3.3 Saturday Kalu’ak Derby
In the latest test version of patch 3.3, the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby starts at 14:00 every Saturday, instead of Wednesdays.
In the latest test version of patch 3.3, the Kalu’ak Fishing Derby starts at 14:00 every Saturday, instead of Wednesdays.
Tithegha, 4 November 2009:
*cry*
With joy or sadness?
Intriguing that nobody else seems to have noticed, given the noisy reactions to the “Wednesday” element of the original contest. It’s as if Azeroth is defined by news, not what actually is.
Lou Buitton, 4 November 2009:
stupidstupidstupid.
antifiset, 4 November 2009:
I don’t really care about the time of the contest as long as it is accessible. Putting it in the middle of the day like this is probably better for people playing in a different time zone then their server.
However, I’m not sure about the contest itself. What will be the probability to catch the shark? How many fish can you extract from pools in one hour? 200? probably less. If the probabilities are around 1/200 and a lot of people participate in the contest, there is a high probability that at least one person will get it on the first or second catch. This means it will only be pure luck plus the loading speed of your computer to win. If the probability to catch the sharkis lower than that, it will be as difficult as getting the dark Herring that some veteran anglers are still waiting. Once again it will be pure luck.
There is no fishing strategy implied at all. Not even trying to find a pool which is not currently used. Maybe they are balancing it a little by giving prizes to people who are not first to fisnish.
I think they should try to balance luck and skills a little bit more. For example they might ask people to fish 10 quest items with a better probability. That would be somewhere between the StrangleThorn contest which require some skill and pure luck.
this was my opinion …
DarkMime64, 5 November 2009:
That’s not cool.
I was pleased they picked Wednesday evenings as it was a nice contrast to the already existing one on a Sunday.
I know many people who couldn’t make the weekend events, so were pleased about the new time.
More than that, though, it spaced out the events nicely, there was a nice pace to it. 3 days, 4 days, 3 days, 4 days.. Not too bad. Now it’s 1 day, 6 days, 1 day, 6 days..
I had hope Blizzard wouldn’t cave in to the hardcore raider whining. After all, they’ve got a new dungeon to explore and can come back to this when they’re done! It’s not going anywhere. Meanwhile, people like myself who don’t raid would have something extra to do.
Ah well.
bombcar, 5 November 2009:
Hmmm. Not sure what I think about this.
I mean, I want that ring. I want those boots.
But I don’t want to make it harder for others.
Cornellian, 5 November 2009:
Ugh. I’m actually rather disappointed with this. I want it moved back to Wednesdays- they might as well make this one at the same time as the STV fishing tournament if they’re going to put it on the weekend in the middle of the day.
Pomegranate, 6 November 2009:
I’m a bit bummed about the time change. Although, it has nothing to do with raiders or anything of that sort. I just liked having one during the week and the other on the weekend. It was nice having them spaced out like that. But, oh well.
My main concern is still the turn-in method and where the NPC is located. Any news on that, by chance?
I’d love so much for there to just be a continent-wide announcement made, the first time the blacktip shark was looted by someone, therefore making them the winner. That way, it wasn’t about who gets to turn it in first and has the least lag, but who actually catches the darn thing first. :(
Or, I still think it would be a great idea to simply have the NPC in Dalaran give each contestant a quest item, at any time before or during the derby, that when used summoned the NPC to their location, so they could turn in their loot, asap. No hearthing, no lag, no risk of an NPC pileup, and no hassle.
The item could have the tooltip “Requires the Kalu’ak Derby” and disappear from your inventory as soon as the hour long event ended. It would make the whole turn-in process so much more smooth and simple.
Pomegranate – The event has only run once on the PTR so far, and could not be completed. The NPC was located next to the Eventide Fountain in Dalaran. Data mining suggests the turn-in method is the same as the Booty Bay contest – a quest that you both start and finish when you have won. But everything may change this weekend…
Pomegranate, 7 November 2009:
El – Thanks so much for the info! I really appreciate you letting us know. Because, that’s honestly the one thing I’m really concerned about, involving the Derby.
I don’t know about others, but for me, it takes Marcia anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to spawn, when I run up to the fountain, after hearthing to Dalaran. So, I can only imagine that the Derby NPC will take equally as long. Plus, by putting an NPC like that in Dalaran, there is just bound to be a pile-up on top of him/her. It’s just sort of inevitable. And, while using a target command would work, it’s just something that would get old quickly.
Although, I know that it’s in no way Blizz’s fault that some of us have older computers or need upgrades, I really hope that they’ll take into mind the amount of lag that so many players, even those with decent computers, may have in Dalaran. Especially, on the weekend, now that the time has been changed.
I hope that they’ll entertain other options for winner confirmation, turn-in methods, and/or NPC location. Simply making a continent wide announcement, the second the first blacktip shark is looted seems like it could work. And, making that how a winner was confirmed. Or, giving us some sort of quest item that summoned the NPC to our location when used, for our turn-in, seems like it could be a neat way to go about the whole thing, that would make the process much smoother for anyone and everyone.
But, I’m just not sure if that’s a route the designers would like to go. I’m sure if they don’t, that they have good reasons. I just hope that by the time the Derby is live, it’ll be something that even those with lag will really be able to fully enjoy.
Thanks again, El! <3
Gottalot, 7 November 2009:
About the day change I’ll guess we still have to wait and see. Maybe Blizz put it on saturdays on the PTR
for test/bugg reasons since wednesdays is a “raiding night”. Im just speculating here. About the quest turn-in
at the Dalaran Fountain I share the sme worries as poster above.
And another thing. Do you have to pick up a quest in order to fish the shark and catch it?
Finally, big-up to El and to you guys here at this forum participating on the PTR and share the info with us here!
Cheers!
Gottalot –
In Europe, the only thing that 14:00 PST (California time) or 20:00 PST conflict with is sleep… If they were adjusting the time to aid testing, the event could be run much more frequently – maybe every 3 or 4 hours, rather than once per week. Perhaps Blizzard view the Derby like raid testing – they don’t want players to gain too much experience before the live patch?
The last time the event was tested, there was no quest to be picked up in advance. However there was no quest to win the event either. So I can’t be sure yet.
Psychodad, 10 November 2009:
IMO, Saturday afternoon is a lousy idea.
You see, there’s this interesting thing called…THE OUTDOORS! On the weekend, if it isn’t raining, I like to leave my house and…brace yourself…go outdoors. Now, there are those WoW players that have no concept of this phenomena, but it really is an amazing thing! Maybe I’ll go work in the yard, take a swim in the pool, take my daughter to the park, whatever; but what I won’t be doing is sitting in from of my PC fishing.
Mid-week evening is perfect. It’s a major shift from the BB tourney (weekend/weekday – afternoon/evening). Aw, the poor hardcore raiders won’t be able to get a fishing achievement because they’re too busy in Icecrown? /cry
I’m sure they’ll be devastated that I have a +24 stam ring while they’re running around with Shadowmourne… /roll eyes
warthog2k, 10 November 2009:
I have to agree with Cornellian – middle of the day on a weekend is same whether it’s Sat or Sun.
Having the Wednesday slot as an alternative to the Sun slot made sense in that people are bound to be able to make one of them.
I can rarely raid before 8pm any night of the week. Daytime is just out completely. I’m hoping it truly is on a Wednesday evening as I’ve never been able to give the STV one a go.
Troo, 11 November 2009:
Grrrrrrr. Being one of those who cannot do Sunday because of work, I will now be one of those who cannot do Saturday because of work as well. Wednesday was like a dream, I was finally gonna get a chance at Salty.
Dear Blizzard, please don’t put it on Saturday, and move the darn turn-in NPC.
If they are doing this to please the raiders, shame on them. Raiders have a choice. They can raid or they can fish, but they will be in game to make this choice. People who work on weekends can also make a choice, but they’ll be at work so it won’t matter what their choice is.
Even an event that changes day/time each week but is announced before the week starts would be amazing. Then the people that are stuck every week because of obligations would have a chance sometime.
I hope to the fishing gods that the time they have it at atm is only due to testing and not how it’s gonna be.
A couple of thoughts:
1) The turn-in method does seem unfair in terms of horde v. alliance, and older v. newer computers. Plus, it looks like large mounts could block the questgiver.
I think it would be much better if the shark item had a “use”, and you use it to claim the first catch (which gives you the usual ‘quest complete’ status in your log), and you turn in the quest later, just like any other quest.
2) If El’s theory of catching the shark only after X catches, there are a couple of ways to try and test this, depending on what is being tracked…
If it’s just X catches of anything, fishing in open water would be as good, if not slightly better, than fishing a pool. You don’t “use up” pools at the start (if you’re the only one by a pool).
However, given the specific fishing changes announced, it seems much more likely that such a method would be X possible wins before you get a “real” win. I’m basing this on the otherwise-odd change that pools will no longer give a player junk, even with a fishing skill of 1. That change in conjunction with the new fishing derby would suggest that it was done to make the contest fair for everyone regardless of fishing skill — but it only applies to pools. Something like a % chance of catching a shark instead of a suckerfish, but only after X suckerfish are caught.
Gned, 16 November 2009:
I am busy on weekends, especially during the day. So much for getting to do a tournament.
Gned
Alliance
Argent Dawn USA
The Horde disadvantage is about 2 seconds if using a portal (eg Kirin Tor ring). Hearthstones are more of a problem, so poor or lower-level Horde are at a bigger disadvantage. But we can argue that poor anglers have a mount-speed disadvantage anyway, and those at lower-level potentially have an aggro/PvP disadvantage. Ultimately there’s nothing to stop Horde using a special mage (Warlock) summoning party. But yes, it does seem unfair, which is a problem for a contest.
I’ve also discovered that Dalaran loads a lot faster with the video options set to Poor…
Any theory is pretty-much untestable until the contest becomes live: It’s possible (even common) to fish for a whole hour and not catch the Blacktip Shark, so a huge volume of anglers are required to gather information. (This is presumably why the runner-up prize is so minor – once the winner has been announced, nobody will want to continue fishing.)
All observations so far are that:
Of course, if that is happening, why shouldn’t there be other factors? For example, scaling probability by fishing skill? I have 3 fairly fast (50-60 casts) Shark catches at 450 fishing skill, but last weekend’s attempt to run the contest with 75 skill gained no Shark in about 150 successful casts. Which is just enough information to spawn all kinds of conspiracy theories, while proving nothing!
I suspect we’ll never know for sure. In practice, the winner will happen after about 10 minutes, and skill 1 anglers are at a huge disadvantage anyway, because they spend the whole contest mastering the art of pool fishing.
Added: I picked skill as a silly example, but it might not be that silly. The internal game-data for all the fishing skill spells change in patch 3.3. Visually nothing changed, but technically, who knows? Remember that spell buffs can be used to alter the catch rate (Gold Coins in the Eventide Fountain), and all the fishing skills are really just permanent buffs. This would be exceptionally cunning, because nobody can ever prove anything. But maybe, just maybe, it might be worth wearing all that fishing gear…
Shalura, 16 November 2009:
So what is the current state of the contest? You just start fishing at the start time? No zone emotes or anything? Is there a zone emote when there is a winner? Might be worthwhile switching to a super low video setting just for this contest, and saving the nitro boosters for the turn-in. :)
I think I’d be using my Kirin Tor ring for this instead of switching my hearth from Cantrips & Crows to the alliance inn. There are usually a lot more PCs and NPCs inside the inn, than in the portal room. Loading time might trump the couple yards of extra distance.
Terra, 17 November 2009:
I’m sad at this change, I’m hoping the fact a blue announced it as Wednesday for when 3.3 hits means that it’ll stay Weds when it hits live. 2pm Saturday is the same as 2pm Sunday for me, and I’d wager most people who haven’t been able to attend the STV tournament. One on a weekend early afternoon and one on a weekday evening seemed to cover the day and time variables quite well so the chances of someone being able to do at least one of the contests was good.
If this goes live, Salty will most likely stay unattainable for me, so no change I guess.
Shalura -
You just start at the start time, but there are plenty of yells across Northrend (5 minutes before, at the start, at the winner, at the end).
Personally, switching from Very Good to Poor graphics halved the time spent getting back to Dalaran..
Shalura, 18 November 2009:
OK, that’s good. I installed the PTR and copied over my lvl 80 Salty hunter with max fishing and every +fishing item/enchant, and my lvl 80 paladin with ~100 fishing and a strong iron pole. I’ll try to remember to log on and check it out this weekend. :)
As for the day/time, either one works for me personally, but overall I would think that a lot of people who can’t make it Sunday afternoons are going to have the same problems Saturday afternoon. A weeknight evening would give it more diversity.
Kassi, 19 November 2009:
I hope it stays on Saturday, but that’s because being Australian I can’t make either Sunday or Wednesday US time. Saturday I could actually go :)
Shalura, 21 November 2009:
Well, that was a bust. I don’t think Frozen Sea is part of the contest. I was out there and I didn’t see any of the announcements. I fished out of pools for 25 minutes with 450+160, and didn’t catch a shark. I moved to Borean Tundra, and I kept getting bobber dips with no catch, or just a suckerfish and nothing else. So 45 minutes and no shark. I went back to Dalaran, and I was able to do loot the quest items for the cooking daily, so I wasn’t in a raid group or anything.
Don, 27 November 2009:
Saturday afternoons? :( since I work both Saturday & Sunday – I wonder what the fishing extras even look like ….
Alfrun, 29 November 2009:
I am extremely pleased of the midweek time. I finally can have a shot at the salty title, as I work weekends.
Mcbull, 6 December 2009:
Don´t know if this advice already has been given, but in case of many mounts blocking the questgiver, just press shift + v so you can see and rightclick the nameplate of him to delive the shark anyway ;)
Slax - Garrosh, 13 December 2009:
I won the Kalu’ak derby today being the server first :D and was able to catch the shark in on the first cast of my 4th pool. I took only the pygmy fish from the loot and used a sharpened hook and elixir of water walking for those of you superstitious type :D Caught south of Unu’pe within 5 minutes of the start of the tournament. Good luck all!