Where is your Bait and Tackle?

Now no one is better than good ol' Nat Pagle when it comes to fishing. Everyone knows that this guy knows where it's at when it comes to fishing. In fact J!NX went so far as to pay homage to the legendary angler with his own shirt! But this article isn't going to be talking about this fisherman extraordinairre, we are going to be talking about fishing and what it means to you!

I am not going to go into as much information as a good short friend of mine has done with her website. I will let you visit that site on your own at http://www.elsanglin.com/. This little gnome has it all!

But what I am going to talk about is how important this kind of stuff is for new folks or people levelling alts to focus on as they are doing the quests and gaining the XP needed to advance in levels.

El has a great page dedicated to leveling fishing from 1 - 450. Both for the Alliance and the Horde. In those two links this shows you not only how to level your fishing but also how to level your cooking as well. After all, why just fish when you can fry it up too!

Now the reason I decided to make sure all your Noobs out there are leveling your fishing and cooking as you level your toon is because poor ol' Xan here has been stuck fishing at level 80 in places like STV. (Stranglethorn Vale) This is all fine and good, but gosh darn it, I could have already been 450 in fishing and cooking and received the Skills to Pay the Bills achievement. Why, oh why, didn't someone tell ol' Xan that I would need this sort of stuff while I was levelling?

I didn't have the help or the foreknowledge to think it would be nessecary. That is why ol' Xan is giving you Noobs the chance to avoid making the same mistake he did. Remember Kilzar talking about his profession experience on a similar topic? So don't miss out. Make sure you pick up your bait and tackle and get out there and see the beautiful bodies... of water that WoW has to offer. Who knows you could even find yourself fishing up a new mount!

Cooking is Important!

Hey there! Your friendly neighborhood hunter, Kilzar here with a little tip for you.

I was reminiscing about when I first started playing the game. I sniggered about all the things I used to mess up on. One of the things I ignored most was cooking. Being able to cook any meat that you find has great rewards especially for hunters!

Food is more important than bandages (in my opinion) for healing. You get a good amount of health back, in addition there isn't a cool down on food like there is on bandages. Another huge plus to cooking is that some of your cooked food will give you a plus to some of your stats for a period of time. Who doesn't want all the advantages you can get?

Once you get higher in cooking you will be able to make feasts for your entire party. Trust me, they will love you. In addition to that, if you are a hunter you really need to cook your own meat for your pets, that way you will only have to buy fruits for certain pets.

And for you achievement players, there are a lot of cooking achievements that you can get and they are not to difficult to get if you do the cooking while you are leveling. You can get the title of "Chef" if you complete certain achievements.

I passed on fishing and cooking while I was leveling. I passed all the food to Xan's alt Nkaala while we ran around in vanilla WoW. BIG MISTAKE! So take it from me, cook early and cook often.

What to do when you feel overwhelmed... (Part 2)

In part two we will talk a little more about what I find to be the best thing to do when your WoW time is at a premium because you only get to dedicate an hour or so a day except on weekends. In my case even an hour a day during the week can be tough.

So what do you do when you only have an hour to play WoW? What do you do when you have so many things you want to accomplish but don't have the time to hit it all?

I have a couple other suggestions once you get in the ballpark of the 60's through 70's and even into level 80!

1) Achievements are still important. Figure out what achievements you wish to... achieve and start running towards them. Is there a certain title you want? Is there a mount you are looking forward to receiving? I find myself grinding out rep for The Diplomat title. Currently I am two shotting ogres in Nagrand for the Kurenai. Xan already has the Ambassador of the Alliance which I feel fits my personality as well as Xan's. But to add a Diplomat title to change back and forth from would make it all the more fun.

2) DAILIES! Is there certain gear you are looking to obtain through a certain faction? Is there a pattern you want for your profession? I find myself doing the Argent Tournament/Silver Covenant, Sons of Hodir, and Kalu'ak dailies. I just finished hitting Exalted with the Oracles and so now it is a once a week shopping trip to the Basin just to get me another egg.

3) The final example of what you might be able to accomplish while your tie is at a minimum... Battlegrounds and Arenas. Although I am not a HUGE fan of PvP (Player vs Player) stuff I still go in and get my butt handed to me on a platter just so I can gain honor points for gear upgrades. If you have at least one friend within earshot or a phone call you can hook yourself up with a 2v2 team. As long as you grind out 10 arena battles a week you will be able to earn some points. I will say it is a long grind, but it can be worth it in the long run.

What to do when you feel overwhelmed...

Another blogger/podcaster put forth the question, "Has Blizzard given us too much?" As to say "Do you feel like there is too much to do in WoW now?" I thought that sounded like a pretty good topic myself, so here it is.

First of all, what is it you are working on? Do you feel like there is just too much to do? Do you feel as if you don't have any direction? You know, I felt as if I had too much to do and not a whole lot of direction while I was doing it when I first started.

I would have to say now, I feel as though I have a pretty good grasp on what is going on as far as what my Main finds himself doing... most of the time. I mean because my WoW time is at a premium now I REALLY have to look at what is important to me and what do I have time to do? The answer for me is "DAILIES!" And we will focus on that a bit more later, but lets talk about the children of WoW... the Noobs.

When you first create a toon, do you just rin around 'willy-nilly' and just do quests that you stumble onto as you travel? Do you have a plan to complete an area before moving on to another one? What is your ultimate goal in WoW? I thnk those questions should be tackled before you get out of your starting 'safe-zone.' I have a few suggestions that would make your life a little easier and more than likely give you a level a day at least until you are about 40-50.

1. Get the AddOn known as TourGuide! I would have to ay that I didn't know about this little gem until I was well on my way. in fact I only learned about it a couple months ago. My 'Alt-Main' on Perenolde FLEW through content and levels. I got a level a day on my lunch hour until I hit Stranglethorn Vale.

2. Have a plan. I would suggest taking a moment to look over Achievements. The task may look daunting as you look at them all. But one you start looking you can see a pretty easy pattern forming. I find that if you just go down the list, in game, they kind of make an order from least difficult to most difficult.

3. If you are not going to do achievements, what is your priority? Are you racing to level 80 as fast as you can? Are you being social and leveling with your friends? Find out what your joys are in the game and go for those.

Now that we have some of the basics down, lets go into you more experienced players. How do you WoW? What do you do with your time? What is your ultimate goal?

I will leave that topic for another time. Please, if you are reading this, give me feedback. Answer the question I posted above... How do you WoW? What do you do with your time? What is your ultimate goal?