PTR Faffage:: Gawn Fishing

 

In amongst all the PTR Gubbins (more on the PvP aspect as it becomes available) is a change to the daily fishing quests: instead of having to fly all the way to the Frozen Sea to find a Monsterbelly, our Severed Arm can now be found inside a Slippery Eel, who's natural habitat is outside the Violet Hold. Although I appreciate the reasoning behind the change to this quest, I'm not really overjoyed at having more people, and therefore more lag in Dalaran.

You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief on my high-population server last night when the Lag is in the Air event items despawned. Friday and Saturday had been atrocious: it took me 45 minutes to log in Friday night, punctuated by multiple kicks from the server. It took 10 minutes to zone anywhere. I appreciate that the changes they made to the Festival with the creation of tokens meant that people weren't having to rely on the RNG to complete their achievements. On the downside, it made normal play totally impossible. I also realise my server (being one of the oldest in game and as a result one of the most highly-populated) is at something of a disadvantage, and add to that about a dozen of the most competitive raiding guilds in the Battlegroup all attempting to knock off Arthas and unlock their Hard Modes... it was never going to be pretty. Wandering around the PTR Dalaran was fabulous, and made me realise just how much noise this one place generates.

I think it's a smart move on Blizzard's part not to include a Sanctuary Town in Cataclysm, and instead to encourage people to make their bases in Azeroth's capitals. I'm hoping as a result we will see Portal Rooms in these cities as is the case with Shatt and Dalaran, I'm also hoping that the Dev's can come up with a way of making the Exodar and Darnassus attractive as alternative points to set your HS for the Alliance, instead of joke places to send people when your Mage pops a Portal. The more ways they find to spread the population, the easier it's going to be for those of us who have to factor lag into our equations...