Project Lore

Fishing hasn't really gotten the spotlight with all the patch 3.1 changes. While I wouldn't call fishing "exciting", the changes have gotten me back to fishing and enjoying it! There are some great rewards and nick-nacks that may draw you back. My fishing is at 340. I recently picked up the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole and learned to make Captain Rumsey's Lager, so my effective fishing skill is just high enough to fish in Northrend. It used to be that fishing zones had a minimum fishing skill requirement as well as a skill level that was required to actually be guaranteed to catch fish. Because of this, instead of fishing in areas with useful fish appropriate to your skill level, it was more efficient to fish in areas where you were sure to catch fish if your sole (pun intended?) purpose to to level fishing, as catching any fish will give you a flat chance to skillup. The system remains the same, except there is no longer a minimum skill level to catch fish in zones, but if your skill is too low relative to the "expected" skill level of the zone, you will probably catch grey items, but you still have that same flat chance to skillup. Thus, you can level your fishing in Northrend with the same rate of skillups compared to fishing in Ironforge or Orgrimmar! To accompany this, there is a set of 5 fishing dailies available in Dalaran from Marcia Chase. The daily is random, and they are all pretty unique. Completing all five scores you 10 achievement points. Blood is Thicker has you kill animals and jump in water to create bloody pools in the water, which you then fish from to catch pirannhas. Dangerously Delicious has you fishing in Wintergrasp (which I take advantage of for some world PvP on my PvE server). The Ghostfish has you catch a fish that when eaten to finish the quest causes you to hallucinate. Jewel of the Sewers has you fish in The Underbelly, and Monsterbelly Appetite has you search for glaciers to stand on to fish in The Frozen Sea. Each of these quests rewards you with a Bag of Fishing Treasures, 250 Kirin Tor reputation, and a handful of gold. The Bag of Fishing Treasures contains lots of valuable vendor trash, some of these random items selling for 100g. There is a new volume of Steamy Romance Novels (as rogues well know). Other common items include Deviate Fish, Elixir of Water Walking, Glow Worm (+100 lure), Northsea Pearl, Pygmy Oil, Runic Mana Potion, and Siren's Tear. Among nick-nacks, there is the Sealed Vial of Poison that starts a quest to turn it in to the Dalaran black market for some gold. The Unusual Compass will turn your character to a random direction (spin the bottle [err, compass] anyone?). A Strand Crawler pet is available from the bag. There is a Tiny Titanium Lockbox that can contain many of the same items as the bag and some additional gems. You can get a Weather-Beaten Fishing Hat (which you can also get from the Shattrath daily) and High Test Eternium Fishing Line, which you previously could only get from the Stranglethron Fishing Extravaganza. You can also get the recipe for Captain Rumsey's Lager. For those without the Kalu'ak pole, you might want this bag for a chance at a Bone Fishing Pole or Jeweled Fishing Pole. There is also a new set of BoE epic gems called Stormjewels available randomly from the bag. You can only socket one. There are +20 gems for agility, intellect, spirit, strength, and hit rating, as well as +23 to spell power and +30 stamina. I believe these are all best in socket except for jewelcrafter exclusive gems. There are rumors that there is a "5 ring" out there to be caught as well. Its not in any databases, so I think its just a good joke. Oh, and did you hear about the new mount that swims at mounted speed through water? The turtle? You can only get that from fishing in schools of fish in Northrend. Its time to go fishing!

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Lots of things in WoW require you to wait a certain amount of time or keep track of different events that happen at some point in the future. For example, your spellcloth cooldown can only be done once per 20 hour period, so you might want a reminder about when you can next transmute. Blizzard has helped out with a few of these things. The in game calendar allows you to create reminders and marks special events. The built in clock can be used to set alarms or used as a stopwatch. In patch 3.1, you can see when the battle for Wintergrasp will begin from anywhere in Northrend. For players who want more automated tracking, there are a few different addons I'd like to spotlight. 1. EggTimer. This addon is named for the famous Mysterious Egg, which hatches into one of several great items, like the Green Proto-Drake mount or the Proto-Drake Whelp pet. You can only have one at a time and it takes 7 days to hatch, so to get the most phat loot, you need to go visit Geen every 7 days to get a new one. EggTimer plugs into FuBar and shows you how long you have until your Mysterious Egg hatches. It also tracks Digusting Jar if you decided to ally with the Frenzyheart instead of the Oracles. It can also automatically create calendar events to mark when you should get your new egg. It also tracks Ahn'kahar Watcher's Corpse for the Ahn'kahet timed event and Zorbin's Ultra Shrinker for a level 55 quest. It works across characters. The developer takes suggestions for items to watch and is working on making it a more robust addon. 2. WintergraspFu. This addon is also a FuBar addition. It tracks when the battle for Wintergrasp will begin. If you participated in a recent battle or have been in the Wintergrasp zone, or have talked with the Wintergrasp mages in Dalaran (or heard them yell to get to Wintergrasp), the addon will display the amount of time until the next battle (or estimate based on when past battles ended). Patch 3.1 allows you to see when Wintergrasp will start from anywhere in Northrend, but this addon still gives you a nice display of it and will work anywhere in WoW. It will probably get the time from the map in patch 3.1 whenever you are in Northrend and save it for if you happen to leave to go back to Orgrimmar or Ironforge. 3. CraftTimersFu. This is one of most practical ones. Any tradeskill you have with a cooldown, like Northrend Alchemy Research, Smelt Titansteel, or Spellcloth, can be tracked by this addon. It works across characters and can be configured to show the time to the next available cooldown or the number of cooldowns currently available. Its simple and makes managing multiple character's tradeskills a breeze. 4. FishingBuddy. You might find it weird that I put this on the list, but there is one facet of it that keeps it in my addon collection. The Stranglethorn Vale fishing tournament is every week at 2PM Sunday, and this addon will pop up on Sundays with a display telling you how much time til the tournament starts. Once the tournament starts, it lets you know that it is underway and tells you how many Speckled Tastyfish you've caught. That's all for today. What timer-style addons do you use?

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In today's less than stellar economy efficiency is a valued trait.  During the holiday weekend I managed to check off two goals on my "WoW To Do List" while nearly completing a third.  One did earn me an actual Achievement - not that I really care - but the other was done entirely for monetary DPS benefits.  Who needs an achievement when you can get this? This weekend I finally polished my Kalu'ak reputation grind for the cute penguin and ever-so-helpful epic fishing pole.  You can never have too many purpalz.  Kalu'ak is actually quite an easy faction to grind for, I just didn't bother to clean it up until the other week.  You can get to Revered just by dispatching the quests for the starting zones of Northrend.  Past that, there are three dailies to complete that all reward 500 reputation, Planning for the Future, Preparing for the Worst, The Way to His Heart....  Totaling 1,500 reputation per day. Each of these quests are incredibly quick to finish, and on an interesting note, you don't actually have to kill anything to complete them.  You can kill stuff to make it a bit easier (you evil bastard), but that is not the goal.  For Solidsamm, it was actually more efficient to avoid confrontations, sapping all mobs in the vicinity.  Of course there is a catch.  You waste a ton of time flying (nearly 15 minutes) and boating (most of your waiting is blown sitting at docks) to each quest giver.  I am not exaggerating either.  I used this time to brush my teeth, feed my pets, do my taxes, things of that nature. Next up was my main goal, Sons of Hodir.  After weeks spent grinding out their collection of dailies, I turned in my last stack of Relics of Ulduar to ding Exalted and snag my epic shoulder enchant.  Go, go, DPS. The relief consumed me.  No longer will I have to fight over Revenants, only to have my Smoldering Scrap ninjaed from me, or my Ice Essence fly in the opposite direction I was expecting.  Gone will be the days of Forefather hunting and scrambling for the few Vicious Oils scattered between the worms.  Solidsamm won't have to bother with competing for the few Kaskala Supplies or stealing babies anymore either.  Now he will fill his day with corpses, documents, banners and killing.  The cycle continues. Oh and that third thing I almost completed;  Only three badges from my Mirror of Truthiness.  How'd this weekend treat you?  My Valentine's Day was great, although I failed at scoring my own cupid and was a candy short of Be Mine! Anyone have better luck at the Fool for Love meta-Achievement?

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When I started playing WoW years ago, one of the first things I did, without knowing much about the game, was get a fishing pole and started fishing in Elwynn Forest. Within a few casts, I fished up a 15 pound fish that I could hold and slap people with it. It was so funny. I also caught a few fish that I used to level up cooking. I remember thinking that was a cool part of the game, fishing and cooking, and that I'd do that along with all the other stuff there was to do in the game. Later I told a friend about how I liked the fishing aspect of the game and he said he hoped I was a glutton for punishment. What? Well evidently he said that fishing was the most boring thing in the game and that it wasn't worth the time or effort. Well that wasn't a very hopeful thought, but I really didn't care. It was fun to fish and make receipes. There was loads of downtime between instances and raids, and the foods gave me buffs so I kept doing it. Then TBC came out and fishing got really lucrative. I can't tell you how many Furious Crawdads I sold. And now with the WotLK, selling Pygmy Suckerfish has kept me in gold and gear that I hardly do any dailies. The point is that in the game I decided what I liked and I kept doing it because I liked it. I did what I wanted to do and I had fun and made a big profit. Of course I listen to advice from some people about where to fish, how to fish better, and where to get the best recipes, but that all helped me have more fun in the game. Now in RL do you know what I do? I get paid to do this. Write here. And produce and direct Project Lore. Interesting isn't it? I did what I liked, asked people how I could be better, followed my intuition and got probably one of the oddest jobs on this planet. And in RL, it's your game. So do what you want to do. If you want to be a game programmer, do it. If you want to be a florist, do it. If you want to stare at a screen of numbers, betting on the market, then do it. Whatever it is, do it. Please. Ask around and follow your fun. Do it for a career or as a hobby or anywhere in between. Whatever it is, it's your game. Because when you do what you like, it makes the whole game that much more fun.

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Many moons ago, Bastosa and I discussed how and who we planned on getting to 80. Back then I figured I would simply keep healing my way up to level 80, pushing my priest as my main toon. While things started out that way initially, Solidsamm has returned to the forefront. After Mutilate's “from behind” requirement was removed, I jumped at the chance to try the new dagger spec that would not force me to be behind my target at all times. The freshness that came with the conversion is exactly the reason I returned my angry Gnome to main status.

There are two reasons why I knew I was going to be hooked on World of Warcraft when it was released in late 2004. First off, I have loved the WarCraft universe since I first entered it via WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. Secondly, and probably most important, was Blizzard's reputation. The company should just make their tagline “We don't make bad video games.” While a game can have the best story ever, it'll still suck if the gameplay isn't there to back it up, enter Wrath of the Lich King.

I had a pipedream that I would level mostly through instances, but without a close friend who's main is a healer, that is pretty hard to accomplish these days. Lucky for me the quests in Wrath of the Lich King have diverse goals, interesting lore, and an attachment to the zones that keeps me interested. While grinding via quests may not be the best XP/hour (that still goes to good old fashioned grinding), it is incredibly less mind-numbing. I will save that process for leveling my fishing.

Now that many of you are well on your way, or already 80, who and how did you get there? Did you roll that Death Knight and start from level 55 or abandon that idea and go with one of your level 70s? While I have done some instances, I generally haven't gone back to them after finishing their quests. How about you?

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It seems like the entire world (of Warcraft) has gone into a bit of a holding pattern lately. Many people (myself included) have stopped raiding, we just heard about the arena points reset, so there is not a whole left for anyone to do other than count the days until November 13^th. While I am very much in the same boat, like hell I'm going to stop playing the game! So I have been trying to find a few activities to keeping me going. In the short term, I have been spending my days grinding the Kodo mount for Brewfest. I have over 200 kills and still have yet to see the thing drop, I'm beginning to suspect the cake is a lie. I imagine I will get it eventually, and if not, Brewfest will ultimately come to an end. Soon I will be looking for other alternatives. I have been trying to stay positive and look at this as a good excuse to catch up on those things I have always been meaning to do. I'm talking about all those projects I have always meant to get around to, but never did because I was busy raiding. Here is my list of things I think I will finally be able take a shot at:

Netherwing - I want to finally grind out the Netherwing Dailies, and get my nether drake. Although I must admit, with all the new mounts on the horizon, my desire here is waning a bit.

Fishing / Cooking - I have played around with the idea of leveling my fishing and cooking. It seems like a good way to make some cash and be able to make all that tasty raid food.  Problem is I hate fishing, so I guess this one is just a matter of how bored I get.

Farming Gold - The last thing I could even thing to do on my main is stockpile gold. Certainly not a bad approach, but I question what is going to happen to the WoW economy, and if this will pay off in the long run.

Alts - I have a Rogue that is closing in on 70 fast, and want to make her a priority. I have a few others sitting in 60 range that I may have time to get up there as well.

New Professions - With the prices on the AH falling through the floor (at least on Executus), this isn't a bad time to powerlevel a new profession on one of my alts, and I've always wanted to try Jewelcrafting. For some it may be a good time to push to 375 on your main.

Roll Horde - I've always wondered how the other half lives.

I'm sure there are lots of other worthy projects that would be worth taking on during this time. So tell me, what are you guys doing?  Have you come up with a productive way to spend your WoW time? Please don't tell me you are still raiding... I may become incredibly jealous.

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