Feel Good Patches
According to Blues (Zarhym), we can look forward to quicker mounting for our alts in the next major patch. If you're like me, you can't access wow forums at work (and really, why exactly would you want to?), so here is the Blue post.

"
In the next major content patch, we intend to adjust mount requirements to further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft. In addition, cast times for summoning all mounts will be reduced to 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds. The following is a breakdown of the upcoming cost and level requirement changes we are making for each riding skill.

  • Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

    • 60% land mount speed
    • Requires level 20
    • Cost: 4 gold
    • Mount cost: 1 gold
    • 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
    • Cost: 50 gold
    • Mount cost: 10 gold
    • Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

  • Expert Riding (Skill 225)

    • 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
    • Requires level 60
    • Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
    • Mount Cost: 50 gold
    • 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
"

I foresee a lot of "Man, remember back in the day when you couldn't mount until you were FORTY?" and yes, I'm one of those. All my toons who do have a mount had to wait until 40 to get one. When I was your age I had to walk to school barefoot. In the snow. Uphill. 10 miles.

My thoughts on all this? Well, I'm certainly not about to QQ about a change that is meant to "improve" the leveling experience for wow players, but instead of standing here cheering to the sky and woot wooting about how unbelievably awesome this is, I must say there's a part of me that is saddened by it. It's just another step in the slow demise of something that no one seems to really appreciate anymore about this game - the Old World.

It's one of my philosophies about the problem with modern society in general. People are in such a rush to get to the finish line, they don't truly appreciate the process. I'm guilty of it too, mind you. The complaints about leveling up alts, all the leveling guides you can find - does anyone Alliance side actually do the low to mid level quests in Kalimdor anymore? Rushing to progress through raids... and then once you get to the summit, now what? I don't really rush through the leveling process. When Wrath was released, my guildmates were leveling through instances. Not me. I wanted to read the quests (what, no Quest-Helper?). I still have fond memories of being terrified by Stitches thankyouverymuch. But it doesn't really matter what I do. Blizzard is unlikely to go back and fine tune any quests that have problems in the old world, or enrich it because no one cares. They just want to get through it all as quickly as possible, because WoW is now all about being level 80. And that saddens me.

True, I always did think it was a little silly to have to wait so long to mount. I mean seriously. I can ride a horse. Not very fast mind you, but I'm a lazy bum who spends all her time with either a monitor or a book in front of my face. It really doesn't take a *whole lot* to be able to ride a freaking horse. Also, now that Wrath is out, they did need to do something about the flying mount system. It just didn't make any sense anymore - You'd get your flying mount at 70, and then for all intents and purposes, be unable to use it. They also reduced the price of mounts, or at least tried to make it more applicable to the level at which it could be required. Rock on. This was important because unless you had a high level main, it was getting to the point where, yeah theoretically you can get a mount at 30, but thats a lot of gold for a level 30.

I do wonder if they intend to do anything about updating the shammy and druid forms. It used to be awesome to have a travelling form - and now it doesn't really mean a whole lot, because you can get better mounts than the travelling forms, at the same level, and potentially even earlier if changes aren't made with this patch they are recommending.
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10 Responses
  1. Fuubaar Says:

    The biggest change that really upset me was when the paladin I am lvling with hit 60. I was so excited for him to get to do the chain quest for his mount... oh wait, he just has to pay the trainer for it. It really made me sad to know that he'll never get to appreicate what that mount really means to his pally toon. Same with Warlocks. The quests were a couple day adventures into Dire Maul to fight mass quantities of imps & slay the horse demon or feeding a spirit horse Wild Oats for the charger to trust you.

    Of course they were a huge pain the behind but that amount of depth is what made WoW different from other MMORPG's

    I do agree with you on the Flying situation. That does sorta upset my little Shadowpriest that she cant' really even fly until 77 but she can buy it at 70.

    Next thing we'll know:

    Patch 4.0 Notes:

    Everyone Starts off with Epic flying & riding and you get to skip every two lvls.

    Thanks Blizz!

    :P


  2. Nightzbane Says:

    You pose a good question about the traveling forms for shamans and druids. With only a 1.5s cast timer on summoning a mount, will the instant cast but slower speed of a travel form really be worth anything more than getting out of a sticky situation quickly anymore?

    I also wonder what the faction discount will be like for the artisan skill. Will that be your Stormwind rep for humans and Ironforge rep for dwarves? (If so...might be a good time to horde some runecloth...)


  3. Fuubaar Says:

    @Nightzbane~

    Just do the Argent Tourny for 5 days & you'll be exalted lol


  4. @Fuubaar: I completely agree with you about the pally/lock thing. What irritates me about it, is that there was never any need to take away the quest requirement - you could still get an epic mount without doing the quest, you just had to pay just like everyone else. So why not leave the questline in place for the charger and throw an achievement in for good measure?!

    @Nightzbane: I'm wondering that myself. I was hording runecloth for awhile, but when the argent tournament came out, I just maxed out all my reputations that way instead. Although, that won't matter for my leveling alts!


  5. Fuubaar Says:

    ow ow I get it now:

    Additional Patch notes for 4.0

    Once one of your toons hits 80, you get another 80 free of your choice :D

    Brilliant!


  6. Pffft! Hasn't that already been kinda done, what with DKs and everything?!

    Oooo i got an idea - get a friend to start playing, and you can both have super free levels! Oh, wait...


  7. Fuubaar Says:

    ok ok, How about all this.

    When people lvl their toons, they can skip all of the heroics & instances and jump straight into Naxx & call themselves "Raiders"

    oh wait....


  8. Nightzbane Says:

    I really tried to think of something to top you guys and continue the chain, but I really didn't want to mess up the chest full of win you guys just opened.

    There is nothing like getting 3 of your last 10 levels in one zone, getting your first 10 levels in one zone, getting your first 55 levels free (double-mint knights anyone? my first originally coined wow term...not as cool as ful's but...sidetracked), and those skip-the-heroic raiding wannabe's don't even realize how 'hard' naxx is (deadmines of level 80s imo).

    You all's remarks are great..LOVE it..made me smile during one helluva day! :) Thanks!


  9. Nightzbane Says:

    Well it looks like our questions about travel forms was answered. Wow dot com had an article up about the patch also changing the level requirements for all class specific forms of travel, as well as, the level requirements for your class (lock and aplly) specific mounts.

    Looks like someone important was reading your blog! ;)


  10. Fuubaar (the important one) Says:

    yeah...

    ME!


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