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Zarhym Announces Big Mount Changes for 3.2

plaguedprotodrake

Blue poster Zarhym on Wednesday night announced some pretty huge mount changes coming up for the next major content patch, 3.2. You'll be able to learn your apprentice, journeyman and expert riding skills all considerably earlier than before and at a reduced cost. As an added bonus, regular flying mounts now will fly at 150% speed, instead of 60%. All of this, Zarhym said, is "to further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft."


Here's the breakdown of changes to cost and level requirements, according to what Zarhym posted, with my own notes in italics:

  • Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

    • 60% land mount speed

    • Requires level 20 - a whole 10 levels earlier

    • Cost: 4 gold - way down from 35g

    • Mount cost: 1 gold - instead of 10g

    • Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer





  • Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

    • 100% land mount speed

    • Requires level 40 - OMG 20 levels sooner!

    • Cost: 50 gold - currently 600g

    • Mount cost: 10 gold - down from 100g

    • Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer





  • Expert Riding (Skill 225)

    • 150% flying mount speed instead of 60%; 60% land mount speed

    • Requires level 60 - Previously level 70

    • Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply) - currently 800g

    • Mount Cost: 50 gold - down from 100g

    • Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)





  • Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

    • 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed

    • Requires level 70

    • Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)

    • Mount Cost: 100 gold - instead of 200g




And, after getting lots of questions from other posters about Cold Weather Flying, Zarhym replied that at least that much will "remain unchanged."

It looks to me like these changes will help leveling go quite a bit faster, especially when in many of the wide, open spaces common throughout Azeroth. Not to mention the zones in Outland, too! AND the huge price slashes will mean that it's much less of a hardship for players to pay for mounts, especially for those poor alts. Most people in the forums seem to be pretty ecstatic about the announcement, but there are plenty also who are starting to say that the changes are catered toward the casual player (or that they should have been implemented xx months ago!). But these changes will affect everyone across the board - and in my opinion, it's all for the good. It's not about being lazy when leveling - it's about enjoying the game. And I think for a lot of us, mounts are fun.

Zarhym also announced that the casting time for summoning all mounts will go from its current 3 seconds down to 1.5 seconds. Which, to me, equals a greater chance that I'll be able to get my mount out in time after breaking stealth and before getting attacked. And maybe you also can successfully escape any other baddies heading your way before entering combat. I guess that would "improve the leveling experience" in my book.

Add this to all the other changes coming for Call of the Crusade, and a new battleground, and I'm just giddy. So what does everyone else think about these upcoming changes? FTW? Or FTL?

Reader Comments (94)

@ iDominator

Try this on for size. If you want to be an "actual gamer" then why don't you just have your toons wait until the reach the level that riding was ORIGINALLY available at (when i started playing it was lvl 40 but it may have been even later earlier in the game) and then pay the ORIGINAL cost associated with training and buying the mount (obviously you pay the trainers/vendors what they charge and then for getting rid of the rest of the gold that it would have cost, buy something big off AH and vendor it so that you end up paying the ORIGINAL price at the ORIGINAL level since you're and ACTUAL gamer). Then you can quit complaining about how easy the game is since you're playing it "actual gamer" style!

Give me a break. Quicherbichin.

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterlawman30

This is the best news i've heard all day! taken me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long to be able to get mounts!

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterjhez

oh lawman your so cool, "pay the original price blah blah blah" they take out the quest lines for pallys, for locks, or druids and there aquatic form make them all trainable, then they lower the price of all the training and mounts and lower the levels. that takes away from all the experience of the game. they're saying Get to 80 so people like you Lawman can casually just sit around and quest and fail at pvp wile the rest of us raid. So if you like your play style you contine right on doing it.

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenteriDominator

Sweet both my bank alts are level 20, I can now ride in style from the AH to the banks and mailboxes.

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterPauldy

Yay, I've been very reluctant to get that 50 mount achievement because of the cost. Now it will be 1/10 the price :)

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJuggynaut

To quote a wise man:

FREAKIN AWESOME

-Carl

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJoseph

I think level 20/40 is too low personally, and I questioned the reason for making the lock/pally mounts trainable when that was first done. If you don't want to do the quest, fine - go get a regular mount. If you want the signature mounts of these classes you ought to earn them. Not that it's difficult to do them with some level 80 guildmates.

The level spread of the other riding training seems fine though. I don't mind losing all that gold - a couple hundred gold is only couple hours of dailies (which you need to do for rep for Arcanums and shoulder enchants anyway).

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterPegraath

Does this mean druids get flight at 58? (since was 68) I just started lvling one and was curious

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterShnoo

I am actually happy with the change. I have ended up not being able to finish lvling toon's because of getting bored around lvl 20's. I figure this will help me from the monotony of walking every where in the game. To the people complaining about it being to easy to lvl now and miss alot of things. You are retarded. No one is keeping you from doing any of the lore quest, or any of that. I have lvl'd two toons max and I get bored trying to lvl my alts. I dont need to see the lore any more then I already have. Once again thank you blizz.

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterThe_Hamster

OMFG i want my money back
Time to bust my ass to get all the money i'm going to buy alts their new mounts
150% FTW!!!!!

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterHenryzx

Lets see... you still have the 1000g at 77 - I have two characters sitting at 77 just for that reason. I want to get the CWF but I always have other things to spend all my oodles of cash on. Like tradeskills and repairs from trying to learn the Uldar fights. Dang that gets expensive over time.

1) Love the 150% flight speed. Will really help get my 50s and 60s through outland.

2) Reduction in Mount cost is great. Some of the outland mounts are expensive enough to cover any reduction at lower levels.

3) I forgot what faction discounts would be... So, if it is now 5000g, and I was exalted with everyone, how much would the skill cost?

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterpenrose

FTW all the way!

I've been strugling to get the 5.000g for Artisan since TBC! (Damn AH! lol)

I want the patch NOW! :D

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDeaththirst

@ iDominator

That's my point exactly! If you want to play the game one way, go ahead. You just implied in your original post that "actual gamers" would play the game one way versus another. My point is if you want things to take longer and cost more there are ways to make that possible.

And why the "your so cool" hate? I wasn't the one coming on here saying "actual gamers" played the game in any particular fashion. That was you chief. And you might want to get your facts straight before you come on here and make posts that show how little you pay attention to things. The warlock/pally mount questlines HAVE NOT been taken out. They have simply been made optional. That way people can still do them if they want to experience the lore and flavor of them. Or if they are "actual gamers" ... like you.

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterlawman30

i love all the changes even though i agree they make the the game a bit to easy when i think back to the nightmares in original WOW, WOW has mostly removed them which i am not complaining about its the reason why i have so many alts but come on they added QH they made quest items twinkle removed most elites out side of Dungeons they cut the the level reguirements in half they have nerfed and super powered classes but no use wining about it but thiers no reason blizz cant give the veterans of this game since they cant exactly race every single piece of gold spent on mount here is what i sugest
open tabs 500g if you learned your first beginer land mount skill before patch 3.0 and then extra 100g for every year before patch 3.0 you had it then 150g if you learn your first normal land mout after the patch and 36g for every month up till this next patch 2000g if you had your first epic land skill before patch 3.0 and 500g for every year before the patch 1000g if you learned teh skill after the patch and 200g for every month up untill the next patch 5000g if you learned the skill before 3.0 1000g for every year up till the next patch 10 grand for epic flyer if learned before 3.0 andddd then 2 grand for every year up till the nex patch

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentercocopuff

lvl 20 for mounts now? well they might as well just remove ghost wolf from the game then 150% instead of 60% flying speed shoulda been there from the beginning though -_- and why not reduce the cost of epic flying :(

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commenternick

i know that if blizz does do that i will have more then enough for an epic flyer and more as i have had my pony before BC i got my normal flyer half way though BC and just to save some complaints i know teir gointo be thinking thats not making for the money spent on mounds and other goinot say that thats to much here is the thing if you make the the tab size to large you are really are giving away gold if you make am so small then you are not really making up for te gold lost so i tryed to find a middle ground and i think i did a preaty damn good job and FYI i am not one of the veterans i started playing a few weeks before BC i have spent about 10k on mounds for ats and the skills and i dont even have the peic flyer yat

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentercocopuff

which if anyone is confused if a fairly small amount

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentercocopuff

well people.. you dont seem to listen to half of the other people that tell you to shut the hell up !
seriously..
a) nobody cares about you gold problems..
b) the patch isnt even out for another while yet, farm your gold back and everything will be fine..
c) this patch is meant for the more casual and layed back player.. like me personally i dont actually get to play that much so farming gold for me isnt that easy, im still in school and only get to play on the weekends due to lack of high speed..
d) some people are actually enlightened by this considering it will make things alot easier, and just cause you've played forever and seem to have nothing else to do with your time, quit complaining and deal with it, blizz isnt just gonna switch it back or make things the way they used to be just because a few people are pissed that they spent a bunch of money..

so as said before.. dont get all pissy because you JUST bought your mount, the patch isnt even coming out yet.. so calm the frig down and make a sensable comment..

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentermoses

anyone els a little bit pissed and tihnking... can i have a refund??

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterXaladan

yea, i agree with every post on here, WTB REFUNDS DX

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterKyle

I WISH WE GET OUR MONEY BACK JUST SAYING LOVE THE PATCH BUT I WASTED ALOT OF MONEY ON THAT600g MOUNT AND THE 900g fLYING MOUNT HOPE I GET SOME OF THAT MONEY BACK THX

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentertreann

plz would love a refund!!!!!

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentertreann

refunds FTW

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentertreann

ok the people on here to keep telling us to shut the hell up about the refunds are rpobably teh dumbest peopel ever do you understand taht no matter how much we farm we not getting that money back like i said in my privious post i wasted about 10,000g for mounds and teh skills i am not counting the extra mounds i am talking rracial mounds a horse a riger a turkey so on say i farm for a whole day make 1000g ten if idnt waste allof that money on the mounds i could have 10,000g if i didnt waste all the money on my mounds if i have 10,000 i could have 19,000 if i didnt wste the money see what i am saying? no matter what i have i could allways have 9 more grand and who couldent use that and i am just a light spender what aboutt those people whohhave blown 20 30,000g in this

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentercocopuff

yay i want the patch
i was about to buy my normal flying mount so ill wait till the patch come :D

ftw ill keep more money

June 11, 2009 | Unregistered Commentergron

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