt’s buff is the dark essence. Balls start appearing. Matt starts shield everyone and begins chasing dark balls and running interference so that the light balls can get through and hit the DPS.

Healing tips

Raid groups starting out will want to try their luck with 6 healers before dropping down to 5. Split them down the line. If you have an odd healer, coin toss it or random roll the side for them to go on.

Do not get tunnel vision here. Remember, just because you’re on one side with one buff doesn’t mean you cannot heal the other group if you need to. You can cross heal if one side happens to be struggling for some reason.

How do Discipline Priests heal through the raid-wide tick?

Drop some gold on the Prayer of Healing glyph. That will help soften the blow. Shield spamming 10 different targets helps too if you can keep working the global cooldown.

Paladins?

This is going to require a bit of cooperation from the raid. Try to have your members stand near each other when they’re not trying to intercept balls. Holy Light splashing helps. If not, stick to beaconing the tank and going on auto heal on everyone in the area.

Guild Talent Point Wishlist

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wish-list

The guild talent point system is an upcoming feature in Cataclysm that will allow guilds to invest points into certain special abilities. It’s the same idea when it comes to our individual classes. The only difference is the fact that guild talents will either give your guild some cool abilities or passive perks.

So Blizzard! My birthday is coming up shortly in another week and 2 days. I know you’re hard at work on Cataclysm and Icecrown. One of the biggest features I’m waiting for is the new upcoming Guild talent point system.

I’m aware you’ve included example talents like extra gold on mobs, reduced repair costs, mass resurrect and the ability to summon everyone to a certain point. I’m no game designer and I doubt I’ll ever make a good one. As a guildmaster, I have my own wishlist of guild talents I’d like to see. If you have time, I’d very much appreciate it if you could look it over. I don’t expect you to use any of them but I hope something on my list might inspire your talent designers.

  • Cauldron of Enlightenment: Alchemists are able to create a Cauldron of Enlightenment which is able to produce 25 Flasks of Enlightenment. Flask increases your highest individual stat by 40. (Remember, this is when spell power and mp5 and such gets compressed down to base stats).
  • Bug out: Immediately renders a player immune to fires on the ground… by teleporting them out of the instance, removing them from raid, and from guild.
  • Overdrive: Haste of all members in raid increased by 25%. Does not stack with Heroism or Bloodlust. Causes Exhaustion. Only usable by the Guild Leader.
  • Skilled Negotiator: All faction discounts increased by an additional 5%.
  • Asylum: The 10 yard radius around you is instantly converted into a sanctuary. You cannot attack opposite faction members and opposite faction members cannot attack you. Lasts 30 seconds. Not usable in PvP.
  • Let’s be pals: Reputation gains increased by 5/10/15% (Okay, that’s too much. I guess a realistic number would be 2/4/6%)
  • Slavedriver: All crafting professions create items 10/20/30% faster.

What about you, the rest of my readers? What type of guild talents would you like to see? Remember, the rule is that you cannot include any ability that could aversely affect PvE or PvP. So no class damage modifiers. I only included the pseudo-heroism for guilds that might not have a Shaman.

Matt on the WoW.com show 3 PM PST UPDATE: Show’s over

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I’ll be on the WoW.com show in about 15 minutes. I’m not quite sure what I’ll be talking about. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to a Dwarf Priest do improv, this is your chance! Not sure if this embed works, if not here’s the direct link to the Ustream page!

Live TV : Ustream

Update: Show’s over! Thanks for listening! Will post MP3 up later!

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