AFTERMATH

In the aftermath of our raid, it's been fun to see all the little differences in the game.  For example, all of the zeppelin masters are now hostile to me, although they don't attack on sight.

Whenever I fly into Gadgetzan, I get immediately attacked by Gadgetzan Bruisers.

The moment that caught me off guard, however, was when I flew into Flame Crest to turn in a libram quest and got immediately attacked by Tinkee Steamboil and all of the goblins that inhabit the outpost.

When I began posting this tale on the Amazon Basin forums, I found that some other people already had a discussion going about gaining or losing reputation with the goblins.  TacoSupreme said, "I've heard the pirates in arathi can boost bloodsail faction as well without killing BB faction, not sure if its true."  Well, Jeez, I thought.  Now you tell me.  So, I downloaded Reputation and went to Arathi to check it out.

At first glance, the story seemed to be true.  Killing the deckhands and most of the NPC's there gave 1 reputation point with the Bloodsail Buccaneers each time I killed them, and the First Mate and Captain gave me 5 points.  What's more, there didn't seem to be any spillover reputation loss with the rest of the goblin factions.  It would be an awfully tedious process to get the thousands of reputation points needed to get to Friendly with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, but it seemed like a way was available to gain reputation with them without losing reputation with the goblins.

But hold on.  There were still several possible explanations for this.  It's possible that the pirates in Arathi are indeed special mobs, but that hasn't yet been proven.  It's possible that the reason for this behavior is that Neriad is level 60 and maybe there's something about the reputation mechanics that's causing the reputation loss to somehow round down to zero.  It's also possible that because I'm already fully hated by Booty Bay that I can't lose any more reputation with them and therefore there's no extra spillover reputation loss, either.

To test the specialness of the Arathi pirates, I brought out my level 39 dwarf hunter alt (on Stormrage) and killed one of the Blackwater deckhands.

Well, that pretty much settled that question.  Killing the pirates in Arathi does cause reputation loss with Booty Bay and spillover reputation loss with all the goblin factions.  But how come Neriad didn't lose any reputation with the goblins?  Is it because she's level 60 or because she's already fully hated by Booty Bay?

To test that out, I first traveled back to Booty Bay and killed a bruiser.  Aha!  Neriad didn't lose any spillover reputation with the goblins when she killed the bruiser, either.  It seems that when you're fully hated by Booty Bay, you won't lose additional reputation with Ratchet, Gadgetzan, or Everlook by killing additional bruisers.

But I wanted to make sure that there's really nothing special about the pirates in Arathi for those who are level 60.  So, I rode up to the Venture Company operation on the lake in Stranglethorn Vale and killed some geologists in order to boost my reputation with Booty Bay.  Each geologist increased my reputation by 1 point.  (Woot!  Only 41,999 geologists to go until I'm neutral with Booty Bay!).  Incidentally, I also tried killing the higher level Wastewanders in Tanaris, but they also only gave 1 reputation point of faction per kill.  After getting 75 reputation with Booty Bay, I headed back to Arathi and killed a deckhand.

Sure enough, I lost a bundle of reputation with all of the goblin factions, so it's clear.  When it comes to farming for reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, there's nothing special about the Arathi pirates, other than the fact that they're lower level than the Booty Bay bruisers, so one could start building up one's reputation at an earlier level by farming them.  In addition, once one has reached fully hated with Booty Bay, there's no longer any spillover reputation loss with the rest of the goblin factions when you kill Booty Bay NPC's.

So, where do we go from here?  Well, there should be more Bloodsail Buccaneers quests, of course!  Some ideas that our pirate crew bandied about were:

1. Bloodsail buccaneers should be allowed to fish as part of the Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza!  Bloodsail pirates should be able to catch Tastyfish and turn them in to a Bloodsail Buccaneers NPC for prizes.  After all, don't pirates appreciate the taste of succulent fish, too?

2. There should be an epic mount for those who get to be Exalted with the Bloodsail Buccaneers.  Our suggestion is a dingy with a small sail that one can use to float across the water -- kind of the way that shamans can waterwalk or priests can levitate across the water.

3. How about a pirate hat or a coat that when worn lets you speak and understand [Pirate].  All others would only hear "Arrrrr..." or perhaps a random selection of "Arrrrr...", "Ahoy, Matie!", and "Shiver me timbers!"  It would be up to Blizzard to decide if cross-faction speaking would be allowed in this case.  I think it'd be cool if it did allow cross-faction speaking, though.

4. There should be a pirate emote.  Maybe only allow people who are friendly or better with the Bloodsail Buccaneers do the pirate emote.

But if none of these ideas ever get implemented, what do I think of this adventure?  Is the hat and parrot and everything that goes with it worth everything I had to do to get it?

Yarrr!  Tis so worth it!