5.1 Live

In many ways, 5.1 feels less like a patch than a two-part release to the expansion. We've spent the last two months exploring this new land, but other than small expeditions in Krasarang and the disastrous efforts by Taylor and Nazgrim in Jade Forest (and their somewhat less disastrous efforts in Kun Lai - when they aren't aiming for each other) the place has been essentially been devoid of the familiar factions until now. We are truly the intrepid explorers here, and the land is, in a way, more alien then Outland.

Now, however, we've got the big guns showing up on both sides, and at the very least the beaches of Krasarang are looking very much like the Southern Barrens - Alliance versus Horde in a huge, ongoing battle.

The new daily quests are interesting in that they seem to really get you right up into each others' grills. I took Jarsus through a round of them, and I found myself assaulting the Horde base, literally going into the walls and killing Horde forces. Some Horde players flagged themselves for PvP and tried to get me to accidentally flag myself, but I played very carefully there (I know there are those who want more world PvP, but I rolled on a PvE server back in the day because I wanted to have complete control over when I was pitting myself against players or robots.) I would assume that the action switches around to different areas each day, but today was a "take it to the Horde" day. The rewards for Operation Shieldwall (and Dominance Offensive) appear to be higher-quality than the four 5.0 factions, but of course you will also need to get your rep up to a solid place to purchase them for significant quantities of valor points.

Killing Horde (or Alliance, if you are Horde) NPCs will grant you commendation items as a drop. These are interesting in that they can be turned in to a special vendor who will allow you to purchase various things to spruce up the base - such as mercenary Mages or Paladins or a handful of other classes, or getting guards for various installations on the battlefield. You can also get items the begin quests. I bought one of these (a Tiger trap) that required me to get a huge amount of Yak meat (with a sadly low drop rate) and capture a tiger for a sort of arena thing near Lion's Landing. I actually have no idea what this accomplished, but it seems that you can use these arenas to... test yourself against the animals you catch? I don't know if this quest is repeatable (though unless its rewards become clear and are also compelling, I'm not inclined to try again - they don't even give rep) but I believe I'm only scratching the surface of this area. It is, in some ways, a PvP zone, yet you are not required to do any PvP to participate in the faction grind.

Along with the new hubs come a couple of scenarios - two for each faction as well as a neutral one. I have yet to do these, so I can't comment much on them, but I imagine we'll see plots unfold through them as well as through hitting various reputation levels. There isn't one big, quick quest chain to go through from the start, other than the brief one that gets your base built. However, knowing that there are some big plot points to be seen, I imagine doing the scenarios will be an important part in progressing the story, particularly the Horde one surrounding Vol'jin's betrayal at the hands of Garrosh's Kor'kron.

Warlocks, sadly, are going to have to wait until 5.2 for their big quest chain, which is quite sad, though I think it's best to let us do the whole thing in one go and not spread it out like the Wrathion quests.

Now, the infamous Brawler's Guild. Thankfully, the place is open to the public as a place to just go and chill out. You only need a membership to queue for the fights. I'm still very skeptical about how well this feature is going to work out as something that is not instanced, but Bizmo's Brawlpub at least is a very cool area, though it could use more booze vendors. Definitely a cool RP hang-out spot.

Of course, new features are not the only thing that you'll be thinking about when you log on (if you haven't already.) The first thing I did, before doing by Shieldwall dailies, was to pick up a Grand Commendation for each of the Pandaria factions (minus Anglers, which I am still not revered with.) They run 37g50s at revered or 35g at exalted (this may include the guild perk, actually) so while it's not a huge investment, you will find yourself down a chunk of change after picking them up. Of course, it's super worth it.

As there does not seem to be a Black Prince quartermaster, I don't think there is a commendation for him, but both the gear-based factions and the minor factions like Tillers have them. I do not know, though I assume that the rep bonus applies to both daily and one-shot quests, meaning you probably want to delay leveling alts through Townlong and Dread Wastes until you have Shado-Pan or Klaxxi at revered on your main (too late for my Rogue, Death Knight, Warrior, Shaman, Warlock and Mage. Oh well.)

These Grand Commendations are certainly welcome, though I think they are ultimately a kind of band-aid for the problem. Unless I start running all my toons through their dailies each day, I'm still going to be working on these factions for a very long time, and though these things do cut that time in half, it's still going to be quite a while. On the other hand, the new Alliance/Horde factions offer some overlapping rewards with other factions (rings, boots, belts, and trinkets I believe) so you might be able to squeeze by without getting all the original factions.

For a major content patch, Landfall may seem a little underwhelming, and perhaps that's fair, if you compare it to some of the amazingly huge patches like 3.3 and 4.3. But of course, this is only two months into the expansion, and much of the stuff we're dealing with is still quite new (I still haven't done Heart of Fear on LFR, though that's more out of frustration with the length of tank queue times than a feeling of being overwhelmed.) 5.1 is really more 5.0 part two, and when you consider that, it's actually really damned impressive.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go chill out in the Brawlpub and get drunk.