A first taste of patch 5.1's Krasarang quests
Upon logging into patch 5.1 for the first time, I was greeted immediately by the same type of auto-quest that was used to start off the opening storyline of Mists. It should be noted that, as I play Alliance, this is all from the Alliance perspective.
Spoiler Alert! If you haven't got into these quests and you don't want to know what happens, don't read this! I definitely don't go through the entire questline, as you'll see I get distracted by something shiny, but there is a good amount of information that could be considered spoilers after the break!
Flying into Krasarang, I located the scout fairly easily, thanks to the large glowing question mark on my map. We had a short chat, and then Varian Wrynn arrived on what I can only assume was a boat someone constructed out of Lego.
Not the most impressive boat for someone who asserts to be the leader of the entire Alliance faction. Anyway, once his laughably small boat made it to the beach, Varian hopped out with a quest for me. I was to take out 25 Horde, by which he meant either the NPCs or actual Horde (the actual Horde drop 7 commissions per kill so if you're after those that would be the way to go on PvP servers). I also had to locate Marshal Troteman and Hilda Hornswaggle. Troteman was an easy task, located on the beach just along from where Varian's vessel lands, while Hornswaggle was a little further inland. Hornswaggle was a bit trickier than Troteman, as she was rather insistent on ignoring me while shooting Horde, so talking to her for the quest was a tiresome task. Varian had a similar problem with running around while having the next quest for me, but I pinned him down eventually.
We returned to the beach, and set off a flare, then were greeted with the Lion's Landing cutscene which had been previously datamined.
The Lions have Landed
After that short cutscene, Varian and I were standing in the middle of an Alliance stronghold at the North-Eastern end of Krasarang Cove, the new Lion's Landing. Let me tell you, these Alliance builders don't hang about!
Once they were done building the Lion's Landing, it appeared on my map, and I found myself in the middle of the new area with Varian and Anduin. While I was pleased to see that Anduin hadn't died since I left him to his own devices in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, he did seem to be having a slight issue with his legs.
Varian sent me off with a mission to do a new scenario, A Little Patience, while another nearby NPC asked if I could visit Admiral Rogers aboard the Skyfire. A new scenario was far more exciting, so I immediately queued up. As I'd expected the queue was rather swift, but the scenario itself was a little underwhelming.
A Little Patience
The scenario started off well, with a cutscene of an angry orc roaring in the doorway to a temple, and a cutscene of Tyrande being her usual impetuous self insisting that storming in was the way to go, while Varian argued that taking time was important as this was "a sacred place." As seems to be a theme for Tyrande of late, she doesn't get her way, and the players are tasked with helping some gnomes and night elves build things to launch a siege on the temple. This seems to take forever, gathering items and using them in the building sites, until eventually the green bar will fill up, and the defenses are created.
Then, and only then, is there a short and uninteresting battle with the angry orc we saw at the start. A few moments and it's finished. I really welcome the scenario technology, but I wish Blizzard would put it to better use. The ones I've done so far, with a couple of exceptions, have been largely disappointing, and this one was no exception.
I returned to Lion's Landing, having spoken to Varian, and was left without a great amount of direction, so set off in search of Admiral Rogers. On my way, I got very distracted by a rather fun diversion, which is the first daily quest I've found that I am happy to repeat, but more of that in another post!
Admiral Rogers sent me off with missions to take out Horde at their own base, which the Skyfire is hovering over. I got totally carried away, they die so easily, and tried to take out the boss. He is a lot tougher to kill! Altogether, this could be the first bit of the game where I have dailies I want to do. I'm already planning to get some guildies together to take out the boss at the Horde base, but killing the NPCs wasn't awarding reputation. I do wish, however, that the scenario was less drudgery and more action.
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