Neriad helps Umi's friends get a little revenge and then explores the new Bloodsail Buccaneer related quests that will be added in the 1.11 patch.

YARRR, PART II -- 10 MONTHS LATER

It's been 10 months since Neriad first became an Admiral of the Bloodsail Fleet (see: The Adventures of Neriad: Yarrr! ), and it's been fun being a renegade.  The questions I've received from other players whenever the Gadgetzan bruisers attacked me as I landed in Tanaris have certainly been fun. ("Oh, no.  This happens all the time!  I'm an Admiral of the Bloodsail fleet, you see. [Bloodsail Admiral's Hat]").  However, with the 1.10 patch adding more content for goblin lovers and the likelihood of even more such content to come in the future, I felt it was time to rebuild Neriad's reputation with the goblins -- without damaging her reputation with the Bloodsail Buccaneers, of course.

Before embarking on that journey, though, Neriad had one last Bloodsail task to perform.  In response to the original Adventures of Neriad: Yarrr! journal, Hedon wrote:

I just couldn't get myself to kill the Goblins though, as I find them just too cool to turn them into enemies 

Remember the cute "Are we there Yeti" Quest you did for them in Everlook? Can you imagine how this poor Goblin Girl feels now, about your betrayal?

You mean the goblin girl who terrorized all her friends, and got me to do her dirty work for her?  Yes, I remember her well.

Oh, Umi!  Your friends really liked your joke!  In fact, when I suggested that I could play a joke back on you, they were all very enthusiastic about the idea.

You remember that mechanical yeti you gave me, right?  But this version doesn't just chase you around and growl at you.  So funny, isn't it?

Go ahead and call an Everlook bruiser over.  I'm a priest.  I could tank him all afternoon if I wanted to.  Sure, I could kill him if I wanted to, but I'm going be an upstanding citizen of Everlook someday, and I wouldn't want my reputation to be tarnished any further.

That mechanical yeti sure is tough!  He only needed a couple of heals to kill you.  So funny.  I'll tell your friends what happened here.  I'm sure they'll laugh and laugh.

(Dominus, a hunter guildmate, happened to walk by as I was doing this and frost trapped one of the bruisers.  It wasn't necessary, since the yeti killed Umi readily enough, but I appreciated the frost trap nonetheless).

After this little adventure, Neriad along with some other members of Pirates for Life explored ways to regain their good standing with the goblins without losing their reputations with the Bloodsail Buccaneers.  At first we thought we could aoe down the Southsea pirates on the coast of Tanaris.  The Bloodsail Buccaneers don't seem to mind if some of their pirate competitors get thinned out, you see.  Unfortunately, it turned out that killing these mid-40ish level pirates for only 1 point of Gadgetzan reputation and a 0.5 points of spillover reputation with the other goblin factions was an exceedingly slow way to get one's faction back.  We then tried the repeatable quests given by the goblin on the shore of Ferales, but it turned out that because you have to kill high level 40 mobs to collect the quest items and because the reputation gain per quest turnin is so small, this method is also a poor way to build up one's reputation.  We then discovered the fastest way currently available to build up one's faction with the goblins -- killing the level 12-15 Southsea pirates near Ratchet.  These pirates are plentiful, die in one hit to level 60's, and give 1 point of Ratchet reputation and 0.5 points of spillover reputation for all other goblin factions.  It may sound like a daunting task to kill 40-80,000 pirates in order to get back into the good graces with the Steamwheedle Cartel, but if you spend a few hours a week killing pirates while waiting in battlegrounds queues or for raids to form up, it's not too bad.

But when Neriad had only earned half her lost reputation back, she received quite a shock while adventuring on the 1.10 beta test realm.  In addition to requiring players to be neutral with Gadgetzan in order to complete the new "tier 0.5" quests, Blizzard had added Steamwheedle bruisers to the top of all of the zeppelin towers.  These were not the mildly annoying bruisers found in Gadgetzan and Everlook.  These were full fledged elite mobs armed with nets and guns.  They made it nearly impossible for Horde Bloodsail admirals lacking the ability to stealth to use one of their most important transportation devices.  Blizzard was adding content to the game without considering the impact it would have on the (admittedly small) Bloodsail admiral community.

Give the Bloodsail admiral community some credit. There might not be many of us, but we can sure make a ruckus if we want to.  Also, give Blizzard some credit for being willing to listen to their customers.  Soon after the 1.10 beta test realm opened, I and several other Bloodsail admirals launched a campaign to raise awareness at Blizzard about the plight of Bloodsail admirals, to call for the removal of the goblin guards at the top of the zeppelin towers (or change the faction of the guards), and to call for the creation of a mechanism that would allow Bloodsail admirals to complete their tier 0.5 quests.

Within a week, the goblin guards on the zeppelin towers had been changed to a more friendly Orgrimmar faction.  In addition, while Blizzard did not create an alternative tier 0.5 quest line for Bloodsail admirals, they did announce that new quests would be added to 1.11 that would allow Bloodsail admirals to more easily regain the good graces of the Steamwheedle Cartel.

What they didn't say was that Bloodsail admirals who used these new quests would have to pay a terrible terrible price.  They also didn't say that they would add a fantastic new quest just for Bloodsail admirals in 1.11.

UP NEXT:  Neriad's New Clothes