The Queue: Reputation, daily quests, and performance in Dalaran

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft.
Daily quests and reputation has been a really hot topic lately, not only in The Queue but across WoW in general. Some of our questions today will focus on that, but I'd also like to let you guys know that WoW Insider will overall have more information on those things coming really, really soon. Keep an eye on the site today and in the coming days for all of that good stuff.
Alright, let's gets started with my2cents' question...
Daily quests and reputation has been a really hot topic lately, not only in The Queue but across WoW in general. Some of our questions today will focus on that, but I'd also like to let you guys know that WoW Insider will overall have more information on those things coming really, really soon. Keep an eye on the site today and in the coming days for all of that good stuff.
Alright, let's gets started with my2cents' question...
Where, if anywhere, is the quartermaster for Valiance Expedition? I'm almost revered and I'm curious to see if there are any rewards available.
This rep situation is sort of funky, but we're actually going to have a post later today about how the various reputations work. To hold you over until then: Alliance Vanguard is your 'primary' reputation here. Valiance Expedition, Explorers' League, and the Silver Covenant are secondary reputations. You don't need to directly worry about the secondary reputations, they seem to only exist as a way to raise your primary reputation. They don't really have their own rewards in a regular ol' Quartermaster sense. You want to raise that rep to raise Alliance Vanguard reputation. Alliance Vanguard reputation is also gained through doing level 80 dungeons and heroics without a faction-specific tabard.
actodd asked...
The lag in Dalaran is bad, no horrible. It often leads to me being disconnected, it has a carryover effect after I leave Dalaran, and basically makes me very reluctant to go to that great city. Anywhere else in Northrend (that I've visited, at least) is fine. I've never had such problems when Shattrath was the place to be, it's just Dalaran. I expect it to get worse as more and more folks gain access to the city.
Why is it so bad in Dalaran and no where else? And, more importantly, is there anything I can do to help ease the strain? I'm already running MS Media Player, which helps boost my FPS for some reason.
You'd probably get better help going to the official tech support forum to get a little bit closer to a for-sure answer, but one of the first things you should check is RAM. RAM is the most important thing for running WoW, probably. If you have a terrible, horrible video card but have a GB or three of RAM, you'll find the game runs pretty well. Places like Dalaran and Shattrath, areas with high concentrations of players or player-esque NPCs (bare models with armor applied on top, etc, not just baked models like dragons or gorillas) will devour your RAM.
That would be my first and biggest suggestion. I'm running 1GB of RAM, and I am very seriously considering picking up another 1GB stick. Maybe even two. It really makes a huge difference. If that doesn't help, it could be a number of different things and then it's time to call in bigger guns.
Ttya asked...
Is it worth doing the IQD dailies on the way to lvl 80 if you really really want a mammoth?
No, not really. Not at all. Quest up to level 80, and then do the level 80 daily quests or finish whatever regular Northrend quests you haven't yet. The new content is going to generate you far more money than old content will. Maybe there will be exceptions like gathering skills (Thorium is still worth absurd amounts of gold), but as far as quests go, stick to the Northrend dailies.
Renako asked...
Any guesses on how soon we'll need the crafted frost resist sets?
I'm not sure you need them at all. Sapphiron required it in the 40-man version of Naxxramas, but it's certainly not important in the 10-man version. You don't need it, period. Sapphiron has also been done without the Frost Resist in the 25-man version. So how soon will we need it? Maybe when they release that Icecrown raid.
JLocke asked...
I had a question bout dailies, are there any areas where there are multiple dailies within a zone like there were with the Isle of Quel'thlas? Or are the good old days of Ilse like dailies gone and we have to zone hop to do them?
There are hefty daily hubs, but not early on in the levels. Early on you'll only see a couple in a zone. As you get to higher level zones, they have more and more daily quests. Grizzly Hills has a ton of PvP oriented quests up and down the river in the zone. Icecrown is absolutely packed with daily quests after you've quested through certain areas. Zul'Drak has a series of them that you unlock as well. So far, Icecrown has the most I've seen, but I haven't finished questing in Storm Peaks yet. I imagine Icecrown will remain supreme, though.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Wrath of the Lich King, The Queue






Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Saelorn Nov 20th 2008 3:16PM
Is RAM really that much more important than video card? I just side-graded from a year-old decent video card and 2 gigs of RAM to a newer low-end video card and 3 gigs of RAM, and I'm still getting bad performance pretty much everywhere in Howling Fjord (about 12 frames per second).
MaverickSoloist Nov 20th 2008 4:03PM
Yes. RAM is huge. I once had to downgrade to 1 GB RAM in BC and my Shattrath went from working just fine to endless drive-grinding because it kept switching to virtual memory. It was a complete nightmare until I fixed my RAM situation.
Slago Nov 20th 2008 8:29PM
Also draw distance is hard on video card and memory alike. That (and ground clutter density...wtf) are the first things I turn off to up fps on any system. Yes the world isnt a series of pretty pictures anymore, but it sure does help to be full speed!
jurandr Nov 20th 2008 9:39PM
Your processor is like the boss of a room. The amount of ram is the size of the room you have. The larger the room, the more stuff can be done inside of it. The more ram you have, the more / better stuff your computer can do.
You'll also want some L1 and L2 cache, and cache on your video card. This will free up some space in your RAM, and keep frequently used codes close at hand. Rather than going off the long bus, frequently used codes are jumping straight to the processor, speeding up your overall performance.
Aerei Nov 20th 2008 11:10PM
What's your operating system? If it's 32-bit you won't get much benefit from RAM beyond 2gigs. You need a 64-bit system to get the extra juice from your third gig.
SirCasey Nov 20th 2008 11:32PM
32 bit OS's can't read beyond ~3.3 GB out of 4GB.
If you want to use 4GB+, you need 64 bit. 2GB is good, 3GB is better, 4GB leaves a little bit wasted.
Corrytrevor Nov 21st 2008 8:17AM
Hey.
To tell you the truth ever since I got my HP QuadCore with 3GB of RAM (I also put my Radeon 3850 512MB card in it) WoW can run on almost high settings with minimal lag. I think that having maybe a dual core processor would be a good compliment to your 3GB of RAM. Consider spending $150-$200 on a mid range card if you want some better performance.
Corrytrevor-Skullcrusher (US)
romiress Nov 20th 2008 3:18PM
I have a terrible, terrible graphics card (Built in for macbook), but 4GB of ram. WoW runs fine, but lags badly in Dalaran. So it's definately not just a RAM issue.
chuddy Nov 20th 2008 3:35PM
the answer is ram on your card. But you can have 512 ram on a 8300 and 256 on a 8800 and it's worlds difference. Right now. i'm running an 8600 on a 23 inch monitor, full screen, and half view distance with everything at max settings. (dont really need to see ALL the way across the zone)...and average 20-40 frames a second (drops to 20 in heavily populated areas). on a vista machine it access's some of your ram as virtual ram. I usually drop the view distances in cities to minimum..
chuddy Nov 20th 2008 3:36PM
Take out ram and put in memory. I read ram too much in the post. lol.
Verit Nov 20th 2008 3:38PM
I'm actually having zero problems anywhere - I'm using 4 gigs of ram, Vista x64 and a 9800 GX2.
K Whitt Nov 20th 2008 4:16PM
Further than just RAM (PC memory) and Video RAM (Graphics Card memory), you also have to consider that Dalaran is a significantly smaller place than Shattrath, with a significantly higher poly-count (more complex models and textures) with a higher concentration of complex textures and models, along with dozens to hundreds of users, you end up giving your system (and the servers themselves) quite a workout. Even if Blizz was to implement some Occlusion (line of sight) based loading and model-reporting method, it would still incur a heavy load on that city's particular servers.
Methinks that while Dalaran is beautiful, it was poorly designed from a technological standpoint. I'm on a beefy system (QuadCore @3Ghz, DDR3 1800 RAM, SLI'd 2x GX280) and I still get lag and disconnects while in Dalaran as well on occassion.
Fyve & Boomstick Nov 20th 2008 5:53PM
I'm convinced that RAM is NOT the issue, I'm running a new imac, 2gb of RAM and when i hearth to dalaran (from another Northrend zone) its sometimes as much as a minute before the screen unfreezes and i appear in the inn. I then have to suffer a short period of my pet running back and forth in the spot and where i am unable to move but if i try to i am presented running on the spot.
There is something amiss with zoning to dalaran at the moment that is far more than just the clients machine specs
josh Nov 20th 2008 7:18PM
it may also be your connection if you have good memory and a good video card, if you're using DSL, satellite, or(heaven forbid) Dial-up the those areas may run more slowly then if you had say, cable with a strong signal. there are many reasons that it may run slow but also look at your connection
vazhkatsi Nov 21st 2008 2:19AM
don't know that ram isn't the issue here, i run 2gigs on an old latitude laptop, and i get 40fps in dalaran, and my server is pretty high population. course i also get wowerrors every couple hours, so i'm not perfect
Thiosion Nov 20th 2008 3:21PM
What instances other than Ulduar and Icecrown are (is?) Blizzard suspected to be working on?
Nrahk Nov 20th 2008 3:27PM
The Sons of Hodir in Storm Peaks offer quite a few daily quests in their city, which all can be completed nearby. These open up after completing a few long quest chains. These dailies are worth doing because the quartermaster offers shoulder enchants that you can't find anywhere else. You also cannot champion this faction (no tabbard), so it's worth grinding up the rep as soon as you can with the dailies.
Arcaria Nov 20th 2008 4:03PM
Shhh...I'm trying to get as much of this done before it becomes crowded. There aren't many mobs to handle the masses when they come up.
Tanzier Nov 20th 2008 3:29PM
RAM is crucial, but a crappy video card won't help matters. Ensure you are at least using a card intended for gaming. I run an Nvidia 8600 w 2/GB of RAM on XP and WOW runs 100% maxed on all settings with no performance issues whatsoever. I admittedly have not been to Dalaran yet though.
A good video card and 2-4GB RAM will render the rest of your machine specs unimportant. If you video card sucks, your CPU will come more into play and pick up the slack, and you'll mostly still be ok. If you don't have enough RAM, you'll swap to disk and your performance will go straight into the toilet.
Alex Zalben Nov 20th 2008 3:30PM
I'm having some fun going back and doing all the low level quests in the starting areas, half to raise up my rep levels, half to just be a completist... Is there any way to generate an in game checklist of quests? I assume that info is saved somewhere, as the game doesn't let you repeat quests once you've completed them. But is there a way of accessing it?