Reputation Done Right
After running Azjol'Nerub and The Old Kingdom last night, Rynala and I went over to Moa'ki Harbor to do the Tuskarr quests there. We only have about three quests left at the node but we're already roughly 2500/21000 revered rep with them. Since we did both Borean Tundra and Howling Fjord, this gave us a nice boost in the rep. What shocked me is how easily the rep has been coming and how great the rewards are.
In WoW vanilla and The Burning Crusade, reputations weren't something you worried about until the level cap. This made the items from the reps to be somewhat useless. When you hit level 70 in BC, most of your reps would be around 5000/12000 honored or so. One stark example of this is with the Consortium. They offer a level 62 dagger at honored rep. The problem with this is that by the time you hit honored, you'll probably be in Nagrand and about level 66-67 and by then the dagger isn't that great.
Now you contrast this with the Kalu'ak rep in WotLK. We're already a good way into revered and we're only 75. The only reward this faction offers at exalted is a new fishing pole and penguin pet so the good rewards come before that. At honored they offer eight different level 76 blue chestpieces for all the different classes and talent specs. At revered, they offer an assortment of level 78 blue weapons that are fantastic. Even though she's not 78 yet, Rynala picked up the polearm because it is better than the one you get from the Amphitheater of Anguish (the new Ring of Blood). She didn't pick up the chestpieces because she has one of similar quality already crafted from leatherworking.
Due to work and school, we haven't been leveling the fastest, but I think us being at 75.5 after one week is not that bad for speed. We'll most likely be 80 by the end of the weekend or the start of next week. The fact that we've been able to level our reps and professions up without any major distraction from leveling and get useful items from the reputations and professions that are good while leveling is a huge change and quite appreciated. Some people say that Blizzard is making the game too easy. Personally, I just think they're fixing the game to the way it should have been from the very beginning.