The Queue: Let’s fish (or why I am stuck in fishing purgatory)

I am not usually a person who fishes in video games, but I am going to get these Draconic Recipes in Bottles. I am determined. I am going to keep fishing until I get every recipe I could possibly want, and then fish a little more to be sure I haven’t missed anything good.

Anyway, let’s take a break from fish in order to do some Queue.

I’ve seen a surprising number of them in recent weeks, but not in the mail — in the in-game calendar. I’ve gotten a number of in-game event invites for Vault of the Incarnates raids with a link to a site selling boosts and carries for real cash. It was a rather optimistic service, which offered to sell Mythic Raszageth carries while the race to world first was still in progress. Yeah, that doesn’t seem likely.

It’s a peculiar tactic I’ve never seen before, but gold sellers will will take advantage of every little opportunity. If there’s a crack they can slip through, they’ll do it… and if there’s any time Blizzard isn’t watching closely, they’ll take advantage of it.

I don’t know why they’re coming out of the woodwork right now, but I wonder if it’s because of the holidays. Lots of Blizzard staff are on vacation or otherwise out for the holidays, and maybe there just aren’t as many people watching and responding to these issues as normal. No office seems to operate at full speed over the last couple of weeks of December.

If that’s the case, I’d expect these gold sellers to start fading out again soon.

I would argue that the lizard shamans are a notable threat. They were bad enough that (possibly) Neltharian created the Dracthyr to fight them, and when he lost controlled of the Dracthyr he called on the Old Gods to help him. And as we level through Waking Shores, we see Raszageth knock Alexstraza out of the sky like it’s nothing. And we know Raszageth was the least powerful of the Primal Incarnates. It took all of the dragon aspects at full power — plus a little help from the Old Gods — to defeat them the first time. Now we have three depowered aspects, and the Blue and Black flights are practically nonexistent.

So I do think we have a pretty significant threat here… but the expansion isn’t hyperfocused on it. There’s a lot of other stuff going on… and a lot of it is much less urgent than our world-ending expansions. We’re exploring, re-discovering the Dragon Isles, learning about the history of the Dragonflights and Tyr, solving problems for the locals, rescuing ducks, making soup,  and occasionally fighting off some lizard shaman. Just another day in the Dragon Isles.

The threat isn’t in our face all the time. There’s time to visit the spa, take cooking classes from Rumistrasza, and help repair stuffed animals. That kind of feels like a vacation from the non-stop life-or-death drama of a typical expansion, but I think it’s less that there isn’t a life-or-death threat and more that we’re focusing on all of the other things happening outside of the life-or-death threats.

Whatever the reason, I dig it.

I spend a lot of time in the Azure Span for gathering — probably because it has a lot of great fishing spots (including ice fishing). I inevitably wind up flying around in big circles stopping to fish when I see a fishing hole and stopping to to grab ore or herbs when I see them. It feels like it’s a pretty decent area for ore, a very good place for fish, and maybe a somewhat lesser place for herbs.

But I actually suspect Ohn’ahran Plains may be better overall, because most of the area is flat. Azure Span is basically on a big slope, so if you’re making the route west, it’s almost all downhill and there’s nowhere you’ll get stuck on the ground without Vigor. But if you’re going east, it’s mostly uphill, occasionally steeply, and you can wind up in places where you’re stuck waiting for Vigor to recharge before you can keep going. But Ohn’ahran is flat. It’s very easy to zip back and forth without issue. I feel like it’s a little worse for ore, and much worse for fish, but better for herbs. But the speed of zipping around might make up for it (except for the fish).

Waking Shores and Thaldraszus are straight up bad. There’s plenty of stuff to gather, but the zones are so up and down, with large mountains and low valleys, you have to radically change elevations while gathering, which slows you down. (Also it’s frustrating when you go to the bottom of a mountain, gather something, but then don’t have the Vigor to get back up and to speed again, meaning you have to wait.)

Happy Diablo-versary! The Darkening of Tristram is live right now. It will take you back to the earliest days of Diablo 1 complete with 1996 graphics. It’s truly a blast from the past, and it’s available through January 31.

This is a lot of what I’m doing on my alts. Do some gathering, do some world quests, do any side quests that catch my attention, and be utterly unsystematic about it.

I’ve actually gotten my Warlock to level 68 this way. It works!

And that’s all for today, my friends. I now I return to my fishing purgatory, where I search for messages in bottles that are not there. Take care of yourselves, drink some water, pet your pets, and have a good weekend. I’ll see you again next week.