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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsFishing etiquette
by John Himes 
Nov 11th 2007 at 4:55PM
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The weekly fishing tournament is taking place this afternoon in Stranglethorn Vale, and I'll probably be in attendance, hoping desperately to catch the last rare fish I need. I'm often intrigued by the etiquette that comes into play in different parts of the game where people are thrust into close contact with one another, and the fishing contest is one of the more interesting examples. For instance, in my experience, most other players will leave you alone if you're fishing from a school, such as the Highland Mixed Schools in Terokkar Forest. I've often seen fellow crawdad seekers flying low overhead, but they have always moved to the next spot once they noticed my presence. On the other hand, the weekly contest seems to be a no-holds-barred match, with people fishing wherever they can, whether or not you claimed the spot first. Personally, I try to avoid fishing in the same school as other people as much as possible, even during the contest. How about you?
The other intriguing dilemma for me involves twinks. If you weren't aware, the Lucky Fishing Hat is a quest reward and thus has no level requirement to wear. This alone makes it desirable by twinks in the lower brackets, since there are few other readily available hats at that level. What makes it especially attractive to them, is the nice amount of stamina it has. Because of these factors, there are always several level 19 characters running around the beaches of Stranglethorn on Sunday afternoons, dodging pirates and raptors, trying to catch the rare fish that will award them the hat or boots. Usually they bring along a higher level to escort them around, but sometimes they're trying to go solo.
For me, it's always funny to watch the little guys running from countless pirates as they seemingly aggro the entire zone just by stepping out of Booty Bay, but I can imagine it must be aggravating for them. The other day I was asked by such a player who was in an all twink guild (and therefore didn't have any higher level guildmates to escort him around) if I would protect him while he fished. I politely turned him down. What do you think? Should I have offered to help him out? As far as I know he wasn't offering any sort of compensation. What would you have done?
Filed under: Fishing, Analysis / Opinion, Events
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Morrigän Nov 12th 2007 4:42AM
About people not trying to catch something on the same Highland Mixed School as you... what's your server? I think I'm gonna transfer there, since there's NO etiquette or whatsoever about it on mine.
Most of times I'm fishing on a pool, someone will dismount and fish there. Alliance or horde, they simply don't care.
I find that extremely rude, just like kill stealing on a lamer MMO that allows it.
Sylythn Nov 12th 2007 9:34AM
We had the whole server spitting acid one day as about 6 of us banded together to help our GM win. We had 3 of us as a summoning team, finding the next fishing hole and summoning him to it to avoid the run time. And the other 2 went around and acted like they were fishing the next hole (they'd cast right next to it, but not so they got the fish from it). It was amazing how many people would just bypass it thinking it was already taken. We won that thing faster than even we could believe and general was lit up with really ticked off folks. It was a blast! :)
Favster Nov 12th 2007 12:00PM
Unless you were busy with other activities, admittedly fishing is serious business (I quite honestly earned my epic flyer through fishing), it's a lot of fun seeing how far you can take a lowbie around sometimes. Part of it's balancing out inner cruelty and compassion of course.
I remember this one time trying to help a lowbie find out where to get his fire totem quest giver, but he somehow made his way into Azshara. He whispered me because I was the highest level shaman in the Barrens, and I decided since he was a fellow shammy it'd be fine to help him out. I voluntarily took a flight to Ashenvale and worked to escort him out. The best thing I remember is watching the level 30 elite hippogryph come out of the foilage from nowhere and just maul him and then fly away just as quickly!
kenney Nov 12th 2007 12:24PM
It's a contest, if you want to win, you need to catch fish as quickly as possible, and reducing the amount of fish caught by a competitor doesn't hurt either. I've found it is faster to stop at every pool, even given the time waste of casting and waiting 8 seconds just to have the other character empty the pool.
I absolutely believe in courtesy with resources normally, but the goal of the fishing contest is to win- and that requires competitive behavior.
SirCasey Nov 12th 2007 6:54PM
Sunday was the second or third weekend I've participated in the contest, and I actually managed to win! Fished my own pools and avoided others. Started the contest in the far north and worked my way down.
Personally, my take on the contest is that I will grant the courtesy I was given. I will run past you fishing a pool. If you come and try to fish out of my pool, I will fish from yours from then on. Pass me by to find another, and it's yours and yours alone.
I hate it when people fish from my pools. I haven't gone so far as /spit, but have considered /shoo :)
Swiftjustice Nov 12th 2007 8:48PM
I once ran a very successful level 19 twink guild. I had a lot of "childish" members who acted the way many of you have described, but I would always put a stop to that. Every sunday, we would have designated fishers, and everyone else in the guild would play bodyguard. Mainly, thier job was to clear the mobs, and scare away any horde. As a rule, I tried to convince them not to gank any hordies, because that would bring a lot of negative attention to us. This method went on for a few weeks, until one sunday, a group of horde twinks showed up where we fished. We shared the area (ZG island and the opposite coastline near Nessingwary). I told my guildies to just leave them in peace, only fish from their holes if they fish from ours.
All was peaceful for about 30 minutes when suddenly 12 horde came and spawn camped us for the remaining hour. From that day on, I made sure we were as bloodthirsty and horrible as the horde. You CAN play it polite, do the right thing. You CAN care about other peoples enjoyment of the game. You CAN offer someone a fair oppurtunity at a contest, but if you do all that, you'll get stepped on and rolled over because of it.
P.S I contacted the horde twinks who we left alone (trial account FTW) and he apparently had nothing to do with the campers. They jsut came from ZG and thought it would be fun to waste the next few hours of thier life killing people who cant fight back. So it didnt even have anything to do with winning the fishing contest. (Especially since the ZG island is slow with respawned fish pools, making it a good place to fish if you are jsut after the twink items, not winning).