Last weekend I bought and played through Heavy Rain. All I can say is… what a fantastic game!

I had played the game Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) by the same developer and loved it, and I heard that this game was going to have a similar control scheme which is really what makes the game unique. Instead of running and jumping your way around levels and mashing buttons to smack people around, the game basically consists of walking around your environments, using the right control stick to interact with objects around you by moving it in the direction shown on screen, and following button prompts in a Quick Time Event fashion in the various action sequences. The result is almost like watching a movie that you can directly influence.

The choices you are given to branch the storyline is also phenomenal. I’ll certainly be going back to play through again and see how it will progress differently.

Whilst it is a really excellent game, it does have its flaws however. The control of your character can sometimes be rather fiddly, and you may often find yourself walking in a direction you hadn’t intended or struggle to face an object you are trying to interact with. It can be quite frustrating, especially when you know the clock is ticking in some cases. In the big picture it is only a small niggle however.

I intend to write a full review on the game, but I just wanted to give a quick shout out about how much I love it. I really hope that we see more games like this in future.

What’s this? Another WoW blog? Well since the questionnaire I filled in last time, where I said that this isn’t a WoW blog, I thought to myself.. why can’t it be?
I don’t intend to turn my blog into something dedicated to Warcraft. It is after all my own personal blog, but on the other hand, I do tend to have a bunch to say when it comes to matters in the game. So.. I’m going to try it out. It won’t be separated from my other blog entries, but I’ll set up my categories properly when I get around to poking around in the settings, so at least there will be some kind of filter available.
Anyway onwards with the matter at hand…

It seems that ever since Wotlk was released, there has been a gradual and significant rise in the number of PUG raids around the place. I remember back in TBC when it was laughable when there was someone trying to make a PUG raid for Magtheridon’s Lair. Our trade channel was full of people poking fun, saying it was guaranteed fail to attempt a PUG of a 25 man raid. Karazhan was deemed acceptable, but even then it was often looked down upon until the final stretch of the expansion.
Now bear in mind, these were entry level raids.. the easiest of the expansion.

Fast forward to Wotlk and it’s a totally different story. Each time I log on to the game and spend a little time standing around in Dalaran, I am almost guaranteed to see someone looking for more members for a PUG raid. And it’s not just the entry level stuff like Naxx and OS. It goes right the way up to the current T9 content, and even the heroic version!Somewhere along the road, the opinion of PUG raids have changed and although there is still the chatter of “fail raids”, people still go into them week in, week out, especially the 10-man content.

Now why do I bring this up? PUGs aren’t always failures. People enjoy themselves clearly, or they wouldn’t do them in the first place. It’s now an acceptable form of raiding so why bring up the subject?
Well I have some concerns of the effect that this will have on raiding guilds. Taking my guild as an example, we’re trying to recruit a couple more healers to be comfortable in our raids. We have plenty tank signs, we have plenty DPS signs, but currently we are often finding ourselves short of healer signs, meaning we must cancel our raids or ask some of our spare DPS to go into offspec healing. This isn’t ideal for our progress raids, and so we need a couple more healers in the guild. We have been searching for some time, but we don’t seem to have had any luck.

Now I’ve had to sit down recently and wonder why this is. We’re not exactly the most well known guild on our server. We’ve only been around since early summer but we’ve still had time to become recognised, and recognised we have been. There have been some nice acknowledgements toward our progression, so it’s not like we are an unknown guild.
Then my thoughts drifted to one of our guildies, who is always pugging raids. He does as many as he can on his alt and his main when he misses the guild runs, both 10 and 25 man versions. And this gave me another thought. Here’s this guy who jumps into countless PUG raids each week, and whilst he has some horror stories to tell about them, he has reasonable success.
As I stated earlier pugging raids has become a lot more common, and perhaps it is becoming an alternative to seeking a raiding guild. I mean in a PUG you can raid whenever you like right? You aren’t bound by a raiding schedule, you don’t have any requirements to the amount of raiding you must do, and you can behave as you please, generally without serious consequence. A pugger is, in a sense, “free”.

So is this why it has become more of a chore to recruit people nowadays? A guild offers stability, a nice community and generally a higher chance of success, but does that matter so much any more? Perhaps people are tending to lean toward a lifestyle of jumping in and out of raids as they please.

There is light at the end of the tunnel however. The updates to guilds in Cataclysm will most certainly make being in a guild more attractive and I would say that come next expansion I’ll be saying ‘problem solved’. But until then, I have a bad feeling those guilds who aren’t “the big ones” on the server may find their nets a little empty when fishing for recruits. And I can say most certainly that a little time after patch 3.3 hits, we’ll be seeing plenty of ‘LFM ICC’.

Well I saw this questionnaire going around for healers in World of Warcraft to answer and pass on to others. The results of them can be viewed here. I had a read through a few of these and it is really quite interesting to see what people had to say, so a big thanks to Jessabelle at Miss Medicina for putting this together

This is not a WoW blog, but I felt like doing it anyway. If a few get to read it who know what I’m talking about, and get something from it or just find it interesting to read, then that’ll do for me For those that don’t know Warcraft, probably best to skip this post

I do have a WoW section set up on this site, but it’s very much overdue an update. It’s from TBC and I have since changed main to the char I’m about to talk about

Soo.. onto the questionnaire:

• What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer? Cabbini, Shaman, Resto
• What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans) 10 man raids. I run a 10 man raiding guild, and very rarely pug 25 man raids.
• What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why? Well this a difficult question.. I feel we shamans have a really nice range of healing spells available. Earth Shield is fantastic, and will be used in every situation in one way or another. Chain Heal is an obvious choice, and for good reason: it’s awesome It’s most certainly a primary spell for me, as in most circumstances it will heal multiple targets. Even when you think they barely need healing, the numbers often shoot higher than you think they will.
  Riptide and Lesser Healing Wave also have their place, but wouldn’t be described as favourites
• What healing spell do you use least for your class and why? Healing Wave. I certainly use it, but it’s the least used healing spell I have. Imo it’s not really viable mana wise to use often, except in panic situations when it’s usually accompanied by Nature’s Swiftness and Tidal Force.
  For single target I’d much rather take the extra crit provided by LHW buffed by Tidal Waves and the consequent procs of Ancestral Awakening and Water Shield. I’d also rather use Chain Heal if one target needs a big heal as it can still bounce to nearby targets, even if they only need a bit of healing it keeps them topped up without having to cast an extra spell.
• What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why? The range of tools we have available to us. Totems offer excellent versatility. No other class has as much choice to pick and choose their raid buffs depending on encounter and group setup. Paladins have it close, and I love their buffs, but I still love my totems more
  Then is our healing role in the raid. We can pretty much fill any role successfully. We obviously have powerful throughput from healing raid with Chain Heal, but tank healing is also a perfectly viable option (with bonus raid healing from Ancestral Awakening). I generally sort the healing assignments for our raids, and I often put myself on general support for this very reason. We can easily switch between spamming raid heals and topping up the tanks with a few quick LHWs, and vice versa. This is helped by both Chain Heal and Riptide both proccing Tidal Waves.
• What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why? I had to take a few minutes to think about this, and the best I can come up with is a lack of powerful hots. But I think that’s getting nit-picky. We have Riptide and we have Earthliving, and giving us something more powerful would make us too OP imo, and would just bring about nerfs in other areas. You can’t have everything right?
  I think Shamans have a lot to contribute in a raid group, so I don’t really have any complaints
• In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you? Raid healing would be best I think. Having 25 people in group allows Chain Heal to run riot and allows us to shine. Otherwise I’d say support healing. In a 25 man raid, you’d normally expect to have a few Paladins/Disc Priests to take care of tanks, though of course I could step in to take the role as needed.
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why? I’d probably say druids. Their hots nicely complement my more direct healing. They also bring some nice utility with Rebirth, Innervate (lovely after a Reincarnation) and Tree of Life aura nicely buffs my healing
• What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why? I’m going to be boring here I’m afraid. I don’t really have any class that I do not like healing with. I adapt my play style accordingly and it helps to keep things interesting to heal with different classes.
  Oh, when I was starting out with my shammy, I did dislike healing with holy priests though. This was because my haste sucked back then, so I was constantly getting my heals blocked by the priest aoes. Quite frustrating I assure you
• What is your worst habit as a healer? Hm, perhaps a lame one, but I am still into the habit of refreshing my Water Shield constantly, when it isn’t needed now that it isn’t consumed by Imp Water Shield. It’s not a terrible one, as I only do it in gaps between healing, but it does lock me into the gcd.
  Also, I should perhaps keep more of an eye on where my Riptide is and when I’m consuming it to buff Chain Heal. It’s currently not something I always keep track of.
• What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing? People who have no idea about healing but act like they do. People who yell “heal me”, what do they think I’m doing? If I haven’t healed you, there’s a reason. People who yell “res me” immediately after a fight is over, usually mana is low.. resurrecting requires mana. It’s usually the non-mana users who don’t seem to get that one.
  And finally one that isn’t healing related, but ranks high enough to mention – those who are quick to slap out the criticisms of others even though they are horribly underperforming themselves.
• Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing? I believe so yes. I think Blizz have done a good job with balancing atm. The variation lies more in player skill and proper utilisation of the tools available to them than what class they play imo.
• What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer? If the boss is dead and my raid members are alive, I’m happy and have achieved success. For me it goes a little beyond that though. I’m a perfectionist, and it’s not good enough that someone is “not dead”. I want everyone (or everyone I’m responsible for) to be at full health (thought in tbc when I played my priest, I was also happy letting a Renew tick over on someone not taking direct damage).
  I find it kinda nuts when I see people healing instances and leaving someone at about 50% hp. If I’m on my hunter, I sometimes take the bandages out just to make a point
  I also keep Recount handy, and I admit, it feels good to see myself sky high on the meters, but I know it’s not completely accurate. If I have a good amount of HPS and low overheal, I’m content with my performance (but of course the numbers depend on both the encounter and my role).
• What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class? I hear a lot of people saying Shaman healing is easy. I’m not saying it’s hard, and it probably is one of the easiest to pick up and play, but playing it intelligently and getting the most out of your spells, procs and effects gets a little more complicated.
  There’s a lot to manage when you’re striving for perfection in your Shaman healing. It’s a lot more than just Chain Heal spam nowadays
• What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn? As I just said in the last question, there’s a lot to manage if you want to play resto Shaman well. Before a fight – is your weapon imbue active? Is your Water Shield up? Is Earth Shield up?
  When engaging the first thing to do is often to get your totems down. Even with the new totem bar, I have seen some Shaman forget to drop their totems.
  During fights you need to ensure Earth Shield stays up, your Water Shield stays up, your totems don’t expire without you noticing. And this isn’t including perfecting spell rotations and getting the most out of spells. This could become a huge wall of text so I’ll stop there. I’m sure you get the idea
• 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)? I think evaluating performance entirely on Recount isn’t always the best idea. For example simply being top of the meter doesn’t mean you performed the best, and being lowest doesn’t mean you were underperforming. It depends very much on the fight and what roles people have, therefore it’s often best to evaluate healing meters individually than comparing to other peoples’ bars.
  If there’s is heavy aoe damage I would have very high HPS, low overheal, and most healing from Chain Heal. If I’m more on tank healing the HPS will depend on how hard and how often the tank is getting hit, overheal is also usually quite low here. If there isn’t a lot of healing needed in a fight (say a boss on farm) you may notice my HPS is low, my overheal is moderate and the other healers may be on a much higher % healing done than me, but with massive overheal. This will be because I like to heal carefully. I don’t like unnecessary overheal. Some healers just spam cause their mana and regen can take it, but that seems brainless to me. I have a reason for each spell I cast. If healing is covered and I have mana spare, I’ll switch to a bit of dps instead. On old content, the tank gear required has a cap, the healing required has a cap, but adding more dps will always mean the bosses drop faster
  And wow… this question got big rather fast..
  To sum up: I generally have moderate to high HPS, and low overheal
• Haste or Crit and why? For me, haste is better stacked high, but it does not mean to neglect crit. Crit is important as a lot of our procs come from crits, but it’s not really hard for a shaman to gain a decent amount of crit. I get +10% from my talent spec alone. I’m sitting at around 29% atm which is plenty for me. I beef up my haste with gems and enchants rather than crit.
• What healing class do you feel you understand least? Paladins. I have played my priest a bit in TBC raids and done some 5 mans at 80 with him in Wotlk. I also leveled my Druid to 70 and healed my way through Outland instances, and have a couple of close friends who play resto Druids, so I’m quite familiar with them.
  My Paladin however is only lvl 22, so that is where my knowledge falls down. I know they are great single target healers, and that’s about it. I also hear they only have like 2 spells to play with, but that’s possibly just stereotype.. sorry to the Paladins if so ;P
• What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing? I use XPerl for raid frames, PowerAuras to remind me when things like Earth Shield and Water Shield need refreshing, and TotemTimers, but that is it. I like to be the one doing my healing, not some addon The idea of using something like Healbot just seems boring and lazy to me. I use raid frames, keybinds and a couple of simple macros, and I think it makes me a stronger player for it (for example, what happens after a major patch and your addon stops working? )
  For macros, I use one to combine Nature’s Swiftness and Tidal Force, and one Cleanse Spirit mouseover macro on a keybind (who needs Decursive? ). The mouseover means I can dispel on raid members while keeping my current target.
• Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why? Balancing is important for resto Shamans. You can stack SP, but without the regen to back it up.. well, 0 mana = 0 healing.
  Crit is important, to boost healing, regen and procs. And then haste is a big important one or your Chain Heals will suffer.
  At my current level of gear, I find that my gear stats alone give me plenty of regen and crit, so my focus for gemming and enchanting is on haste and SP.

Well that ended up quite long. It could have been an interesting read or could have bored you silly. If it was the former, great I’m glad; if the latter, my apologies.. if you’re still reading ;P

At this point I believe I’m supposed to tell who I got the questionnaire from and who I’m passing it to. I didn’t actually get it from someone.. I stumbled upon it by reading wow.com. I also don’t know any WoW bloggers as I’m not even one myself usually, but I may pass it on to a close friend who has a site next to mine (see links in Friends section) to see if she fancies giving it a go. She played resto Druid, but has been away from WoW for a while.

Thanks for reading

Today a friend of mine bought Diablo 2, a game about 7-8 years old. I’ve heard about this game before, how great it is, but I’ve never actually played it myself. She told me I’ll have to get it cause it has an online mode too, so we can play through it together. Sounds kinda cool

Discussing this made me think back to all the games of old. Dungeon Keeper was a classic, I loved it It would be great to go back and play through it again. Back then I went through a phase of playing god games like that. Theme Hospital was awesome, such a laugh Populous, Black and White, lots of Tycoon games etc. I guess back then was the original The Sims days as well. They used to be the only types of games I played, but then as my console collection grew I got into more and more genres. N64 and Dreamcast got me into platformers (Banjo Kazooie remains one of my favourite games to this day), I started playing the Final Fantasy series for a taste of RPG, and when I got my Xbox, Halo introduced me to the FPS genre. Before then I hadn’t really been a fan of shooters, but seeing as Halo was bundled with the console I gave it a go and loved every minute

For me games need to be one of two things (or even both ) to be considered of the best. The first one is to be simply really good fun. Banjo Kazooie fills this perfectly. The humour is fantastic and I can play through it over and over, having a blast every time. The second type is that with a good story. Halo and Final Fantasy are the examples that come to mind. The stories really pull me in and I want to keep playing just to find out what comes next. I enjoyed Halo so much I even bought all the novels to read too If a game can fill either of these two categories, then it’s a winner in my eyes

Looking back at these great games.. wanting to play them all over again, it makes me wonder how I can, given the equally exciting games released soon that I would like to play. There simply isn’t time! So perhaps these retro classics are best left as good memories? “Out with the old, in with the new”? I guess it depends on personal choice in the end, but I personally will go back to the classics when I have time (including Diablo which I shall have soon!). If they still have it in them, they should still be allowed to shine