So, sometimes in Ratchet, some pipsqueak Horde character will come up and tap my character. If I smack him around at all, the town guards will come smack me around. But they won’t cover my ass. What gives? Presumably this is a reputation thing…
ps, pvp servers blow.
Ratchet is part of the Steamwheedle Cartel. The towns controlled by the Cartel are Ratchet, Booty Bay, Everlook, and Steamwheedle Port.
Your reputation with Steamwheedle Cartel directly effects how the guards treat you. If you make them hostile, you won’t even be able to enter the town. So be very careful because you can destroy your reputation with them if you smack pipsqueaks within their town, and it’ll take a very long time to get the reputation back to neutral.
If you do quests for the Steamwheedle Cartel, you will improve your reputation with them.
This is mostly correct.
The towns controlled by the Steamwheedle Cartel are actually Ratchet, Booty Bay, Everlook, and Gadgetzan.
PVPing in town will not decrease your rep with SC, but killing their guards will (however, you won’t be able to attack them if you do not switch that specific city to At War in your rep menu).
And no, PVP servers do not suck at all (says the Blood Guard Shaman).
Actually, all five of the towns above are controlled by the Steamwheedle Cartel. But who’s counting? ^_-
I think there are two parts to what’s happening. First, you do need a reputation of Friendly for the guards to help you out, so attaining that is… useful… for everyone.
Second, Ratchet doesn’t have too many guards, so if one is careful you can attack someone when you are outside the aggro radius of the guards. If that person then attacks you back, they may be within the aggro radius and thus get the beat-down. This is harder to do in, say, Booty Bay, where there is a rather higher density of guards. Blizzard may have upped the aggro radius in recent patches as well; the last time I did much fighting in neutral cities was many months ago.
My advice would be to just ignore whoever’s doing it, though this may be harder to do if you won’t be receiving help from the guards. In any of the cities, regardless of if the other person made the first move, in my experience if you fight back the guards will get you eventually. Though see note above about how I haven’t done much fighting in the neutral cities of late; I could be wrong.
Mmm, you’re gonna have to educate me on where Steamwheedle Port is, then, considering the other 4 cities are actually in your rep menu.
Steamwheedle Port is a small cluster of buildings pretty much due east of Gadgetzan — follow the road. There’s not a whole lot there, but there are several quests given against the local pirates, and I believe some fish-cooking recipes are sold by one gobbo (I think) there. There is a quest or two in Booty Bay that lead you here, and I think one quest given here sends you to look for someone in the Burning Steppes… I don’t remember so well.
Whoops.. Forgot Gadgetzan. Thanks.
Damn. You have plenty of geeky responses already! But yeah. IMO, easiest way to raise rep with the Steamwheedles is by killing the theives and assassins and such east of Gadgetzan. They can all drop Wastewander Water Pouches that can be turned in to the two goblins by the Gadget bank for more rep.