Tuesday, January 18, 2011

United Nations

No I am not referring to the international organization run out of New York but rather the guild achievement which has become a thorn in my side. Why do you ask? Because of a tiny little bug.

Originally the achievement was designed to look at every member in your guild who has earned revered reputation or "Veteran" rank. It would then take all their combined unique exalted reputations and count them towards the achievement. However at the moment it is only counting the the one member with the MOST exalted reputations.

Why is this a problem? Well the reward for this particular achievement is a non combat pet. The Dark Phoneix Hatchling. Personally I am not that much of a pet collector despite that fact that I have well over 100 of the little guys. HOWEVER, there are other members of my guild who are more, shall we say...dedicated? borderline obsessive? down right fanatical? when it comes to non combat pets. One of them just happens to be my fellow officer and mount farming partner.

With 85 different reputations in this game this achievement seems deceptively simple until you break it down into what ones you can actually obtain. First of all you have to subtract the ones that are only available to your faction.


That means if you are Alliance you have Stormwind, Ironforge, Gnomergan, Darnassus, Exodar, and Gilneas as your racial cities. These also affect your battle ground alliances in that with Warsong Gulch you fight for the Silverwing Sentinels of Darnassus, the League of Arathor in Arathi Basin, the Stormpike Guard in Alterac Valley and provide support to  Baradins' Wardens in Tol Barad. The Wintersaber Trainers trust only those special few alliance to aid them in the snows of Winterspring. While in Outland both Honor Hold and the Kurenai receive exclusively Alliance support. Then in Northrend we have the Alliance Vanguard  which is made up for four sub factions, the Explorers' League, the Frostborn, The Silver Covenant, and the Valiance Expedition. Even in Cataclysm our faction divides continue with the Wildhammer Clan fighting for land against a group of  orcs in the Twilight Highlands.

Don't fret Horde. You have an equal number of individuals you are just as dedicated to. Orgrimmar, Undercity, Silvermoon City, Thunder Bluff, the Darkspear Trolls and the Bridgewater Cartel are all your founding homes. There is a little village of Fosaken and Blood Elves in the Ghostlands called Tranquilien where you offer your assistance in cleansing those lands of the scourge. In battle the  Warsong Outriders',  The Defilers', the Frostwolf Clan and Hellscreams' Reach all cry "For the Horde!" Thrallmar and the Mag'har bring honor to a lost son and  former Warchief. In Northrend your new war chief got his first taste of battle while leading the combined forces of the Horde Expedition, specifically the Warsong Offensive, while working with the Hand of Vengeance, the Taunka and the Sunreavers.  This experience helped him to forge new alliances with the Dragonmaw Clan.

So that means that each faction has nineteen reputations specific to them. So scratch them out of your 85. From there you can further remove the Bloodsail Buccaneers, the Syndicate, as well as the Magram and Gelkis Centaur clans. Why? Because these four only reach honored or just over in their reputations. Meaning they can never count toward the exalted.

Then you have the factions where you have to chose sides. The Aldor or the Scryers? The Oracles or the Frenzyheart Tribe? Sure you can reach exalted rep with them both at separate times but all that counts is the reputations you happen to have AT THAT TIME. Two more off the list.

Well Dar that still has us at 60. That is STILL plenty of wiggle room. Right? Well not quite, you see some on that list are old. Like Zul' Gurub, which doesn't exist anymore. So you can also subtract the Zandalar Tribe unless you happened to have gotten that reputation before hand. The same goes for the Shen'dralar in Dire Maul. While the quest books still drop, some of the items needed to complete those quests like the Blood of Heroes are no longer in the game, leaving you rather stuck since they were all Bop items you can't buy on the auction house.

From there you have the reputations which can only be gained INSIDE raids. The Hydraxian Waterlords for example is a complete nightmare as once you get past a certain point you only get few hundred points of reputation for each boss kill. This means it will take MONTHS of FULL CLEARS of Molton Core to reach exalted.  Then there is the Brood of Nozdormu out of the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj (AQ 40).  These guys you start out at Hated so it takes quite a while to do a complete reversal, again many full clears as killing trash will only get you to neutral, after that it takes boss kills and quests.

Thankfully by the time we went through the Dark Portal we were able to start earning reputation by killing just about anything in a raid. So the Ashtonque Deathsworn of Black Temple, The Scales of Sands of Mt Hyjal, The Violet Eye of Karazhan and the more recent Ashen Verdict of Ice Crown Citadel just required hours of time spent killing monsters along with bosses. If you aren't a raider however that means you could be missing six reputations, a hefty chunk.

There was a dark cloud to this as well. There are also some factions who you can only get reputations with INSIDE a dungeon. This was an idea that was played around with by the now basically defunct Argent Dawn. Lower City, the Keepers of Time, Cenarion Expedition and the Sha'tar in Outland all require you to crawl around in SPECIFIC dungeons if you wanted to build reputation with them.  In Northrend and now back in the old world they have loosed things so that if you just wear a tabard showing who you support while in dungeons of specific levels you can gain reputations with the faction of your choice. At this point both Ramkahem and the Guardians of Hyjal force you to do this to get to exalted with them.

Other factions believe in giving you a little more variety. For them you can choose to either do repetitive daily quests OR run around wearing their tabard while you dungeon crawl.  The Wrymrest Accord, Argent Crusade, Kirin Tor, Knights of the Ebon Blade, and Therazane all fall into this category.


This leaves us with the neutral factions who think we have nothing better to do than either grind for repeatable turn in quests or keep coming back day after day for tortuous daily quests.  Of the turn in variety we have the Cenarion Circle in Silithus,  the Timbermaw in Winterspring, and the Consortium in Outland.  Then you have the Sporeggar of Zangarmarsh who either have you kill the same mobs over and over again or do endless turn ins. Take your pick. The torturous daily quests were first introduced by the Sha'tari Skyguard and Ogri'la. It was perfected by the Shattered Sun Offensive, who then passed all their knowledge on to the Kalu'ak and the Sons of Hodir. That knowledge seems to only grow as the years go on.

This leaves us with just a few stragglers. The Thorium Brotherhood, who now have a slightly more pronounced presence this expansion but you can still only find the higher reputation items inside Molton Core or via mining the few Dark Iron nodes found outside.  Unless your a Rogue or manage to sweet talk one, your going to have a hard time getting past honored with Ravenholdt as it requires pick pocketed Locked Boxes.  Darkmoon Faire is only in select locations once a month and unless you are a Scribe getting the Darkmoon Faire Decks you need to gain favor with them will cost you a pretty penny.

Finally we have the Steamwheedle Cartle.  Now before Cataclysm there was a fairly easy way to gain reputation with these guys inside Dire Maul, as part of the tribute run. As they are still part of the Insane in the Membrane achievement I will assume you can still do it but I haven't been able to verify that yet. Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan, and Ratchet are all part of this goblin cartel (not to be confused with the group that joined with the Horde). Their reputations are unique even though they all work for the same trade prince. Think of it as getting in good with each separate store manager for the chain. The others might put in a good word for you but each of them would like to see for themselves what you have to offer. (Typical goblins.)

So where does that leave us? If you happen to have some of the old reputations like Argent Dawn, Zandalar Tribe and Shen'dralar as well as having the benefit of being a Rogue so you have Ravenholdt, you would have the nice amount of Fifty eight reputations available to you to do this achievement. That is right, fifty eight out of fifty five.  In other words if you DO NOT happen to have ANY of the old reputations, you will not be able to get this achievement until one of two things happens. Either Blizzard fixes the bug or they add additional factions. Either way, all you non combat fanatics are going to have to do the one thing you hate, which is wait.

Thankfully for my peace of mined I have all of them, I am actually sitting at fifty three exalted reputations at the moment with my guild anxiously awaiting me to get my last two.  The question is just what I will hit exalted with first.  I just pray I can get it done within the next day or two so I can have some peace. I have been slacking on my dungeon crawls to focus on some other things much to their great frustration.

18 comments:

  1. My understanding is that the achievement counts all unique reputations among members - so for example one might have Aldor, another Scryer, you get credit for 2. So there's that.

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  2. You missed the point...the achievement is not working as intended. At this point in time it is NOT taking into account all guild member but only ONE. (In this particular case me.)

    If it was working as intended it wouldn't even be an issue as it would count not only Aldor and Scryer from different guildies but Oracles and Frenzyheart as well. Thus easily giving you the 55.

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  3. Are you including your own guild reputation as well? I'm going to assume it counts towards the list, although it assumes that someone has gone through the trouble of getting their own guild if they're not a part of one. If so that would take the place of one of the "Old World" reputations.

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  4. Does the Guild Reputation count towards the list? If so than it could take the place of one of the "Old World" reputations if someone were only in their own guild and not part of a larger one.

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  5. Random note: you can actually get exalted with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, it just takes a very, very long time of grinding (although I heard they were letting booty bay guards go all the way to exalted, not sure if it's verified yet though)

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  6. If you can actually get past Honored with Bloodsail that would be a change from when I did it (which was quite a while ago). I actually tired and once I hit 11999/12000 I stopped gaining further reputation.

    I didn't count the Guild Reputation as I have heard conflicting reports on it counting. Some have said it did while others had it not. (Either could be a bug.)

    Thanks for all the feedback guys!

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  7. Ugh, this is so frustrating - but good to know about.

    I believe that you can get to exalted with Bloodsail (or could, pre Cata, so don't know now) if you killed one dude over and over. I'm reaching into the memory bank here based on a story I read a while back, but I think he spawns on the hour or something.

    Thanks for the post!

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  8. I haven't checked if it is possible after the Cataclysm, but exalted with the Bloodsail Buccaneers was possible before. It involves killing the NPC Jazzrik repeatedly, as he continues to give honor through revered.

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  9. Travis thanks for that piece of info!

    I wish I had known that back then. When I hit the revered road block the info out at the time was it could go no further so I started working on Steamwheedle.

    If anyone can confirm the Bloodsails post Cata that would be awesome, it just may be too soon yet.

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  10. I believe the achievement only counts the reputations of people who are revered or higher with the guild.

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  11. Ok, here's my issue with your issue: the Pet derived from this guild achievement cannot be bought and learnt until one is exalted with the guild. Given the weekly reputation caps, it is *impossible* for any of your guild-mates to be exalted yet or even for any of them to be exalted within the next coupla weeks.

    So there's both much time for the bug to be fixed and for you to bring two more factions to exalted without slacking on the dungeon farming. Nobody needs to get anxious :)

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  12. Oh Tokugawa98 you have made my day!

    You should have HEARD the wails when we did "Critter Kill Squad" for the Armadillo Pup and then they all found out you had to be revered before you could purchase him.

    However in my case it only gives me a little breather. Due to another bug, my most frequent and beloved tormentor (my mount farming partner Sy) happened to get ANOTHER bug which has put him about four days ahead of everyone else on guild rep. (Something about being on during several server resets resetting his guild reputation timers. So yeah. He is already almost there.

    Good information to know though, and something I had asked them at one point only to be greeted with silence and then: "We love you but just get us our Phoenix! ;p"

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  13. Here's the link to the Blue Post stating that you can earn exalted with Bloodsail post-Cata:
    http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/1116855?page=71
    "Booty Bay Bruisers will now provide reputation up through Exalted."

    Also you can still kill the mob: High Admiral "Shelly" Jorrik .
    He still gives you 5 rep up to 999 Exalted.

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  14. It looks like you are making two arguments here.
    The first is you state that: "if you DO NOT happen to have ANY of the old reputations, you will not be able to get this"
    I'm not so sure you can make a blanket statement like that. The point of the achieve is you need to have SOME vanilla factions. Here's my list of 55:
    1. Argent Dawn
    2. Booty Bay
    3. Brood of Nozdormu
    4. Cenarion Circle
    5. Darkmoon Faire
    6. Darnassus
    7. Everlook
    8. Gadgetzan
    9. Gnomeregan
    10. Ironforge
    11. Ratchet
    12. Stormwind
    13. Thorium Brotherhood
    14. Timbermaw Hold
    15. Wintersaber Trainers
    16. Ashtongue Deathsworn
    17. Cenarion Expedition
    18. Exodar
    19. Honor Hold
    20. Keepers of Time
    21. Kurenai
    22. Lower City
    23. Netherwing
    24. Ogri'la
    25. Sha'tari Skyguard
    26. Shattered Sun Offensive
    27. Sporeggar
    28. The Aldor
    29. The Consortium
    30. The Scale of the Sands
    31. The Sha'tar
    32. The Violet Eye
    33. Alliance Vanguard
    34. Argent Crusade
    35. Explorers' League
    36. Kirin Tor
    37. Knights of the Ebon Blade
    38. The Ashen Verdict
    39. The Frostborn
    40. The Kalu'ak
    41. The Oracles
    42. The Silver Covenant
    43. The Sons of Hodir
    44. The Wyrmrest Accord
    45. Valiance Expedition
    46. Baradin's Wardens
    47. Gilneas
    48. Guardians of Hyjal
    49. Ramkahen
    50. The Earthen Ring
    51. Therazane
    52. Wildhammer Clan
    53. Silverwing Sentinels
    54. Stormpike Guard
    55. The League of Arathor

    For the sake of argument I have left off the following "OLD" factions that you can’t get anymore or are hard to get: Zanadalar, Shen'dralar, Ravenholdt, Bloodsail, Hydraxian. All the rest are obtainable like any other rep in the game. SO I'm not sure I see how this is "bugged" or broken?

    The other point you make is that it is only counting the guildie with the highest # of reps. I don't think I've seen it stated anywhere that this isn’t how Bliz intended it? But maybe I overlooked an official explanation of the achieve somewhere...anyone have a citation?

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  15. Brood of Nozdormu is an "old world" raid reputation from AQ 40.

    Argent Dawn is also an "Old World" Reputation, though you can still get it I understand from ONE lone little repeatable quest found in the plaguelands.

    Now I am quoting a GM when I say that this achievement is "Not working as intended". But with the exception of the Legendary achievements all guild achievements are intended to be based upon the collective accomplishments of the Guild members. This is how it was presented and this is why when a guild member leaves you don't lose an a achievement they may have help you accomplish.

    Thanks for the confirmation on Bloodsails!

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  16. Brood of Nozdormu is an old world raid but Exalted is still obtainable in Cata and will take as long as any other Raid rep faction. Even though you can’t do the “Scepter of the Sands” quest anymore you can still farm AQ and turn in tokens to the armor/rep vendors there.

    You can get exalted with Argent Dawn in 12-13 days post-Cata. (much faster and easier than it ever was before)
    First complete the "Fiona's Caravan" quest chain up to the point where the two Paladins accompany you to Light's Hope. Once you finish their quests, it will set your current reputation to Revered with the Argent Dawn if you are below that.

    Once you have done this, there are two repeatable quests offered by a Paladin Ghost behind Light's Hope, here:
    http://www.wowhead.com/quest=28755
    http://www.wowhead.com/quest=28756/aberrations-of-bone

    These repeatable quests give 2k Reputation each, and so you need to do 11 hand ins to reach exalted.

    I guess my point is I don’t think it’s broken because if you were to start a new alt today you would still be able to get 55 factions by putting in just as much work as anyone else. (probably less! with all the bonuses to rep gain now)


    Thanks for clarification on the “not working as intended” part!

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  17. Allie I think you may have gotten confused at to the point I was making.

    First, That this guild achievement at the moment rather than being a group activity is placing all the burden on ONE person.

    Second, for that person to then GET the achievement for their guild they will be required to get EVERY AVAILABLE REPUTATION. Some of which may be beyond them.

    Though I never said it was broken in my original post I would agree that it IS because to place that burden on one person leads to my final conclusion: Everyone in a guild is going to have to wait for either that one person to accomplish the achievement or for Blizzard to fix it before they will be able to get their Dark Phoenix.

    Add in there if the ONE person in the guild who HAPPENS to have the MOST reputations doesn't happen to Pvp (And we all know that the WSG reputation is a pain in the butt to get) that alone could take them longer than a patch to fix.

    So sure you COULD start a new Character and begin grinding ALL the reputations, but until you surpass the OTHER individuals in your guild with more...THEY will have to carry the burden.

    Again, as it stands whoever in the guild happens to have the MOST exalted reps is going solo.

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  18. My mistake Daraia, it originally seemed like you were making a case that the acheivement needed a fix because the 55 reps were unobtainable post-Cata. Which was the point I was taking issue with. Hard and long to get 55, yes. "Bugged" or unobtainable, certainly not for anyone.

    I see the point you're making though, that it is unfair for the achieve to count only one persons rep rather than the groups. And I completely agree!

    Great post for all rep lovers and good luck on the achieve!

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