For both factions, establishing your Garrison is basically the first thing you do upon finishing the Tanaan Jungle quest chain. Alliance players land near an area called Lunarfall, and Horde players land near a place called Frostwall, so you can basically use those names to refer to the Garrisons.
Right now, the Beta is missing certain items for players to start their first professional building, which takes up a "small" plot in your garrison. The one exception is Alchemists. Luckily, my Horde main is one, so I went through the Dark Portal chain (which goes pretty quick the second time around - we'll see about the tenth) and landed in Frostfire Ridge.
Frostfire Ridge is quite a breathtaking zone. While Shadowmoon Valley feels filled with towns and buildings of both the Karabor Draenei and the Shadowmoon Orcs, Frostfire feels a lot more like it's in the wilderness. There are expansive tundras and large volcanic rock formations poking out everywhere. While it doesn't have the mysterious and magical feel that SMV has, it instead feels very rugged.
I have not delved into the quests nearly as much there as I have in SMV, but things get to a pretty grand start, with you raiding Bladespire Citadel to take it form the Ogres. There's a pretty big battle that gets things going in the zone, and it's pretty satisfying to fight your way to the top of the spire.
Upon completing this quest chain, you get a tribute chest that has garrison supplies and, if you're an alchemist, a quest-beginning item that sends you on a short chain that will get you both your Alchemy Lab plan and 700 Alchemy. This is a pretty quick one, where you find an Orc woman who has been killed and you avenge her on behalf of her daughter, who then becomes a follower of yours.
As of yet, I haven't actually built the lab, because while I have the plan, I have not seemed to be getting nearly as many resources as I did in SMV. That might just be that I haven't done as many quests, though.
Frostfire Ridge has yet to develop a real central antagonist the way that SMV has Ner'zhul. The ogres are clearly a major threat, and it appears that the Thunderlord Clan are also major players.
Back to Garrions:
It's really hard to say much about the garrisons yet, because I think the main source of progress within them is gummed up by some missing items (hopefully in the next build that will be fixed.) I'm holding off on taking Jarsus, my engineer, in until all professions get supported.
So far, questing is a fairly interesting experience. There's definitely more choice for how you can proceed, though there will be some major chains that you'll need to work through to really progress through the zone. That said, there are a lot of towns that I've come across that don't really have any breadcrumb quests to them, or at least not that I had already, where I can show up and just start questing.
Also, XP seems to be coming very quickly. My Rogue hit 91 before even finishing the little Tanaan Jungle chain, and it took very little time for him to get to 92. Given that there's a level 92 cap right now, the random nature of the perks can be a little annoying, but if leveling continues at this speed on live, you won't have to wait all that long before all the perks are available and you're at the level cap.
It looks like Gorgrond will be the zone that follows the two starting zones, but it is not yet available - all I have is a breadcrumb quest.
While there's definitely an advantage to having a bunch of epics (I have only replaced one trinket on my Rogue and nothing on my DK,) the early quests get you a decent set of 515 gear, so I don't think it will be all that difficult to bring a new character up through these first zones.
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