Posts with tag faction

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.

Life is complicated. There's no simple answers to most of our problems, and even if you think there are, there are lots of people who disagree with you. Life is fraught with tension, with situations that require tact and even diplomacy to navigate.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy playing warriors. I enjoy their straightforward approach to problem solving. In the real world, my troubles are usually things that simply can't be dealt with via the application of a gigantic axe to their heads (my bills just refuse to die no matter how much I try and stab them) but I face no such difficulty in World of Warcraft. To me, the game is escapism, a couple of hours in a world where the stakes are larger than life, but the solutions are much more primal and basic. Sometimes you just want to yell Hulk smash.

One change that's arrived with the latest patch 5.2 notes is one that has to deal with bonus reputation. Players have stated how grinding and repetitive the reputation can be. A suggestion that was offered was to bring back reputation tabards so players could continue to earn reputation while participating in dungeons. This would offer players two methods to earn reputation: Dailies and dungeons. Blizzard disagreed they didn't want players to double dip as dungeons already reward loot from bosses along with valor points. The developers mentioned sometime back in December that they were planning a way to include bonus reputation through dungeons. A suggestion was brought up by our own Matthew Rossi where players could represent a faction for a limited time.

That looks like the compromise solution we were looking for!

Patch 5.2 PTR and Patch Notes

You can now earn bonus reputation for your first dungeon and scenario of the day. You can select which reputation you choose to champion by selecting it from the reputation panel on the character screen. When you queue for a dungeon or scenario, the UI will remind you which reputation you are championing and allow you to change the reputation from there. (You cannot change that reputation once you are in the dungeon or scenario.)

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The UI has changed so that the Reputation panel in the character screen displays which reputation they have purchased Grand Commendations for. That's great for people like me who've accidentally purchased the same reputation commendation twice.

How about it guys? What do you think of this alternative way to earn reputation? You can still knock out your dailies but between the commendations and the bonus reputation from dailies, I wager you'll be able to hit Exalted at a nice rate.

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I'm not going to pretend that I like the process of gaining reputation in World of Warcraft, because I don't, and I never have. I remember grinding Brood of Nozdormu reputation back in vanilla for a ring that I still have in the bank. I remember gathering Scourgestones so that I could get to exalted Argent Dawn (I also still have my Seal of the Dawn), and murdering bears in Winterspring to get enchants off of other bears. As an insanely old bearded madman it is fair to say that I have dragged my ancient, grumbling carcass from expansion to expansion, finding various ways to get various groups to like me (often via the application of murdering pixels or collecting pixels off of murdered pixels) and I have always come to loathe the groups I've gained rep with along the way.

In fact, I'd go so far to call it an axiom. The more a certain group comes to like me, the more I'd willingly feed them all to a wood chipper if only that were an option. (Yes, Klaxxi, I'm looking right at you here.) That being said, it would be unfair and untrue to pretend that faction-based reputation hasn't undergone several design permutations over the years.

During Burning Crusade, for instance, there were specific dungeons that rewarded reputation with specific factions. I ran Shadow Labyrinth for Lower City reputation until my eyes quit in protest and moved to Paraguay. One of the ways that design began to change was with the Isle of Quel'Danas, which itself built upon the foundation laid by the Ogri'la and Sha'tari Skyguard factions.

These were faction grinds that allowed for the progressive unlocking of quests designed to be repeated daily, and these three faction grinds laid the basis for what we have today in Mists of Pandaria. And I'm starting to wonder if the reason I so dislike the Mists approach to reputation, with its copious daily questing, is not because of anything wrong with that system but rather because I'm incredibly spoiled.

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.

I'm going to be honest -- I'm not a huge reputation person. I end up with them, because you have to, but I wouldn't do the grinds if it wasn't necessary. So I may be the absolute target audience for this post from Crithto on the official forums, highlighting changes coming to the rep grinds. This makes this morning's Klaxxi questing feel less onerous to me.

Crithto - Upcoming Reputation Changes

Earning reputation with various factions has long been an important part to World of Warcraft and as time has gone on, we've made tweaks and changes to the system to make it more interesting and to give players access to unique items. For example, we recently hotfixed the game to apply a change to some reputation items which you can read about in our recently updated blog that allows players to purchase certain items much sooner. And we're not done!

Coming in a future patch, earning reputation is going to become much more fluid. Basically, once one of your characters has reached at least Revered reputation with a faction, all other characters on the same Battle.net account will then earn reputation with the same faction at twice the rate. Going one step further, and as an added bonus, your main character who reached Revered will also begin to earn double the reputation as he or she climbs to Exalted.

Here's a simplified break down:

• Any single character earns Revered reputation with a faction
• All other characters on the Battle.net account begin to earn double reputation for that one same faction
• The Revered character earns double reputation as he or she works toward Exalted
• ???
• Profit

We'll keep you posted as this change is closer to being implemented. In the meantime, we'd love to hear your feedback!

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My biggest problem with reputations has always been having to do them again on my alts. Now my characters on Cenarion Circle and Sisters of Elune will reap the rewards of my main's hard work, which I like.

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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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A forum post about why people play Alliance turned into a general discussion that got me thinking about why I play what I play, which is primarily Alliance. Interestingly to me, I played Horde most of Cataclysm on my main, so when I went back to Alliance, I felt like I was coming home. To me, I played Horde to raid with good people, to play a tauren -- and that was it. I really don't like Horde races aside from tauren, Horde lore aside from tauren lore, or Horde cities aside from -- actually, I don't like any Horde cities. Sorry, Thunder Bluff. I made some good friends Horde-side and I still miss playing with them (Woo Apples), but in general, I'm happier being Alliance.

But for all the reasons I could say I play Alliance, the real, honest truth is I play Alliance because I like to be able to play with my wife. She's awesome to be around, and I enjoy doing old content and will likely enjoy running dungeons with her in Mists. The fact that I like playing Alliance races like draenei and worgen, that I enjoy Alliance lore better and think Stormwind and the Exodar are cool cities -- none of that really matters. I play Alliance because of my wife.

So, therefore I ask you: Why do you play the faction you play?

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.

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When I first heard that Blizzard was implementing faction changes, I was so excited. I want my gnome to go Horde! But it was nothing that fun (or complicated). Finding out I would also have to change races took all the fun out of it.

I have always wanted (in any MMO with factions) the ability to change sides without having to change anything else. In the physical world, we have defectors, immigrants, and slaves who have become citizens. My Russian professor was an escapee from the Soviet Union. It was her lifelong wish to change factions, and she was so happy to be in the United States.

I know it is complicated design-wise, and I completely understand why Blizzard doesn't do it, but I think it would be perfectly logical that some residents of Azeroth would want to change sides. A human might want to live the simple life of a tauren. A blood elf may long to return to nature and attempt to fit in with the night elves. A gnome and a goblin might fall in love.

There's a lot of talk about faction bias in the game among the designers and even in terms of the playerbase. Some realms have heavy faction representation issues; some players would never, ever play a member of the opposite faction; and so on.

Around this time last year, I transferred my main (a character who had been Alliance since his creation) to the Horde to raid with a guild that ended up being an excellent home for me and a great place to raid. I stayed with that guild up until we'd completed heroic Dragon Soul, but recently I transferred to a new guild. And one of the biggest reasons I moved back had nothing to do with either guild (both are fine guilds) or the people in them. My Horde guild was full of people I enjoyed raiding with, cracking wise, doing old content, even making occasional forays into PvP. No, in addition to feeling burned out and needing to raid less, the main reason I transferred back was related to the faction concept in WoW.

Frankly, I wish WoW didn't have factions -- at least, not the big Horde/Alliance split. Because it's made my game playing experience less fun over the years.

I have seen dozens of forum posts, Twitter conversations, and even a knitted wool hat that argued for the concept of cross-faction Real ID grouping, so I thought why not throw my own hat into this contentious debate? I'm old, I'm grumpy -- it's what I do.

First, to be up front, I think cross-faction Real ID is a fabulous idea. This is motivated by pure selfishness on my part. Half of my Real ID friends are Horde, the other half are Alliance. To a degree, this is ameliorated because we have a lot of alts on both factions, but it's not totally addressed. Some of my friends have no alts; others only have alts on the same faction; and still others have one main they dedicate 90% of their playtime to and a host of alts who barely make level 20. We'd easily be able to put together a raid for any of the content in the game, save for that faction wall. We can talk to each other and put together smaller groups fairly easily to steamroll old raids, but doing content like Blackwing Descent or Firelands is arduous.

I do understand that not everyone would be on board with this, and there are good reasons to be discussed. Cross-faction Real ID raiding would not only be a huge change, but it would also cross a line Blizzard has managed never to deliberately cross in all its time of allowing new services like faction and server transfers and character customization. Sure, your Alliance warrior can join a Horde raiding group now, but in order to do so, he or she must become a Horde character. There are no humans raiding with orcs. It's been the case in the game since launch (to the point that Forsaken players lost the ability to speak with human players to preserve it) that the two factions are separate and cannot group together at all. To change that, even for just Real ID friends, would be a huge change in the game.

That being said, here are my reasons for cross-faction Real ID raiding.

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

In many games, plot outcomes are affected by choices the player makes throughout the course of the game. This is obviously not the case in WoW -- but what if it were?

Currently there are actually a few decisions for players to make in the game. For instance, a quest in Eastern Plaguelands gives players the option of adding varying amounts of a solution to a plague cauldron, with different results depending on the player's choice. The option to associate with either the Aldor or the Scryers was a key dilemma players faced in The Burning Crusade. Similarly, in Wrath, players had to decide whether they would assist the Oracles or the Frenzyheart tribe, with each faction offering different rewards.

None of these choices influenced the unfolding story, however. So imagine how much more compelling it would be if the decision to support the Oracles or Frenzyheart tribe had some effect on, say, the Icecrown raid. What if the Oracles showed up and played a song on their instruments to paralyze the Lich King for a short time? And what if the Frenzyheart charged in and set traps that made him take more damage when triggered? Raids groups would then need to have at least one player supporting each faction in order to have them both show up.

Which storylines and events would you want to influence if player decisions really mattered? Would you have voted for someone besides Garrosh to become the new Warchief? Would you try to promote peace and cooperation between the Horde and the Alliance? Or would you pledge allegiance to the Old Gods and stymie the efforts made by other players to stop Deathwing and his ilk?

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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.

As World of Warcraft grows older, perhaps it's time to shake up things a bit to keep things interesting. After seven years of a war between two groups being the focus of the storyline, could we return to a time of four factions? That's right, a return. After all, Warcraft 3 had four opposing armies: Humans, Undead, Night Elves and Orcs. Presently, we have 12 races among the two factions, and considering all the new class/race combinations implemented in Cataclysm, perhaps four separate groups are not as unthinkable as they once were.

With the political climate of the Horde being what it is and Sylvanas going farther off the grid all the time, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine the Banshee Queen pulling the Foresaken and her Blood Elf relatives out of the Horde, establishing her own nation in Northern Lorderon. (For the sake of racial number balance, maybe she bribes the goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel into joining her with a new home city of ... Gilneas!) Or frustrated by the unwillingness of King Varian to stop the Orc's systematic destruction of Ashenvale , could Tyrande (finally doing something in-game for once) decide to defect from the Alliance, bringing her Worgen and Draenei allies with her?

Do you think additional factions would be interesting? How would they work in game? What do you think they would look like?

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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.

It seems every week on the official forums, other game sites, and in daily conversation in Azeroth or Earth, the topic comes up that Blizzard favors the Horde. When the claim is directed toward lore development, even Horde players sometimes agree. But is there merit to the accusation?

Chris Metzen admits he loves Thrall and gets excited talking about the Orc's story, but he's also named Malfurion Stormrage as his favorite character in the past. Developers incite cheers of Lok'tar Ogar and For the Horde! at BlizzCon while suggesting Not the face! for the Alliance's new battlecry.

Most of this, however, is not where players look for their sole source of faction pride. It's in the game. The Horde's story has gotten very interesting with Sylvanas' darker path, Garrosh's controversial leadership, and Thrall's place on center stage in Cataclysm. The Alliance, however, has seen very little involvement from its leaders, and some players feel what they have seen has been out of character for their leaders. Malfurion neutral as Ashenvale burns -- or worse, as Tyrande is attacked?

Perhaps the strongest supporting evidence for or against bias (depending how you interpret it) are Metzen's recent comments that the Alliance will get some needed attention to strengthen that faction pride in two novels focusing on the Alliance, first with Wolfheart by Richard Knaack, followed by a still-untitled novel about Jaina Proudmoore by Christie Golden. But is that enough?

Do you think novels will stir the passion in the Alliance players' hearts, or is Blizzard going down the wrong path for the right desire? Do you think there's any merit to the claim of bias to begin with, or is it just more faction feuding amongst players?

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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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