Blizzcon, Boozecon, Linecon, and Snoozecon

They were all actually pretty much the same event.

Cons:

Linecon 2011

There must be something about Anaheim that cultivates lengthy and slow moving line formations. Razer had a line formed to play a game of plinko in order to win random Razer stuff. They were having people take their picture with themselves and the Razer logo in front of a gianormous Tyrael statue. After showing this picture to a Razer offical at the end of the line, you then had to sign up for the Razer newsletter on one of their 3 computers. Then drop the plinko disc and pray you didn’t end up with another mouse pad. Other booths had similar lines for similar chances to win similar items. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t more informational areas. I think that the groups with booths would do better to give codes to people that go online and follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe even give redeemable raffle-ticket style codes or even tickets to people that demo items or watch presentations. I honestly didn’t look at any of the merchandise because I was spending so much time in line between Blizzard panels.

The typical introduction to a question at a Blizzard panel

When you get in line to ask a question at a Blizzcon panel, they give you a Mad-Libs style card to fill out. You read your filled out card before you ask your question. Here is verbatim what the card says:

[Generic salutation]. I just want to say I really think you guys are [synonym for "great"]. My name is [Insert your character's name here] from [Whatever your server is called] in the guild [Your guild name goes here.]. I have been playing for [# of years you've been playing] years. [List all the things you've done in game, no matter how trivial they may seem.]. I’m just wondering, because though I’m into the game enough to pay travel and ticket price to be here but still not enough to keep up with game-related news to know if this has been asked, [your question goes here. You must have a minumum of 7 "ummm"s in the way you ask.]

Panda-moan-iu-kemon

Either you love the idea of the Pandaren at Blizzcon, or you hated it. Personally, I don’t care for the Pandaren at all. They’re just not me. It would be really cool to have some other race for the Horde, but it ultimately doesn’t matter. Undead can be monks? Done, no need for a new race. I’m also not really interested in the pet battle system. It doesn’t really matter what group started the idea of pet battles first, it’s just not interesting. I really hope they don’t make it something you feel you need to do for a raid buff or pvp gear or some BiS items. Mini-games ruined a lot of console games for me.

Pros:

Meeting up with guild members IRL

I always have a blast hanging out with my guild mates online, and when we’re together in the real world it’s the same way. I got to meet/hang out with my long time WoW buddy Aldous (aka Boozekin). When you’re with a guy this funny, only zany hilarious things can happen. I look forward to next year’s Blizzcon in the hopes that we’ll get more guildies to come down to Anaheim for Boozecon 2012.

Kick ass food

If you’re even in Anaheim/Disneyland area you absolutely have to go eat at a little known place called the ESPN Zone. This is the ultimate sports bar, and their food is amazing. By some stroke of amazeballs luck, we ended up eating there twice. Homerun.

Free stuff

If you need a mousepad, go to Blizzcon. I think between the four people in my group we left with six or seven mousepads. One of us got a Razer trucker-hat. We won an SC2 Messenger Bag. I got a Razer SC2 headset. Several shirts. Free custom green-screen pictures of us riding a chicken. A free WoW novel. Not to mention the incredible goody bag that Blizzard themselves hands out, which included a mini Tyrael, a Murkablo in-game WoW pet, and as usual an authenticator.

Conclusion

I will go to Blizzcon again next year, time permitting. It’s just a lot of fun to be around a community of players that can come together and share their love of a gaming company in a positive way. I just hope next year’s goodie bag has a mini pet that actually gets attached to my account after I submit the code and throw it away in the hotel room…

Unsolicited Advice in the World of Wacraft

Inevitably we all witness one player give advice to another. In any situation, giving advice can be a very tricky thing. It has the ability to forge positive relationships, but also to create resentment and even outright dislike. The fact of the matter is, you can’t avoid advice in the World of Warcraft. My hope is to give you some perspective on both how to give, and how to take, unsolicited advice.

Feral PVE DPS videos updated with annotations.

Circle of Healers blog meme

My good pal Rades “tagged” me (suggested for me) to do this so here it is.

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Currently, I would have to say Omegamegaman, Shaman, Restoration.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) 

10 man raids.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Riptide hands down. It’s got the instant blast power of Holy Shock, with the “here’s a little something extra” of Renew. Couple that with the Tidal Wave buff it grants you, it’s just got a lot going for it. If you don’t like Riptide I don’t see how you can like Restoration Shaman.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Healing Surge, because it’s really inefficient. I hardly ever has a use for it because other spells are often times just as fast for a relatively equal amount of healing but way less mana.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? 

Restoration Shaman moves seamlessly between multi-target and single-target healing. Whenever I play a healing class (and these days I play all of them) I always look for a way to fill in the gaps and I love how easy it is to do on Shaman.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

That’s a truly hard question to answer, mostly because I never find myself wanting for improvements. If I had to pick something, and it’s not really a  big weakness in my eyes, I’d have to say it’s the fact that Restoration Shaman don’t have a very exciting talent tree. It would be nice to have a bit more in the playstyle department, as in talents to accentuate your own talents.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

If it’s a healing assignment that I’m being held very strictly to, I’d say raid healing the melee dps. They are always pretty close to one another which makes both Chain Lightning and Healing Rain very easy and efficient to use.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I don’t want to choose just one, but I’m going to have to say Shaman because it suits my playstyle the best at the moment.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Hands down it has to be my Druid. I’m not a huge fan of what I can “Investment Based Healing”. You put a hot, and hope it matures in the $$$ and boss kills. Obviously, there are ways to reduce the risk involved and take the guessing out of it, but they way my guild raids currently we don’t use very strict healing assignments, just general ones. This leads to many of my HoTs being negated by quick cast heals from other players.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Forgetting to weave in my mana cooldowns early so that I can get a second use in later, instead of an initial use later.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Mostly when I have to work with other healers that don’t understand the synergy between the current healing comp. I keep advising healers to at least roll a low level version of every healer up to like, level 20 at least, so that they have a concept of how other specs work on the battlefield.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Yes, definitely. In 25 man raids I would assume you have a little bit less freedom to do this, but in 10 mans you can take any three healers, even if they are all the same healer spec, and do a decent job. That’s balance in my opinion.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

Things like Recount and Skada are good to an extent. I run both at the same time. I like Skada mainly for gauging healing because it takes into account Absorbs as well as heals, which means you can easily see how much Discipline Priests are contributing. I also use tools like World of Logs to check my tactics compared to other Shaman to get different ideas and see if I’m on the right track.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

People view Shaman as raid healers, which I generally refer to as “multi-target” healers. They’re quite good at this, but like I talked about above, they’re also endowed with great single-target healing which is often overlooked.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

How to use Chain Heal. There is this mystery that surrounds the mechanics for new healers, and I admittedly had trouble understanding it at first as well. I initially overcame this using a Grid status mod for Chain Heal, that lights up the units that would best benefit from a Chain Heal, and then I would point and shoot. Using the addon in this way helped make it obvious what situations were best for Chain Heal, and now I hardly pay any attention to the addon when it lights up frames.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

They would see that the majority of my overhealing is caused by spells that I don’t directly control, such as Earthliving procs and Earthshield heals.

Haste or Crit and why?

Haste. It’s dependable, no gambling is involved.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

These days I would say Druid. I haven’t played it as much as my other healers and there are still some kinks I’m working out. Knowing the other healing classes as I do though, patterns do emerge and it’s getting better and better.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

I use Grid as my raid frames. I also use an addon called Tell Me When to create icons to show me the progress of cooldowns/buffs. I’ve also started using Weak Auras for visual heads up on things, but usually as an audio remind of when things come off cooldown are fall off my target.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I don’t worry about balance. One of the nice things, which will only get nicer as Cataclysm gets older, is Reforging. You can really customize your gear to fit your needs and that’s a beautiful thing. You need more throughput, reforge. You need more mana? Reforge. You need faster casting? Reforge. It’s just great.

Wishful Thinking: New Caster Hero Class

If you had the opportunity to give a presentation to Blizzard Devs to propose the next Hero Class, what would your presentation say? If you blog, make a post about it and link it in the comments. The following is my process for coming up with my idea for the next Hero Class: The Dream Sage.

Ask The Blogger #1 – Healing

Harsh.

I really can’t believe the questions that were asked. I also really really can’t believe the questions that were chosen. If that wasn’t bad enough, the answers given were so nondescript that I’m not sure they’re appeasing anyone.

In response to this, I have chosen to answer the questions myself, and I highly encourage you to do the same. Considering that most of the questions weren’t development questions, but instead “Why isn’t this working for me?” questions, I think the community at large are best equipped to answer. 

Why/when I will be buying a Figureprints.com WoW item.

He's got the face for radio.

Ever since I first saw the Figureprints.com character statues I was interested in having one. The issue for me is getting one, and then some greater looking gear comes out. I would want a different immortalization of my character, but I’d be stuck paying more. This is especially a bad scenario for me because the pricing is somewhat high for me. They must be pretty nice quality though at $69.95 USD for a bust and $129.95 USD for the statue.

My solution, because I’m going to get one eventually, is to wait until I’m done with WoW altogether.

Not to get too sentimental about a group of people you likely don’t know, but the idea of WoW being over is kind of sad for me. Not because it will mean my gaming hobby is over. (There will always be more games to play, hell, Blizzard might even make a good enough successor to WoW.) I get sentimental because of the great group of people that I have met and played with over the years. The idea of moving on from WoW isn’t difficult, and some days it’s downright exciting, but moving on from my WoW friends will be tough if it comes down to that. I’m really not sure what other games they like to play. Some of them I do *coughMinecraftcough* but most of them I have no idea what online game(s) we could play together. There may be a few people that move on from online gaming to have families or more time consuming careers. I suppose only time will tell.

But when the end of days comes to the World of Warcraft, I will put together all my favorite gear items on my Warlock (and maybe another character) and log out. I will point my browser (unless we develop something better by then) to www.Figureprints.com, and I will create my order and get a nice piece of memorabilia.

Someday, my kids will ask me “Dad, seriously, WHAT is that?” while pointing at the Figureprints Darthlacinis. To which I will reply “Sit down, child, and I will spin you a tale about adventure, and boredom. About successes and epic failures. Life and death. Dragons and prairie dogs. Friends and trolls. A story of how a group of people that were originally a ska band came together to defeat the world (of wacraft’s) greatest evils…

…this is the tale of Darthlacinis.”

Developing WoW Podcast Seeks Input

All too often guilds think that if they’re all friends, all great players, or even without any restrictions that things will work out naturally. It doesn’t matter if your guild considers itself to be “casual”, you need to have a certain level of organization. Even if your guild is hardcore, your members need a reason to stick around beyond just progression and loots. A few of my friends and I are working on creating a podcast geared towards finding that balance between what some people consider to be “casual” and others would call “hardcore”.

Thinking Space

John ****ing Madden!

I’ve been a big fan of Android phones since their launch. I actually just traded in my Droid Eris, which was the lower grade of the first two Verizon Android choices, for a brand spankin’ new HTC Thunderbolt. (This phone is killer) What’s even more killer than hardware upgrades, are what are known as “concept maps”.

We’ve all seen them. They are connected webs of ideas that are interrelated. Flow charts, thought webs, brainstorming maps are all pretty much concept mapping.

Recently, while browsing the Android Market, I came across an app called “Thinking Space“. The picture shown above is pretty much what the app does. This is such a great tool for visual learners. Being able to see your ideas, and check connections between them helps you keep your presentation concise.

What makes this even better, is that Thinking Space can import/export from PC programs such as Freemind, Mindjet, and XMind. I can start developing a concept map on my phone or my computer, and then export/import to the other. The app can also export to a text file, which is laid out in a manner similar to a traditional writing outline. You can also export to an image or to cloud services. You don’t even have to plug your phone into your computer, as the app will export the file via e-mail to wherever you want to send it. If you prefer not to e-mail, grabbing the file off of your phone is also quite easy.

Now all I need is a concept mapping program that will let people simultaneously manipulate the map.

Does anyone know of such a program or website?

Paying the Utilties: They’ve upped my hybrid tax!

Let’s get on thing straight. I’m a Feral Cat.

With my eyes fixed intently on getting my Fandral’s Flamescythe I’m taking my Druid into the Firelands.

The thing is that my guild needs someone to rotate into healing spots as needed. I was doing this rotating by going back and forth between my Resto Shaman and my Feral Cat Druid. This method took twice as long to gear these two characters. I’m hoping to avoid that in 4.2.

My solution is to have a Resto Druid offspec. My problem is that i’m going to have a Resto Druid offspec.

I’m lousy at healing as a Druid. I’m really not good at delaying gratification, and healing as a Druid feels like I should have a portfolio to keep track of all my healing investments. The problem is, all of my stocks are plummeting along with the health of my group members.

I’m sure I’ll get it eventually. The Flamescythe that is.

Healing? That’s my broker’s job.