el <Nat Pagle's Love Child>, 1 year ago:What's the most important reason you fish in WoW?
I think the most common answers are:
But there are other reasons too. Everything from mini-pet collecting to avoiding raid burnout.
This will probably become a formal front-page poll shortly, but first I'd like to hear some personal views.
I started playing on the 2nd week of release.
Back then there was very little love for fishing and for a very long time I was probably the only person I knew with 300+ fishing skill.
After my daughter was born, I couldn't commit time to raid and fishing was something I could do solo while chatting with friends and still be able to walk away from the computer at a moments notice. I spent alot of time fishing back then catching stonescale in the bay of Storms and cleaning up in the AH.
Well, to make a long story short, I enjoy being good at it.
It's probably the one aspect of the game I have completely mastered.
I'm just a competent tank, I suck at PvP, but I AM Teh Master Fisherman.
For me, it's primarily to get rare or unusual items that not many people have, like Magical Crawdad or all the new white items from the daily (for my bank alts, of course). I don't care much about the gold, as I have more effective means of making money. The consumables are nice, I'll definitely go out of my way for Skullfish. But I think the main reason is just that fishing is this neat little corner of the game that doesn't require the help of others and which not many people choose to pursue.
Yohaun <Angler>, 1 year ago:I first got into it because I'm the definition of the casual gamer, and I liked being able to do something useful while still chatting away with my friends. Then it became an addiction because as my skill got higher I noticed I could make more and more good money with it, and there was something about it I found relaxing and fun (even though calling it "fun" got me laughed at by some of my more "hardcore" gaming friends of course heh).
Then right before BC came out, I started working nights at the Helpdesk job I had at the time, and there was almost no work to do on the night shift....and I had just got a laptop that could run WoW.....
I challenged myself to be the first person to 375 on Eldre'Thalas. As far as I know, seeing how it only took me like 5 days (yeah I didn't try *too* hard), I did it. Of course when I posted this on my realm's official forum nobody said anything, and most of my friends were like "OMG the first thing you're doing is leveling up your FISHING?!?!" But they ate their words when I told them about how quickly I could make Primal Water, the beauty of the Goldenscale Vendorfish, and 60+ gold/hour from "just fishing". hehehe
So to sum up my reasons:
1. Social
2. Relaxing, fun
3. Ez-profit
4. Bragging rights
MOST IMPORTANT:
Hmmmmm.....the "Relaxing Fun" part (yes, no comma)
=)
Pipre <Deadly Salty>, 1 year ago:I picked fishing because at the time I was spending a lot of time watching movies and realized I could be doing something like fishing in-game to at least get SOME money while sitting on my duff.
Well, I fell in love, created my own WoW fishing related website (that hasn't been updated in a long time) and the rest is history. It was really fun to be well known on my server, there were two of us (Meadows was the other) who were totally addicted to fishing. Both winning the tourney twice in the first two months it came out.
Those were heady days spent in Azshara, usually the only two people there, standing near each other chatting back and forth about the largest fish we'd ever caught. I kinda miss them.
Fishing isn't such an elitist sport anymore, more gold to be made, but in a way I yearn for the Pre-BC days before pool fishing was worth it, and Stonescale Eels were king on the AH.
Calabar <Angler>, 1 year ago:I started playing WoW the day it hit the shelves. I’d been reading the beta boards and playing in the open betas just waiting for my chance to really play the game. I dabbled at fishing in those early days. I still remember trying to learn to fish in Darnassus and getting frustrated at all the fish getting away. I thought it was my fault, that I wasn’t clicking on the bobber fast enough. *smiles*
Then I started playing my first hunter. My pet ate fish and since I hate buying anything in game I can get for myself I started fishing more seriously. I think what really hooked me was back then, before the big fishing nerf, we could pull up all kinds of stuff just from casting in average water, including magic items. I loved it. I never knew from one cast to the next exactly what I was going to pull up.
Fishing took a lot of big whacks from the nerf bat after that. Fish went from selling for silvers to selling for coppers. Other than fish, nothing more than the occasional health or manna pot was fished up. So most people seemed to give up on fishing. But I still enjoyed it. It had lost much of its excitement, but the basic fishing mechanics themselves had grown on me.
While I have a lot of time to play I am more or less alone in WoW. I’ve been in six guilds and they have all fallen apart for one reason or another. I’m tired trying at this point. So I don’t raid. I don’t do instances. I don’t even get to do normal quests if they can’t be soloed. But fishing, that’s something I can do. And with all the changes Blizzard has made to it, fishing is even more fun now than it was back in the first weeks of the game.
Fishing has many great qualities: it's easy to chat to guildies, it's a huge help when levelling cooking, the new rewards from the daily quests are fantastic... but from the early days of Mulgore I've just used it as a way to relax. The rest is just a bonus.
Other than the massive gold through cooking fish, it's a "low pressure" activity to do in WoW.
I can fish as much or as little as I feel like it and it has no bearing on anyone else (progression/arena ratings/etc etc). It is a completely independent activity and therefore relaxing.
The vanity pets and rare fishable items are a refreshing part of the game. These items provide something else to work toward other than the gear/items most people get through raids or PvP.
Plus, I <3 flavor items.
I just caught Old Ironjaw 5 minutes ago on my alt Cinnamon. She now proudly wields a Rockhide Strongfish and Old Ironjaw. :D She also skilled up to fishing 319 just from fishing for Old Ironjaw!
Oberweiss <Moderator>, 1 year ago:As soon as I hit 60, which seems like forever ago now, I was a raiding resto druid. Raiding was fun, and the people were great. The only problem was I couldn't do anything else.
I hated the idea of respecing every day or two so that I could farm the things I needed to keep raiding (namely, pots and gold). This was before healing gear had some damage on it, and before Feral/Balance were acceptable DPS, even when they were the base of your talent spec.
So, I started fishing. It was the one thing I could do by myself that even possibly could make money. According to fishing buddy, I'd fished thousands of Darkclaw Lobster before giving Azshara a rest. This was back when the cast time was 30 sec, and you didn't always catch a fish. I was also lucky enough to have caught a 103 Pound Mightfish, which I think is exceptionally rare these days.
I realized that I could finally "win" something at WoW. I could have the best possible fishing gear in the game, which was all attainable solo as a restoration druid. So I went after the fishing contest, and didn't stop until I had everything.
I was known as the fisherwoman in my guild. I brought fish to pass out to every major boss fight (which was, at the time, primarily Ragnaros). I had installed an addon simply for the purpose of splitting stacks of fish into pairs and trading them based on what class opened a trade window.
I wrote up a guide to fishing, and particularly winning the fishing contest, since I was frequently asked questions and advice. So, when the expansion beta rolled around, I submitted the fishing contest guide to some website and won a beta key. It was then that I found El's site, which had more patch 2.0 fishing information than I could have ever compiled on my own.
Sorry... this is getting pretty "TLDR." I'll sum up by saying, I started fishing because it was the one thing I could do alone, being resto spec'd. I kept fishing because it was relaxing/fun, able to be "won," and it's good money.
I've been playing WoW for over two years and started fishing from the get-go. My 26 year old son, who introduced me to the game, tried to discourage me from choosing fishing as a skill, but I persevered, thinking that, as a priest, I could probably do it without having to have someone help fend off monsters. And besides, I like fishing in real life and WoW's version is surprisingly similar... relaxing, quiet and full of surprises! I've been hooked ever since. I made enough money to buy my flying mount - long before anyone else in my guild - from gold I made from my catches. And even now, it is still my primary source for earning gold. I sell spicy crawdads and golden fishsticks on the AH several times a week (and give quite a few to fellow guildies), as well as motes of water (and primals) that I catch from the pure water pools in Nagrand. While I get annoyed at catching scrollcases when what I really want are golden darters, I still love the fun of the sport and, like many of your other posters, love that I am really good at it. Booty Bay was pretty much my home for a year, back in the days when its auction house was linked to horde (who loved and paid well for my firefin snappers, stonescale eels and everything else I caught there, even more than alliance buyers!)
I am still the go-to person for all things fishing in my guild and I love that role. I love flaunting my Magical Crawdad and now my baby Muckbreath, and look forward to finding the new fishing hat in my little green bag. The new daily quests have added a whole new dimension to the sport and I can't wait to log every morning to do my quests. It's like Christmas every day and already I've gotten some great rewards, including 2 shadow pearls (42 gold each), nearly all the trinkets, Muckbreath and the Truesilver line. This morning, when completing my Bait quest, I got 7 gold 39 silver, an ancient coin and two walking on water buffs. When I went to vendor the ancient coin, I got 25 gold!!! For about eight minutes of work, who says you can't make money fishing???
Kalarnis <Angler>, 1 year ago:I've been playing Wow for almost 5 months now and thoroughly enjoy fishing in game. When I was at the lower levels, I enjoyed sneaking into areas that I really shouldn't have been in and casting a line or two! I fish in RL and have found that fishing in game is almost as relaxing. I'll grab a cold drink, turn on some background music, and settle in for some serious fishing for an hour or so. I have used the skill to acquire gold as well. Deviate fish from WC, Skull fish and Lightning Eels from DWP, and Darkclaw Lobster/Large Raw Mightfish from Azshara have made me a good amount of coin. I'm a NE Druid and just hit level 68, which means I was able to gain flight form. I've just started exploring the areas that I wasn't able to reach before, so exploration and being somewhere new is also an aspect of fishing that I enjoy. I think that I enjoy fishing more than any other aspect of the game!
Other mom's that fish and that have sons that are older than mine! Wow!
I fish because I like to fish in RL and I never get to go. I fish because you never know what's going to be pulled up. I just plain ol like it. I wish there was an emote like /wack fish where you could wack someone in the head with one huge off-hand fish.
Simply put, I love to fish.
I also enjoy giving away buff-food to party members. It really gets you in the good books.
Fishing is fun.
*nods*
When I first found out about cooking, (yes cooking... bear with me =P) it was this mystical thing that only one person I knew could do. Over time I left the RP guild that lady was in and hooked up with a raiding one. Suddenly I found myself buying ridiculously expensive fishsticks off the AH (as I would happen to be a holy priestess) and caught myself wondering if there wasn't a better way about it. Soon I discovered that the quickest way to level cooking was to pair it with leveling fishing, and that I did. At first the joys of fishing were lost on me as BC had already come out and being a high level in Azeroth meant much quest help spamming from random lowbies. Once I hit Outlands however, the excitement gripped me. All of a sudden the fish I was cooking had buffs attached and very very delicious ones at that. There weren't many cooks alliance-side on my server so I had a skill (besides healing) that was in demand. It felt wonderful to say "sure I can cook that for you", or beg some meat off a friend only to cook it up and return it as something much more useful. I even found that people are thrilled to receive "baskets" of meats and fish for christmas and birthdays. So now I fish to spread a little joy around and cut down on the cost of an already expensive decision... PvE >.<
Fishing is:
1-something I can do on my own, as a resto druid. I don't need 24 other people to take me fishing, I don't have to roll or spend DKP on my fish, I don't have to ask for help.
2-something I can say "No, sorry, I'm kinda busy" when I WANT to do something on my own lol
3-mindlessly relaxing, and fantastic escapism. It's kinda like playing a puzzle game (tetris) for hours. Something fun that doesn't require a high level of skill (just time and perseverance).
4-It was THE best way to level cooking. Since most fish recipes only require the fish and a fire, I didn't have to go buy spices every time I cooked.
5-fishing provides some of the best raid buffs in the game, scrolls, awesome stuff from trunks at lower levels, rum!, and the Magical Crawdad pet.
6-Like fishing in real life, sometimes it's just more fun to take part in the slower things in life. I don't NEED to fish. I do it because I enjoy it.
(Why wouldn't everyone learn to fish? I've never understood that. It's a secondary skill, therefore, you aren't choosing fishing OVER anything else, and it complements cooking and first aid-I've gotten TONS of cloth from fishing. Plus I bought my 1st mount off the gold I earned from greens in STV wreckage.)
Hmm, good question. I fish because I find it enjoyable, in an odd little way.
I do make some good money off it - largely selling spicy crawdad and the like - but to me, that just helps justify doing it (in place of some other grind).
When I started fishing, the attraction was twofold: It was a great companion for cooking, and cooking/fishing were a skill set that was largely neglected by my regular fiends in the game. Therefore, it was an interesting area to get a little edge that I could contribute to the group.
Nowadays, I'd have to say the largest pull for me is the pursuit of vanity pets. I've been trying for quite some time to get a Magical Crawdad pet. Three Mr. Pinchys have broken my heart… but the next one is sure to be the right one! :-P
Also, still trying to get a croc pet.
I think Nat Pagle said it best: "If you ask me, the best part about fishing is its slow pace. It gives one time to think, to reflect on past events and to plan for future ones. Oh, and it's also a great excuse to drink. Heavily." ;)
The 'most important' reason? Heh, it changes daily.
Sometimes I need fish for recipes; sometimes I need some quick cash; sometimes I need to 'decompress' from grinding; sometimes I want to do the STV Extravaganza.
That's one reason I love it; many options, many reasons, kind of like a microcosm of WoW itself.
There are 3 Reasons why i´m going out to fish.
1. Food / Stuff / Pure Water
2. To be part of a small Group of Master Angler
3. To win the contest and to get my own Mr. Pinchy
(The Pole is one of the rarest items in WoW .. max. 52 time´s a year !? :) )
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