Are you happy with Patch 5.3's story progression?
Frankly, as a solidly Alliance player right now, I find patch 5.3 satisfying. I get why some players don't, but frankly I don't mind spending some time exploring the Horde from an Alliance perspective, without having to faction switch or roll a new character. In fact, I hope it's something they hold onto for future content - I'd love to see a storyline where a group of Horde had to infiltrate Ironforge and work alongside some Dark Irons, or even a story that pit blood elf agents against their forsaken allies by using the worgen as catspaws. My point is, getting to directly interact with Vol'jin was pretty fun, getting to bring the war to the Horde itself while setting up the Darkspear to do the heavy lifting made sense to me, and in general I enjoyed all of the scenarios and quests I've done this patch.
But just because I like something it doesn't follow that you all feel the same way. This patch's story is unfolding in interesting new ways - there's no reputation faction to unlock via daily quests, there are scenarios but no dungeons, and quests that don't repeat. It's quite possible to see much, if not all, of the storyline in one day. It's definitely a departure from what we've seen in previous Mists of Pandaria patches.
Horde or Alliance, one you run the two scenarios and head to the Barrens, you've pretty much caught up with all of the preamble we currently have for what's coming in Patch 5.4 and it's more setup than anything. Running Blood in the Snow isn't even that. It's more of an aside to patch 5.2's story, showing what the Zandalari were up to in the Eastern Kingdoms at the same time that they were recruiting all the other troll clans.
There are pros and cons to unfolding the story in this manner. I don't think it can be disputed that patch 5.3 has the least actual story of any patch yet released since Mists launched last September.
That's not necessarily a negative - I personally enjoyed what I got and it got me interested in seeing what patch 5.4 brings to the table while at the same time it gives me more time to pursue what the previous patch brought us - a massive raid that I've barely started sticking my toes into when it comes to the heroic fights. Patch 5.3 is just enough to set up what's coming without taking away too much focus from Lei Shen, Ra-Den and the story of the end of the Zandalari (an end I don't expect will actually take, but I suspect we won't see any more of them for quite some time at least). If anything it shows us how events have progressed during our siege on the Throne of Thunder, and answers the question "What are the Horde and Alliance doing while we're busy dealing with all this?"
And it turns out they've been fairly busy, which we see established in the content we're given. Frankly, I don't see any need for more than we got, in terms of how much story we were given. The next question to answer becomes, what do you personally think of the story so far? As a far more subjective question, I can't pretend to speak for anyone but myself here. I personally enjoyed it, as I said, but you may not. And that's what we have comments for, isn't it?
