The 6th of Blaugust

I hope you’re all still going strong as we keep progressing through the first full week of Blaugust.  I’ve got plenty to ramble about but I keep refocusing what I’m gonna cover each day…good thing I’ve got Trello to keep track of things.

In any case, today I take another step through my web chronicle of The Rook as we get into chapter 12 and how Myfanwy learned she was gonna be attacked. And since it’s Tuesday I look at DC Universe and their new releases from back on 8/1/2018…it’s kinda weird reading something that Comic-Con has already covered but it’s definitely cheaper than buying all these comics the day they’re released. Finally I take a look at a post published by Mailvatlar that talks about being a healer in Eve Online.

I hope you enjoy my rambling…

Psychics

Today we get a glimpse of how Thomas decided to leave all the notes for Myfanwy. It’s certainly a good thing she did but could she have worked harder to prevent the memory erasure instead of leaving all these notes? Or was it set in stone that she was gonna lose her memories and her soul? The paradoxes of predicting the future…

New Release Tuesday

DC actually releases new comics to it’s DC Universe platform on Monday but they show up around 9pm so I usually wait until Tuesday to see what they’ve pushed out. I’ve got my eye on a few issues and will be posting about their full release a bit later.

The comics I’m looking forward to are:

• Adventures of Super Sons #1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Carlo Barberi, and Art Thibert. I really enjoyed the previous Super Sons story and am looking forward to seeing if this ‘successor’ miniseries is as fun. What kind of trouble will Robin and Superboy get into this time around?
• Batman #52 by Tom King and Lee Weeks. Batman, or rather Bruce Wayne, is holding up the trial of Mr. Freeze as he’s sequestered not only for the trial but in his own head as he debates the meaning of excessive force.
• Justice League #5 by James Tynion IV, Doug Mahnke, and Jaime Mendoza. I’m starting to lose track of whether Lex Luthor is a good guy or a bad guy but in this issue he certainly is leaning to the dark side as he recruits Sinestro and Gorilla Grodd for the Legion of Doom.

Of course, there are many more that I’ll mention later but these are the few that struck my eye at first glance.

Chasing the Killboards

Mailvaltar over at Mailvaltar – MMOS and other stuff brought up an interesting issue with Eve online logistics…namely, they hardly ever get credit for being in a fight. And I agree…keeping your fleet mates alive doesn’t get you on the killboards unless you’re in an easy or stable fight. But then shooting stations or dominating smaller fleets isn’t really what I call fun in Eve either, even if you get to shoot at things.

For me, I always enjoyed playing a space priest and perhaps it was who I was playing with. Just as in other MMOs, the healer plays a pivotal role in big battles. You don’t see many raid groups running into the boss fight without a healer in any game. But then even in WoW or FFXIV or any MMO, it takes a certain mindset to play a healer. Most likely you are not going to get any respect. You do your job and nothing happens. Sure you might be able to plink a few shots at the boss but do you really show up on the damage meters? Not really.

But then should healers be worrying about damage meters? I’m of the opinion that the only good indicator of your healing ability is if the battle was a success. I may be in the minority but damage meters and killboards are not what the game is all about. They were created to allow people to feel superior to others.

Does it really matter if you topped the damage meter if your team wiped? Do you feel better that you were on a killmail when your fleet failed to push a station into reinforcement? When people fly their ships from across the galaxy to fire a single shot on a titan does it really mean anything?

I don’t think so.

If you have to flaunt your damage capabilities and point to how great you are because you got on the bottom of the kill board or you caused 0.001% of the damage on the boss, perhaps you need to reassess being a healer.

Sadly though, I stopped being a healer in Eve because I couldn’t make the crazy hours that fleet engagements required. I certainly enjoyed it and didn’t have any problems with killboards or combat drones. If my fleet questioned if I participated I just point them to the people I kept alive and if they didn’t like it, next time they died because they didn’t have any healers.

I’m glad you tried being a space priest, Mailvaltar, and I understand it’s not the way you want to play, but I think the Eve developers have plenty more to do to improve the game than worrying about updating kill mails to include logistics.

It’s a Wrap

So there you have it…psychics, comics, and healers…a pretty comprehensive day of rambling. I hope you’ve having fun during Blaugust, I certainly am. Good luck on your blogging if you’re in on the fun.

Morning Ramble 27 | The 6th of Blaugust