There are a lot of reputations to grind in World of Warcraft. In fact, one of the ways the game has become more accessible to players with time constraints is by the introduction of daily quests as means to gain reputation, and eventually gear and other rewards (flying mounts, various recipes, other items) from faction vendors.
As an example, last night I finally reached exalted with Shattered Sun Offensive on my third character to do so, my tauren warrior. I saw the green flash of light as I turned in Blood for Blood, headed back to the Isle of Quel'Danas and stocked up on the various exalted goodies I'd been slavering for, the tanking and melee DPS necks, the shield, and the Alchemist Stone patterns in both tank and DPS flavors. And then, as has been the case for my previous two characters to hit exalted (my human warrior and draenei shaman) I got the heck off of that island with my shiny new tabard and ran around in battlegrounds shuddering with relief.
All these factions are very useful for gearing up my growing army of alts, and I am aware that it helps cut down the time I would otherwise have to spend hoping for a random drop from an instance. So why the feeling of glorious freedom and the heated flight to the hills the second I hit exalted?
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As a social game, it's fun to make friends in an MMORPG environment.In World of Warcraft, you must also make friends (and sometimes enemies) with members of various faction groups.Reputation (rep) is gained through killing a faction's enemies and completing quests to assist a particular group.Obviously, killing member's of a particular faction reduces rep.For example, killing Bloodsail Pirates increases rep with Booty Bay (Steamwheedle Cartel), while decreasing rep with the Bloodsail Buccaneers.
There are many reasons why we may increase or decrease reputations.You may be asked to do so to as a quest objective or to gain particular rewards.By gaining exalted reputation with the major cities you have access to purchase their racial mounts (provided your they may be scaled to your racial model) and their guild tabards.Higher levels of rep also allow discounts on goods and repair services from vendors, and higher prices for selling useless items.For the next couple of weeks, we'll be taking a look at the ins and outs of reputation on WoW Rookie.
I have good news and bad news, good readers. The good news is that if you are at exalted level with the Violet Eye, you can, in fact, exchange your reputation reward ring from Karazhan for a ring of a different type (if you are DPS, you can get a healing ring, and vice versa)-- all you have to do is destroy your ring, and then you'll be able to redo the quest to get a different ring, according to Hortus on the forums.
However, I thought that the other question in the thread, the one about whether it works for people who are not exalted, was an excellent one. And since my Shaman is not actually exalted yet, I figured I'd get some hands-on experience and find out for you, dear readers, whether the Violet Eye would exchange your ring at a level below exalted. So, as you can see in the shot above, I destroyed my revered ring (I am not kidding-- I really did), and asked the quest giver for another one.
Unfortunately, the bad news is that it does not work. I didn't actually get another ring. And apparently I'll have to work up to exalted to get my ring back. The things I do for you, my readers. The things I do.
Players get different kinds of satisfaction from World of Warcraft. It's not just about leveling and equipment acquisition for everyone. There's role playing, exploring and crafting. And then there is the completist. Those that gain satisfaction from earning Exalted status in every faction or every piece of their class armor, even if they aren't the best for the slot.
Highlander of the Terenas server is a recipe completist. He wants every recipe in the game and one of his major hurtles is getting his hands on the ones only available to the opposite faction. So he created a list of cross faction recipes to obtain. He gives a run down on how to acquire the recipes and then recommends using the neutral Auction Houses to get it back to your main.
He notes there is one Horde recipe that an Alliance toon cannot have, Orcish War Leggings. So if you are a true completist, better roll up a Hordie.
What about you? Is there any kind of collection you're focused on completing?
In Patch 2.1, Blizzard introduced daily quests, the Netherwing faction and nether drake mounts. Through a combination of solo and group daily and one-time quests, players can grind their faction from Hatred to Exalted in as little as 14 days. At Exalted, players can then buy an epic flying mount, the nether drake.
This has been well documented since the patch, but now Blizzard has added their own guide to grinding out the Netherwing faction. Their guide gives a nice overview of the quests involved without too much extra detail. It also links to their Burning Crusade page that covers the origins of the nether drake as well as a trailer.
If you're new to flying mounts, check out Blizzard's guide first. If you like what you see, try WoW Wiki's guide (linked in the paragraph above) for a more detailed look at the quests involved as well as a list of bugs. As for me, I'll stick with druid flight form. And trying to scrape together that 5000 for the riding skill.
When I originally started playing World of Warcraft, there was absolutely no way to get a cross-faction mount. That didn't stop the text on the tool-tip from taunting me though, saying that the Forsaken mounts were available to Orcs and Trolls and not just Forsaken. Of course, as anyone who started the game at the very beginning can tell you, exalted with any of the basic factions was a vague future idea that they said would eventually be implemented. When the cross-faction cloth trade-ins came into the game, I started slowly but surely forking over every scrap of Runecloth I had to the Orc cloth NPC. I eventually managed to hit Exalted with Orgrimmar, and was able to buy a riding Wolf for my Troll Rogue. But between 40 and 60, I spent quite a long time bouncing around on a Green Raptor, wishing I'd been able to get either a Skeletal Horse or Wolf. (As they took the Ivory raptor I had really wanted out of the game altogether, I certainly wasn't buying an epic raptor!)
Flash forward to Zangarmarsh, and my baby Blood Elf Rogue. Coming up through the ranks, I thought it would be fun to see if it was actually possible to get a cross-faction mount by no later than level 40 -- and if so, just precisely what it would entail.
Lyrsuk of Lothar gives us a glance of the event you get to participate in if you ever reach exalted status with the Netherwing: a dragon ride! Sadly, this dragon makes the cool mount you're about to get look awfully puny... My question is what faction standing do we have to get before we can get the dragon in the screenshot as a permanent mount?
Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth.
This week, I hit a new milestone on my main character -- I finally got Exalted with one of Azeroth's factions. By playing far too many games in Alterac Valley, I have somehow managed to convince the Stormpike Guard to like me (and I mean really like me). Anyone familiar with AV will know that you get a lot of reputation per game played, and thus getting to exalted is simply a matter of turning up, but it's still a great milestone for me.
Achieving this got me to thinking about other factions I'm working on reputation for. Slowly but surely I'm building up Cenarion Circle, Zandalar Tribe and Brood of Nozdormu faction through raiding, while I'm working on Silverwing Sentinels and League of Arathor by PvPing. On top of that, I'm working towards Stormwind reputation so I can get a horse mount, and I'd love to get Timbermaw Hold and Thorium Brotherhood rep for the recipes they bring.
It's all a bit much, really. Reaching Exalted with AV seemed to take long enough, and I'm staring despondently at my 'Neutral' and 'Friendly' bars -- not to mention the one or two 'Revered' bars which seem to stretch on forever. As I'm not a fan of grinding, reaching higher reputation levels with many factions is a case of farming instances equally repetitively -- for now, my tactic is to do these instances and let the rep come to me, rather than vice versa, but it will be many months before I reach higher levels if I continue this trend.
When I originally started playing 
This week, I hit a new milestone on my main character -- I finally got Exalted with one of Azeroth's factions. By playing 
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