The Raid - WoW Documentary

World of Warcraft documentary "The Raid" is in the making. The Raid will be a film about WoW raiding and what it means to be a raider, first of its kind on this scale, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Based on the trailer the documentary looks promising, so it will be an interesting look into the game. Because the movie is still in the making, you have a chance to help making it real. This blog post of mine is part of doing my share for it...

Check the trailer yourself to see what's coming. And check the links below to join the raid yourself.

"The Raid" - Interview Trailer

"You know that day-dream you had as a little kid? The one where you and your friends got together to battle the evil dragon? Well, these guys are kind of doing that. Every night." - http://www.jointheraid.com

Want HD? Watch the trailer in YouTube

Interviewees are (in order of appearance):

• Ilya Basin - "Fame" of Might, U.S. - Turalyon
• Mike Mascone - "Darksend" of F.H., U.S. - Black Dragonflight
• Scott Porcaro - "Ttocs" of Aftermath, U.S. - Mal'Ganis

Cinematic footage by:

• "Lore" of Months Behind, U.S. - Eredar
• "Jazdia" of Continuum, U.S. - Garrosh
• "Abider" of Bound, U.S. - Staghelm

Logo design:

• Kevin Guido of Cedarsplit.

The Raid Trailer Music

• Track 1 - "Being Hunted" by Ilya Kaplan
• Track 2 - "Stop Cp" by Dynamedion
• Track 3 - "Inspired Cyborg" by David Flavin
• Track 4 - "No End in Sight" by Jonathan Geer

The Raid - World of Warcraft Documentary

Welcome to the world of online raiding. In certain MMORPG's, like Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft, gaming content is regularly created for the collaborative participation of up to twenty-five players at a time. Each player fulfills a particular role within the collective based on the skills attributed to their class of character in the game. Some play healers, some play damage dealers, and some play characters defensively designed to soak the large amounts of damage dealt by their virtual opponents. These players group together to form raids that routinely meet to test themselves against scripted game encounters. The technical design of these encounters is often so tightly tuned that it requires a remarkable amount of practice and planning for a raid to complete them, and the near flawless performance of each of its members. - http://www.jointheraid.com

"The Raid" will be a film about raiding and what it means to be a raider. We will capture the numerous hours invested by a diverse group of gamers in a complicated and choreographed digital environment, where every contribution weighs on their success or failure. We will watch, in person and virtually, as members strategize, fail, re-strategize, and inevitably find victory in their pursuits. We will sit with them in their homes and seek to understand the value this kind of commitment has in their daily lives, amidst their work, and within their families. We will question them about virtual achievements and their value. We will sit with social experts concerned about the growing issue of internet addiction and seek their opinions. We will question the future of the MMO experience and its place in the global landscape of culture, education, and business. Most of all, we will demonstrate and feel the excitement and energy of this kind of experience, which is so often criticized and misunderstood. - http://www.jointheraid.com

You can contribute at http://www.jointheraid.com.

I have always been fascinated with technology and its effect on social culture, but my exploration into the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG's) opened my eyes to a type of social organization I had never seen before. I experienced faceless communities capable of remarkable commitment, coordination, and success while never actually interacting physically. - Kevin Michael Johnson http://www.jointheraid.com

Join "The Raid" on the web

1. Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/jointheraid
2. Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/theraid
3. Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/jointheraid

Blog Watch: Ulduar Healing Guide by Matticus

Yay, Ulduar is here! And for us Healers, Matticus treats us with Healing Ulduar: Flame Leviathan for the first boss. Although, it's Nice guide for non-healers too if you ask me :) To get things rolling, Razorscale and XT-002 Deconstructor 25-man guides are there too already.

For those who've lived under a stone and are unaware of World of Matticus blog, go check it out! If nothing else, check the healing guides for raids, like the needed-this-week Ulduar Healing Guide, which the mentioned Healing Ulduar: Flame Leviathan is part of.

Forum Watch: (Priest) 2 years healing in raids, now losing spot

A Human Priest named Lizarb made a rare thing in WoW forums priests community and created nicely structured post about the problems of the healing priest in raids. She has been 2 years healing in raids, now loosing spot (repost on US Priest Forums too).

As a summary of the post: in her guild healer spots previously filled with Priests, have now been conquered by other healer classes for greater Utility and Survivability. Priests are no longer needed for raids as other classes can do the same job better.

I'm relatively inexperienced raider compared to her, as I don't know pre-2.3 WoW, but from what I read from the post, makes sence:

I get one-two shotted in raids/instances if something bad happens. I'm still using Primal Mooncloth Set as the +healing and mana regen is ridiculously good, compared to early/mid raid drops. My Power Word: Shield hardly saves anyone.

I've been relatively happy with my priest, and I think I still am, but I still feel that many aspects of the (healing) priest could be improved.

But you better read the original post by Lizarb yourself, and if you feel like it, post your comments to either the original European thread or the re-post in US forums, whichever you have access to.

Two (Healing) Addons to Rule Them All

The most useful healing addons right here. Individual needs and preferences apply, but these ones I love the most.

I'm addon "freak", I use them a lot, so I reckoned to make another topic out of it.

I'm constantly tuning my UI, removing unused addons and adding new ones. I like it simple but my screen always ends up cluttered, as I feel that I need this and that.

I prefer Ace addons, as they're constantly maintained (a blessing after patches). With WowAceUpdater it's easy to install new addons and it keeps all my installed Ace addons up-to-date with single click. As all Ace addons use the same library, the addons are lightweight for cpu (compared to having same number of independent addons)

I use Omen and BigWigs, which help a lot in raids/groups.

I have Pitbull unitframes (even more important after, for some reason, my Grid started malfunctioning).

For heals I use Clique (different mouse clicks with different modifiers (alt/ctrl/shift) to do mouseover heals on frames/player).

For decursing I use, well, Decurse. And tons more (e.g. Fubar,Bartender3,Buffalo2,AuctioneerAdvanced,etc)

But if I would recommend two addons to all healers (and all casters, and they benefit melee too), it would be these:

Quartz
VisualHeal

Here's why Quartz and VisualHeal are sooo good:

Shamelessly ripped from my own posts on several forums (as I love these addons so much I'd love to more people getting the benefits, and as they will benefit even more if others would use them too).

QUARTZ

CastingBar

Holy efficiency! I stumbled upon this castingbar replacer - and even that it's very very simple - Quartz is absolutely, hands-on, the best addon I've ever seen!

Why?

Because Quartz adds "latency" to your casting bar. Without going into any client-server jargon, you're normal casting bar is showing how your client sees the casting time, but because of latency, your spell is actually going off at server before your casting bar reaches the end.

What this means? And How Quartz helps.

It means that if you have 200ms latency for example, you can see that visualized in Quartz and start your next spell / action 0.2s before your casting bar is actually full and the spell still goes off! So with ten spells, you have saved 2 seconds. With 500 dps, that's free 1000 damage more. make it 100 spells and it's 10000 damage! And all this just by tackling the latency with Quartz. If you experience 500ms of such latencies, it comes even better! Don't let lag and latency get you, get Quartz

VisualHeal

Healing Visualizer for both Healers and the ones healed

For healers: VisualHeal shows where target's health will end up after the heal hits
--> cancel unnecessary casts which would cause too much overheal

+ it shows if someone else has same target and is also casting heal on it
and it adds all this to the estimated health after your heal hits --> you can cancel cast if it would mean too much overheal, as the other healer has the target covered.

For others: VisualHeal shows incoming heals to you = where your health will end up when heal hits you --> can use abilities accordingly.
- low health & no heals coming? better use some "saving" ability!
- low health, but two heals incoming. Great! Keep pounding.

For all this to work, everyone needs VisualHeal, so once again, get it!
Must for healers. Recommended for everyone else too

+ VisualHeal shows up in unitframes too if they support it (PitBull does), so if every healer uses VisualHeal, it can be easily seen who is not healed yet = less parallel healing

So I'd say that every healer (if not everyone) should install VisualHeal (make the bar invisible if you want, but do have it). I'd think it will help you and your guild a lot, especially in 25-mans.

Where to Download Addons

Get WowAceUpdater! Keeps your addons up-to-date, and easy installs for every Ace addon. That is the best way to get Quartz and VisualHeal (and Omen, BigWigs + loads of other goodies), and keep them up-to-date.

EDIT: Unfortunately WoW Ace Updater is no longer with us, as wowace integrated with curse.com, and for me, curse updater just isn't very good (tbh, it sucks big time). New and improved alternatives for easy addon maintenance: Wowmatrix and WUU - WoW UI Updater.

There are many other places too to get addons, like Curse.com (they also have installer, which isn't nearly as good as WowAceUpdater) and WoWInterface.

More "Healing Addons That Rule"

Three (Healing) Addons to Rule Even More