Posts with tag Factions

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.

Various people have been referring to Throne of Thunder as Thund'uar, a name I fully intend to steal and use. It's just a perfect blend of the new raid and its supposed raid model, Ulduar, with the expected troll-like apostrophe thrown in for good measure.

But this week I won't be listing out the Thund'uar loot drops; I'll just drop in with a lighter piece covering gear miscellany and the new faction offerings. Next week, we can discuss how the PTR patch buffs and nerfs fit in with the expected performance of warlocks in Tier 15 while listing out the loot, instead of dropping a lump of lists in your lap.

First off, howdy. You may remember me from such posts as this Firelands one, or this post decrying pointless elitism, or this one calling for the return of class based quests. As the loveable old codger that I am, I'm here to hike up my waist (note the kicky plate skirt I have on for the purpose) and gripe about things in World of Warcraft that I think could be improved. In some cases these things really bother me. Some of this stuff is on Blizzard, but some of it is based on player behavior, which means we have to fix it.

Before I do, though, I wanted to mention a couple of places where they did improve things. Cooking and archaeology, two of my least favorite things to do in the game are much less painful, and so kudos to that. I'm told fishing is better as well, but since I'll never ever fish, I'll just have to take your word for that. And now, onto the firestorm of complaints!

1 - Daily Quest Randomization

As much as I personally hate daily quests (it rhymes with 'Pike Ire') I will admit that the implementation on most of the new daily questing for factions in Mists of Pandaria is probably about as well implemented as it could possibly be, and as such I've chosen to focus on an aspect of the implementation that I think is more hit or miss than the rest. That is to say, the way it's determined which dailies you get in a specific day.

This is something I notice with every faction but I'm going to pick on the August Celestials because they're the worst about this. I have two level 90 characters working on rep. I have now defended the Temple of the Jade Serpent for four days. I don't want to defend them anymore. Please, for the love of Zod, put in something that checks to see what quests you've done over the past five days and doesn't give the exact same ones to you again, I'm begging you here. How about Niuzao Temple? I'd happily go defend that for a change of pace.

When I first walked into Lorewalker Cho's sanctum at 90, I peered around for Lorewalkers daily quests and saw that they all seemed to involve archaeology in some way. My DK did not have archaeology up to any meaningful skill level. I sighed deeply at the cheap, neat-looking Disc of the Red Flying Cloud and walked away, until I heard from a little bird that getting Lorewalker rep was a lot easier than I thought.

All you really need to do to get exalted with the Lorewalkers is read each of the lore objects located throughout Pandaria; you can see a list of them (like The Seven Burdens of Shaohao) in your Exploration Achievements tab, under Pandaria. When you read all of the objects for each "story," you get an item to bring to Lorewalker Cho, who presents you with a sort of play about the story you collected, and you get a ton of reputation (thousands).

The best part? You can collect them all in an hour or less with 310 flying and a map to help you out.

Wowhead has unearthed more than 1,000 new items in the latest Mists of Pandaria beta build, including some new mounts, that will all be account-wide.

• The Blue Shado-Pan Riding Tiger is a ground mount that requires exalted with the Shado-Pan, as do the green and red tigers.
• You can get the Thundering August Cloud Serpent, a flying mount, as long as you are exalted with the August Celestials.
• The Crimson Pandaren Phoenix is another flying mount, but it's unclear how this is obtained.

The Shado-Pan are a faction in Townlong Steppes along with The August Celestials, who also reside in Krasarang Wilds.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same.

The pre-expansion stretch is a great time to work on those pesky achievements that have been sitting on your to-do list for some time. Now that your raid schedule is a little more relaxed or you are just out doing your own thing, it's time to try something new. One of those tasks that I've given myself is to finally finish up my 50 exalted reputations achievement.

I'm close -- real close. Two reputations to go, in fact, and they aren't even that hard to do. It's all about the time put in and the motivation to do it. After I logged in and opened up my reputations tab, I was astonished at how little the interface had changed in seven years. The basic setup is still intact with a few minor changes.

Factionizer was recommended to me by a reader whose email tersely consisted of just these words: "Factionizer is a great addon, put it on the spotlight." That was the entire message. After checking out the addon, I was suitably impressed not only because there is a definite need for a more robust faction window (if only for awesome in-game lore purposes) but because the addon got me thinking about completing reputation achievements once again.

Dave Kosak sent out a tweet recently asking for appropriate rallying cries for the Alliance. Of course, the predictable responses ensued (the last time I looked, "Not in the face!" was the clear leader), but the discussion led me down a different line of reasoning altogether. Besides the orcs, who's really "For the Horde!" anymore?

The Forsaken are busy doing their own thing, as they always have. Vol'jin and the trolls were last seen sending emissaries to the Alliance to help contain the Zandalari. The tauren are still mourning Cairne and have little love for Garrosh. The blood elves lost their reason to stay in the Horde at the end of The Burning Crusade and seem to be sustained solely by inertia at this point. The only loyal Hordies left are the orcs themselves and the goblins, a race long known for their steadfast loyalties.

Of course, the Alliance isn't all too chummy, either. What do you think? Do the races need new battle cries, or will Mists of Pandaria spur a new wave of unity?

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This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the AOL guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

Talk to any self-proclaimed altoholic: They'll tell you stories of rolling characters on both sides of the two factions that split the World of Warcraft. For many, their attachment to one side or the other is merely dependent on "What do I want to play today?" However, for me, playing the other faction has some serious consequences: pangs of agony, nervous twitches, tummy trouble, you name it.

I started WoW on one side but quickly found myself tempted to try the other (I heard they had cookies) and never looked back for years. I filled out all 10 slots with the faction I loved. Seven 85s later, I get the whisper from my officers that they are swapping sides as a pet project. The worst of all isn't really that I'd consider playing the dark side again; it's that my closest of guildies are happily getting entrenched. Lured by the real-life friend of another, lo and behold, they found a level 25 guild that would gladly receive some potential recruits... and now my guildies want me to join them, too.

Now don't get me wrong -- I don't deny the opposite faction their right to exist (well, except every time I get killed in Tol Barad), but it feels so completely wrong to be rolling this character (not to mention having to delete my mid-30s mage). What about you? Have you ever had a question of conscience to even begin to create a character of the opposite faction?

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week, we're discussing enchants and the mages who love them. Which would, of course, be all of us.

So you've got all kinds of awesome gear now. Your guild is raiding, you've been farming heroics for the better part of the month, and you're exalted with everybody up to and including my mom, a fact which you're more than happy to declare in the trade channel to anyone who hasn't already put you on ignore. Your DPS is what the kids call "phat," or at least they would have called it that if it was still 1998. Oh yes, your gear is fancy. You're the envy of all. Small children look up to you, women swoon in your presence, and warlocks whisper your name fearfully in the dark of night, from the closets where they hide, cutting themselves and adding extra zippers to their clothing so they can look more like a villain from Kingdom Hearts.

And now it's time to make that gear even fancier. You flag down your friendly neighborhood enchanter and begin perusing his wares. It's then that you begin to notice something.

Maelstrom Crystals are expensive. I'm not even kidding. It's pretty ridiculous right now. Yesterday I traded the title to my car, a dozen years of indentured servitude, and my firstborn child for a weapon enchant, and I still feel like I got a pretty sweet deal. My weapon's all glowy. I'm psyched.

So unless your guild is on the bleeding edge of the current raiding scene, or maybe if you have so much extra cash lying around that you sleep in a bed made of money, the majority of us simply can't afford to put the absolute top-end enchants on every upgrade that drops in whatever heroic the dungeon finder chose to give us today (Stonecore). The good news is that we here at Arcane Brilliance understand. We're going to talk enchants today, yes. But instead of simply listing the best enchant for each slot, wherever possible we're also going to include, at no additional charge, an alternative enchant for the more budget-conscious among us.

This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.

I recently finished my Shatar Skyguard reputation grind. I'd previously done my share of rep grinding, including repeatedly decimating the populations of Felwood Timbermaw and Nagrand ogres, but I was, um, not prepared for Skettis.

We tend to be a friendly group on my server, and my previous experience rep grinding involved everyone giving each other a respectful distance, taking turns and sharing a friendly wave here or there. It is quite a bit different in the cutthroat world of the Skethyl Mountains, where more than once I detected stealthed Alliance lying in wait trying to grab my summoned mobs. When it came to summoning Terokk, I quickly learned to save that for early mornings and to scope the area beforehand just to be safe from Allies, but quite regularly, someone of either faction would swoop down into a camp where I was merrily grinding away and kill the very next mob in my sights, regardless of the fact that the next camp over was completely unoccupied. I had no idea Skyguard Rep was such serious business!

I eventually finished my grind and earned my Purple Riding Nether Ray and matching Nether Ray Fry, but I am still surprised by the experience. Ever enter into a WoW endeavor to find it unexpectedly competitive? Did you stick with it, or did you decide it was more trouble than it was worth?