New ways to earn reputation and lesser charms

Blizzard Community Manager Draztal has been busy on the EU forums today, revealing, amongst other things, some interesting information on Blizzard's new ideas for reputation gains and lesser charms.

Complaints about Mists' focus on daily quests have been plentiful, and acknowledged in various interviews by various members of Blizzard's development team. They have not abated, and it looks like Blizzard is feeling ready to allow the Community Managers to release limited information on their proposed solutions.

Splitting Draztal's post into two parts, he first addresses the repeated request for reputation tabards:

The earning of bonus reputation via both dungeons and scenarios would be a welcome change indeed, not only because it means that players who don't care for daily quests can still obtain reputation via some means, but also because it provides more motivation for players to carry on doing dungeons and scenarios. Currently, if a player's character has better gear than can be obtained from dungeons, there is precious little motivation to keep doing them, outside valor points. And valor points can now be pushed to over 600 from raids alone, with the raid finder awarding still more, and better gear than heroic dungeons. For players who don't do dailies, the addition of reputation gains is a motivation to return to dungeons, and having experienced or well-geared players in dungeons generally serves to make them more pleasant.

Scenarios, too, could do with the boost. The recent changes to their loot rewards put them almost on a par with dungeons as a way to gear a character, and a reputation bonus would offer an even greater incentive for players to return to them, both with main characters and new alts. Draztal's post specifies that the new rewards won't work quite like tabards, but we trust that there will at least be some way for players to choose which faction they're earning reputation for.

Lesser Charms

The second half of Draztal's post deals with Lesser Charms, and is somewhat more surprising than the first half.

Through pet battles? Yes, you read that correctly. To say that this came as a surprise to your author was an understatement.

It seems that this proposed change is something of a double-edged sword. Lesser charms are the bonus for doing side games, and it could be argued that dailies are meant to be that, too. Specifically, something you do while you're not doing endgame tasks like raids or PvP. Therefore, the idea of awarding them for pet battles makes perfect sense. But it seemed to me that pet battles were always meant to be a side game. Blizzard even repeatedly said that pet battles would have no impact whatsoever on your character, and that they were something to do purely for pleasure.

Will this cause pet battles to be something that's added to the "mandatory" list of things players insist they feel they have to do? The addition of XP gains seems to move pet battles even further towards being a normal part of gameplay. Should this be the case? Or should pet battles remain a true side game? It would seem to make far more sense to add the chance of lesser charms to scenarios or dungeons, where the increased population is of a direct benefit to other players. What do you think?

Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.