Posts with tag faction

I've had both Horde and Alliance alts throughout my time playing World of Warcraft, of course. With the exception of the Forsaken, I've always viewed the Horde as more or less morally equivalent with the Alliance. Sure, there were some things that bugged me, like naming the capital city of the Horde after Orgrim Doomhammer, a guy who enslaved the dragonqueen Alexstrasza and who went along with Gul'dan even though the warlock in question murdered his best friend and best friend's wife. But these were minor hiccups, and I especially loved the tauren, having leveled both a DK and warrior tauren to level 80 in the Wrath years.

Ironically, although I was somewhat negatively inclined towards Garrosh Hellscream, it wasn't until I switched factions on my main to play Horde with a new guild (and an excellent one, to be sure) that I started really, really hating the Horde. Every quest I've gotten so far on my main or my two leveling alts Hordeside has involved murdering people and stealing their land simply because I could (or because a guy using an axe I outgrew 15 levels ago says I should).

But it's done more than make me dislike the faction I'm playing. Paradoxically, it's made me fight really, really hard for that faction. I PVP a lot more now than I ever did when I was playing a worgen personally offended by what happened to Gilneas. For some reason, being in the Horde makes the semi-military feel of battleground PVP seem more like it has a point to me, as if I'd expect to find myself there. I'm more aggressive as a Horde player. My paladin has run through Desolace and now Feralas with abandon, thinking nothing of doing quests that massacre entire Alliance settlements for the crime of trying to continue to exist. For all that I often decry the Horde and its current Warchief, I'm certainly also part of the problem, because I'm the one doing the quests. I am the unprovoked fist of the Horde, crushing innocents and stealing their homes. Granted, I'm not known for my stability, but I have to wonder if anyone else has experienced this.

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Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Care and Feeding of Warriors, the column dedicated to arms, fury and protection warriors. Despite repeated blows to the head from dragons, demons, Old Gods and whatever that thing over there was, Matthew Rossi will be your host.

Patch 4.2 is still here. And we're all rolling through the Firelands, some of us already on heroic modes, some of us still clearing some bosses, others working on the dailies. Something for everyone. Today, we're going to talk about the loot you can get out of the Firelands without actually getting a single drop from a boss. Some of these rewards require you to kill trash for rep (or even bosses, in the case of Avengers of Hyjal rewards past honored), but others you can get through Marks of the World Tree or even from the Thrall quest line added in patch 4.2.

Before we talk about all that, though, I have to say that if you're able to raid Firelands, even on a limited schedule, you really should. These are some of the best-designed, most well thought-out boss encounters I've seen in years of playing the game. Trash runs are absolutely puggable (and the trash drops are worth pugging for, as last week covered); a coordinated group in 359 epics from tier 11 raids absolutely can do the first four bosses and can probably learn to do Baleroc in a week or two. There's no reason to avoid this raid. It's fun, well-designed, and within your grasp. Of the five bosses I've now seen, none of them is so easy as to be boring nor so hard as to be daunting.

Now, let's talk about gear you can get before or just after setting foot in here.

The folks at Wowhead News have found a very interesting new vendor outside of patch 4.2's Firelands raid. Lurah Wrathvine, who is also riding on a Flameward Hippogryph for maximum pizzazz, will upgrade various normal tier 12 raid and valor point gear for the low, low price of a Crystallized Firestone. This is an item that drops off of the bosses therein when they are killed on heroic difficulty.

What's interesting about this system is that it affects items that don't even drop in the Firelands, especially the difficult-to-upgrade relics like the Hardheart Relic that makes my shaman scream "Me want!" like a caveman. Since relics are usually a valor point purchase, this makes them difficult (if not impossible) to upgrade, in comparison to other items. In general, this whole system is currently only in place to upgrade 21 items, but with some of those items being weapons or armor pieces, we may see more soon. It makes me remember Sunmotes and the Sunwell Plateau's exchange system. Crystallized Firestone definitely seems like the next iteration.

Also new on the test realms: The Avengers of Hyjal have a new strength DPS trinket. Looks like new itemization is being implemented as we speak.

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The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!

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For a long time now, the Wintersaber Trainer grind (for the Reins of the Winterspring Frostsaber) has been one of the last holdouts of the old world's long, slogging reputation grinds, featuring repeatable quests that give relatively small chunks of reputation and require slogging all over a zone. Admittedly, the grind is a lot easier these days thanks to tweaked drop rates, slightly higher reputation gains, and old world flight, but it still stands as a symbol of a different time.

In patch 4.1, this will stand no longer. The Wowhead blog is reporting the Wintersaber grind is being turned into a series of daily quests that put you in charge of the care and feeding of a Winterspring Cub on the PTR. After 20 days worth of dailies which earn you Winterspring Cub Whiskers, you'll be able to turn in the They Grow Up So Fast quest for your very own set of reins. In addition, you can buy a Winterspring Cub permapet from a vendor in Everlook. It's Bind on Equip and sold by a neutral vendor, so even Horde and Bloodsail Admirals can get thier hands on it.

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'm going to admit it: I miss the old style of rep grinds. Okay, just put down the torch while I clarify, please. My fond reminiscences do not extend to the Hydraxian Waterlords or the Wintersaber Trainers. Simply being time-consuming does not make a rep grind good. Also, reputation shouldn't impede progress. Locking people out of heroics until hitting revered -- or even honored -- is a silly and artificial barrier.

What I would like to see return to rep grinds, however, is a little heart. In the past, there was often some planning involved in finding the best route to pleasing your favorite factions. The Cenarion Expedition is a good example. Pro rep fiends started out with wide-scale slaughter in Zangermarsh. They turned in Unidentified Plant Parts through friendly but saved all their Uncatalogued Species to give them a quick burst of rep once they hit honored. Only then did they start doing quests and running Underbog. There was a definite strategy involved, and it made your rise through the ranks seem meaningful.

Ever since the introduction of championing tabards in Wrath, rep grinding feels less like a metagame and more like a series of bars that slowly and inevitably fill up automatically. All that's required of you is to wear the proper gang colors, and eventually you'll be well regarded by all. As popular as it is, I wouldn't suggest getting rid of championing -- but perhaps we could compromise by adding additional, more engaging methods of gaining rep? I'd love to do more than two daily tasks for our riparian friends in Uldum, for example.

So tell me if I'm crazy. Do you think championing tabards are the best thing since spiced bread, or like me, do you feel that they currently lack something?

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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.

I'll admit it: I'm a gnome-aholic. If I had my way, every single one of my characters would be a gnome. My warlock? Originally a gnome. My rogue? Also used to be a gnome. My hunter? Sometimes I dream at night of a gnome, pink pigtails bouncing, as she charges into battle riding her devilsaur pet. They're just so cute!

That said, since moving in with my current roommates, I've found that there is no way I can express my gnome love. Both of my roomies are die-hard Hordies, and in order to play together with them, I've had to transfer all of my beloved gnomes into not-so-beloved Horde equivalents. Not that there's nothing to love in the Horde (I would marry a troll and adore goblins!), but sometimes when I'm in a battleground and I see a gnome charging, I ... I just can't find it in my heart to melt his/her adorable face off.

Sometimes I fantasize about transferring all of my characters back to the Alliance and making them all gnomes again or making myself a secret gnome toon. However, I've realized that I would miss playing with my friends too much. Sure, if I rolled a gnome, I would still be able to talk to them, but I wouldn't be able to run a few random heroics with them, pop into Silvermoon for some RP or ask them to run my level 23 alt through a dungeon so I can get all the loots for myself.

So what about you? Have you ever rolled a certain race or class in order to fit in with your friends?

While stomping around your home city in Cataclysm, you might notice a new quartermaster NPC hanging around the travel area. He or she stocks a total of five items (at least so far), shown above:

• 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.

What's interesting about the required reputation on these items is how they relate to the leveling process. If you choose to stay on your "main" continent -- Kalimdor for night elves, for example, or Eastern Kingdoms for Forsaken -- then your reputation will hit the proper level just as these items become useful.

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.

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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.

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Spoilers for Cataclysm in this post, me hearties.

One of the things I've noticed in my time back-and-forthing between Alliance and Horde toons is that each faction seems to have many, many vocal partisans who believe the opposite faction to be filled to the brim with churls, knaves and scalawags. Perhaps even hooligans and ne'er-do-wells. You see it all the time in general chat: "Those ally fellows are nothing but mountebanks!" Or perhaps: "Horde? Nothing but disreputable scoundrels, bounders and cads!"

What I find interesting is how much of this factional divide is created by the game itself ... how much comes from quest lines and zone design and world events ... and how much is purely based on the players. It's true that over the past several expansions, we've seen a shift in the game itself from the days of the AQ gate event and the opening of the Dark Portal, when Horde and Alliance stood shoulder-to-shoulder against threats to Azeroth, to the present Wrath/Cataclysm direction when even Old Gods, Lich Kings and insane dragon aspects can't get the Horde and Alliance to cooperate.

Still, until fairly recently, I'd never really felt much of the infamous Horde/Alliance hatred from the game itself. Even the Wrathgate /Battle for Undercity and the Broken Front quests didn't come close to matching the intensity of a forum flame war or a really acrimonious Wintergrasp battle. Playing Horde back in the day, you couldn't help but notice the perception of superiority Horde players (including myself, at the time) felt over Alliance. But the story didn't really have much to do with it.

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

World of Warcraft puts players on a relatively fixed path in terms of loyalties. Sure, there are some very deliberate exceptions to this -- notably the Aldor/Scryer rivalry of The Burning Crusade and the Oracles/Frenzyheart feud in Wrath -- but in general, wherever a conflict arises in the game, the decision as to what side you're going to take is made for you. The rogue trainer in Northshire might tease you with the idea that joining the Defias is a potential option for you, but in reality, that can never happen.

WoW is certainly not lacking for "evil" factions one could potentially sympathize with. The aforementioned Defias, whose whole issue stems basically from getting screwed over by Onyxia's meddling, stand out as one such faction. Illidan Stormrage has long sparked controversy as to whether he was really on the side of evil, although that might be a result of his almost hopelessly confused lore. I have read suggestions that Malygos has a large (if misguided) sympathetic following. And even now, I see some already looking to figure out how to take the side of Big Bad Yet to Come, Deathwing himself.

Does this bother you? Do you wish sometimes that you could break the rules and side with a faction or villain you're not supposed to? What hostile faction or enemy character, if any, would you side with, given the opportunity to do so?

Larisa makes an interesting observation about the Battlecry mosaic that's being assembled over on Blizzard's website. There certainly are a lot of Horde symbols there, and not quite so many Alliance symbols. The best information we have access to actually says that Alliance outnumber the Horde, and ancedotally, we know that's probably true. So why aren't the Alliance representing?

Now, it could just be specific to this outlet -- perhaps Horde players spend more time online, or have more free time in general, and thus have the knowhow and chance to submit their pictures. But this issue has come up before (on our podcast as well): while many Horde players are ready to jump in and shout "For the Horde!" at a moment's notice, not so many Alliance players are as open about their allegiances. As Larisa asks: where's the faction pride?

We posted about Blizzard's Warcraft anniversary minisite a while back, and since then, they've been busy, filling it up with even more content. The community interviews and the new Blizzcast haven't yet appeared, but there are many, many pictures on the Battlecry mosaic submissions section. Pages and pages of fans showing their support for the Horde or the Alliance. It's quite a sight to see, actually -- the pictures range from the straightforward to the silly to the very involved (one couple's posed up with their t-shirts and Frostmourne and logo and everything). There's quite a few whole-guild pics too. There's 43 pages total, so it's a lot to look through, but it's definitely worth a browse.

Ancilorn reminds us, also, that this is a contest -- as more and more pictures from each faction roll in, we'll have access to some mosaic art using these actual pictures, the first piece of which was just revealed today. They've featured some of their favorite pictures over on the Facebook page as well. This is turning out to be a pretty cool idea, and as I said in the original post, I bet we'll be seeing these pictures in lots of other places in the future.

Here's some good news for hunters in the next patch that I don't think we've covered on its own yet. Huntsman's Lodge points out that there are two new types of craftable epic ammo on the PTR for us to load up. Iceblade Arrows and Shatter Rounds are both learned by engineers who rep up with the Ashen Verdict, the new faction to go along with the assault on Icecrown. Both add a whopping 91.5 damage to ranged weapon DPS, and of course they're BoE, so all you'll need is an engineer buddy honored with the new guys. One catch: arrows require Gnomish engineering, and the bullets require Goblin engineering. Interesting choice by Blizzard, but it shouldn't be too big a problem, especially since mats are pretty cheap anyway (two Crystallized Shadow for the arrows and two Crystallized Earth for the bullets).

Sounds good to me. Still no sign of those great ammo plans we heard about way back when, but more damage (especially some so relatively easy to get) is never a bad thing.

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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It's not unusual to see player speculation on what we'll see when Cataclysm arrives, and most of us have our own private wish lists. I'm sure I could come up with my own if I thought about it, but while riding between Kamagua and Moa'ki Harbor last night on the Kalu'ak ferry lazily chatting with people, it occurred to me that one of the things I'd kill to have again is another faction like the Tuskarr.

These guys are, for lack of a better word, awesome. Their emotes are fantastic. They sell an evil penguin pet and a cool fishing item (the Mastercraft Kalu'ak Fishing Pole) that probably won't be replaced for the duration of the expansion. Their ships are giant turtles traveling along beautiful coastline with a vendor on board (seriously, riding these at night = an endless series of Kodak moments). They get my vote as the faction that immerses you most thoroughly in what they need and what they're doing to survive in an increasingly hostile Azeroth, and I'm wondering if, given Northrend's various difficulties, they might be convinced to seek warmer climes just so we don't have to give them up.

Agonizing rep grinds have plagued the game since classic, but the Tuskarr are such a well-realized bunch that even at exalted I love hanging around their villages. What's your favorite faction, and is there anything about them you'd like to see repeated with future reputation grinds?

There's another new build on the PTR, which means we're one step closer to seeing the new patch 3.3 drop. And while of course Icecrown probably holds its place as the biggest feature of the new patch, there's a whole slew of other changes to look ahead to, from updated achievements and a new faction to run, a brand new LFG interface with cross-realm instances, the Kalu'ak fishing derby, speeded-up Northrend reputation grinds, and lots of other things. Man oh man this patch is building up to be quite the event.

So the question today is: what are you most looking forward to? Personally, I remain a fan of the 5-man instances -- I've already run two of them on the PTR, but fighting enemies co-op in a small group like that is really why I play the game. And of course cross-realm LFG will probably be a big part of the excitement for me as well. While I do expect there to be a few issues, hopefully it'll make jumping into a group as quick and easy as possible. And I'm looking forward to that fishing tournament, too -- the last one was a good idea, but hopefully a new implementation will help freshen things up.

What are you looking forward to in patch 3.3?

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Patch 3.3 is the last major patch of Wrath of the Lich King. With the new Icecrown Citadel 5-man dungeons and 10/25-man raid arriving soon, patch 3.3 will deal the final blow to the Arthas. WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.3 will keep you updated with all the latest patch news.

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