The Queue: Almost our celestial anniversary
by Mathew McCurley 
Apr 13th 2011 at 11:00AM
Yay, I get to write The Queue today! With a patch 4.1 release candidate on the PTR, as well as the one-year anniversary (April 15) of the Celestial Steed, it seems that we should be expecting many things happening within the next few weeks in WoW. Oh, boy! We live in exciting times.
Sparkle pony, it was almost one year since I wrote about your majesty, your grace and starry beauty. How could anyone say no to the steed from the stars? Now, we have your successor, the winged guardian, a presumably Uldum-esque creature that soars through the cataclysmic skies with the strength of the desert it has been unearthed from. I hope part of the story involves Harrison Jones finding a secret factory under the Temple of Uldum, where 5 million winged guardians await, ready to be sold and taken home "off the lot," as it were.
walkerspace asked:
Dear Queue,
There seems to be an increase in bot activity (while I'm herbing; I want it all!). Is there anything Bizzard can do about it? Or, is the perceived activity simply more characters in the game fighting over the same limited resource?
Bots are a huge problem and make up a good portion of the gold farming/botting/hacking that goes on in WoW. It's very easy to run virtual players logged into hundreds of clients and let them do their automated thing rather than pay real, live people to farm gold. However, it is theoretically easier to detect botting because of the Warden, but there are workarounds to Blizzard's elusive anti-cheat. It's a game of escalation, sadly, and botters are just one of the many things Blizzard gets to deal with because of how popular World of Warcraft is.
There are plenty of things Blizzard can do about botting, but the real question is can it do anything effective? Updating Warden constantly helps to throw off the smaller gold-selling houses that rely on an older version of the Warden hacks and emulators, but it doesn't stop the big boys. The best way to stop botting is to stop buying gold and leveling services, as well as reporting obvious bots with the in-game report tools.
velutina asked:
Burning question here: what makes the elevator in Throne of Tides go up? After the first 2 pulls every PUG I'm in waits an indefinite amount of time, and then inexplicably the elevator goes up. Is it that everyone needs to be standing in the middle? Is it timer based? Is there a secret switch everyone else/no one else knows about?
That is one lazy giant jellyfish, I'll tell you what. Back in beta, there was a little goblin there next to some construction equipment and blockades boasting about how one day there would be an amazing elevator here, the likes of which had never been seen, but until that day he could just teleport you up to the top of the elevator shaft to the murloc/naga gauntlet. Well, that time has come and the amazing jellyfish elevator is in. Sadly, for all its majesty, it takes so damn long.
The reason the elevator takes a good long time is probably because the distance the elevator travels is fairly long. Having the elevator go up and down too quickly might force people to have to actually spend more time getting their entire group up to the second floor because of people missing the elevator and the jellyfish having to make too many return trips. Also, you get to see Ozumat.
raposo02790 asked:
Do you remember Diablo with it's auto generated dungeons? do you think it would be plausible to incorporate something like that into WoW's instances? Sometimes I feel like the rat in a maze looking for that piece of cheese (Pepper Jack please). It seems like it would be a great way to switch things up, that or varying it up between 2-4 maps per instance...
Randomized dungeons are a good idea and a bad idea at the same time. On the good side, random dungeons give the developers lots of fun and creative things that get dynamically added to the space they've created, allowing different groups of adventurers to have limitless different experiences. Randomized enemy groups and types force players to be on their toes and use skill and quick decision-making to get out alive, so to speak.
On the "meh" side of things, random dungeons are usually just randomized tile sets more than anything. The random factor is fun at first, but it's harder to control the flow of the dungeon and the difficulty because of the inherent randomness. Plus, all the dungeons end up looking and feeling the same because of the tile set that is used, and the only thing that is really random are the enemies and the path you take. I'd recommend checking out some wiki articles on Bill Roper's Hellgate: London. It tried the Diablo approach to random dungeons and was fairly successful in making random dungeons, but they all just felt like tile set swaps.
Mat McCurley asked:
Shouldn't Blizzard remove guild reputation caps or dramatically increase the weekly cap for players now that guilds have reached level 25 and no other reputation gains are capped in game? While I understand and respect the farming for guild achievements aspect of removing or increasing caps, I would really like my guild rewards faster and not feel like anything I do on my character up to the weekly guild rep cap is being wasted.
I agree.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
Filed under: The Queue
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 12)
laim Apr 13th 2011 11:03AM
I've been playing this game for roughly 4 years, and two things that I have just never done, are fishing and cooking... This means that I am also lacking the achievements from these, which I want... I've never been able to fish for more than 10 minutes until I get annoyed and go do something else... So my question is:
Are there any ways to make fishing and cooking more enjoyable? Any lame/cool games that can keep me amused whilst I perform these tedious tasks, whilst still focusing on them? Or should I just suck it up and deal with it?
Krystana Apr 13th 2011 11:08AM
I was in the same boat...I listened to audio books while fishing..it helped alot.
Wellsee Apr 13th 2011 11:13AM
Make sure you are doing the daily cooking and fishing quests in your capitol, as they reward skill gains. Which might fit in very well with your limited interest in them!
theRaptor Apr 13th 2011 11:17AM
I watched a good few seasons of Babylon 5 while levelling fishing and cooking on the only, out of 10, character I have ever done it on back in Wrath. If you use a macro to cast then you only need to glance at the screen for a few seconds to position the cursor over the bobber and then click when you hear the splash.
lidstrom Apr 13th 2011 11:18AM
i've been playing since early vanilla too, and at first didn't care for fishing (cooking i didn't mind so much).
then a friend of mine and i decided to go camping in-game. we'd find a safe little spot where we could fish in peace and chat, set a campfire and cook the fish we caught. time flew by and our cooking and fishing skill increased quite a bit.
we'd also start looking for secret fishing spots for our camping excursions, like the little pond above ravenholdt, or the dwarf farm on the coast south of revantusk when few others knew of those areas. we'd eventually invite other guildies who'd show up with fireworks and other gizmos and we made a party out of it.
it wasn't long before our fishing and cooking was maxed out. now, the dailies in shat, dal and the capitals make fishing and cooking more fun and lucrative, so i no longer feel the need to fish for an hour at a time to skill up.
xvkarbear Apr 13th 2011 11:28AM
For cooking, you will save yourself a ton of effort/time/money if you do it during the thanksgiving holiday. The game gives you the recipes and food right along with the holiday vendors. You can skill up to 300 in probably an hour.
As for fishing, i found that fishing was easier to do when I had music going and i was fishing up things that sold well on the ah. Go to the blood-of-deathwing lava pools in deepholm, sit there and fish your heart out. It's better then flying around to specific spawn points.
(cutaia) Apr 13th 2011 11:37AM
Remember that with cooking, Pilgrim's Bounty offers vendor bought recipes and mats that can basically get you to over 300 cooking in about an hour. The only thing you have to farm is the Wild Turkeys that are all over Elwynn and Tirisfal.
Julianne Apr 13th 2011 11:42AM
Teach your five year old niece how to fish, you'll be maxed in no time and have created a wow junkie in the process.
Jaq Apr 13th 2011 11:47AM
I went from 300 to 450 fishing in Dalaran, going for the achievement for fishing the coins out of the fountain. That I fished EVERY coin out of the fountain before hitting 450 speaks volumes of how painful leveling fishing can be. Thank god for the fishing daily that awards skill points now, I wasn't looking forward to going to 525.
fallemwarrior Apr 13th 2011 11:52AM
i wached the A-Team lvling my fishing
Nick Apr 13th 2011 11:55AM
While you're fishing you should set your game to "windowed mode" in the video options and minimize it enough that you can have a second window open beside it.
Open up you internet browser of choice and watch some videos on youtube or hulu while you fish.
Just last night I did over an hour of fishing without really noticing because I watched a couple of episodes of Firefly at the same time =P
Straz Apr 13th 2011 12:12PM
My issue with fishing is a fundamental one. I play a hunter. I'm a master marksman. I can shoot a dragon in the eye from 40 yards away, while dodging fireballs and laughing at the warlock life-tapping himself in the void zone. Accuracy is the name of the game.
WHY THE HELL WON'T MY BOBBER LAND IN THE POOL 5 FEET IN FRONT OF ME?
Neinball Apr 13th 2011 12:13PM
This will keep you amused for a few minutes longer at least:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/blackuweather-fishing.aspx
Umbralwrath Apr 13th 2011 12:32PM
I exercise while I farm/fish/do archeology.
Just easy, low impact stuff. I have a stability ball for sitting/bouncing/stretching and a small portable foot pedal thing.
Farming while I exercise gives me something to focus on without being too distracted to do it, and exercising while I farm makes it seem less monotonous.
By combining two things I "should" do but get bored with easily, it actually makes them both more entertaining and I'm likely to do them longer.
Plus, as lame as it sounds, bouncing on the stability ball is actually kinda fun. Let's you fidget a bit without distracting from the game. Well, I don't get distracted by it...sometimes it does distract the hubby.
Kurtis Apr 13th 2011 12:37PM
Not only do the dailies give guaranteed skillups, for the most part they're not directly related to the skill category. For example, only 3 of the 5 Orgrimmar fishing dailies actually require you to *fish*. Likewise, the cooking dailies are actually gathering tasks - you don't have to *cook* anything. Once you get to medium/high fishing level, you might only get a skillup after every dozen casts. Cooking, once you reach the high-level recipes they're primarily focused on raid foods and have expensive mats. Compare that to a daily that takes a few minutes, doesn't require you to even break out the fishing pole and gives you a guaranteed +1 or +2.
Tokhand Apr 13th 2011 1:06PM
While fishing is terrible (it is) and cooking less so, the dailies help. A lot. 4.1 is adding dailies to other cities non-BC (TB, UC, IF and Darn). The ones in Dalaran help also.
The Dalaran fishing ones are more work than the Old World dailies, but that just means more skill points and are still easy compared to fishing for its own sake. Also it's easy to get distracted by other fishing things in Dal, like the stupid rat I've never got in the sewers, the coins in the fountain, or the key to the chest under VH that I've never fished up either, leading to quicker skill-leveling. Also you can get neater prizes in the Dal fishing bags.
Also the chef's hat makes the whole cooking thing faster. It is fancy like that.
Eirik Apr 13th 2011 1:14PM
Buy several stacks of your favorite alcohol. Go fishing in a stream or ocean (IE not in a pool). Every time you catch a fish, take a drink. If you catch a rock, rotten cloth, or some other junk, you don't get to take a drink.
The measure of how good a fisherman you are is a) how long it takes for you to get stone drunk, b) on what variety of alcohol, c) and in what zone. And d) how good you are at finding the bobber while drunk.
Disclaimer: The author of this comment is not responsible for any Wintergrasp fisherman-ganking that occurs.
Khirsah Apr 13th 2011 1:19PM
Not sure if this is a great idea, but try fishing while you are waiting for your random bg or dungeon to pop. It is a great way to pass the time, because it is easy to interrupt what you are doing if you have to.
Word of advice, though: fish in your pvp spec and gear. Often is the time I'll leave my bg, equip my pole and cast a couple times, then be set upon by a hunter that I never saw and is looking to make an easy world kill. A macro to equip your weapons is handy, too.
Mitawa Apr 13th 2011 2:07PM
I got really excited today because I received in my fishing bag an amazing item called the "Glass Fishing Bobber" which reads, "Use: Increase Fishing skill by 15."
Oh wow! And not even soulbound! I could sell these for a fortune on the AH or mail them to my new characters to give them a leg up, I could even use it right here, right now, to finish out the terribly long high-level grind!
So I clicked it... and nothing happened. It's broken, remains broken, and will be converting to a lure worse than the lamest vendor lure in 4.1
Alas, my dreams of fishing skill ups have been utterly broken.
Taitle Apr 13th 2011 2:38PM
If you're going to start the fishing grind, I cannot recommend Fishing Buddy enough. It allows you to double-rightclick to cast, which makes fishing while doing other things much easier.