ForeverDB

Blizzard explains the Camping system: shared campsites, profession-made buffs and Cooking's campfire

The Silithus map from the WoW Forever client

· ForeverDB

Blizzard has published a news post on WoW Forever's Camping system, where a Cooking campfire becomes a shared campsite and other professions add crafted objects that buff everyone sitting nearby. Most of the buffs are exclusive with a matching class buff. A player noticed the Mining buff is not in Blizzard's table; the beta client still has it.

On October 21 Blizzard published Gather Around the Campfire in World of Warcraft: Forever, a news post explaining the Camping system. It turns the Cooking profession's campfire into a shared campsite where nearby players can rest, craft, and pick up one-hour buffs from objects other professions place.

This is a beta system described in a Blizzard post. Numbers and features can still change before launch.

What Blizzard says

The starting point is the Cooking profession's Basic Campfire, which anyone can build from skill level 1.

The system expands the Cooking profession’s simple Cooking Fire into a Basic Campfire. Once placed, the Basic Campfire creates a shared campsite where nearby players can rest and gain benefits from profession-made camp features before setting out again. Blizzard, official news post

Other players then add their own crafted objects to the same fire:

A Basic Campfire can support up to three special crafted objects contributed by nearby players, with each player able to add one. Blizzard, official news post

To get the buffs you have to stop and stay a moment. Blizzard says players sitting or crafting at a campsite for at least 1 minute will gain the benefits from other camp features. The beta client files agree: the Basic Campfire's tooltip reads that "Players sitting or crafting nearby for 1 min will gain benefits from other camp features."

The camp features in the client files

The beta client's data files hold a Tier 1 camp feature for each profession. Most of them buff everyone sitting nearby and are mutually exclusive with a matching class buff, so a camp can stand in for a class you do not have in the group; the Leatherworking tent and the Engineering bot have no class-buff link. All of them need a campfire nearby and share a 1 hour cooldown. The values below are the ranges the client lists, scaling by character level:

  • Blacksmithing Sharpening Wheel: 6 to 34 increased Strength, exclusive with Strength of Earth Totem.
  • Alchemy Mana Well: regenerate 10 to 29 Mana every 5 seconds, exclusive with Blessing of Wisdom.
  • Herbalism Incense Candle (Incense Candle): 2 to 25 increased Intellect, exclusive with Arcane Intellect.
  • Tailoring Faction Banner (Faction Banner): 14 to 32 increased Spirit for members of your faction, exclusive with Divine Spirit.
  • First Aid First Aid Kit (First Aid Kit): 3 to 56 increased Stamina, exclusive with Power Word: Fortitude.
  • Fishing Fish Bowl: 8% increased stats, exclusive with Blessing of Kings. The client calls it a "Fish Bowl"; Blizzard's post calls it a "Fishing Bowl".
  • Skinning Camp Chair (Camp Chair): 2% increased critical strike chance with all spells and attacks, exclusive with Moonkin Aura.
  • Enchanting Enchanted Lute (Enchanted Lute): Armor, all stats and all resistances, exclusive with Mark of the Wild.
  • Leatherworking Camp Tent (Camp Tent): raises Rested experience to 5% of a level, with no effect if you already have more.
  • Engineering Reagent Bot (Reagent Bot): lets nearby players buy reagents, no buff.

Blizzard presents the same list as a table in the post, and calls it "a sample of each profession’s camp features, required skill levels, and benefits." The post's own values match the client for the features it lists.

The Mining buff a player noticed

On r/wowforever, a player going by Hotfield posted that it "Looks like they removed Lodestone/mining from the campfire buffs." Blizzard's table does list a feature for every other profession but has no Mining entry.

Player report, not a Blizzard change or statement. Blizzard's post does not say Mining's feature was removed.

The beta client files still have it. Lodestone is the Mining camp feature: it "Erects a lodestone" that grants 12 to 90 increased melee Attack Power by level, mutually exclusive with Blessing of Might, and like the others needs a campfire nearby and shares the 1 hour cooldown. So the buff is present in the data we can read.

Speculation. Blizzard calls its table "a sample", so the Mining feature may simply have been left out of the post rather than removed. We cannot tell from the post alone, and the client still contains the Lodestone. We will update this if Blizzard says more.

How you get them, and the upgrades

Blizzard says a short quest early on introduces the system, and after that:

Once a profession reaches skill level 20, you can acquire its first campsite items through starter zone quests or purchase them from a profession trainer. Items that require skill level 140 or higher are found through drops in dungeons and raids. Blizzard, official news post

Cooking also has bigger fires later. Blizzard says cooks can eventually learn upgraded Campfires that allow five or even 10 objects to be placed at a camp, while other professions unlock conveniences such as Alchemy Laboratories and Tanning Racks. The client files back this up, with later-tier objects described as providing a Tier 1 feature's benefits while also, for example, adding an anvil or letting you tan hides.

A word on where you camp

Stopping has a cost on PvP realms. Blizzard warns that "danger can still find you when you stop," adding that on a PvP Ruleset, that risk increases when enemy players come upon your camp. The system is built to reward travelling at your own pace rather than rushing between cities and objectives.

Sources

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