Sad news stacks

Sad news 1: Larísa of the Pink Pigtail Inn bows gracefully out of the blogosphere. A legendary figure, she will be missed.

Sad news 2: Followed by Derevka from Tales of a Priest. Always extremely sad to see a priest blog go.

Sad news 3: It is unfortunate that I'm once again in the process of looking for a guild. Despite all that I've heard regarding guilds finding it difficult to recruit, no-one has responded to my LF guild postings in trade chat, and the few I've approached don't have the right raiding days for me.

So if anyone knows of a guild looking for a Holy priest (Disc offspec) with a good attitude then let me know either in the comments or via email. My constrictions are as follows:

- 10-man raiding preferred.
- I will move server for the right guild, must be stable.
- I will not change faction. (I can't heal gnomes I just.... I just can't).
- I can raid Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I will be online at other times for out-of-the-blue raiding or backup but can not guarantee other days.

~Reala

Call to Arms: Certify your blog a RIFT Free Zone Vol 2.

UPDATE: Time to put this thing to bed I think. Thanks to those who commented constructively and politely this week, trolls can crawl back in to their holes.

It's been an interesting evening here at CtL but the time has come to clarify a few things. Less for the benefit of those who can't think of anything better to say than 'stupid shit', but for the reasonable people who just didn't quite get what my last post was about. Shall we start with some pictures? Yeah lets do that.

UPDATE: MMORPG.com (which has a really nice background at the moment) has picked up on it and also used the Starship Troopers thing below, nice touch even if they confuse my gender even more than most.

UPDATE: Massively: Picks out the most emo line in the post to feature. I do feel a bit emo about that whole thing. Thanks chaps!

PC Gamer: Who thought I may have been on the Rift marketing team and that I was demanding things. I'm not doing either but Dan eventually established that I could still be described as 'subtly brilliant'.

 

Quarter to Three: I hadn't even heard of these guys but I love this blog! Great name too, read why it's called that in the About section. They take the title for My Favourite Headline Ever. But Tom did end up coercing me into confessing that I know who Justin Bieber is even though I don't want to.

I just... this just might be my new Favourite Thing. A Starship Troopers reference masterfully crafted into Art:

No pictures here but of course Larísa at PPI had some insightful things to say and mentioned it.

I get that it's great fodder for WoW vs Rift rant-fests, so can't blame people too much (you're all wrong). And of course there were a few more feckless and derogatory comments on the post itself you can amuse yourselves with below.

A lot of misunderstanding stems from not appreciating how light-hearted I am in all my posts here. I don't expect people to pour through the archives to get to know my tone (but there's cake in it for you if you do) and end up thinking I hate Rift's guts and I'm trying to start a flame-war, or I'm having some serious nerd-rage, or I don't get enough fresh air.

I hold absolutely no disdain for Rift. I love games, I love it when good games get backing and do well because that can be a feat in itself when so many great games don't get to see the light of day. The computer and video game industry is in a  pretty bad place for smaller developers, especially here in the UK where they don't even get tax relief any more and smaller companies are shutting down. It's pretty heartbreaking. So when a good game from a relatively unknown developer rises up and has success I'm completely thrilled for it, I want Rift to succeed and stand as strong competition, it'll keep both WoW and Rift on their toes and I think we'll get some great gaming out of it. I especially like the thought of cross-game guilds which I've seen a bit about. I wish I had time for both, but alas.

So I don't want Rift's face to catch fire and then have the fire doused by sand and the sand to be full of scorpions. Nor do I blame Rift for my guildies leaving and breaking the guild, they were disillusioned already by then, it could have been *any* new shiny thing, they were done with WoW but there wasn't anything new for them to get excited over, so they logged in like they always have, until Rift. I'm pretty mad at the way they handled the situation but I'm not mad at Rift and if players have had enough of WoW I'm grateful that there's somewhere they can go enjoy themselves instead of feeling like they're stuck in Azeroth.

It's worth remembering that Rift brought WoW comparison on itself. Using 'We're not in Azeroth anymore' as a marketing tagline means you will always be compared and contrasted for better or worse. They've tied themselves to the WoW community for a reason. Rift ads are all over WoWhead and Tankspot. I'm fine with that, we're used to seeing that sort of thing, and it does interest me and I would like to read about it and know more. But I don't want to go to Apple's site and read all about the latest Samsung, do you see? Yes we can ignore it, yes we can skip over that post, yes we can unsubscribe if we feel that strongly about it, but it's still a little frustrating and I decided to have a bit of fun with it because that's what I'm like. Plus no kittens will be harmed.

And finally (phew) I'm British, mostly, and my humour is stereotypically so in that there's a lot of irony and sarcasm. In the words of Reginald D Hunter "Y'all like subtext and irony and tongue-in-cheek, you know, clever ways to be indirect about what you think", here look, it's hilarious:



TL;DR:
- I’m not on Rift’s marketing team.
- I don't want there to be fire and/or scorpions on Rift's face.
- I would play both if I had time.
- I'm officially 'subtly brilliant'.
- I’m not a terrible, bitter, dungeon-dwelling individual.
- There's cake in the archives.
- I wouldn't go to Apple's website expecting to read Samsung news.
- I like sarcasm, irony and above all; humour. With a 'u'.
- I feel greatly ashamed that I know who Justin Bieber is.

Oh one final thing before you go; if you've used the badge or want to use it but are worried about angry people hitting it with sticks, I've done an amended version with a disclaimer, as seen above, code here:

<a href="http://clickthelightwell.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h472/clickthelightwell/CtL_026_riftfreezone2.png" border=0></a>

~Reala

PS. The irony of talking about Rift and getting traffic because of it isn't lost on me. My little British brain might explode with joy.

Call to Arms: Certify your blog a RIFT Free Zone

UPDATE: Time to put this thing to bed I think so i can get on with normal posting. Thanks to those who commented constructively and politely this week, trolls can crawl back in to their holes.

UPDATE: Right, I'm getting a bit bored of the same old comments coming up, and because I don't want to censor the internet more than necessary or turn comments off, and EVEN THOUGH I WROTE A WHOLE FOLLOW UP POST CLEARING UP EVERY POSSIBLE MISUNDERSTANDING, people are too wrapped up in their own opinions to actually look at. Which is why this bit is at the top of the original post. Those of who who have commented constructively; I thank you. You give me hope for the internet. I've used small sentences and stripped out as much sarcasm as I can so the matter can come to a close. Also, for those who don't understand irony (or humour for that matter) educate yourselves here.

Anonymous said...
I for one don't get this whole "We hate RIFT, because it's not WoW"-mentality that some people are exhibiting.
I've reiterated that I don't hate Rift more times than I can be bothered to count. Hey internet! I don't hate Rift! Ok? Ok.

Anonymous said...
was that the best argument you could come up with reala? honestly? come on man, i know it's getting harder to defend world of warcraft, i used to be a wow player, even i don't want to see wow posts even in wow forums and blogs.
WoW is a all grown up now and doesn't need anyone, least of all me, to 'defend' it. I keep coming across comments about me 'fighting' for a cause. I'm not fighting or defending anything.

Agozyen said...
I certainly do feel for what you guys are going through, and I am not gloating, but this does have an element of Karma about it.
There are a lot of these 'it's about time WoW got payback for all the WoW talk invading other games over the years' comments.  I started playing in early Wrath, I didn't come from any other MMO, I keep all my interests and hobbies on their own blogs. There are others in the same position as me. I am one person, I don't represent the WoW community and there's nothing karmic about this for me.

Reddicker said...
No offense, but bloggers getting insulted because of Rift-related posts? Terrible, bloggers aren't important enough that this should even matter.
Protip: Prefixing your insult with 'no offense' doesn't justify being offensive. This made me LOL. An MMO *is* it's players, it's *especially* it's players that give a damn and constructively debate it's content and surrounding influences, whether that's on forums, blogs or irl. It gives developers a taste for what's working, what's not, where they need to step up their game and what matters to their players. If you can't appreciate that then your ignorance is worthy of some sort of medal.

Anonymous said...
yea im with you, this dude is a major faggot. he is QQing cuz people are insulting his video game. Hes probly a fat nerd who lives at home or some shit.
Firstly, I don't recommend a syntax-free lifestyle. Apart from everything else that's horribly wrong with this kind of comment, it highlights the severe gender confusion most people, including those who reference this elsewhere, are having. I started off not correcting people because it doesn't matter and no-one should give a shit. But it's a pretty fundamental thing to get wrong so let's clear it up once and for all; I'm a girl.

So this means painfully banal comments can stop now yes? I don't expect much change from the plebs who bravely post anonymously, but I hope this will help those who have commented meaningfully but with misunderstanding.

Original post starts now:

For fun (but also I mean it) I've made a little badge you can put on your blog to certify it a RIFT Free Zone, as seen above. I know there are a few bloggers getting pretty frustrated with the amount of Rift talk on WoW blogs lately, only this morning I read Zinn's well-put thoughts on the matter.

WoW may be the lumbering behemoth of the MMORPG sphere but we bloggers are not, damnit. Many of us are experiencing tough times in WoW, we have lost friends, guildies, entire guilds have crumbed and fallen. I don't begrudge Rift the shelf-space, but when there are more Rift posts on a WoW blog than WoW posts... well... I don't like it.

So what do you say? Want to show some solidarity? Copy and paste the code below wherever you want the badge to appear. It's got a transparent background so should sit well in any blog style.

<a href="http://clickthelightwell.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h472/clickthelightwell/CtL_025_riftfreezone.png" border=0></a>

~Reala

Conclave of Win

I signed up for an alt raid night with my new guild as they still need a few more bodies for a fixed secondary raid group. A few people actually remember me from an old guild I was in briefly, so there are a few more friendly faces around than I thought. Unless, of course, they hate me.

Raid composition: x2 tanks, x3 healers, x5 DPS

Our raid leader is my priest friend I keep mentioning, who, it turns out, is a great raid leader as well. It was the first time in Throne of the Four Winds for many of us and so he took the time to set up coloured flares on the first platform, representing each of the boss platforms. He assigned everyone to a platform and got us to practice the movement we'd need to perform by going from one flare to another and back when percentages of energy were called, which was a great way to get people listening and engaged with the tactics.

I was originally assigned to Nezir's (middle) platform so I had some switching to do, which was no problem as he would call 'get ready to move' with about 5 seconds in hand and 'switch' when we were to run off the platform. However some people weren't moving in time and so I switched with him so he could be in the middle and have a better idea of what was going on. This placed me on Rohash's platform (right) and meant that I didn't move at all, which meant I was tanking this boss a lot of the time.

This is a lot less scary than it sounds! After being left all alone on the platform for the first time I was quaking in my slippers, but he really doesn't hit hard and this fight is resplendent with opportunity for mana regen. I even got up the courage to occasionally run up and whale on him with my new staff (for good measure. And because it's new and I wanted to use it.)

You all know where to find tactics, but here are my Top Priesty-Type Tips for Rohash's platform in the Conclave of Wind encounter:

- LEVITATE! If you have it glyphed then great, if not bring a stack of Light Feathers and hit Levitate when close to the ground towards the end of his Hurricane ability. Don't do it too soon or it'll get cancelled. This negates a good 70% of the fall damage.

- My technique for near-total damage mitigation during this ability was: Power Word: Shield > Renew > Holy Word: Serenity > another PW:S as Hurricane ends > Levitate just before you hit the floor. If you leave The second PW:S nice and late and have the Body & Soul talent, you can even get a couple of increased speed as you hit the ground, which can be handy if there's an awkwardly-timed Wind Blast.

- Learn your way around the platforms, the rushing wind graphic is not easy to see when you're moving and I was knocked so far off the ledge once that I ended up on Al'Akir's platform and had to open my map to get my bearings and know which side to run off. This costs valuable seconds if you're a tank or healer.

All-in-all this is an extremely easy fight for most people, especially on this platform. We had a few wipes due to slow DPS switching but this isn't a fight that's going to give many raids too much trouble.

~Reala

A Tale of Two (Razer) Nagas

I bought my first Razer Naga over a year ago, not long after I'd started playing WoW and wasn't having an easy job of converting from a clicker > keybind method. I haven't looked back since and, as of this week, am now the proud owner of an Epic version as well. I don't want to drone on endlessly about it, there are plenty of thorough reviews out there that will do that. What I want to do is briefly give my opinion of the new Razer Naga Epic but also compare the two and tell you a bit about how I use them.

Ooooh shiny (and matte)

The Naga is an aesthetically spectacular thing. I often find gaming peripherals, even high-end ones, quite tacky (sorry Logitech) but this mouse, resembling the Batmobile when off, is beautiful in it's form and tight in it's manufacture. The regular Naga glows blue, which is pretty but can not be changed, the Epic will default to phasing through several colours, which can be customised to your taste with the software. I'm thinking of leaving it blue until I have all epics and then changing it to purple. Because simple things please me.

Thumb-exercise

Having experimented with Grid, Clique and Healbot in the early days of my original Naga (oh, and the AddOn that comes with it, which I don't recommend over conventional mods) I felt most comfortable with Healbot and have used it since. I keep my actionbars in rectangular blocks of 12, reflecting the 12-button layout on the Naga's side:

Really you can find a way of making it work with most exisiting addons and, unless you have a definite preference already, I recommend trying the 'big three' in turn to see what suits you.

Grips and Gripes

Once I'd swapped out the side panel to my preferred one (matching the old Naga, which doesn't have an interchangeable side) there was very little difference in terms of feel. The epic is heavier but unless you're severely limp-wristed it's no bother and in fact you may feel more rooted.

I have three gripes with the new Epic Naga.

1) What is noticeable is that the two little buttons that were on the side of the left-click on the old Naga have been moved centrally to just under the scroll-wheel like so:

I found this out by running off the edge of a cliff and pulling a load of Apprehensive Workers in Tol Barad as my autorun wasn't where I'd left it. After an evening of use I still prefer the old positioning, my hands are small so I hold the mouse quite high up, and I can't comfortably curl my index finger to those buttons without moving my hand down. I will have to acclimatise or change my autorun bind before our hunter's mad pet has to save me again (sorry Crispy).

Oh, for those that have noticed - the Epic doesn't have a backlit logo (the logo is there however, bad photo) probably to preserve battery life. I was a little disappointed at this to begin with, but then, when I was looking at it just sat there later, I realised how sleek it is and, unless you knew, I think you'd just assume it was a designer mouse. Beautiful.

2) The entire base stand and cord must be attached to your computer for it to receive signal and work. My setup is that my regular Naga lives with my home PC and my Epic comes with my laptop (and gets the most use). I was looking forward to not having to stuff the cord under my MacBook to stop it trailing everywhere.

I'm aware that most gaming mice don't have the 'on the go' gamer in mind, but if you're going to develop such a beautifully innovative device why not include unprecedented versatility? If I know that my mouse is fully charged and good for the evening, I want to be able to plug in a tiny USB receiver instead of the charging stand.

3) For my last gripe I have a story about a pugged HC I ran on the first day I had my Epic. All was going well, even if the tank was a bit of a tosser, and we got to the last boss. I've been looking at the mouse frequently over the past few days simply because I'm interested to see what it's doing and definitely NOT because I'm obsessed with my new shiny thing and its lights. I happened to see the scroll wheel light flashing, meaning it's low battery. During normal play I would never look at my mouse, especially since I'm entirely used to the Naga keypad from my original one. An on-screen visual warning would be better but not great as, with many gamers and especially those of WoW, our screens are so covered in bars and lights and things exploding that unless an all-singing, all-dancing effect like those of "GTFO of the FIRE" Deadly Boss Mods - a low-battery graphic would likely get lost in the chaos. What would be useful is if the mouse vibrated at a certain percentage of battery-life, determined in the settings dialogue. Hooray for tactile feedback!

So back to Shadowfang Keep; "wait a sec guys" popped the cord in and "ready". At about 50% my cursor started moving really slowly across the screen, unable to properly examine what may have been wrong I had to plough ahead as best I could. It died, we wiped, I got kicked. The Naga Epic requires you to TURN IT OFF underneath if you want to use it in wired mode. What?! For a bit of kit that's otherwise so intuitive this seems a terrible oversight.

TL;DR

- The new Razer Naga Epic is a beautiful, masterfully conceptualised and crafted device.
- It is comfortable and a pleasure to use.
- It works well with the popular AddOns.
- Lights are pretty.
- I would like a tiny receiver to replace the base stand at times, I wouldn't mind this as an accessory sold separately.
- I would like it to recognise and swap to wired mode on plug-in without having to switch it off.

The Razer Naga Epic has earned it's place alongside my regular Naga, but I will not be replacing my regular with another Epic as it's uncomplicated use and preferable button layout are valuable to me.

~Reala

Saga's 20 days of WoW challenge: Day 7

Continuing Saga's challenge:

Day 07 - The reason behind your blog's name

It's pretty self explanatory to anyone who's been in a raid/dungeon with a Holy Priest!

I arrived to the name of my blog pretty quickly once I'd decided I wanted to start one. As the blog followed after my WoW Twitter, I considered using a name similar to it (@realakorgall) but decided I wanted to encompass more than just who was talking.

I went through the list of holy priest abilities and spells on WoWhead for inspiration, as I scrolled connotations and memories that attached themselves to spells floated to the front of my mind and, and when I saw Lightwell - that was it.

Memories of changing from Disc to Holy in early Cata flooded in, with me running around frantically trying to learn my new spec and needing people to help me out by clicking the Lightwell. But they didn't. Thus was born the macro that still pops up when I place a Lightwell:

"CLICK THE LIGHTWELL. JUST CLICK THE DAMN LIGHTWELL. AND DON'T STAND IN SHIT"

It made groups laugh and, more importantly, it helped them remember to click the lightwell! (They still stand in shit).

~Reala

Saga's 20 days of WoW challenge: Day 6

Continuing Saga's challenge with a fun entry to make!

Day o6 - Your workplace/desk (photo and/or description)

Since I'm keeping these entries related to WoW (and because I work with a lot of licences who wouldn't be particularly happy for me to parade unfinished products all over the internet) I present to you my home desk, which is where raiding normally happens: (full view for maximum horror glory)

~Reala

Chimaerogone

What started as a very frustrating raid (wiping 5 times on Artamedes to, uh, warm up) ended in a crescendo of gz's and hearty back-slapping as out first day on Chimaeron ended in a kill on our very last attempt of the night.

Chimaeron is All. About. Healing. I know I'm capable (if a little undergeared) and I know our other healers (resto druid and holy paladin) are very capable healers. Tankspot made this look easier than it is. I had been practicing my disc spec for a couple of days but found that it wasn't, in fact, Power Word: Shield that was the invaluable asset that I thought it would be, but rather Power Word: Barrier.

During Feud, there was a marked difference in getting everyone topped up if I had PW:B up or not (I was able to use it every other Feud with the 2 min cooldown). Chim casts Caustic Slime during this phase, and although the barrier didn't last long, people were almost topped up by the time it broke. Aside from a couple of raid members confusing my barrier breaking with the end of the Feud phase, and running off once it broke (LOL), it was an easy phase to get everyone healthy and restore mana.

It took a fair few wipes for the me just to find the best ability to use for keeping the raid above 10k health, requiring a departure from conventional thinking on economic healing and triage and I found the fibers making up my right hand reluctant to spam Flash Heal. In the end a combination of Renew, Prayer of mending and liberal Flash Heals when necessary did the job with Prayer of Healing used during Feud.

It's worth noting that Grid apparently marks players who dip below 10k health at a time when they shouldn't be, I use Healbot which does not have this functionality and just displays hp in numbers. Perfectly usable but marks would aid priority healing.

As the first phase of the encounter requires such concentrated and precise healing, the final phase involving Chim's Mortality ability was a welcome break. Having an empowered Smite as disc was great, but I missed the utility of Body & Soul for people to last a few seconds longer. We lost all but three by the end (myself being one of the survivors, which was not ideal as the more DPS that survive the better).

Good news in the end then, apart from Fraps did not save my screenshots so very pissed off about that.

~Reala

PS. Chimaeron had two heads. Does he only have three on Heroic or something?