What brought this to my attention? A whole chain of obsessive-type events, which it's just amused me to recall :p Let's see...
1. A guildie said she was bored and asked if I wanted any help with anything low level (she had a headache and couldn't cope with anything that involved thought). And Gianetta and Hebe both needed Deadmines, so I took Gianetta because the quests were already grey for her.
2. When we asked if anyone else wanted to join in, another guildie said he didn't need Deadmines but would be keen to do the Stockade, so we ran that afterwards (Gianetta already had the quests).
3. There was a vague plan to do Deadmines again soon after (this hasn't happened yet, but never mind), so I concentrated on levelling Hebe a bit so that she could collect the Stockade quests too, and do both together (you need to be level 22 to pick up most of them). When she went to Lakeshire to pick up the quest there, she also grabbed the Selling Fish quest. She's not doing Redridge quests in general - I really hate that area, and have only done it once or twice; I avoid it when I can, and I usually can! But I grabbed the fish quest because you can level fishing while doing it, and I do get obsessive about my professions so this has to be done :-)
4. She tried to do the quest there and then by fishing Lake Everstill, but her fishing skill wasn't high enough, even with bait. So she ran off to Elwynn to fish, where the rivers are easier. By the time she'd levelled enough to be able to do the quest, I'd spent long enough fishing that I decided I was going to make it a priority to get all my characters caught up on their fishing. This was helped by the fact that the (UK) football season has just started, and I find that fishing is a good calming thing to do while watching a live game :p
So, that's what started the current profession obsession. Here's what I've done on it since....
Firstly, I realised (while doing the Lakeshire quest) that Hebe didn't even have the Blump family fishing pole, so afterwards I took her to Auberdine to do the three fishing quests (that one plus the two upstairs in the inn). This got her skill level quite high easily, but while I was fishing, I realised that it would be stupid not to level cooking at the same time, and I knew I needed to send Iolanthe shopping as a matter of urgency. I'd done this on Mabel and Katisha's behalf when they were too little to have a mount - it's much quicker for Iolanthe to race round on her epic mount collecting cooking recipes from all the vendors. But at that time, my three youngest characters didn't exist, so another shopping trip was called for.
Before I could do this, I needed to log onto all my characters to double check their cooking lists and compare them to the master list in order to be able to compile the shopping list, so I figured I may as well do a bit of fishing with each one in the process. I started with Patience (my little draenei paladin that I only started a few weeks ago) because I knew her fishing was still at level 1 and she had very few cooking recipes. While I was on Azuremyst I thought I may as well do a few quests - because she runs out of rest XP very quickly, I tend to only do a few at a time. But before long I realised I'd done all the Azuremyst quests, except one - the one with the Draenei Youngling. Well, I spent ages running round looking for this damn mob, but to no avail, so it looks as if I might be there for a while yet.
While Patience was fishing, she caught lots of stuff that she couldn't cook but I knew she should be able to, so I sent her on a brief tour of Auberdine, Darnassus and Dolanaar to collect some low-level recipes (and do the Auberdine fishing quests while she was there). Just by cooking the fish she'd already caught, she levelled her cooking skill to 150 to match the fishing. She couldn't go any further with either until she had the expert books, which I added to Iolanthe's shopping list. (And, before you ask, although you have to be level 20 to use the expert fishing book, there is no level restriction on the expert cookbook (or the expert first aid book either, for that matter).)
While Hebe was in Auberdine, she collected a couple of quests. She went to Ashenvale after Westfall, you see - Redridge would have made more sense, but I hate it there, and Katisha and Gianetta (and possibly Mabel, I'm not sure) had both missed out Ashenvale, so I felt like giving it a go. But Hebe was just slightly too low level, so most of the quests were orange and red, so when she saw some yellow and green quests in Darkshore and remembered that some of them led to Ashenvale anyway, it seemed like a good plan to pick up a couple.
Three hours later, the plan didn't seem so attractive. I'd spent most of that time trying to escort the damn Absent Minded Prospector. I lost count of how many times I tried, but I do know I gained two whole levels in the process (yes, really!) I still haven't done it, and Hebe is now 25 - the quest is labelled 20G2. No way. I can get *almost* all the way through, and then two trolls spawn right at the end (one of them a caster) and they kill him whatever I do. Argh.
Gianetta is in Southshore at the moment, so after fishing for a while off the Eastern Strand, she killed a lot of murlocs, most of whom didn't seem to have heads - typical. She also spent quite a while being killed by Syndicate thugs, before managing to kill enough of them in return to be able to hand in the quest. Such a very long, annoying corpse run!
Katisha went to Zul'Farrak the other day, so she did a bit of fishing off the coast of Tanaris while she was there. She's done all the Tanaris quests, though - she's just starting Searing Gorge, but went on a bit of a detour after the ZF trip, because there are several followup quests (e.g. Saving Sharpbeak and The Ancient Egg). She couldn't do Sharpbeak solo, but the Ancient Egg is fairly easy if you're willing to die a few times (especially if you do it at peak hours when someone else has just killed all the mobs!), and since that leads on to Sunken Temple, it seemed a good plan to collect the other ST quests in case someone wanted to do that soon. The priest class quest meant going to Azshara, so she did the Arcane Runes quest (a.k.a. The One With The Helipad) while she was there. Whee!
That's actually Mabel saving Sharpbeak above - she did ZF and ST a week or two ago, but hadn't been able to do Sharpbeak, so when a guildie offered to do it after Katisha's ZF run, I took Mabel because she'd needed it for longer. Mabel is sitting in Honor Hold at the moment, but she hasn't done anything there yet because I've been concentrating on lower level characters. Her fishing is already quite high, but knowing how long it took Iolanthe to get from 300 to 375 is putting me off doing it again! I'll get to it soon, though.
And, finally, Iolanthe. Poor Iolanthe. She's been stuck on everything on her quest log for months now - she's done all the quests there ARE... at least, all the ones that are soloable. Everything she has left either needs a group of 5 70s - impossible when so many of the guild are on a break at the moment - or could probably be done with just one person to help, but those quests are all in Azeroth and no-one wants to do high-level stuff there. So poor Iolanthe is reduced to being used just to get stuff for my other characters. The highlight of her week last week was being asked to make some swiftness potions so that Gianetta could try to jump onto Thandol Span (she couldn't do it, even with the potion - I decided to leave it till she has a mount). But she had a good run out last night, when she spent several hours riding and flying all over the place collecting recipes and books. The last couple of hours were spent mostly in Desolace, with interruptions while she popped over to Tanaris and back. That's because there are three recipes that are only, as far as I know, available from the Gizelton Caravan Kodo (the caravan has lots of recipes, but several of them are available elsewhere too). Even more helpfully, they're all limited supply, so that you can only buy one, and you then have to wait an hour to buy another... because the caravan, in case you didn't know, only stops to sell stuff at the two ends of its route, and it sells different stuff at each end - and of the three exclusive recipes, one is only available at the southern end and the other two at the northern end. And it takes almost an hour for the caravan to return to the same end (the time varies slightly, presumably depending on whether or not someone starts either of the escort quests en route). And I needed 3 of each recipe!
Why did I have to keep popping to Steamwheedle Port while waiting for the caravan? Because the recipe for Undermine Clam Chowder is only available there, and it's also on limited supply, but at least it respawns every 15 minutes or so. It's just as well I know the route and timing of the Gizelton Caravan Kodo like the back of my hand (how sad is that?!?), so that I was able to ride back to exactly the correct point on the route each time.
Earlier on, Iolanthe had been to Blood Watch to buy several copies of the Crunchy Spider Surprise recipe, and while she was there she did the quest for the Roasted Moongraze Tenderloin recipe. This took about 30 seconds to complete, so in the last hour of her shopping trip, when she'd got all the copies of the Undermine recipe and was just waiting for the caravan to get back to Kormek's Hut, she logged off so that Mabel and Katisha could each go to Azuremyst and do the moongraze quest. Gianetta and Patience both did it while growing up there, obviously, so there's only Hebe to go, but I didn't quite have time to take her last night. That's first on my list for tonight, followed by taking several of them to Auberdine to do the Strider Stew quest. Then I might send Mabel into Razorfen Downs to see how feasible it is for her (and, later, the others) to get to the NPC that teaches the Goldthorn Tea recipe - Iolanthe does have that one, but she got it while actually running the instance with a group, ages ago when groups could still be found to do that one! Other than that, the only recipe Mabel doesn't have (other than Outland ones, but I'll worry about those when everyone's got all the Azeroth ones) is the one for Savory Deviate Delight, but I'm not sure I can face grinding for it in the Barrens, so I'll just keep an eye out on the AH - every so often someone puts it up without realising how much it's worth (that's how Iolanthe got it!)
Right, now you're up to date with all my Dragonblight characters, and I must get back to them in a minute. But in case you're wondering about the others... Madmargaret is at Tarren Mill, dying very frequently and struggling due to lack of funds. Santuzza is at Honor Hold, but her ultimate aim in life is to finish BRD, which she started 18 months ago but never finished because everyone moved servers. Since then she's moved to a different server to play with a friend, who quit the game a few weeks later. She's a bit cursed! Eponine is the character I started at the same time as the aforementioned friend, and she's in Auberdine, but has been sadly neglected due to his absence.
Next post... probably more on professions :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment