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What reputation is, how to get it, and why you should care
If you've played for any length of time at all, you've noticed reputation being mentioned. Perhaps you've seen a message pop up when you killed a monster or completed a quest saying you'd gained reputation with this faction or that. But do you know what reputation is -- or what it can do for you? To get started, you'll want to click "U" on your keyboard to bring up the reputation panel. The list of names that comes up are factions you've interacted with, alongside your standing with each. Most groups -- or factions -- in the game have their own reputation, which ranges from hated to exalted. At hated, hostile, and unfriendly, members of the faction will be indicated by red text. At hated or hostile level, faction members will attack you on sight, but once you reach unfriendly they'll no longer attack -- though you still can't interact with them. At neutral, members of the faction will be indicated by yellow text meaning you can interact with them freely: talk to them, trade with them, or accept quests from them. At friendly, honored, revered, or exalted level, faction members will be indicated by green text. The trip from hated -- or even friendly -- to exalted is a long one, but almost always worthwhile, because as you gain standing with a faction you also gain rewards.
Breakfast Topic: Is Blizzard doing faction change the right way?
Blizzard can pull off some real surprises sometimes. This whole thing about Paid Faction Changes came totally from left field, and even though we know players have been asking for it I don't think any of us really expected that it would happen. For the precognitive among us, did you think they'd do it this way, though? For one thing, was the demand for such a service so huge that Blizzard opted to devote precious developer time to making it happen? It's definitely not an easy thing to pull off.Despite Blizzard answering some concerns about the future service, there are still more questions relating to Achievements, quests, reputation, and more. What happens to faction-specific mounts? Lore nerds are boggled by the story behind a possible change -- can everything really be explained by some Goblin invention? That seems like such a cop-out, doesn't it? Wouldn't it be better (and cooler) to implement a long and epic quest chain to change factions? Sure it would be confusing to see Orcs hoisting the Alliance banner or Humans yelling 'For the Horde!', but wouldn't it be easier to implement?Lore-wise, it makes more sense, too. It's not uncommon to see particular races switch allegiance. It's much stranger to transmogrify from, say, a Troll to a Gnome. What are your thoughts on this planned service? Are you happy to have it as a paid option, which would be quick and painless (although your wallet may say otherwise) or would you prefer a long-winded in-game quest chain? Maybe you have some ideas on how it could work. Sound off!
Faction changes coming to the World of Warcraft
As if the Engineering changes today weren't enough for you, Nethaera has just announced a major bombshell:Blizzard is implementing a faction switching service.There is no immediate indication if this will be a free service or a pay service, however based on their past name change, character appearance, and server transfer services it likely will carry with it a small fee.People have been talking about the ability for characters to switch races and factions for a long time. It appears to finally be here. Neth mentions that "the basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm."She goes on to say that this will be carefully orchestrated to limit the impact in gameplay, and that they don't have all the details worked out yet. There are a lot of things to work out in this – mounts, quests, tabards, pets, achievements, etc... You don't really want to see a Blood Elf Paladin riding around on a Human Charger.Stay tuned for more information on this very cool change as it's released.The full announcement after the break.
