My early days in World of Warcraft were bogged down by real-life requirements. I was in college, busting my hump attempting to obtain two degrees at the same time. I managed to keep my priorities straight, graduating on schedule without losing much sanity (just tons of sleep). Video games, mainly WoW and Day of Defeat, were tools, not entertainment. I used them as designed, as avenues of escape from the stresses of the meatspace.
In WoW, I struggled to level as fast as my peers, obtaining most of my XP during binges between projects, assignments and tests. Solidsam (one ‘m’ back then) struggled to remain on the cusp of the gear curve during the early vanilla raids. Hardcore as All That Remains (not the band) was, my avatar was consistently on the chopping or sitting block due to number other highly-geared rogues in the guild. Realizing my predicament, I did something radical, I strove to differentiate Solidsam, to make him needed, wanted, even required, beyond my sparkling personality. I strove to become the de facto supplier of raid consumables from the cooking and fishing secondary professions.
The hours spent farming to cap, a task I took on before Solidsam reached his personal goal, thank god, sessions spent acquiring high-level materials and seconds it took for it all to disappear saved my early raiding career. All too often it was just a smidgen of extra stamina for Ragnaros (and Vaelastrasz) that was required. It didn’t matter that I could only raid a handful of days – back when the guild raided seven days a week – the constant supply of tasty buffs guaranteed Solidsam’s spot.
I continue to flex my culinary muscles and lightly hold my fishing line for a nibble to this day as a homage to the “pointless” professions that kept my early raiding career alive (even made a guide). Now, like so much of WoW, it’s become increasingly easier, but that’s okay. I still bring the buffs to each raid and even dungeons now. Patch 4.1’s additional quests should save my inner Gordon Ramsey countless hours.
If you head over to MMO-Champion, you’ll see the full run down of the quests, including the associated tasks. There are a total of 40 new quests, 20 for each discussed secondary profession, 10 for each faction. Blizzard saw the need for global distribution of these particular talents. Soon, no matter where you call home, even Darnassucks, you can fire up the cooking flames or drop a line for profession skill points and consumables. You can even have your fill of daily quests out of secondary profession quests alone.