Food Production: Fishing

Azeroth's population is so large that parallel universes (a.k.a. multiple realms) are required to sustain the inhabitants. Although digital beings don't need sustenance, most players occasionally need to eat in order to bolster their flagging health or to augment their powers with buff-food. In this first installment on Azerothian food production, I'm going to look at the seafood industry.

There's a wealth of seafood teeming in Azeroth's coastal waters, inland lakes, and rivers. I'm convinced that the weekly Stranglethorn extravaganza and the new Kalu'ak derby are sly ways of harnessing free labour from prospective champs (Salties like yours truly have put tastyfish on the table every week for years). The Tuskarr are Azeroth's master fishermen and whalers (no surprise from a race that look like recent humanoid descendants of the walrus); their fishing villages no doubt provide much of the seafood that circulates throughout the world. Their efforts are constantly set back by invaders (primarily the Kvaldir) who are bent on exterminating their way of life. The question, then, is not so much who farms seafood, as how does marine life manage to survive in such abundance despite obvious overfishing? It evidently takes tastyfish stocks a full week to recover their numbers.

In addition to the sport-fishing of the weekly competitions, raids are a drain on the ocean's contents. The fish feast is currently the best buff-food available for large groups of players, and multiple wipes can require the consumption of a staggeringly large quantity of fish feasts. The average fish feast is comprised of six fish (evenly distributed amongst three different species) and gently seasoned with a single Northern Spice; the average player may only get (at worst) 1/25th of that per sitting. So really, the fish feast is the most economical way to feed a raid, in addition to being the most beneficial.

Unfortunate species like the Deep Sea Monsterbelly are naturally abundant in certain areas, but are occasionally severely overfished thanks to Marcia Chase who sends all passersby off on a mission to indiscriminately gut every fish they can catch on the off-chance it might contain a clumsy adventurer's severed arm. The worst of it is that Monsterbellies are generally disparaged as being inedible, and will likely be either tossed overboard or sold to a vendor for mere pennies. Species like Winter Squid and Summer Bass are decimated during those months in which their seasonal migrations bring them close to shore; for the remainder of the year, they manage to escape capture. Crawdads might have it the worst, with countless players fishing their schools to extinction just for the chance at the fabled Mr Pinchy.

When their schools are not being actively depopulated by players, Azerothian fish also have to contend with pollution like oil spills and all manner of wreckage debris. Though there's no real evidence that these ecological problems negatively impact fish populations, some fishermen might find an inordinate number of sickly fish amongst their catches. Bodies of water are also full of litter like alchemical vials, lost crates of trade goods, and organic flotsam.

While players might do their own fishing and cooking to sustain themselves, a number of vendors offer various seafood menus. Their wares range from their ordinary to the gourmet; at any rate, they often provide dishes that players cannot create themselves. As well, players can pilfer prepared local seafood off of native peoples and beasts.

As with all the resources Azeroth has to offer, schools of fish spontaneously appear in response to demand. The more you fish, the more often new schools will spawn; this is why fishing the undesirable Moonglow Cuttlefish can be the best way to find Monsterbelly schools—the more Cuttlefish schools you deplete, the more likely a new school (ideally Monsterbelly) will spawn. As such, the idea of "overfishing" has little meaning; abundance is assured and constant. Moreover, hours spent farming fish won't leave telltale traces in the form of fish corpses, as farming beasts does. It's possible to throw your catch back rather than collecting it, though that's unlikely to happen unless one is only after a particular trophy fish.