On the trail again

So about a year ago, with some guildies, I went down to Booty Bay and slaughtered every guard there.

Repeatedly.

Then I did a quick little quest to get my pretty little achievement, my hat and my uniform and got my rep with the Bloodsail Buckaneers to Honored. Go me!

Then I began the painful task of bringing my goblin rep back up. I managed to get about halfway out of hated (started at a 1/4 out) by running Dire Maul too many times.

So I started killing pirates south of Ratchet. They are Southshore pirates, and are unaffiliated with the Bucks- so its all clear sailing there.

Anyways, I've killed the several thousand that I need (at 5.5 rep per) to get my rep with Ratchet up to Neutral.

The other parts of the Steamwheedle Cartel still hate me, so I have to go through Hostile and Unfriendly phases with them.

But now I can do low level quests for those short little guys in Ratchet, and that will be more entertaining than killing pirates over and over again while on auto-run.

Yeah, I want to get to exalted with them. I'm Insane in the Membrane.

Greedy Gronko's Grand Gold Gathering Guide: Professions- Inscription

Again, like most professions, I don't have a high level inscriptionist, so I don't know all of the possible options.

You do however, have a few ways of making the Gs come pouring in.

The most obvious is making Glyphs. I don't even know why I said that. If you're not making glyphs, you're doing something wrong. Look up the most profitable mats::sell value glyph. Make a half dozen. Then pick a new glyph.

Another method is milling. Many inscriptionists are too lazy to get the rare pigments they need and would often rather buy them.

The last option (that I know of) is cards. People still need/want Darkmoon Faire cards of Greatness because it is still an amazing and 'easy to get' trinket. Also, if you know someone stupid enough to be trying to get "Insane in the Membrane" (like me) they are going to need somewhere on the order of a few thousand rogue's decks. Yeah- that is a lot. And if they don't have an inscriptionist, they will need to buy them. All of them.

Matched set.

Me and Keyran (a guildie) were both on our way to Onyxia. We went this way, because the goblins hate us- guess why.

I am Bad-ass

This is a VUNDERFUL shot. It is from my guild's (The Oasis Contingent) birthday party this past august. I was wearing my ogre costume I picked up in DM while doing some runs for goblin rep. Clearly, not entirely sober. In this case the way the fisheye lens works really makes it seem to me that he is striding out of the image and he is one big BAMF.

Grinding (for rep)

Many people prefer grinding to music (for rep). Grinding, for those of you who do not know, is the act of killing absurd numbers of mobs look for items to turn in for rep, for quests, or for rep-per-kill.

The Feat of Strength, Insane in the Membrane, which awards the title "The Insane" is essentially pure grinding. The goal of the achievement is to become Honored with the Bloodsail Buccaneers (which destroys you're reputation with the Steamwheedle Cartel*). Additionally, you need to be Exalted with the Shen'dralar, Darkmoon Faire, Ravenholdt, and the Steamwheedle Cartel.

For Bloodsail rep you need to kill many guards who become very hostile and eventually get very difficult to kill. They are level 75, have a melee with net or a ranged attack that bounces you back. Anyways, you only need to kill a few hundred of them because they each give you about 75 rep.

To get your rep back up, you can either repeat a quest in Dire Maul, many, many times or kill pirates near Gadgetzan or Ratchet. When you get to Neuteral you can do various quests for them to also bring your rep up.

There are other goals while grinding, such as looking for specific objects (for Shen'dralar and Ravenholdt and Darkmoon) but the question I wanted to look at here was what to do while grinding.

Grinding in and of itself is very boring because you are generally doing a very simple task repetitively. Many people listen to music while they do so as it does take some attention away from the boredom, but there is still not much consciousness going on. Others watch TV, but I feel that takes too much consciousness. If you do not consistently attend to the TV, you will lose your place in the story, but if you DO attend to the TV, you will lose your pace while grinding, making it ineffective.

While it has been noted that talking to someone, either next to you or on a cell phone while driving does take a significant portion of your attention, when playing a video game and completing a simple task over and over, talking may be the proper amount of attention to put to the side.

However, perhaps even better than talking to someone is listening to an audio book. It engages you as much as a person talking to you or a TV show, but does not need you to either attend to a different visual area or to worry about conversing, therefore taking less of your consciousness, but still a significant amount.

*Steamwheedle Cartel: A group of four neutral goblin factions: Booty Bay, Everlook, Gadgetzan and Ratchet.

**Also please note that I am currently enrolled in a class "Attention: A Window to Consciousness" thus causing some of my discussion.