reputation
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Netherwing colors revealed on PTR
For some reason I missed this in the small mention we gave it the first time around, but apparently the Netherdrake mount (which I'm currently grinding like a madman to get the skill for) is available in a bevy of colors! Our friends at WoWHead have posted not only the Tier 6 stats, but also all the different Netherwing mounts.When the time comes, you'll get your choice of Azure, Cobalt, Onyx, Purple, Veridian (wha?), or Violet dragon mounts. I'm sure Onyx will be a popular choice, but you never know-- paladins might want to go for purple just so it can match with their Tier 5 gear. Unfortunately, all those colors seem really-- blue. Where's my red Netherwing, or my gray dragon? Veridian is actually kind of greenish. Looks pretty blah to me, but whatever floats your flying mount around faster than a mage spell, I guess.The mount actually comes from a rep vendor, so as long as you get exalted with whatever quests need to be done, you'll have your pick of the litter. Even though each mount is Unique, I think that only means you can't have two Onyx mounts-- I believe that you'll be able to buy as many different colors as you have the gold for (maybe those of you on the PTR can confirm or deny*-- whoops, see update). Anyway, looks great! What color are you going for?Update: Word from the PTR says it's actually a quest reward, so one dragon for you. Choose wisely. Also Veridian is apparently a typo-- the color should be viridian. (thanks, kind readers!)Update2: Now we're being told that you can buy another color after you get your first one. Looks like we'll have to wait and see what happens on the live servers.
From Scryer to Aldor (and back again)
When we first heard that there would be two mutually exclusive factions in Outland, I knew it would happen, but here's the first time I've seen it in the wild: Coraline on LJ decided that Scryer wasn't the right decision for her warlock, and decided to grind her way back to the Aldor.It can't be an easy process. As you know if you've done the Shattrath tour, doing quests for Aldor lowers your reputation with the Scryers, and vice versa. And there are three levels of hate for each faction-- you start at Unfriendly (depending on which faction you first chose to join), and then slowly fall down to Hostile, and then Hated. You can't actually get the normal rep quests for the other side until you reach Neutral, so if you want to switch sides, you have to go to Shattrath and get a special quest (for Scryer rep, it's Voren'thal's Visions, and for Aldor, it's Strained Supplies). That quest consists of a simple animal drop (basilisk eyes and spider venom sacs, both from Terrokar), and can be repeated all the way back up to Neutral.Coraline says it's not actually that bad-- she went from Hostile to Unfriendly within about an hour of farming (which means she still has to fight to Neutral to start doing the normal quests). People working back towards Aldor are able to get silk from the spiders (that sells well on the AH), but unfortunately for repentant Scryers, the basilisks don't drop anything really good. They do drop Chunk O'Basilisk if you're a cook, and they can be skinned if you're a leatherworker, so there's that.Anyone else made the tredge back between the Aldor and Scryer factions? Coraline doesn't say she did this, but I would: if you're leaving your faction, make sure to grab all the goodies you can. I would be completely impressed to see someone dual-wielding both the Vindicator's Brand and the Retainer's Blade at the same time (you don't actually need the rep to wield them, do you? Just to own them, I'd assume).Update: We've got confirmation-- commenter shooter's guildie shows it is possible to wear both Aldor and Scryer gear at the same time. Could be a bug, but if you want to grind both factions for all the rewards, it seems you can do it.
Instance Spreadsheet offers overview of swirly portals in Outland
Ryianne of Stormrage has assembled this freakin' terrific spreadsheet of all the Outlands instances, a must-have close at hand for anyone like me who considers running instances the most fun part of the game. Want to know where the Shadow Labyrinth is, or what level Blood Furnace is, or what rep is given in the Underbog (both regular and Heroic runs)? It's all here.Ryianne hasn't added one thing a lot of players might want-- exactly how to get attuned to the instances that need attuning. That info has been floating around, though, and it's definitely out there if you need it (my guild is holding a Karazhan attunement drive lately, trying to push our latent 70s to get the key so we can start downing stuff in there). Ryianne also says she's still working on it, so if you have more to add (like the fact that it's Thrallmar rep for Horde in the first three instances), let her know.But it is cool to see, in a "big picture" sense, all the different options available when someone says "Let's run something." With the expansion, Blizzard has really paid a lot of great service to the 5man instances (not just in size and quantity, but in variety and skill), and nowhere is that more apparent than in a large overview like this.
Rep grinds: Too much, too little, or just right?
We all knew the day would come when people ran out of valid things to complain about on the WoW Forums. Finally, it has arrived, with a level 21 draenei arguing that reputation grinds are too easy post-Burning Crusade, particularly the grind to get exalted with another race to get their mount. I can honestly say that the idea that the reputation grinds are too EASY has never crossed my mind -- and after doing the Cenarion Circle grind to revered, I know full well that the time when I complain about the ease of reputation gains will be the time when I call for the men in white coats to come take me away. However, I have noticed that reputation is significantly easier to get in the Outlands. Killing mobs in dungeons will get you a good amount of reputation with someone, somewhere, and I've hit honored with Sporeggar, Cenarion Expedition, and Thrallmar without doing most of the repeatable quests. I think they've made reputation grinds easier because of the fiasco of Cenarion Circle rep, and what a giant pain that was for everyone. Plus, according to the oft-quoted Raid Attunement Chart, you're going to need to be revered with five factions and friendly with another to even step into the Battle of Mount Hyjal. If each of those grinds was as bad as Cenarion Circle or Timbermaw Hold, people would give up halfway through and go PVP. Heck, I'm feeling like giving up and going to PVP just looking at it, and I hate PVP. And if you really feel like doing an old-school rep grind, there will probably be some Outlands version of the Wintersaber mount to slowly suck out your soul and leave you a hollow shell of a human being. What do you think about the new reputation grinds? Are you just getting what you can as you go along and plan to go back later for the Hyjal attunement, or are you putting everything into getting revered now so you can forget about it later? (Image from Worldofwar.net.)
The Burning Crusade: Faction reputation guide
Faction, can't live with it, can't access Naxxramas without it. Up to now, we've really not had to worry too much about faction in the World of Warcraft. Sure, if you want to get cheap access to Naxxramas, or if you'd like to get the Ahn'qiraj rewards you'd have to get pretty far along with the Argent Dawn and Cenarion Circle, respectively. But outside of that, faction was really just a way to earn a cool mount from another race. All of that is about to change. The Burning Crusade brings us not just a couple of expected new factions (Silvermoon for Blood Elves and Exodar for Draenei), but a whole host of interesting sounding names, such as the Ashtongue Deathswarm, Sporregar, The Consortium, Kurenai, The Violet Eye, The Mag'Har, Netherwing, The Cenarion Expedition, and a whole lot more. In fact, there are currently at least 19 new factions to gain reputation with. Luckily, World of Raids is here to help us with a continually-updated Burning Crusade Faction Reputation Guide. From locations, to rewards, to repeatable quests, the guide is set up to have it all. If you have a chance, go check it out, and if you're in the beta, why don't you give them a hand in fleshing it out.
Reputation no longer diminished by level
Lane points out something interesting that I hadn't yet noticed after 2.0: faction reputation via quest is not subject to level any more.It's true. I just loaded up my 55 night elf hunter, ran a quest in Northshire Abbey, and sure enough, 20 seconds of killing kobolds got me 250 rep for Stormwind. Most players trying to grind reputation for another racial faction (usually for the mounts, but most vendors will also give a small discount for higher rep) were limited to grinding around for tons and tons of runecloth, but it appears that doing lowbie quests will now grant just as much, if not way more, reputation. You won't be able to see the "!" or earn XP for them (if you're doing quests way below your level, that is), but the rep is there and plentiful-- just talk to the questgiver.I've never heard of this, so there's a chance that Blizzard hasn't as well, and that this is just a bug waiting to be fixed. But for now, if you've been waiting to grind up reputation for a mount, just head back to the starting area of your choice, and have at it.
The long road to 'Exalted'
This week, I hit a new milestone on my main character -- I finally got Exalted with one of Azeroth's factions. By playing far too many games in Alterac Valley, I have somehow managed to convince the Stormpike Guard to like me (and I mean really like me). Anyone familiar with AV will know that you get a lot of reputation per game played, and thus getting to exalted is simply a matter of turning up, but it's still a great milestone for me.Achieving this got me to thinking about other factions I'm working on reputation for. Slowly but surely I'm building up Cenarion Circle, Zandalar Tribe and Brood of Nozdormu faction through raiding, while I'm working on Silverwing Sentinels and League of Arathor by PvPing. On top of that, I'm working towards Stormwind reputation so I can get a horse mount, and I'd love to get Timbermaw Hold and Thorium Brotherhood rep for the recipes they bring.It's all a bit much, really. Reaching Exalted with AV seemed to take long enough, and I'm staring despondently at my 'Neutral' and 'Friendly' bars -- not to mention the one or two 'Revered' bars which seem to stretch on forever. As I'm not a fan of grinding, reaching higher reputation levels with many factions is a case of farming instances equally repetitively -- for now, my tactic is to do these instances and let the rep come to me, rather than vice versa, but it will be many months before I reach higher levels if I continue this trend.
The Puzzle of Battlegrounds Reputation
Since my current character-of-choice isn't running in a raiding guild, I've recently turned to PvP as a possible alternative way to acquire new and interesting gear for myself. In my travels through Azeroth's battlegrounds, I've noticed something puzzling about reputation gain in each - some are easier to get than others. Specifically Aterac Valley reputation - which has some simply incredible weapon rewards - seems to come a lot easier than Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin reputation. So I sat down and decided to do the math and see how it really works out - is AV reputation given out like candy, or am I just imagining things? Read on to find out.
The Long Road to a Flying Mount
Abro from the Crushridge server has a great question: What's it going to take to get one o' them fancy flyin' mounts? Blue posts in the thread, but all they do is point us to the already-up preview site for the Nether Drakes. (In which, incidentally, I learned that we won't even be able to touch a flying mount until level 70!) But everyone, of course, has lots of guesses about what we'll have to do to take to the air.First of all, you know it's going to cost money, and lots of it. A normal mount runs about 90g or so, and an epic mount runs 1,000g, so most people are guessing at 10,000g at least. But then again, it could be higher-- Blizzard is saying there's going to be a lot of content between 60 and 70, and they clearly want a flying mount to be the ultimate prestige item. So it's not unlikely that they'll probably require some sort of quest item as well-- although even Blizzard wouldn't be so heartless as to put the necessary item in a 40-man raid instance... would they?There's more they can do to you. Lots of people are suggesting faction grinding, which seems really mean, but the video trailer does say it'll cost us "Quests, Reputation, Shopkeepers, or a combination of these three." At any rate, it sounds like it's going to be a long time before any of us lift off on a Nether Drake.
At War With the Dawn
I really hope I never get this bored...Then again, your options do get pretty limited once you reach level 60; the same raids & dungeon crawls over & over, the endless grinding for reputation. Or you can do what this guy did, and just say to hell with it all & declare war on the Argent Dawn. And he photoblogged the whole thing over at notaddicted.com.Yes, I guess it can be pretty annoying to other players when quest NPC's & the like are killed...especially by members of your own faction. But after all, that 'at war' tab IS there for a reason, is it not? It would be a shame to let it just go unused forever...or not.In any case, it's something I would never do or never hope to encounter, but it does make for some funny reading over your cornflakes....
Breakfast Topic: Reputation grinding
At 60, one of the many things on my to-do list is "grind reputation". I didn't really start caring about reputation before I hit 60 (save for some furbolg slaughter to appease the Timbermaws), so I have had a long way to go with all the game's factions.The recent Scourge invasion and expansion of Light's Hope Chapel now mean there's even more you can do to get the Argent Dawn to like you. However, I'm torn. I'm saving up for an epic mount, and the various turn-in items (Crypt Fiend parts, Dark Iron scraps, Bone Fragments, etc) are fetching high prices on the auction house. So I've been splitting my spoils -- selling some, and turning in others.Do you see this as taking advantage of reputation grinders? Or is it merely profiting from the game's mechanics? If I manage to save enough for my mount this way, I'll stop; but I've seen lots of spam in the Trade channel advertising the same items, so it isn't just me who thinks this way.
Faction System to be Reworked in Burning Crusade
Worldofwar.net has a quote today from Blizzard developer Rob Pardo, which states that the faction system in WoW will be getting somewhat of an overhaul in the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion. According to Pardo:"...we are looking to overhaul the way faction works in the expansion. It was one of those features that was put into the game in late beta and never really received the polish and refinement that it deserves."So, hopefully that means that, unlike now, reputation will be somewhat easier to raise than the Titanic. I've probably grinded away more hours in this game trying to raise my faction rating with various groups than doing anything else; any restructuring of the system would be welcome in my book. Unless they make it harder, of course...but they wouldn't do that....would they?
New Argent Dawn Reputation Rewards
Blizzard has updated their Argent Dawn page with some new reputation rewards that will be available in patch 1.11. For the armor rewards, it looks like we can expect another token system, but the only thing reputation seems to impact is the cost of the goodies. There are six blue items and six epic items (not sets, but assorted items available). Also, epic-quality tailoring, leatherworking, and blacksmithing patterns with high amounts of frost resistance (for Naxxramas, presumably) available at revered reputation and higher.
Mind-Control Griefing: Working as Intended?
I noticed this post on the EU forums regarding massive lost of Cenarion Circle reputation after accidentally attacking a flight master who had been mind controlled by the opposing faction. You know how you right click on a flight master to talk to them and fly somewhere? Well, right clicking will also enable auto-attack on a hostile target. So if the mind control is timed just right, you may not even realize what happened - the flight path window never came up, and you just lost 15000 reputation. (Note: in this case, the initial auto-attack tagged the flightmaster to the player, and opposing faction player killed it - thus the massive reputation loss.)However, GM response simply stated that this was "designed this way" and a CM response states that this is a GM issue. So is it really intentional for other players to be able to cause you to loose huge chunks of reputation like this (it's -15000 for killing a member of faction), through no fault of your own? It seems rather wrong to me, but in the mean-time I'm going to be very careful when flying out of Cenarion Hold...
Faction & Reputation Guide
For all of you players out there who like to weave yourself into the internal politics of Azeroth, WorldofWar.net has an extremely detailed reputation guide to show you who hates who, who hates you, and what you can do about it. Want to become best goombas with the goblins? Friends with the Furbolgs? Pals with the Pirates? I can do this all day long...The guide lists the various factions in the game, the quests to raise reputation with them, and the rewards you earn for doing so pretty exhaustively, although there are a few smaller factions that get glossed over, such as my personal favorites, the Bloodsail Buccaneers. They're decent guys, you just gotta get to know 'em.... Anyway, check out the guide right here.
Avoiding Familiarity with Pirates
Perhaps you have heard about the upcoming Dungeon 2 armor sets. If not, I'll give you the basics - these are 8-piece, class specific sets, obtained via quests that require you to complete tasks solo or in small groups. Four pieces of the set will be epic in quality. The armor sets - and related quests - are currently live on the test realm for everyone to see. And not everyone likes what they see.One of the required quests begins in Gadgatzen, which leaves those who have spent time and effort gaining faction with the Bloodsail Buccaneers out in the cold. Gaining faction with these pirates - for which you are rewarded a nifty pirate hat - happens to have the nasty side-effect of immensely lowering your reputation with all Goblin towns, which means the town guards will attack you on sight. While many of us would question the wisdom of grinding to hated with the factions that control all neutral towns, loyal Bloodsails are unhappy they're cut off from these new content quests - and that Blizzard continues to add content while leaving their favored faction out.
