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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsCataclysm rewards low-level faction loyalty with cloaks, bags
by Michael Sacco 
Oct 2nd 2010 at 4:00PM
- a high-resolution city tabard that requires friendly standing with that city;
- a reasonably-priced 16-slot bag (unique) requiring revered standing to purchase; and
- level 35 blue cloaks (also in gorgeous high resolution) in caster, agility and strength varieties, requiring exalted standing.
The tabard can be picked up at any time, since almost every race starts at friendly standing with its faction's cities. The bag, on the other hand, shows up at a point in the leveling process when a new player (or fresh reroll on a new server/faction) is going to start wishing he had another big bag like the backpack. And the cloaks are available at level 35 -- a level at which, on my worgen fire mage, I had just hit exalted with Darnassus and was very close to hitting exalted with Stormwind. So on top of a cloak tailored to my spec, I also had two 16-slot bags available -- which for a new player is like winning the lottery. This is a great way to educate new players on how WoW's reputation system works, and it provides some neat rewards to boot.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will destroy Azeroth as we know it; nothing will be the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.Filed under: Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 4)
Ice Oct 2nd 2010 4:31PM
I guess you need to be very thorough with the quests tho. But I guess this makes people to stay on one continent more, which is good and maybe bad. Good that they will stay on one place and feel the linear storyline and get rep. Bad is that if they want the cloaks they are "forced" to stay on one zone. Even tho we are not talking about epics here so I guess it does not matter so much. Still 35 seems bit too early.
MusedMoose Oct 2nd 2010 4:59PM
I think it really depends on the faction and how many available quests they have. For example, I took a human to Darnassus at level 1, did only the night elf quests, and got exalted with them at level 33.
But I took a night elf to Ironforge at level 1, ran out of dwarf quests much more quickly, turned in a lot of runecloth, scoured WoWhead for quests to raise that rep, and didn't hit exalted until level 55 or so.
I'm hoping that, with all the new quests in Cataclysm, Blizzard has arranged things so that it's possible to hit exalted with your faction of choice if you stick with doing their quests. We shall see.
Marbles Oct 2nd 2010 4:22PM
Out of curiousity, do those Faction Tabards differ from the ones from the Argent Tournament? Or are they identical albeit for a far cheaper price?
BitterCupOJoe Oct 2nd 2010 4:22PM
According to one of the other players in the beta, it looks like there is a currently unused spell in the cata.wowhead.com database that looks like it would allow for rep grinding in the low level dungeons by using the faction tabards. I didn't go look for it myself, but the reward layout does mimic the WotLK and Cata faction reward layouts.
Blayze Oct 2nd 2010 4:47PM
Hopefully we'll eventually see Championing for all factions--I'd strap on a Silverwing Sentinels tabard for rep with them in instances. No matter how terrible and slow the rep gain would be, it would have nothing--*nothing*--on the time and effort that would be wasted in Warsong Gulch.
BitterCupOJoe Oct 2nd 2010 5:08PM
I don't know if we should be able to grind out rep for PVP factions in dungeons. However, I think it would be awesome if you could wear a Silverwing tabard into another PVP zone and say get faction for them. Say, wear a Silverwing tabard into Alterac Valley and grind out rep that way. They'd have to add rep gains in the other battlegrounds, but I don't think that's a horrible issue.
Jim Oct 3rd 2010 12:30AM
Great, another tabard to take up room in my bank.....if they would only come out with a tab to store them in
lishuss Oct 2nd 2010 4:28PM
what happened to the concept of the 'overcloak' that was supposed to be implemented in Operation:Gnomeregan? the ones that fit OVER your regular cloak and was supposed to be a vanity item?
those would be sick to see because, quite frankly, anything gnome-based i love, but i cant wear the one i got fromt he event because, guess what, a crappy white cloak is the single most unnecessary thing for a lv 80 toon there is.
well maybe rolling a pally is worse
Matt Oct 2nd 2010 4:41PM
There was a blue post explaining why they took that out. Something about players potentially using it to hide their real cloak's power, or something? It made no sense to me, because a) you can hide your cloak, and b) cloaks aren't as recognizable as weapons or tier armor to get a ballpark of a character's power.
Miah Oct 2nd 2010 4:59PM
@Matt
Yeah, that does seem weird. Unless somehow the overcloak was displayed in the character sheet instead of the cloak when you inspect someone...
Matt Oct 2nd 2010 5:12PM
I found the post:
"It is true that the cloak rewards had overcloak functionality when these events were up on the public test realms some months back. In the end we decided that implementing the cloaks in such a way that players could aesthetically change the cloak they're wearing could set a bad precedent. We like customization and flavor items, but we don't want to start implementing aesthetic items in the game which allow players to look however they want while keeping all the stats they want. We felt the overcloaks were breaking that barrier a little too much."
So I guess they were more worried about the precedent from changing your cloak, then actually changing your cloak. Whatever ... it's not like they had to turn around and make something that could change the look of all your armor. It's their game, no one can make them do something they don't want to.
lishuss Oct 2nd 2010 5:13PM
lol
dumbest.
reason.
ever.
Al Oct 2nd 2010 5:21PM
Their follow-up was outstanding too. In response to all the "Why?" posts, they said "Part of making a fun game is making tough decisions."
How giving us a crappy white cape with level 70 stats instead of something good was meant to be "fun" was never explained. Maybe they just enjoy the ol' Bait and Switch.
Prissa Oct 2nd 2010 5:23PM
Remember how angry people were when Blizz opened their online store for in-game items?
Remember the whole 'slippery slope' rants people had over it? That all it takes is something small, then something kinda small, then something vaguely useful, then something that would be rather an advantage and so on.
This is the same reason. They feel that if they started with something like that, then the 'slippery slope' would happen whether through player demand or otherwise and turn into where it would be relatively game changing.
I know that a lot of people argue for 'dye' and such to change colours of armour etc and this fits into this category. Remember that the only visual difference between 251 and 277 T10 is colour.
Al Oct 2nd 2010 5:38PM
Disable it for PvP. There, it just became as game-changing as Noggenfogger or Travel form. The real sticking point for the cloaks was probably the coding involved.
As we've seen lately, they're getting incredibly lazy about anything non-Cataclysm.
AltairAntares Oct 2nd 2010 7:18PM
@Al. Personally I want them "lazy" to anything not-cataclysm related- I want them to make sure as many bugs as possible are weeded put, that everything in cataclysm is as amazing as possible, and not spend their time on every little that to be honest doesn't have a lasting impact on the game.
Bliss doesn't have hordes of people to fix every little problem that appears- so they should spend their time on the stuff that actually matters in the grand scheme of things.
Al Oct 2nd 2010 10:09PM
I won't argue with that, but I will say if they want to keep us interested (and paying) in the live realms they need to stop half-arsing things on those realms.
We've had a Event Reward cape that's going to be deleted in 3 seconds out of disappointment, a recycled Stein (even though there's a spare one in the game files), and we're coming up on 10 months of Icecrown. The closest thing to something new is a pet, obtainable by buying the Blizzcon feed. Which I won't ,after last year's "Sorry, you've missed half this panel because the stream conked out three times" fun and games. Either get to work, or stop charging us for a few months.
Miranda Kali Oct 2nd 2010 4:37PM
Neato!
...though I have to wonder if the Gnomer and Troll capes that we were recently given as rewards are any different than what will be offered by those factions
arawn.chernobog Oct 2nd 2010 4:45PM
This is so awesome for Role-Playing...
Just... so awesome
alpha5099 Oct 2nd 2010 4:44PM
Are these the same Tabards as the ones from the Argent Tourney? If so, that's just one less reason for me to have to grind out items there (not that I've had the patience to do those dailies in months).