Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsFaction frustrations eased in Wrath
by Alex Ziebart 
Jun 30th 2008 at 9:30AM
If you've played a Feral Druid to 70, especially in the early days of The Burning Crusade, you probably remember grinding out Exalted with the Cenarion Expedition for your Earthwarden. Personally, my pet faction was Lower City. As a Shadow Priest, I drooled heavily all over the Gavel of Unearthed Secrets. I had hit level 70 before Karazhan raids were commonplace on my server, so I found myself in Shadow Labyrinth at every opportunity. Say what you will about the irritation of running Steamvault constantly, I think Shadow Labyrinth is just a little more frustrating. Admittedly, if I had waited a few weeks, I probably could've gotten a Nathrezim Mindblade pretty easily when Karazhan runs picked up, but what can you do?To help avoid this irritation, Wrath of the Lich King will be introducing something currently called 'championing.'
The term will likely change before Wrath's launch, but that's what it was called at The Worldwide Invitational's Dungeons and Raids panel. With this mechanic, you'll be able to gain some reputation with some factions outside of that particular faction's dungeon cluster when wearing a certain item, most likely a tabard. For example, you may want Honor Hold rep but don't feel like running Shattered Halls all week long. You can equip this item and go into Steamvault, and gain reputation with both the Cenarion Expedition and Honor Hold. If you run Shattered Halls with this item equipped, you gain a little extra reputation along with what you would have normally gained.
This new mechanic can very easily be seen as 'dumbing down' faction and reputation, but I'm pretty excited. Most of my friends wanted to hit me in the head with a brick after our tenth Shadow Labyrinth run, but they were kind enough to keep doing it for me. This way we can all work toward our own goals, while still helping eachother out. My pocket tank could keep tanking for me to help me acquire my hammer, but she could have also tossed on a Keepers of Time tabard and gained reputation toward her Timewarden's Leggings. I did use Burning Crusade factions as examples here, but don't get confused. This will be implemented in Wrath, and not retroactively for TBC. As far as we know, anyway.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Factions, Wrath of the Lich King, Worldwide Invitational
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Kepod Jun 30th 2008 10:12AM
Obviously, these "championing" tabards would be available much sooner, at friendly or possibly even neutral.
I frankly don't understand the hostility to this one. It's making use of a game item that to date has been purely decorative. And furthermore, if you hate championing tabards so much, there's a simple answer: DON'T WEAR THEM.
rugus Jun 30th 2008 10:41AM
No mean to be "hostile", just asking something that's not "so" obvious. 2 tabards? It sounds odd, to me. Much better lowering the tabard requirement from Exalted to (let's say) honored.
Ichthus Jun 30th 2008 11:28AM
Low end PVP Tabard: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=15197
High end PVP Tabard: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=15199
Having low and high end tabards isn't a new thing, it just isn't the usual thing.
Jp Jun 30th 2008 12:06PM
You guys do realize that the exact nature of the item has not been decided, and that the use of the tabard was an example, either given by the devs or Alex himself?
And you do also realize that this is to be implemented for Wrath, and will most likely be left out of the BC dungeons? That Alex used the BC reps as examples since those are more tangible than the Wrath factions are? So, if it was a tabard, it would just more likely be that tabards would be available at honored/revered for the Wrath factions?
I don't mean to be hostile, it's just... well.. read what is stated...
Epimer Jun 30th 2008 10:02AM
I think it's an excellent idea. There's a difference between "dumbing down" and "removing a completely unenjoyable grind for a minor upgrade".
If this system was implemented in TBC (as an illustrative example), the overall time component taken to get revered/exalted with a given faction would be reduced only by virtue of the fact that you'd be able to spend less time in LFG and more time actually running instances.
But hey, if you actually like trolling LFG for hours on end to allow to get that little bit closer to your desired faction rep..
KateJaneway Jun 30th 2008 10:13AM
Yeah I like this idea too, a tank wouldn't have to run BM five times in a row to get Time Wardens, Feral Druids wouldn't have to grind to Exalted with CE, and hell knows how many people *still* at revered/honored with Honor Hold/Kurenai/etc far into raid progression who could care less about it now.
It'd be nice in a random raid/heroic run, to just toss on a tabard to get a little rep for a faction you don't have time to grind.
Hellshound38 Jul 1st 2008 10:02AM
No, you would spend more time running heroic mech or heroic UB...over and over...
akel Jun 30th 2008 10:02AM
this is a dumb idea. nothing is broken.
pudds Jun 30th 2008 10:04AM
Hopefully we'll be able to grab these tabard/whatever items before hitting 80, so we can grind as we level.
Also on that note, here's hoping its a tabard or shirt, so we don't have to waste a trinket or other useful spot (I'm looking at you, Argent Dawn Commission)
Karmakin Jun 30th 2008 10:09AM
One thing people need to realize is that there's been a fundamental change in design from WoW's launch to today, and most of it has been done within the last year or so.
Originally, it was about slowing down progress, in order to ensure that people would have lots of long-term goals, and stay interested in the game, so the subscription fees would roll in (and the game world would remain well populated).
And it worked.
But then they realized something. People were staying in the game regardless. They'd start to level an alt, or sometimes would want to, but the thought of going through all that grind again just didn't appeal to them.
So Blizzard went the other way. Now it's fairly easy to get an alt up to speed, or at least much easier. And when we're "done" of that character? We'll start another. And another. And eventually the expansion will come out, and all those chars will be leveled to the next level cap, and so on.
Everybody wins. Well. Except those who use long grinds as a measure of their e-peens, but I don't think they count.
Ravenswing Jun 30th 2008 10:09AM
I think this will resolve into an "old school" vs "enjoyment" MMO player. I'm the latter, my partner is the former. She actually enjoys riding around in circles for (litteraly) hours on end picking up ore to make money. I can do it if I'm feeling enormously masochistic or I REALLY need the money, but I don't enjoy it. (What worries me is that I actually like fishing, which is just grinding with a fishing rod. I'm turning old school.)
Old school people will see this as "dumbing down the game" while people who actually don't have a masochistic desire to waste years of their life collecting virtual rewards will see it as a great idea.
darian Jun 30th 2008 12:21PM
I'd fall into the old school category, but I don't see this as dumbing down the game. I don't personally see how waiting around trying to get rep runs for hours can be considered hardcore or old school. It doesn't take skill to sit around in a major city watching Trade and LFG, just lots of wasted time.
Ultimately, I can only assume that the people who see this as dumbing down the game either have copious amounts of time to waste, or are out of touch with how hard it is for people both hardcore and casual alike to get groups.
Juliah Jun 30th 2008 10:11AM
I don't know, Alex. I don't want to be one of those players that doesn't like anything ... I'm not a curmudgeon. Still, as someone who truly loathes rep grinds, this doesn't seem like a significant improvement to me.
At the very least, such grinds should be completely soloable. People really get sick of running the same dungeons over and over again.
Stump Jun 30th 2008 10:18AM
I think it's a great idea. None of the factions have great dps, healing, AND tanking gear. So it's always tough to get at least one role for an instance when you're farming rep. This will make it so every role will have a reason to do an instance.
hpetS Jun 30th 2008 10:27AM
For those of you complaining about how "easier" it will be to do rep grinds, just don't wear the tabards. Problem solved. Stop whining.
Sariss Jun 30th 2008 12:35PM
0.o It's just an example. They're obviously not going to make the tabard/mechanic require exalted to use, because that would make absolutely no sense.
Honestly, I realize the whole system of giving away "epics" for honor is a step in the wrong direction (I also believe people should work really hard for their gear), that doesnt mean a change like this is WoW catering to casuals. Little things like these just make the game more interesting and fun, which is why WoW is so popular in the first place. I dont know how someone could consider this a bad thing, especially considering you still have to grind rep. Your hard work just gets put to better use, plain and simple.
In BC, farming an instance for rep is "cool", but if theres nothing that drops there for you, it can get really tedious really fast. If youre running instances anyways, and doing all the hard work, you might as well get rewarded with a little extra rep for another faction, so that you can work towards gear AND rep, instead of picking one or the other. I hardly see this as a bad thing, and its just one more case of Blizzard keeping our sanity intact by trying to reduce the number of mindlessly boring tasks.
Jeremy Cox Jun 30th 2008 10:40AM
I had gotten the impression in a leak or announcement or who knows what the the reputation grind would be eased for alts.
I find that idea more appealing than this one. But I am often confused with all the buzz out there...
native Jun 30th 2008 10:31AM
theres a difference between "challenging" and "time-consuming". I'm all for challenge. I'm not a fan of time consuming, mind numbing repetition.
Isambaard Jun 30th 2008 10:54AM
I have a char exalted with every outland faction that is dungeon related except Deathsworn and Scale. I didn't spend countless hours running dungeons, instead I took up the challenge of doing it "smarter".
I did a couple runs of the lowbie dungeons for each rep to hit honored before doing quests. This was typically 3-5 total runs as I recall, and I got great XP and gear alongside that rep. Then I'd go do the quests which were now a little easier with my instance gear and my extra level or two. This got me to revered.
By this point I was revered with everything except Sha'tar and ready to hit heroics. I was admittedly lucky in that heroics had been nerfed some by then, and I had guildies with good gear so we could do a heroic or two in a night without tearing our hair out and loathing each other. They were still challenging, and with the higher rate of rep gain another 3-5 runs and I was exalted everyplace.
The folks who needed to run endless amounts of normal mode 70s either didn't plan well, or were unfortunate enough to go in when heroics were ungodly hard and just couldn't get groups who could do them.
zappo Jun 30th 2008 11:55AM
@ Isambaard
I've done the same myself, however that is part of the problem. Why do I have to "plan" faction guides. I'd like to run around like a maniac doing whatever quests I find, not read wowwiki to figure out what things I should do for optimal rep gains.
And yeah, doing this on multiple characters just doesn't appeal to me. My main is exalted with Timbermaw and Argent Dawn - for someone who joined WoW post BC that's a lot of work for basically no gains (just wanted to do them for whatever reason). But I'm almost exalted with scryers on my main.. and my alt? Meh, just not worth it - I'm burned out on signets and marks. I'd rather just use whatever bank I want to.