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
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
Missescake Nov 21st 2008 3:40AM
List of LK dailies:
http://www.wowhead.com/?quests&filter=da=ja;cr=26;crs=1;crv=0
Rhade Nov 20th 2008 5:52PM
I have a computer with 4GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 4870 HD card, and my FPS is usually > 100. Yet, in dalaran it hops up and down around 20-30 FPS. So yeah, Dalaran is pretty laggy, I'd say.
Ragefire Nov 20th 2008 6:13PM
Question: on my single foray into the old 40-man Naxx, my BS picked up some neat frost-oriented crafting recipes. They required a special forge/anvil (can't remember which) inside Naxx to forge, as well as some Naxx-specific mats. Are those old recipes craftable in the new Naxx? Have newer versions been introduced that are lvl 80 rather than lvl 60?
Ragefire on Shandris
TimtheConjuror Nov 20th 2008 6:30PM
I'm not sure if I missed something here, but I remember there was once talk from Blizzard that they were planning to get rid of the whole 'need to be uncrittable as well as uncrushable' thing. Did that happen? I admit its been a while since I've tanked anything at all, so i would be suprised if i missed something.
Omega Nov 20th 2008 6:42PM
They got rid of uncrushable, you can still be crit, in fact if you even try to do a heroic at level 80 without being capped expect to get tore up.
Omega Nov 20th 2008 6:41PM
The Frost Resist set is actually trained by blacksmith trainers. Any blacksmith can craft an insane frost resist set for nax. So a resist was in mind at some point. Although with how much they have dumbed up raids so even idiots could clear then, I can see it being muscled through just as easily without a resist set much like hydros could be after they nerfed those raids.
Antonia Nov 20th 2008 6:51PM
I just want to add to the comment about the IQD dailies question.. he had said "Is it worth doing the IQD dailies on the way to lvl 80 if you really really want a mammoth?"
while the answer given is correct to an extent its good to point out that in the first 5 levels of northrend there are very few dailies. Also if you do every shattered sun daily you can find from at least 70-75 they give you about the same gold as any average quest in northrend, couple that with the fact that by the time your done you've just gotten any where from 20-25% of your level in less time then trying to do it running all over the place because of quest placement with droves of people getting in your way like it is in northrend
honestly that's what I've been doing.. I've gotten at least 20% of all 5 of my levels so far (only 75 atm which is only going so slowly because of RL obligations and not this system I'm using) in about an hour, hour and a half.. i don't have to deal with many people stealing kills or general/trade channels being filled with fools.. i just get to sit back, relax and still level. I'm getting gold and greens to either get DE'd or even just vendor for straight up gold.. PLUS since I'm not doing as many quests up in northrend it means when i get to 80 all those quests that will give big money for being fully leveled will be more abundant. thus making mammoth getting even easier
so its kinda up to how you want to play it, this system however is working very well for me
Rimefang Nov 20th 2008 7:18PM
I made a priority to hit Exalted with the Valliance Expedition (got it at lvl 76) so that I could repair and buy thread/vials at full discount without having to port to Shat or Azeroth. It's pretty easy to do since I've gone for the questing achievements as I go along. Completed Howling, Borean, Dragonblight (and a good chunk of Grizzly) by lvl 77.
I think I've probably already saved over 200g alone from my Valliance Expedition faction discounts because I always go to them to repair and buy mats. It may not seem like a lot, but I felt like it required fairly minimal effort to achieve for a decent level of convenience.
Fudomyo Nov 20th 2008 8:52PM
My question is about Orbaz Bloodbane - the guy that gives us some quests in the DK starting area and then runs away when Darion is owned by good old Tirion. Does he appear later, in game? Saw he is somewhere in Icecrown, but would like to know more about his role and if we get to do anything about him in the future
Willian Nov 20th 2008 9:01PM
What about the Rivendare mount.
is the mount dropping?
Leo M Nov 20th 2008 9:05PM
I've got a question!
I've seen two different sets of screenshot for the coveted choppas. In some, they have no sidecar, and in others they do. Are there two seperate versions to make, or is there a button to press to summon a sidecar?
Telerion Nov 20th 2008 10:17PM
Although "The Queue" seems like a good name for this column, it has a bad negative connotation for many players in the game on Full realms.
When I scan the WoWInsider headlines and see "The Queue", I immediately think of waiting in the login queue to get into the game. It reminds me of the frustration I feel while I wait to get into the game.
Just my 2 cents...
Hewitt Nov 21st 2008 2:36AM
Here's a question:
I'm aware of how championing with tabards "works," in that if you do wear one you get that particular faction's rep in a lvl 80 instance, and if you don't wear a tabard you get your particular alliance/horde faction rep. What I'd love to know is how much rep exactly are people getting per run? I'm sure it differs by regular/heroic, but by how much? The more specific numbers that you can give, the more I'd be willing to give you some cake.
Many thanks!
Mairiiv Nov 21st 2008 4:11AM
I've read that you unlock JC recipes via JC dailies, what level do you need to be to start the JC dailies and where do you get them? I'm asking this as one of my Characters is JC and I'd like to start building up my JC credits as soon as possible. I'm further wondering if there is any dailies like the JC one(s) for other professions.
Waryor Nov 21st 2008 9:34AM
Although I've never actually been able to get higher than a couple pieces of whatever the lowest current tier gear is (e.g. tier 1 for vanilla, tier 4 for BC, etc.) it's always fun to see what the "best" gear in the game is for PvE. Any news on when that becomes available on the armory? I'm interested in seeing what the new T9 stuff will be like. :) Is it even in the game? I would think that with those crazy PvE guilds that have already beaten everything, a lot of the stuff would be showing up on the armory, but so far I haven't been able to find anything. Any news?
Twothirteen Nov 21st 2008 10:15AM
Are there any Heroic Daily quest? And if so, where are they? Would they be in Dalaran, kind of like the Heroic Daily in Outland was in Shatt?
Dennis Nov 21st 2008 10:18AM
Hi
My question is on death knights. I thought the rule on starting a dk was if you had at least one level 55 toon, then you could start a dk on any realm. When I tried to create one on a different realm Blizz wouldn't let me. When did this change?
Sarlin Nov 21st 2008 10:32AM
Are there any other "Cut Scene's" like the one in dragonblight where the alliance face off with Arthas, and.... To prevent spoiling it becasue it was AWESOMELY UNEXPECTED. As alliance afterwards you talk to a dragon and have to return a sheild to stormwind. What are the names of these other quests and where do they start?
Nith Nov 21st 2008 11:44AM
Now im not gonna say Im running WoW at the highest quality, and yes I do get lag in dalaran and used to in shatt (and occasionally in IF). If that happens I just take a minute let my computer catch up and then everything works ok, just because theres no loading screen that take 10mins to load it doesnt mean WoW managed to load everything....
Anyway back to my point, since when does way require so much resources. You guys are taking this way OTT. I have 1Gb RAM, Radeon X800, and 3.3 Ghz single core processor. like I said I have all the options pulled up but im not running the full resolution, just the one below it.
If you are having problems with bigger systems heres a few things you should try:
*Uninstall Vista, throw the Vista install disk in the trash, install XP SP3, watch your computer run much better.
*Switch off everything you have running in the background. If youre playing wow then play wow, dont try to sync your ipod, listen to you music, download that tv show etc while playing wow. If you do want music in the background use a light music player not Media Player or Itunes, those players do so much in the background is rediculous, get win-amp light or something similar which just lets you play music, with a simple interface, none of that connect to internet to find you information on the song, while diplaying pretty effects and tracking your library.
*Like I said give it a minute, if you just hearthed to dalaran go get yourself a drink, take a stretch, after a few minutes you wont have as much lag as you did before.
Vlatch Nov 21st 2008 11:48AM
I've noticed the same problem in Dalaran. It is not RAM or video card related. There has got to be some sort of memory leak being caused by that place. Each time I leave, I end up restarting my machine just to make sure performance is improved.