The Operation Shieldwall and Dominance Offensive reputation grinds are widely considered the most successful in Mists so far, due, I have no doubt, to the existence of one-shot story missions roughly every other day (or every day after you get your Grand Commendation.)
What we get, effectively, is a gated quest chain. The limits on reputation imposed by the limits on daily quests means we don't get to do the whole thing in one go (though perhaps because of my guild and racial bonus, I did manage to get three story quests in a single day on my main) but we feel very motivated to push the dailies, because of the frequent rewards in the form of these story-quests.
And the reason these quests are so rewarding is that we get to see serious story development. In expansions past, because questing was mostly for leveling, we didn't really get a lot of story after hitting the cap. With OS/DO, we got to see some serious developments take place. While the story of the Divine Bell itself was fairly self-contained (spoilers: at the end of the quest chain, Anduin destroys the bell, so I guess we don't have to worry about that) the implications of the various actions the other characters take has a much more lasting impact. Not only do we know that Garrosh fully intends to weaponize the Sha to use against the Alliance, we also see how the harmony between Alliance and Horde in Dalaran breaks down - Jaina finally loses patience after members of the Sunreavers use Dalaran's portals to steal the bell from Darnassus. What was once a shining beacon of cooperation is now torn apart.
Jaina, left in charge of the Kirin Tor after Rhonin's death, puts her foot down and kicks the Sunreavers out, making Dalaran an Alliance-only city once again.
5.2 will bring two new factions: the Sunreaver Onslaught and the Kirin Tor Offensive. Given the popularity of the 5.1 factions, I expect that these two will have a similar structure.
As of yet, I do not believe there's much about the chain on the PTR, but I imagine we can predict how things will go: The Sunreavers, frustrated by their summary eviction/imprisonment, are going to go back to the Horde and begin working against the Alliance. Meanwhile, Jaina will likely be the focus of the Kirin Tor Offensive's story, as she attempts to beat the Sunreavers to the punch and deal with her anger.
There are some who see Jaina becoming a real fanatic, that she will become obsessed with destroying the Horde as vengeance for Theramore, and even that she might eventually go down the path to become a full-fledged villain. I, for one, really hope that does not happen. Jaina's been undergoing about six months of anger and grief, feeling stabbed in the back by people she trusted, but she's not quite bloodthirsty the way that Garrosh is. She doesn't just kill every Sunreaver in Dalaran, after all - she locks them up.
The Sunreavers, and the Blood Elves in general, are in a pretty bad position. Garrosh would throw them to the wolves if it suited his purposes, but the Alliance (quite justifiably, I might add) does not trust them. Will the 5.2 faction stories lead to a showdown or a reconciliation? The latter seems a little overly optimistic, but I also wonder what direction we can expect Alliance/Horde relations to go before we go and depose Garrosh.
It kind of matters how 5.3 or 5.4 (or whatever patch the Garrosh raid is in) goes. If we simply see two very different sides of things, such as the Horde just seeing it as a popular revolt and the Alliance seeing it as a full-scale invasion, we might not see much in the way of reconciliation, but on the other hand, it would be kind of cool to see the Alliance join forces with the Horde uprising and use a united front to defeat Garrosh and his Kor'kron.
5.2's reputation grinds could really hold the key for how it all plays out.
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