Faience's adventures in Outland: Welcome to the Cenarion Refuge
I've come through the Dark Portal and fought my way past legions of demons and inward through Hellfire Peninsula... all to get tired of the crowds and almost immediately relocate to the next zone over. That zone, Zangarmarsh, is everything Hellfire Peninsula is not, starting with the color palette. Immediately upon entering the zone, I found myself in Cenarion Refuge, a neutral faction that, no, does not care about that Cenarion Circle reputation you spent so long trying to gain.
Lucky for all of us, then, that reputation is more easily gained these days...
There are numerous quests starting at the refuge that may be attempted at level 60, and these will net you between 250 and 500 reputation each. After that, you may turn in unidentified plant parts (a not uncommon drop that seems to come from all creatures in the zone) for 200 reputation a pop, through honored. (Beyond this, there's reputation to be had by killing Naga in the zone as well as various mobs in Coilfang Reservoir.) It took very little effort for me to reach friendly with them, at which point I found a pleasant surprise in the form of two 30 minute buffs given by the ancients patrolling the refuge: one grants +30AP and the other grants +18 spell damage/healing while in the zone. While they're not godly, who's going to turn down a free buff like that?
Of course, there are also more concrete rewards for furthering your reputation, covering a wide variety of professions (including a nice craftable druid tanking set), and a variety of different item types -- even some that would interest my little warlock, not to mention my blue-geared priest and druid. It's immensely nice to see rewards of this caliber that do not feel completely out of reach -- honored could certainly be completed simply with ordinary questing in the zone (perhaps rounded out by a turnins of plant parts gathered while questing), with the reputation rounded out by instance runs (at 12 reputation per mob and 50 per boss in the Steamvault wing of Coilfang). I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot less annoying than killing Twilight Cultisists in Silithus for one reputation each.
Friendly
Honored
Revered
Exalted
No, I'm not entirely sure who Ashyen is, but I can say I'd be honored to accept such a gift...
While I'm only friendly with them at present (and unlikely to get any further during the beta), I've got to wonder if these druids really respect my efforts. Here, turning in a quest to Warden Hamoot in the refuge, he tells me, "Of course I can use someone like you! We're always in need of a little muscle." Hey, Tauren, are you making fun of my height?!
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