old-hillpaw
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What we leave behind
I'm really concerned about Dog. Dog is the dog that I rescued from near starvation in the Heartland over in the Valley of the Four Winds. I was so excited to find and rescue this poor little guy that I even wrote a brief article about him at the time. Since then, Dog has been happily living the life of a king on my farm, and despite the fact that I was never able to name him, he seems to be happy enough to just respond to the name Dog, not to mention a few choice emotes. If you haven't already done so, try using /love, /pet, /bark, or /kiss on your puppy, because the result is adorable. Actually, I kind of love everything on my farm. Shaggy the yak from Farmer Fung, the sheep from Chee Chee, the piggies sent courtesy of Fish Fellreed (who is still my favorite), and of course Luna the cat from Ella. Even the chickens, although they have a disturbing tendency to flop over dead due to phasing. I spent a lot of time building up the farm and making it the nicest little place to hang out, even when I'm not currently farming crops. It's a good farm. I had fun building it. But I'm super concerned about Dog, because I know I'll be leaving soon.
Patch 5.2 PTR: How to get your hands on Sunsong Ranch
When we last visited Sunsong Ranch in patch 5.2, it was to news of several improvements of the farming content. This included some changes to the Master Plow, some changes to the way seeds were planted, and to top it all off, the option to purchase your farm and make it your very own. This meant that the farm would turn into a rest point and an area where one could immediately log out of the game -- something that players had been requesting ever since they began helping Yoon and planting their own crops on his farm. While we knew that the option would eventually be added, it was not available with patch 5.2's first iteration on the PTR. So we had no news on how much it would cost, what kind of reputation you would need to have, or what exactly would happen to Farmer Yoon after you purchased his property. The latest build to hit the PTR has now unlocked the feature, and players can now test out the content to their heart's content. But uh ... you can't purchase the farm.
Big changes coming to Sunsong Ranch in 5.2
There's been plenty of talk over the last couple of months about Sunsong Ranch, the farm that players can adopt and use to grow various crops of their own. A lot of that talk revolved around whether or not Sunsong Ranch was the first step towards player housing, a feature that a lot of players have been wistfully wishing for since the days of vanilla. Earlier this month, we asked Cory Stockton and Dave Kosak if this was indeed the case, and the response was that while the ranch could be interpreted that way, player housing wasn't something intended for the future. However, both Stockton and Kosak were excited with how well the farming feature had been received, and with how well it integrated with other features in the game. As a new feature, the farm works seamlessly with other professions in the game. Being able to grow your own resources has been a tremendous boon for players, but the question still remained -- how could the farming feature be improved even further? Well ... how about as an additional means to gather reputation?
Reputation in review: The Tillers
I may have taken leave of my sanity. I'm currently in the midst of a massive reputation grind in an effort to get everything to exalted. Part of this is because I like seeing green bars fill up on my screen, but part of it was intense curiosity towards the new daily system. Despite a somewhat compelling story, the daily quests in the Firelands just didn't quite work for me. Partially because the story just didn't seem all that compelling, but mostly due to the fact that the majority of the quests took place in a zone that was red on red. I hate red zones. Regardless, as a result of the experience I've seen what these rep grinds look like, and surprisingly, they're all different. You're not going to get the same experience doing each, and the quests aren't really very similar between each, either. Some of the reputation grinds are fantastic, and some ... well let's just say they could use some work. But let's take a look at what was hands-down my favorite rep grind and exactly what made it so fantastic to grind out.
Lost and lonely dog seeks warm and loving home (on your farm)
Some may call my desire to reach exalted with the Tillers nonsensical, but I would happily argue that the goat mounts are more than worth it. Regardless, I've been happily tilling away on my farm and doing dailies for Halfhill's assorted residents. There's a pretty cool cycle with the Tiller dailies, a storyline that plays out as you continue helping out poor hapless Yoon. He's trying to become a member of the Tillers, but he'll need five votes to get in. Somewhere in the middle of revered, I got vote number four -- and I resigned myself to nothing particularly interesting until I hit exalted. But imagine my surprise flying over Halfhill when I stumbled across the little guy pictured above. The poor thing was stranded and alone in the midst of all the verdant fields, hungry and scared. Obviously dogs don't care for vegetables, even if they are monstrously huge. So I took the quest he offered, Lost and Lonely, and fetched some steak for the starving pup. Once fed, he hightailed it for my farm, and now lives there quite happily. He even responds to emotes!
Making best friends with the Tillers
The Tillers are one of several new factions in Pandaria, but they come with a couple of unique twists. First, you get to have your own farm for growing cooking ingredients through some unique phasing and a quest chain with a pandaren who is new to farming. In order to upgrade your farm and get more plots for planting, you have to get the approval of the other farmers around the area, which you can complete by increasing your reputation with the Tillers and completing a series of dailies. Second, you can improve your farm itself, through befriending the various people you'll meet around the area. You'll start out as strangers to these characters, but over time you can earn reputation and make friends. Once you've reached best friend status, each character will mail you some items, and send an improvement or two for your farm. So what's the best way to a Tillers' heart? Some would say through the stomach, but I'd have to say through the judicious use of gifts. And those gifts are surprisingly easy to find ... if you know where to look.
Chasing chickens for the Tillers
I'm a solitary person outside of raid nights, so I do end up loving all the archaeology, fishing, and cooking. I like providing feast materials for my guild, and I wrote a blog post before I joined WoW Insider about the pools one could fish for the guild achievement while still being buff-food productive. So it's no wonder I'm really psyched about farming. My own personal farm, where no one can reap from the same planting as I can? Yes, please! The farming faction is the Tillers, who are based at both Halfhill Market and the Heartland in Valley of the Four Winds. But farming isn't all they do. The Tillers are involved in the expanded cooking, and they offer dailies that reward valor points as well as the Pandaria-based cooking tokens. One of the many NPCs you can gain personal reputation with, Old Hillpaw, has a chicken farm. So naturally, one of the dailies he offers is Chasing the Chicken. This isn't your ordinary daily of kill X hozen and steal back Y vegetables. Old Hillpaw has tasked you with finding his prize chicken.
