Actually no. So people can hoard food for as long as they like. Meat and stuff never goes rotten .
See, right now Blizzard has made most fish virtually worthless. Selling it wouldn’t really be worth it because I would get so little for the time I spent. I would much rather save the fish until I get a cooking recipe. If I get a cooking recipe that involves a fish that I have 50 of, I can crank out the same dish over and over, raising my cooking skill quickly.
There’s nothing more aggrivating than being ONE skill point short of using a recipe. Because of this I’ve been stockpiling raw materials that are likely ingredients in recipes. For example, when I was first able to make bronze, I auctioned it off because the money I could get for selling it was pretty good and I couldn’t make anything with bronze anyway. However, checking on thottbott, I found to my chargrin that I am very close to being able to make TONS of bronze items, so every bar of bronze is getting saved so that as soon as a bronze pattern is made available to me, I can start making use of it right away.
Aruvqan, I also realized the merit of going to the other questing zones at your same levels. This is particularly useful if you are soloing, and have a frail class or a class that requires a lot of downtime. But why bother taking the griffon from Ironforge to Stormwind when the tram is FREE?!
As others have said, ‘grinding’ is simply killing monsters over and over for xp. People who kill monsters to try to get a particular item are ‘farming’. ‘Farming’ is also used to describe someone with a gathering class (Miner/Herbalist/Skinner) who goes specifically looking for resources.
Fishing is a nice little ‘break’ from the rest of the game. But I found that questing can be fun, too. Stormwind in particular (general starting point for Humans) offers a lot of quests which are very close together. Often you can get “Kill X wolves” “Bring me X meats” and “Gather X items”, and do all 3 of them in the same area, getting credit for killing the monster, getting the loot you need, and the meat. Share the quest with some friends, and it is even faster.
I don’t find alchemy gets me tons of money, but it’s a nice little income supplement. The potions that sell well for me:
-Elixirs of defense are an early moneymaker: I can almost always sell a pair of them for 50 silver. (Two of them are necessary to make a great leatherworking recipe).
-Potions of greater healing sell for 80-85 silver for 5 of them.
-A single potion of frost oil sells for about 1 gold. It’s needed for a quest and for some items (I think), and the recipe is fairly tough to find.
Also, you only need to be level 35 in order to get artisan alchemy.
I’ve mostly given up on fishing since the nerf: as a class with healing capability, the fish are almost all useless for me, and my cooking skill is maxed out (at least until I finish the difficult quest that gives me artisan cooking). But I fish occasionally to catch potion ingredients.
I’m very happy playing City of Heroes, but the things I’ve read about WoW make me curious. How friendly is it to casual play (as in, maybe 3-5 hours playtime a week)? What’s the best casual class/race to play? Is my assumption that a solo-friendly class would be best correct? Any recommendations for good online resources for me to learn more about the game (is there an online manual somewhere)?
I know that I’m just repeating what has been said a thousand times, but what a sad day it was when Blizzard nerfed fishing. It was such a fun little part of the game for “normal” non-bot players. You’d fish; get a bunch of fish that you could either use yourself or get a few silver for in aggregate from a vendor, and everyone once in awhile you’d pull up something kind of cool (some boots, a dagger, etc.). It wasn’t even the fact that you were getting “phat loot” like some catassing hack, it was just the variety that added a little sparkle to a relaxing activity.
Now you fish for 30 minutes, you catch two types of mundane fish that are worthless except for food, you get no items, no scrolls in a bottle, etc., and then you go sell the 50 fish you caught for 50 copper. Wheee. Thanks for raping an enjoyable part of the game Blizzard. Thanks even more, catassing hacks and botting losers, for once again being the 1% of society that destroys something that 99% might find enjoyable.
I would say that it is VERY friendly to the casual player. Possibly more so than CoH (which had been the only MMPORPG that had held my interest longer than 2 weeks…but then I love the Superheroes).
Doing Quests, particularly early on, is a fast way to level. You don’t need to be part of a party, so the casual player who doesn’t necessarily have time to keep up with buddies can solo fairly easily. They also have an interesting system where, if you log off in a Capitol city or an Inn, you’ll accumulate Rest so that all MOB kills will be at double experience. I was away for a good week or so and when I got back on, was gratified to find that I got 2xXP for a whole level and a half.
As to best solo-class/race, I can’t really judge too much. I’ve played Warlock (pretty good soloer for survivability after L10, but slowgoing at times), Rogue (very high damage output, very sad when a few extras jump on him), and Hunter (I’d say that Hunter is best solo of those three). I’ve heard that the Shaman is also a very good solo option.
The races, while all a bit different, don’t add too much to overall effectiveness, so I’d go with personal preference (although Will of the Forsaken (Undead ability) has saved my bacon on more than one occasion)
If you guys haven’t taken a look at it, yet, I highly recommend you install the Cosmos UI script. One of the things the base package includes is The Tackle Box, a set of fishing scripts.
Hit one button, and it switches out your weapon(s) for your fishing rod. Right click on the screen, and you’ll cast. When the bobber splashes, right-click on it to reel it in- and you automatically cast a new line out, immediately. When you’re done, click on that button again, and you’ll swap out your fishing rod for your weapons.
It makes fishing SO much easier.
Also, there’s lots of other good stuff in Cosmos, but that’s my favorite right now.
I find that the easiest way to get to Booty Bay is not to head south from Duskwood through Stranglethorn Vale.
Here’s what you do. Have you done the Wetlands Run yet? If not, leave Ironforge and head through Dun Morogh to Loch Modan. Head north out of Loch Modan (pick up the gryphon point at Thelsamar) to the Wetlands. It’s a long, croc-infested run through the Wetlands, and depending on your level you may die a bunch (I’ve done it as low as level 5). When you get to Menethil get the gryph point and take the boat that comes to the far right dock, the boat to Auberdine. From Auberdine take the road south to Ashenvale.
Here’s the fun part. From Ashenvale follow the road toward the Barrens. Things will try to chew on you but they’re nowhere near as nasty as the ones in Stranglethorn. Now, when you get near the Barrens you’ll see a gate with some big scary Tauren guards. Don’t bug 'em. Instead, head to your left and you’ll find an unguarded gate. Go south and eastish in the Barrens to Ratchet (the map in your manual will show you where you’re aiming). Do not, repeat, do not approach the Crossroads under any circumstances.
From Ratchet you can take the boat to Booty Bay. I know that sounds long and complex, but you get a lot of good gryph points and running through Wetlands and Ashenvale involves a lot less dying than trying to run allllll the way through Stranglethorn to Booty Bay (which I did once, but it was during Closed Beta when mages still had Lesser Invisibility).
Hunter is generally considered to be the best soloing class, I think. When I played a hunter I did most of the quests with just myself and my tank pet (I highly recommend getting a bear)
As an alchemist, I find fishing tedious because in order to get the 20 oily blackmouths I want, I need to fish for nearly an hour, with 80% of the fish I catch being useless. Deviate fish make it all worth it though, since I have the savory deviate delights recipe, which generates random effects upon consumption. So far I’ve feigned death, been feared, had some buffs cast on me, and turned into a giant slime. I’m hoping to turn into a pirate or a ninja soon!
I’ve played WoW since Open Beta and have mostly played the rogue class. I soloed a lot, generally only teaming/partying up for instances or elite quests. I found that so long as I was careful about pulling monsters off one at a time (as apposed to charging into the thick of things. Rogues can only wear leather armor so our armor class sucks) I did very well. I got up to something like level 47 in Beta and my main now is about level 32. And the stealth skill is very, very handy.
As for getting to or passing through dangerous zones when you’re low level…I prefer playing a night elf but the majority of the folks in the guild I’m in play humans. For those who don’t know, the starting points for both races are on opposite continents. I wanted to hook up with my guildmates so I got my level 1 newbie rogue to Menethil (via the boat in Aubedine) and swam the coastline from Menethil Bay all the way to Stormwind. It took something like 30 minutes or so but it was really fun to do. No one else was around. It was like having the whole game to myself. And I imagine I saw parts of the continent very few people would take the time to explore. The only part that was a bit dicey was finally coming ashore past Stormwind (damn those murlocs anyway!). Oh, and don’t go out into the deep water.
I was going to take up fishing as one of my freebie professions but after the crappy nerf I figured it wasn’t worth my time.
I haven’t tried the hunter class though I’m getting pretty bored and will likely try something new.
.