I’ve never been much for the rep grind.  Never.  I have 2 70s, a level 60, and numerous, numerous alts of virtually every range.  I have a grand total of 2 exalted factions, SSO and Violet Eye, both on my druid.  I think I got soured on the whole rep grind due to the Timbermaw Furbolg pre BC.  Back then, you had to grind a LONG time just to get to stupid Winterspring.  (I did notice, however, that they made it much easier.  Now you only have to complete one quest to make your way through the tunnel safely.)  Since then, I’ve always avoided rep grinds.  The 2 exalted factions I have came naturally, through Kara runs and griding out cash for my epic flyer.

That being said, I find myself in a rep grind for the first time.  I’ve been spending a good deal of time on alts of late, and in the interest of letting my 60 shadow priest accrue some rested XP, I picked up my 42 shammy recently, and have since gotten him to 45.  He’s a lot of fun right now — Windfury crits FTW!  (As an aside, if you ever want info on Shammys, Too Many Annas is a good place to start!)

The problem?  I cannot stand the Elekk mount.  I don’t like how they look, I feel like they are “slower” than the other mounts, though I know they are not.  I especially don’t like the fact that I fricking GET STUCK ON CRAP ALL THE TIME.  Especially doorways.  With every other mount in the game, you can run into just about anywhere, not so with the stupid Elekks.

So, I made the decision that I needed to get a different faction’s mount.  Taking a look at the state of my reputation, I found I was already revered with Stormwind.  A horsey sounds good to me!  I punched up WoWhead, and analyzed the factions page to find some level appropriate quests to boost my SW rep.

Off I went to various parts of Azeroth, and struggled to find quests that were worth my time in terms of rep and time.  I bemoaned this on the guild channel, when a guildy asked me something:  had I gone back and done all the starter quests?  No, I had not.  I had assumed that rep rewards had diminishing rewards based on level.  It turns out they do not.

Wahoo!!!

I jumped the nearest bird and headed to Stormwind.  I left Stormwind riding my ugly purple elephant, and took a hard left towards Northshire Abbey.  Yes, Northshire Abbey.

It turned out to be quite fun to annhiliate the old level 1-5 content that was there, completing all the quests, and netting pretty healthy faction awards.  I did feel a LITTLE weird, since there were level 1s and 2s actually doing honest leveling, so I tried to stay out of their way and finish the quests quickly.  I also made sure to kill only exactly what I needed.  I didn’t want to lay waste to the area and screw over the poor level 1s.

It sure was nice to blow through a lot of that stuff.  I remember wiping once or twice to Garrick Padfoot, and a single Chain Lightning in his direction ended him this time.

I also had a bit of nostalgia, as that was the first zone I played in the game.  I still remember watching the cinematic for the first time, then the flyover narrative intro to the human race.  My first character, a human rogue.  Way back in the day. 

I also remember that from the very first quest, I could see that WoW was different, different and far better.  I had played every major MMORPG previous to it, and from quest 1 WoW blew those others out of the water.  Asheron’s Call, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and more — none of them held a candle to WoW.  In a way, I guess WoW was kind of like I was the other night, a 2 ton bull charging through a china shop of level 1 content.  WoW to the MMORPGs that preceeded it was kind of like me compared to the Kobold Vermin running around Northshire Abbey.  Most of them died before they could raise their protest of “You no take candle!”  It was much the same for WoW, they nuked the hell out of the competition in an instant.

That’s why whenever I hear mention of the “WoW killer,” I just don’t believe it.  Blizzard has been on their “game” for a long time, and I expect it to stay that way.  The only WoW killer, in my mind, is World of Warcraft 2.

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