Zarhym Announces Big Mount Changes for 3.2
Posted by 
pixiestixy on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 94 Comments Tags: Mount, Patch, Zarhym, apprentice, artisan, blue post, call of the crusade, epic mount, expert, flying mount, forums, journeyman, patch 3.2, riding, speed, summoning time
pixiestixy on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 - 94 Comments Tags: Mount, Patch, Zarhym, apprentice, artisan, blue post, call of the crusade, epic mount, expert, flying mount, forums, journeyman, patch 3.2, riding, speed, summoning time 
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)
To all the people still complaining about refunds. Ok here is a situation for you. When you buy a car and then later in the year when they have the year end sales you can't walk into the dealership and start demanding the extra money you spent earlier in the year back. That is just retarded.
and DKs get eaiser and easier to play. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do like that mounts for my alts will be much cheaper. However, some type of compensation should be supplied to all of the qq'ers. Possibly a special in game item like an epic hanky.
This is just idiotic. The people who only like this idea have probably been playing less than 2 yrs. Blizzard's catering to the new players is just plain sad. I'm tired of seeing this game content being watered down to the noobs/casuals. I honestly can say I can not wait for the new SW mmo so I can cancel my WoW account.
*eye twitch*
After all the money I just spent...
with that coment you show how retarded you are the hamster cause here is the thing the cars price goes up as its model gets older its the condition of the car that may dent the cars price so if you keep teh car in mint condition a year later you can sell it for alot more then you got it
Yea!! Mining alts just got better for me!
To all the people who add this to the pile of reasons they want to cancel their account and quit the game, I have this to say....
QUIT ALREADY AND DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE A$$ ON THE WAY OUT!!! And do us an additional favor ... once you quit the game, promise you won't troll WoW sites and QQ about everythig "wrong" with the game.
Jeezus. I play the game and come to sites like this to get a break from my whiny 2 year old, not to find more people acting like whiny 2 year olds.
ohhh how mounts have changed. I think they are leaving the Epic flyer cost the same because they'd have so many goddamn people angry that they spent 5000 g when others didn't...
Can you make the game any easier Blizz? This is just plain dumb. Casual players are ruining the game. They want everything easy without any effort.
@cocopuff
You have got to be kidding right? A car losses 1/3 of it's value the second you drive it off the sales lot. Even if you drove the car straight home and stored it in a clean room for the entire year it would still be worth less a year after you bought it. The value may increase as it ages due to becoming a classic or other such milestone but your statement is the ridiculous one.
To all the others: I have 2 80's with epic flyers and numerous 4 alts between 70 and 80 with reg flyers, not to mention all my toons between 30 and 70. I probably have about 20k wrapped up in mounts at the moment... But you know what? I still think this patch is a good thing. I mean yeah it sucks that I spent all that gold when the newer players don't have to but that's life, get over it. Be happy that your alts won't have to pay it. Oh and yeah a refund would be nice but don't hold your breath. It would be ridiculous for Blizz to waste the time to go through all the logs to find out who has such and such mount and deserves susch and such back as a refund. Seriously... this is a game, get over yourselves.
this is just this is just increadible absolutey increadible
so we now get flying mounts at lvl 60?
ehh, basic flying at 65 sounds much better. No one in Outlands is going to ever be on the ground, sort of like the issue with Northrend (which made then train for cold weather flying).
i`m spilt on this i have a 80 that payed like 7000 g (in total) and now their lowing annoy me but i got alt close 2 20 so it`s ok 4 that
blizzard should give some money bk 2 people who payed for more before patchs
will the flyer be automaticly updated or do we have to buy them bot again?
with who do u need rep with btw ty
This is fantastic... if it had happened in the WotLK release i just bought basic flying about 3 weeks ago and epic ground about 5 weeks ago. I think it would not be a big deal to send everyone who has earned the riding training achievements money it would not be that hard and would be very fair i mean i am sratting to save up for epic and an extra 1030g (i just did the math) would certainly help out
Not sure about this, while I can certainly appreciate the extra speed boost and the savings on gold and the fact that it will be available earlier to break the monotony of travelling on foot it was always a special milestone that push people to work towards.
I'm not in any way worried about having spent the money already, thats life, but i'm wondering if making them available at earlier levels isnt taking away from the sense of achievement by making things a touch too easy.
It's not exactly a hard accomplishment just a bit more time consuming but that first mount feeling is going to be somewhat diluted now.
Still an open mind about it, just not 100% convinced it's going to do anything apart from make people even lazier.
This gameused to poose a challenge blizz should make it pre-bc hard walking around for 40 levels taught us patiance