New Kid In Town

Patch 5.2 is upon us, and as usual the Europeans are 3 steps behind. The only advantage I can see to this scenario is that the EU servers also get the bug fixes applied at the same time as the patch, and in general the Europeans see a far better transition than our North American brethren.

In short I have no addition insight to the new patch that other bloggers have already discussed, but what else am I going to talk about?

As usual I was going into the patch fairly blind, I did remember to tick the load out of date addons, but did not update them in advance. That is a job for when I have completed this post.

The pop-up quest to take you to the new Island is standard fare for all new content and is a good starting point. Just in case you have not visited the new zone here are the intro steps:

1. Fly to Shado Pan Garrison in Townlong Steppes
2. Accept a tour to Thunder Island
3. Land on boat, click on orb
4. Accept quests and attempt one of the three hubs
5. Troll area is heavy on the respawn but it seems to be more manageable last night than the first night
6. Sarok is the quirky area where you get polymorphed into a bouncy humanoid reptile
7. Mogu area is heavy on mobs and there are, the nasty Wailing Banshee women, that we met doing the Golden Lotus Dailies. The problem is they don't always drop out of the sky to offer themselves to the melee classes (and pets). No pet aggro and Hunters are surprisingly squishy.

At the moment this area is taking a long time to complete, but I expect this to be streamlined with better gear.

I have not yet visited Jurassic Park Island, but after reading BBB, I expect a visit in the very near future. Every hunter will sporting a new dino in various colours, in the upcoming weeks.

Last night, I was lucky enough to locate one of the new treasures chests. One of the rewards from the chest was a Key to the Palace of Lei Shen

 

This key starts a quest chain to the single player scenario, which you will have heard about because it involves looting as many chests as possible without dying a horrible death. I almost get the feeling that Harrison Jones is going to come to our rescue, if they hadn't over egged that pudding in the last expansion.

 

Apparently the latest news is that, you can loot one of these key each week. I am nervious of wasting the key and so I plan to fully investigate the traps before wasting the key and being stuck in the first room.

 

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Patch 5.2 is more than just 2 Islands, but I am unlikely to be stepping into the new Raid any time soon, no doubt the LFR requires iLevel 500 or something daft.

 

The feature that caught my attention was the ability to get my hands on some prime real estate over at Sunsong Ranch. Master Yoon, after being accepted by the Tillers is too busy to look after the farm (Like he ever did anything). The workorders was my primary motivation, and the chance to get my reputation up with the last few factions.

 

"One of the great new features in 5.2 is the ability to take over the Sunsong Ranch farm in the Valley of the Four Winds. You can do this by talking to Nana Mudclaw after reaching Exalted with The Tillers, and unlocking all 16 plots of the farm. When you take over the farm you can begin taking work orders for specific factions in Pandaria, allowing you to earn reputation with them simply by planting, harvesting, and delivering the items you grow.

The way your receive work orders on the Sunsong Ranch farm was changed recently which may cause some confusion. If you've been doing your work orders you probably have logged in and had the second work order in the series automatically pop-up in your quest list. This has been changed, and from now on you’ll receive the quest when you start harvesting your plants, or when you interact with the drop-off crate."

 

Bashiok

 

My Hunter is able to complete work orders for every faction, but my alts only get a couple of choices, Operation:Shieldwall and the Klaxxi. It would appear that you need to advance your reputation to a certain point before you are eligable for Work Orders.

 

 

Staying in the Halfhill area, I also noticed the same quest that attracted the Godmother's attention

 

 

I assumed at the time that the Pandarans had found a good use for gunpowder like the Dwarf fishing quest were you throw sticks of dynamite into the water. No, this quest is to fish up 5 Golden Carp!
This is the fish that seems to have 2 uses, one is for the Grocery Bundle and the other is as a Vendorfish.

Speaking of fish, the Nat Pagle special fish seem to be a lot less rare than previously. I may even have caught enough to be exalted with him before the expansion is over.