Episode 15 Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast - Noodle Carts!

Fishing Boats in Zante

In a show full of giggles (from me) & corny jokes (from Marcus) we tried to cover the secondary professions this week. We talked about our week in WoW and some of the problems we've been having - Marcus finally found his Albatross but is still chasing his Noodle Cart and I can't use a glider to save my life! 

News from the Front is all about Connected Realms and Marcus got all techie, a bit of Blizzcon and the London Meet-up. Next we dived into cooking, fishing and archaeology - the whys and hows of making gold with secondary professions is one of the lesser talked about methods and we completely skipped First Aid. 

Marcus sidelined me a bit with his Alchemy section and then went all Alcheologist on me too! But I got my own back when I remembered the Pilgrims Festival right at the last minute and made him late for his lunch date with his wife! Oops!

We had great fun recording & I hope you enjoy listening too. If you have anything you'd like us to talk about or you want to add something, feel free to contact either of us, email & twitter details are below. We'd love to hear from you and of course, if you like us enough, we'd love some iTunes reviews or Stitcher thumbs ups too!

As always - you can find us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or you can listen via the website if you prefer.

Show Notes

• Noodles, Noodles!
• Our week in WoW - troubles with transport!
• News from the front - Connected Realms, Blizzcon & the London Meet-up
• The Endless Grind of the Timeless Isle
• Why level the secondary professions?
• Making Gold From Cooking and Fishing
• Archeology love it or hate it
• Markets of the week.

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• Contact Marcus Ty on Twitter @MarcusTy
• Contact Nev on Twitter @NevAHaddict
• Marcus's Blog WoW Gold Journal
• Nev’s Milestone Interviews
• Nev’s Iron Paw Shuffle
• London Meet-up
• Email Marcus at JournalofMarcusTy.com

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Fishing for Gold - Laid Back Mode

Gone Fishing  - Laid Back Style

I've spent most of the last week doing my Order of the Cloud Serpent dailies & Onyx Egg hunting - I really wanted those Cloud Serpents so my gold making activities have once again taken a back seat. One of the quests over there though, requires Golden Carp & another requires Sugar Minnows - both from Fishing. As I hadn't leveled my Fishing to 600 yet, I decided to bite the bullet & get it over with! As I wasn't too worried about gold & fishing in Pools for the 'right' fish, I just plonked myself down at the edge of the circular stream right there in the Arboretum & proceeded to spend an hour or so, just fishing & listening to some music.

Fishing Area at The Arboretum, Jade Forest

Imagine my delight when I started fishing up Jade Lungfish & Redbelly Mandarins as well as the Golden Carp I needed! Both fish are required for the Way of the Grill cooking recipes & Jade Lungfish are also required for the Way of the Pot too so their prices have remained fairly good on the Auction House. Now I was only here for an hour or so but in that time I managed to pick up 48 Jade Lungfish, 54 Redbelly Mandarin & 168 Golden Carp. I sold most of them within 24 hours on the Auction House although I kept most of the Golden Carp for the Cloud Serpent daily & for converting to an Ironpaw Token for cooking materials later.

Golden Carp - Easy Fishing Gold 

Jade Lungfish - Easy Fishing Gold 

Redbelly Mandarin - Easy Fishing Gold

Overall, I made just over 700 gold in that hour - not a huge amount but still a nice little chunk for something I would have to have done anyway. Best of all though, it got all of my professions to 600 so I gained the 'Serious Skills to Pay the Bills' achievement too - always a good side effect of making gold!

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting this as a great way to make lots of gold - there are much better ways of course but if you find yourself over at the Arboretum doing your dailies & a friend or guildie wants to chat - you'll probably end up just standing around whilst you have your conversation. That's when I do most of my fishing to be honest! Or perhaps you like to PvP and have 5 minutes between battlegrounds where you normally just hang around - plonk yourself down & do a little fishing. Now that you don't have to equip a fishing rod, there's no risk of forgetting to swap back your weapons when the BG queue pops!

There are no hostile mobs to worry about here either & there's a mailbox over near the dailies quest hub so if you get carried away & fill your bags, you can easily send all your slinkies off to your bank alt.

Do you have a favourite fishing spot? Whether for a bit of quiet time or for gold fishing, I find it quite relaxing sometimes & the gold is always a nice bonus especially now that Mists of Pandaria has brought Cooking & Fishing into the limelight.


Image © Helen Shorey (me) available as a print in my Society6 shop

Darkmoon Faire - Fishing Junkboxes

Gone Fishing - pre-Cata, Stormwind harbour

As you may know if you've been reading a while, I haven't been playing WoW all that much since Christmas so I've only done the Darkmoon Faire stuff maybe once or twice since it all changed. Last month, I decided to go & do some of the silly game quests - I am a pet & mount collector after all & I need those available from Darkmoon Faire.

While I was swimming back from the stupid cannon shot landing circle, I had a fishing node pop on my mini map. Ever the keen fisherwoman, I equipped my Kalu'ak Fishing Pole & dropped a few casts into the Shipwreck Debris pool. Not thinking anything of it, I went back to the silly games. But something was stirring at the back of my mind - hadn't I read something somewhere about DMF fishing? Oh well, I'll look later I thought to myself.

Off I went, googling merrily (yeah right! anyone that knows me, knows that I do not think like Google does - finding anything takes me ages!) & came across a couple of blogposts by Wolfgangcat & VilesAuctions.

Vile specifically talks about it as an Embersilk farming method & my tailor needs Embersilk cloth so off I went, water walking potions in bags & spent a quiet hour or so, racing other fishermen up & down the coast of the Darkmoon Faire Island. Apart from the goodies in the boxes, there is also the chance to fish up the Sea Pony pet or even, just maybe the Sea Turtle mount. Luckily I'm an insomniac so I outlasted them into the wee small hours of the morning & ended up with the island to myself.

Here's my haul
9 x Rumsey Rum Black Label
20 x Obsidium Ore
184 x Embersilk Cloth
14 x Heavy Savage Leather
23 x Elementium Ore
5 x Heartblossom
5 x Volatile Fire
3 x Volatile Earth
4 x Azshara's Veil
4 x Stormvine
5 x Twilight Jasmine
12 x Cinderbloom
2 x Elixir of Deep Earth
45 x Darkmoon Firewater
2 x Elixir of the Cobra
4 x Potion of the Tol'Vir
2 x Mythical Healing Potion
3 x Pyrite Ore

Now I did start counting how many junkboxes I picked up but I lost track a little. My best guess after the fact was around 45 boxes. I sent the potions & elixirs to my banker for selling but the ores, volatiles & herbs all went to appropriate crafting alts. Nine stacks of Embersilk Cloth was a nice result though - my tailor made short work of that lot but I ran out of enthusiasm & didn't go back for more.

Next month, if the Embersilk market is still good, I will possibly go fish with one of my other alts & use this method to not only gather plenty of Embersilk but also to level my fishing skill. I find having those skill points clicking up are a good incentive to keep going.

Spring - Time For Fresh Starts

© Nev 2004, Spring Blossom

So, it's been a while again but I finally logged into game a few times this last week or so. The first few hours really wore me out - my eyes really had problems adjusting to the whole movement stuff after months of static websites but eventually they settled down & let me get on with trying to remember where I had left everything! I never intended to just stop playing like that, it was just the way it worked out but I lost everything in my mailboxes & I'm pretty sure I had a few big-ish items gone bye-bye but never mind, they would be out of date by now anyway! So my first few evenings back in game were taken up with emptying rubbish out of banks & bags, as well as catching up with my lovely guildies.

Just before I stopped playing, I also signed up for a US account which I played for about 2 hours & never went back! Bad timing all round except that it gave me a lapsed account when the new Scroll of Resurrection was announced so this week, thanks to Cold over at Cold's Gold Factory, I've restarted on that account. No heirlooms, no cash back up, nothing except 50 empty character slots & a few basic addons. Cold doesn't have to worry though, I'm Alliance so his Horde gold making empire is safe ... for now :P

So with a clean slate, I chose my usual human banker, levelled her to level 5 & ran to Stormwind. She had about 8silver to play with. I also started a human hunter to be my main questing alt & by the time she got to Goldshire, she had about 9 silver which I sent to my banker. So with 16 silvers, I bought 2 of the cheapest cooking recipes from the guy in SW Old Town, then ran to the florist on the canals to see if there were any herbs available. There were a few bits & pieces so I bought those up & ran to the Alchemy supplies shop in the mage Quarter, nabbed all the herbs I could there & off I went to the Auction House.

Off I went to the Auction House & started to list my haul of cheap herbs. Arrggggh, I'd forgotten the deposit/listing fee so I only managed to list the 5 auctions shown in the screenie above. Well that was a bust I thought so I logged back to my hunter & did a few more quests. You can tell I'm out of practise at this game too - look - I only listed them for 12 hrs - normally I would pop them up at 24hrs - it's the same deposit for most of them & I don't lose the deposit after just 12 hrs if they don't sell.

So I told myself to slow down & think this through - as I was running back to the alchemy supplies in the Mage Quarter, I passed the fishing trainer & a light bulb went off in my head! I quickly checked the cost of training & a fishing rod & decided to fish for vendor trash for 10 mins.

Here's my haul
8 x tangled fishing line @ 18c each
6 x tattered cloth @ 1s each
5 x weeds @ 18c each
3 x driftwood @ 18c each
1 x sickly fish @ 18c each
1 x old boot @ 18c each

So in about 10 minutes of fishing I gained a grand total of 9s 24c & 10 achievement points for catching 25 fish! Those 9 silvers let me post the rest of the herbs I'd managed to pick up and as of late this morning, I'm up to about 20gold now. More than enough to really get going again.

Not the biggest gold making revelation, I know but if I've missed this simple way to get some basic starter cash, how many others have too? I know to go get some cheap vendor items & list them but I've been gold making a while now & reading blogs & stuff for even longer. This brand new empty account is kinda reminding me of the basics so I thought I'd pop out a post so I don't forget in future & maybe help a complete newbie to make those first few silvers.

Masterchef - The Wow Goblin Edition



Boy's Buff Food - bacon sarnie

Now, if like me, you maxed your cooking (and maybe fishing) during your first toon levelling thru the new cata zones - what cooking have you done since? I get the impression that many people see cooking as something easy to max & then they sort of forget about it or they just cook the 1 or 2 buff foods that they need themselves. I include myself in this category - I make the strength, intellect & agility ones to keep my 3 lvl 85's stocked up but that was it - until about a week ago!

Long story short - we had a chance to try the LK fight as a guild for the first time & I took it on myself to provide food buffs for everyone. I thought I would just go to the AH & buy it but whoa! those prices were ridiculous! My goblin instincts kicked in & I've been watching the market ever since!

Just look at some of these prices!

Fathom Eel 1-3g each = Skewered Eel 6-8g each   (Agi)

Dragon Flank 2-4g each = Grilled Dragon 5-7g each (hit)

Blackbelly Mudfish 2-4g = Mushroom Sauce Mudfish 7-9g each (dodge)

These are the best examples for profits but for now, I don't know what the sales are like. I can talk prices all day but if they don't sell very well, that's useless info so I'm gonna get my Chef's Hat on this week & see what's really possible.

Luckily both the fathom eel & blackbelly mudfish are Uldum fish pools (eel is along the coast & mudfish along the river) and as we are attempting the guild fishing achieve & I go to Uldum most days for the transmute volatile life > air, 10 mins fishing those shouldn't be too onerous.

Of course, the easiest way to pick up the mats for these is to be levelling thru Cata but I don't have an alt ready to go there yet. I have been working on my Loremaster in dribs & drabs though so I plan on taking her back thru the remaining quests in Cata zones to get some of the mats & I'll buy a bit on the AH - let's see how much is possible, shall we?