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Neutral pandaren Doubleagent hits level 90
World of Warcraft may not have a third faction, but there is one player out there who has managed what seemed like a nigh-impossible feat. Doubleagent, the neutral pandaren who refused to choose a faction and leave the Wandering Isle, hit level 90 yesterday amid a crowd of cheering pandaren. Because he was stuck on the Wandering Isle, he had to obtain all those levels by picking herbs for a measly 20-30XP per node. Nonetheless, Doubleagent's patience won out, and now he has obtained the highest level he can currently get in game -- at about 174 days played on the account. What's in store for Doubleagent now? Waiting until Warlords, of course, at which point he can theoretically begin the long trek to 100. I highly doubt that anyone at Blizzard really expected a player to accomplish this feat, but one hopes that perhaps his perseverance will be acknowledged in some way. If nothing else, they could re-name the Herbalism trainer on the Wandering Isle after him, considering he's long since proved his prowess when it comes to picking posies. For more information from Doubleagent himself on the process of leveling sans-faction, check the thread on the official forums, and take a look at our interview with Doubleagent from earlier this year.
15 Minutes of Fame: Flower power pollinates leveling for true neutral pandaren
Crazy metagaming projects are among my favorite topics here at 15 Minutes of Fame. It's impossible not to catch the excitement of someone who's figured out a new way to spin Azeroth. Take for instance the curious case of Doubleagent , the "neutral" pandaren who's managed to make it to level 80 and still climbing without ever leaving the pandaren starting zone. In his case, staying put also means never having chosen a faction; Doubleagent is neither Horde nor Alliance but instead remains a neutral party. And the method to his madness? Flowers. Lots and lots of herbalism and flowers. Ticking through level 83 when this article was posted, Doubleagent continues to drift through the gentle fields leading to level 90 and beyond -- because oh yes, this is one player who plans to take his leveling project all the way to the top in the coming expansion as well.
Neutral pandaren Doubleagent hits level 80
You might think that WoW doesn't have a neutral faction -- every player, even the once-neutral pandaren, must pick a faction before advancing very far in the game. And while that's technically true, Blizzard clearly didn't count on the patience of Doubleagent, who just hit level 80 without selecting a faction. What makes this difficult is the fact that panadaren can't leave their starting zone without deciding to join the Alliance or Horde -- so Doubleagent has worked his way through the levels by picking herbs for experience. If you think this sounds particularly tedious, that's because it is: Doubleagent started this trek back in September 2012. So will Doubleagent eventually reach level 90? And will he ever be able to escape the Wandering Isle? And shouldn't there be some kind of achievement for this? We'll have to stay tuned to find out. In the meanwhile, read up on Doubleagent's quest on Reddit or watch his leveling video, which gives you an idea of how he's managed the trip to 80.
Breakfast Topic: Could there be more than two factions?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. As World of Warcraft grows older, perhaps it's time to shake up things a bit to keep things interesting. After seven years of a war between two groups being the focus of the storyline, could we return to a time of four factions? That's right, a return. After all, Warcraft 3 had four opposing armies: Humans, Undead, Night Elves and Orcs. Presently, we have 12 races among the two factions, and considering all the new class/race combinations implemented in Cataclysm, perhaps four separate groups are not as unthinkable as they once were. With the political climate of the Horde being what it is and Sylvanas going farther off the grid all the time, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the Banshee Queen pulling the Foresaken and her Blood Elf relatives out of the Horde, establishing her own nation in Northern Lorderon. (For the sake of racial number balance, maybe she bribes the goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel into joining her with a new home city of ... Gilneas!) Or frustrated by the unwillingness of King Varian to stop the Orc's systematic destruction of Ashenvale , could Tyrande (finally doing something in-game for once) decide to defect from the Alliance, bringing her Worgen and Draenei allies with her? Do you think additional factions would be interesting? How would they work in game? What do you think they would look like?
Tuskarr page stealth-edited
Although it only went live a few days ago, Blizzard's Tuskarr page on their Wrath of the Lich King site has already been subtly updated. I don't have a copy of the old page, but it used to say something about being beset by Taunka and Murlocs. Here's what it says now:...they are constantly beset by the Kvaldir and an arctic race of murloc-like creatures known as the Gorloc.As Blizzplanet speculates, it's possible that the Kvaldir are just a specific faction of Taunka, but their name looks more Vrykul-ish, and in fact seems to be derived from an Icelandic word meaning "to afflict torment" (credit for this theory goes to Drakhzor, of Deathwing-EU). It's also interesting that the Gorloc are listed as "murloc-like;" hopefully this means they won't be quite so annoying. Do they say "mrgllrgll" in a Northern accent?
