Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Magrams hate me an I have no idea why

I’ve obviously done something to annoy The Magram Clan Centaur. They’re really pissed off with me, even close hateful. I have no idea why. I can’t recall even seeing these guys. The Gelkis Clan Centaur on the other hand seems to like me. What have I done? Groomed their backs? Baked them a Chocolate cake? I’m clueless.

Today I’m going to write a rant about reputation and what I think about it, and the first place to go was obviously to have a closer look at my own reputation list in armory.

Never heard of fractions
It’s puzzling to say the least. There are so many fractions that I’ve never heard about, some of them with very exotic names. Like “The Shen'dralar”. It sounds a bit like the mythological “Shangri-La”, a place of wonders. I have no idea if I should strive to be hated or loved by them. So far I’ve done what we do where I live: I’m staying absolutely neutral. I just wonder how it comes that they have heard about me in the first place – I’ve never heard about them. But I guess it’s like a saying we have in Sweden: “Everybody knows the monkey, but the monkey knows no one.”

Now Blizzard gives us some help with information about some of the fractions. I hadn’t noticed it before, but most of them are actually linked to some further information. There’s a pretty long explanation about The Thorium Brotherhood, dwelling in the Searing Gorge, for all of those who forgot about them after we were done questing there. But it still is a mystery to me who The Ashtongue Deathsworn are – the link from armory only leads to a list of rewards. So I guess I’d better get on terms with them.

Some players like it
To some players reputation seems to be a bit deal. It’s a bit like levelling to see those bars grow longer and the messages in the log about every tick you gain. When they’re hated by all they want to annoy and exalted with the cool guys, I guess they get some sort of feeling of accomplishment. They have completed the game in once aspect. Revast at The Muffin Factory is one example. He recently wrote about what he had left to do until the expansion. And even though he hadn’t downed all raid bosses yet he didn’t care about it anymore. But getting exalted with Stormwheedle Cartel was a big thing, so now he’s running Dire Maul to get there.

What I think about it
And, no surprise if you’ve read so far, I’m just the opposite kind. I don’t care much at all. I just think about reputation from a practical point of view. There are two aspects of reputation that are valid to me:

1. To get access to privileges
If I can get hold on a special item I need, I’m totally willing to grind rep, like I did with Cenarion Expedition, to get the spellhit ring, which I needed at that point (now collecting dust in the bank vault). It made me accept to kill hundreds of nagas in Zangar, which was pretty boring, just so I could buy that transmute recipe. But it’s all related to that I get a reward that I need. I cared a lot about Honor Hold reputation as long as I wanted to buy the sword at the exalted level. Then I got a dagger in Karazhan and I couldn’t care less about HH.

Of course the benefit doesn’t necessarily have to be useful. I like vanity things as well. I totally understand anyone that sets for a Netherdrake mount for instance.

2. To display experiences in the game
Reputation doesn’t really lie. If you’re pugging Karazhan, or recruiting to a guild and a player claims that he’s got plenty of experience from it on this char, it’s SO easy to see if he tells the truth just by checking his rep with The Violet Eye. It surprises me sometimes that some players (probably kids) don’t seem to think about it – that experience is so clearly reflected this way.

If you look at me for instance you can see that I’ve obviously set my foot into Zul Gurub, being neutral with The Zandalar Tribe. But I can’t really have any in-depth experiences from there, which is true, since I’m a post TBC player.

So… now over to the readers. Do you care much about your reputation?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty much where you are. The only reputation I have is what I need to get a rep reward, a pattern, or access to a privilege, like porting directly to Mount Hyjal. I don't obsess about TOO much in the game, and that caries over to reputation.

FYI, you gain rep with Ashtongue Deathsworn by killing mobs in BT ;)

Anonymous said...

I too answer "to grind or not to grind?" by asking myself "what's in it for me?" I will go through just about any length for vanity pets and cross faction mounts, though I really prefer factions where I can purchase rep turn-in items. It's easier (for me at least) to make gold than it is to farm eleventy jillion Brown Gryphon Pinfeathers, or whatever odd little item is so desperately craved by the faction with the best pets.

Anonymous said...

I am like you, I generally don't care about reputations beyond the bonus I might gain.

There is one exception...
Gnomeregan Exiles
Why am I only honored with them... I would use my last mana pot to help the Gnomes... it's just so unfair...

And I refuse to go and collect scraps of runecloth.

Why can't I grind Gnomer as a level 70 to become a fabled Gnome legend?

Vilcum said...

Reputation system is great , much more even when you have to make chooses. I have much fun grinding for "useless" reputation who will give something cool (Nether Ray for me!) , even to the point of stoping leveling at 40 to grind undercity rep for my skeletal horse.

Pd. Ashtongue is the faction of Akama. You find them probably by questing on Shadowmoon Valley, hiding in the cellar of a king of gladiatorial circus...

Pd2 For gnomeag.. Quests you skiped on your young levels are still there, and they give the same amount of rep they did in those time. Look for gnome or alliance rep lowbie quest.

SolidState said...

1. To find more info about any faction, just type their name into the wowwiki.com search box.

2. I'm one of those like you who doesn't care much about reputation beyond wanting it for specific items or checking if a player really does have experience in an instance. I remember reading the blizzard forums one day, this poster was bragging he had a lot of experience and attacking another poster. The other poster linked to the attacker's reputations armory page... only friendly/honored with all of the outland factions... "pwned!" as they say :)

3. There was a story in wowinsider once about a player who had actually gotten exalted with just about every possible faction in game, including one old-world faction that is so obscure/not-developed, they don't even have any rewards at exalted. >50 exalted reputations iirc... crazy :)

Anonymous said...

when your leveling and you get to ghost walker post your asked to help them deal with teh centaurs in teh area by either :

befriending the ghelkis or the magrams and to do this you just kill the other clan

in short everyone is hated by one or the other unless they skipped this zone cause it was an easy xp grind

Anonymous said...

I love reputation and yes the grinds suck, but Im a perfectionist. Anyways, the Magram and the Gelkis clan are Centaurs you find out in Desolace at level 30 ish. Basically you find a quest for one side or the other first, and go kill the other side, thus making one hate you and one love you. You prolly quested through it and didn't even notice. There's nothing to be had by these reputations really, I think it was just a quest to let you become familiar with it.

Hope that helps.

Fish said...

I think rep is pretty disfunctional. why are there 2 different cenarion factions? So, the furbolgs in Azshara, talk to the ones in felwood to know I'm killing the bad ones in winterspring and felwood, but 2 factions with the SAME NAME dont talk to each other?

SolidState said...

> why are there 2 different cenarion factions?

Read the CE wowwiki page for details. Basically, they split up. Kinda like Protestants and Catholics ;)

> So, the furbolgs in Azshara, talk to the ones in felwood to know I'm killing the bad ones in winterspring and felwood,

Argg, syntactically incorrect English makes baby pandas /cry :(
Or in other words, I didn't understand what you meant with this sentence (which is not actually a sentence).

> but 2 factions with the SAME NAME dont talk to each other?

What are you talking about? What 2 factions have the same name but don't talk to each other?

Oh and /wave, I lived in Dayton, Ohio for 2 years (~10 years ago) :)

Anonymous said...

@Musingsofaraider: Oh, thanks! That explains why it's growing.

@Oriniwen: Yeah, it's great when you can buy stuff. I was never lucky at grinding Aldor stuff so I eventually went gold grinding by dailies and stuff and then bought the armaments required instead of getting annoyed in SMW.

@Gnomeaggedon: I agree! There's no reason why a gnome of your fame wouldn't be famous in the game as well.

@Manuel: yeah, as long as I get something "cool" I'm with you. But rep for just the sake if it I can't understand.

@Solidstate: fun stories, thanks for sharing!

@Anonymous and Altoholicsareus: now that you mention it I recall it. I think I was told to go there and kill some centaurs when I was following the levelling guide by Jame. I didn't reflect much about it, just trusted his ideas about what centaurs to become friendly with.

@Fish: I'm afraid I'm not familliar enough with those fractions to quite understand. But it is rather confusiong sometimes those rep and fraction things, in my opinion. I guess it takes some research on wowwiki to sort it out.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely, positively care about my rep....as long as it gets me my recipe, plan, etc.

@ Gnomeaggedon
"Why can't I grind Gnomer as a level 70 to become a fabled Gnome legend?"

Cuz Gnomer sucks!!! LOL

Anonymous said...

My comment got kinda long and ranty, as I don't much care for the reputation system. I decided to post about it instead of dumping a big long ranty comment here in this cozy Inn!

Anonymous said...

@Mamadruid: thanks for giving me notice. I'll definitly check out your rant....

Anonymous said...

I care about reputation. I'm exalted with every alliance-faction (even Gnomes, and they were the hardest).
I have a frostsabermount and all who have it know what a grind that is.