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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCooking and clams get more convenient changes in patch 3.1
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Mar 14th 2009 at 3:00PM
The patch notes for the 3.1 PTR have recently been updated, and they have quite a few nice updates and a few things that should make things more convenient for cooks everywhere. We were promised cooking would be easier in 3.1, and these patch notes definitely deliver on that promise. Let's check out the changes (compiled courtesy of MMO-Champion), which include even easier campfires and those 2 promised recipes: * A new recipe has been added to cooking trainers for making Black Jelly, using several Borean Man 'O War as ingredients. While it looks disgusting, it restores more health and mana than the highest level food.* Flint and Tinder is no longer necessary for creating a campfire. You're just that resourceful!
* Ingredients such as Spices, Apples, and the like have been removed from most cooking recipes.
* Players no longer need to complete the Clamlette Surprise quest to gain Artisan cooking. The quest now offers the unique recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. If you already completed the quest, you can visit Dirge Quickcleave in Gadgetzan to learn this recipe (for free).
* Several Northrend recipes were given greater skill up ranges to make it easier to reach 450 cooking skill.
* You no longer need to learn cooking from books. The trainers have finally done their reading and are able to teach you the same thing.
Streamlining the way we learn the cooking skill seems to be one of the themes of these changes. Not only do we no longer have to do the quest for Clamette Surprise to learn Artisan cooking, but even the cookbooks are a thing of the past. It's at least one or two less hoops to jump for, and very nice for newbies and alts, letting them focus on leveling and questing instead of running halfway around the world for a basic skill.
Of course, most dedicated cooks are still going to want to do the Clamette Surprise quest, since it gives a new cooking recipe, Clamlette Magnifique. One more option to level cooking is always good, plus it means less trouble for chefs in trying to smuggle recipes between factions to get Chef de Cuisine. And hey, that's not the only decent Clam related news in this patch. They've finally managed to fix that silly clam stacking bug. Loot recovered from a clam, whether you were mounted or not, will automatically stack coming out of the shell. That was definitely an annoying bug, and this fix will a godsend for my Murloc slaughtering sprees.
In more straight up convenient changes, Northrend cooks will find it easier to skill up. Not only will we be getting a new recipe for the Borean Man O War (Mmmm, delicious, delicious Black Jelly), but we'll be seeing existing Northrend recipes gaining greater skillup ranges. Hopefully this no more grinding of annoying feasts. Not that I won't still grind em. Small Feasts are hilarious.
Finally, Flint and Tinder is no longer needed for campfires at all. I suppose if we're resourceful enough to find wood for a campfire anywhere, we should be able to find two sticks or rocks to bang together for a spark, right? Of course, I didn't have a problem with needing it anyway. I always kept my pocket knife around.
Extra non-meat or fish ingredients for food is also apparently going away for many recipes. Of course, this is a trend that's been around for a while, as many Outland and Northrend needed no spices either. Of course, it's likely Northern Spices are sticking around. What else are we going to use all these Dalaran Cooking Rewards for?
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Cooking, Patches, Analysis / Opinion, News items, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Nathanyel Mar 14th 2009 4:58PM
Not true. The recipe is called Clamlette Magnifique http://ptr.wowhead.com/?spell=64054 and when you link it on the PTR, you will see it's a buff food with 24 AP and 14 Spellpower for 1 hour.
Item link, once it's registered by Wowhead will be:
http://ptr.wowhead.com/?item=33004
Hone Melgren Mar 15th 2009 2:25AM
Opps sorry guys. Must of been asleep at the wheel when I posted this :D
Dobmeister Mar 14th 2009 5:07PM
GoGo potential violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics for the new creation of cooking fires in the middle of bleeding Icecrown.
Balius Mar 14th 2009 6:34PM
In a game where undead wizards summon flaming bolts of ice fueled by the magical energy they get from eating strudel, you draw the line at a lack of firewood?
NoTomorrow Mar 14th 2009 7:06PM
Oh god, I lol'd.
Etinfall Mar 14th 2009 5:38PM
Why not make it if you have one toon on your account maxed in cooking you can skip those quests? Now, I am Chef and I think this is dumbing down the game. But, I still need to get a bunch of fishing achievements to become Salty. If they change those, it is NOT dumbing down the game! But once I get Salty, they need to change it back! ^_-
Oh and Priests should be able to wear plate and get a drake mount just for logging in!!!
Cosmonaut Mar 14th 2009 6:44PM
R.I.P. selling gian eggs and zesty clam meat on the AH for a tidy profit.
Jay in Oregon Mar 15th 2009 1:42PM
If you're going for the achievement for 160 cooking recipes, you'll still need to do this quest for the Clamlette Magnifique recipe.
There are 161 recipes in the game right now; that includes Thistle Tea, a rogue-only recipe. Unless you've done the quest chain for Dirge's Kickin' Chimerok Chops and farmed a Savory Deviate Delight recipe, either from the Barrens or the auction house, you're not able to get the achievement.
And before anyone says "But wait! I have the achievement!", I have it as well: the recipe counter is bugged. I've printed out a list of all 161 recipes, verified that I have all but Dirge's Kickin' Chimerok Chops and Thistle Tea, and verified that I do not have any recipes that are _not_ on the list. So I have 159 recipes and an achievement for 160.
Halokon Mar 14th 2009 9:03PM
For all those who make reference to "Dumbing down" the game in regards to cooking, I have to ask, how thick are you that these quests and grinds required grey matter in the first place?
Long and short of it, boring grind is boring. As previously stated, difficulty does not equate with how glazed over my eyes are when I do something.
I want difficult, I'll do OS 3D. I want tedium, I'll play Too Human.
Seriously, how bad was that game?
Half-Noob Mar 15th 2009 12:00AM
Mabey the could make an acheivement for doing the quests thats requirde in the meta? that would solve the issue of whether they need to be done or not
Balius Mar 15th 2009 12:12AM
The cooking quest awards a new recipe, the fishing quest awards a new fishing pole with a 25 bonus to fishing, i.e. THE pole to use until exalted with the Kaluak or you win the weekly tourney.
People may skip the cooking quest in getting to max, but the fishing one will still be pretty popular, I imagine.
trafik Mar 15th 2009 2:54AM
cooking is easily levelled in a 3 hour period. He never mentioned how it was done, I left cooking untouched until I had a bank full of mats that I had collected while levelling alts and my main, then sent them all to my main and BANG cooking maxxed in around 2 hours. The mats were just from normal questing and the likes, no grinding.
This has just about done it for me with WoW, every patch or change has just been dumbing down the game to a ridiculous level, while gamers get older. Blizzards "Secret" MMO better have a mature theme to it or sadly they'll go the way of SOE.
I understand taking the tedium out of things is great. But the reason people made money off cooking in the game was because not everyone could be bothered going out and doing the hard yards. The value of Food will go down dramatically, although it will pave the way for a bigger gatherers market if EVERYONE is cooking. Meh.
And YES I know how many copies they've sold, NO I'm not a Blizzard hater.
tagashi Mar 15th 2009 11:09PM
I know the flint and tinder is a minor thing, but I have to QQ a little, just because Blizzard is making engineering even more useless.
evankimori Mar 16th 2009 12:54PM
How is Engineering, in THIS aspect, going to get harder?
It's already awesome in current patch state that with a Goblin Army Knife: you can cast a fire anywhere anytime without flint OR tinder which makes cooking dailies so much LESS stressful. As an engineer: these items should sell like hotcakes unless the market's already saturated with them. Personally: I'll give one of these to every alt I have once I'm level enough to make them on my Hunter.
The only people I see that will suffer here is the vendors and the fact that flint, tinder and wood will be deprecated/removed from game. I'll probably buy and have one just to say "I levelled cooking when it was hard." :P
tagashi Mar 16th 2009 6:04PM
Uhhh.... The first line of that was "I know the flint and tinder is a minor thing...." and it is VERY minor, but the point I was getting at was that this is just a tiny, tiny little grain of sand that is added to the mountain of engineering suckitude. Also, I didn't say engineering was hard. I said that it is useless, and from a DPS added value point of view, it is Engineering is lacking a clear SUPERIOR DPS enchant upgrade that is prof specific, such as 2 extra sockets for BS, status and better gems for JC, prof-specific threads and linings for LW and Tailoring.....I could go on, but if you don't get the point by now, you never will.
Geekboy Mar 16th 2009 1:36PM
This saddens me, actually. Yes, getting to the highest levels of cooking and fishing is hard ... and it SHOULD be hard. The top-end buffs for cooking are verging on awesome, and getting to the point where you can do them should be both difficult and exclusive. What is the point of really great rewards if anyone can get them with little or no effort or investment.
I think they are breaking the game with this one. Jerks.
Drow Mar 16th 2009 2:36PM
Well this tops it off. What's the point?
Yes, it can be boring grinding rep for turn ins and killing mobs over and over. Yes it was a pain farming up Small/Large feasts so I could get 450 for the Fish Feast. And it was kind of fun, kind of like a bit of progression (shhh...don't say that word around Blizzard, they are trying to get rid of it) to do the Cooking quest and run around reading books and going to area's that used to be popular but are now a half day (if that) stop by to gain 10 lvls.
But in the end, it felt good when you got that acheivment or title, so now...what's the point?