f13.net

From the US forum:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=27643128&sid=1

Come 12.1 Blizzard will change the way buying mounts and mount riding works.

1. There will only be ONE riding skill, no more kodo riding, raptor riding etc.

2. There will be two ranks of the riding skill, apprentice riding (75) and journeyman riding(150). Apprentice riding is needed for the level 40 mount, journeyman riding for the epic mount.

3. Apprentice riding will cost 90 gold, journeyman riding will cost 900 gold, you will need apprentice riding to learn journeyman.

4. A normal mount will cost 10 gold, an epic one 100 gold.

5. If you already own a normal mount you will get apprentice riding for free, if you already own an epic mount you will get journeyman riding for free.

6. You will still need exalted with the particular faction for cross faction mounts.

WOW.  900g for riding skill.........i shudder to think what it will cost to get whatever riding skill rank will be needed for the Flying mounts...

Well, they have to implement a bunch of cash sinks for all the accumulated thousands of gold that old players have, no?

As he said, it doesn't really change anything except to shift the cost into the skill over the mount. The cost is the same, and you can still get the faction/rank discounts.

It looks like you will either break even (if you just have one mount) or save you a lot of money (if you faction up other cities to get other mounts too).

I'm going to try to get my alt mage to 40 before patch. (:

Why did Blizzard make this change, I wonder?

Money sink - it's not going to affect the already-60s with cash, because they don't have to buy anything new.  So that doesn't make sense.

Actually this works out to a cash savings for a lot of "worldy/ rp"  folks.  With this change you can work on your faction for the other races and not have to buy a separate skill PLUS the 900g mount.  Get your faction up and buy your 100g mount after having spent your initial 1k on the riding skill.

Want to change horses at level 40 because you forgot/ didn't know that Menethil harbor sells black and white so all you got was the chestnut-types from the lumber camp?  Right now you're forking out an extra 100g, but after the patch it's only 10g.  

This is a good change, imo.


Last rumors I heard were that the basic flying mounts were 2k.  More if you wanted one of the drake thingys they showed in the preview.


Maybe getting the flying riding skill to play nicely with all the various types of riding (Cat/ Horse/ Ram/ Wolf/ Kodo/ Raptor/ chicken..) was causing wonkiness and this is the easiest way to fix it.

I'd like to think that they did some data-mining and discovered that folks weren't getting multiple mounts as much as they would have liked so they decided to reduce the barrier a bit to encourage/give people something else to do/collect.

Aaaaaaaagh!!!!!!! Hangon hangon hangon... I just hit 59 yesterday.  I could hit 60 in a week or so (probably).  I have (roughly) 100 gold right now.  Should I train up advanced kodo riding (or whatever the current level 2 skill is) before the patch, or would it get dropped unless I buy an epic mount?  Or would I save, like, nine hundred gold?  I'm already exalted with Frostwolf; their mount is relatively cheap (like 600g or something); should I try to grab one of those before the patch?  Would that automatically give me journeyman riding, even though I can't use the mount?

Ugh, I'm gonna be broke again, aren't I....

Currently there is no advanced riding skill.  So you cannot get it before the patch.  Buying the Frostwolf is your best bet (unless you are rank 11, then you can get the 90g mount), it will grandfather in the new 900g riding skill.  At least, that is how I read the above.

The fact that flying mounts are 2k make me very, very sad.

Also been hearing rumors about leveling from 60-70 taking as long as levelling from 1-59. This also makes me very, very sad.

To make their lives simpler (e.g. new race no longer needs new riding skill) and open up new development possibilities. For example, it would now be easier to implement mounts-as-uberloot without being restricted by what people can ride, mounts temporarily given as part of a quest, etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if one day we discover that Blizzard has bought stocks on IGE.

They are really promoting and encouraging players to buy gold to avoid endless farming.

They've repeatedly said that there will be multiple ways of getting a flying mount, including quests and straight up buying it. Also the XP from 60-70 thing is pretty much an unsubstantiated rumour.

From: http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/26312672.htm

As long as they have the content to keep it from being a grind, that's fine with me.  Outland at least looks like it should have a lot to do (http://worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/outlandmap.html).

The rumors are just that- rumors.  I haven't heard anything close to definitive on mount price or leveling speed.  In the case of levels, Blizzard has in fact been adamantium that they are still tweaking the curve, and that it will fit the content they will have available regardless.  ie. No real grind in the classic sense.

EDIT: In regards to the 1.12 mount patch, I can only imagine that it has something to do with getting the system ready for flying mounts.

Hmm... I was just looking at random servers. 2000 gold seems to average around $370-390.

Mage farming would take what? Catassing for a week or so to make that (or am I wrong?)? What about other classes?


Taking all things into account, Wow is grindier than Lineage 2. And it gets worse over time, not better.

The core quest-centric gameplay is perhaps the least repititious MMO leveling curve out there, and I imagine it will continue from 61-70.  Your Lineage II analogy is hyperbole from what I hear of that game.

The reputation and money grind, although not required to have a simple and enjoyable experience, is certainly the weakest point of WoW.  I believe a recent blue statement made words to the effect that reputation in TBC would be less of a conscious activity and become more incidental to other stuff you're doing.  I'm not going to bother finding it, because this is just one of those things for which one has to wait and see.

As a mage I can farm 50g an hour in silithus.  This is on one of the oldest PvP servers (deathwing).  I can't believe I could make 9 dollars an hour farming gold in WoW. 

I'm young and still a student, sp the most jobs I've held paid 7-8 bucks an hour.  I've been making about 20 dollars an hour playing poker online the last 2 months, but that could just be an upswing.

Anyways, I'm just shocked that gold sells for that much.  I've honestly never checked.

That's a pretty tall order since I about died grinding my Bishop in L2 (I'm sure a few classes had it easier though) around release, and WoW is a cakewalk in comparison to that hell.

From what i read in that thread: any mount that does not require a current riding skill is not likely to give you a free Journeyman or Apprentice rank when patch goes live.

IE:
Warlock 40 / quest mounts
Paladin 40 / quest mounts
AV Wolf / Ram
ZG Tirger / Raptor
Deathcharger's Reigns
AQ Legendary Bug Mount
Any rank 11 mount


Basicly, unless it is a Troll / Undead / Orc / Tauren / NE / Human / Gnome / Dwarf RACIAL SPECIFIC mount (needs that racial Riding skill to ride it, chances are, you wont get the free Riding skill when patch goes live.

SOO, if you currently are 60, and do NOT have an epic mount.  Simply buy one, doesent matter which one (even if you dont have ANY riding skill), and when patch goes live, you should automatically get the Epic Mount rank Riding skill.

Example.  One of my alts is a Tauren Druid. I was cheap, and never learned kodo riding, or got a level 40 or 60 mount.  So i am going to buy her an Epic Wolf, and when patch goes live, I should automatically get Journeyman Rank riding skill.

At current prices, with faction discount, that will actually save me about 200g i believe, and give me a wolf mount, which i normally wouldnt be able to purchase after the patch, since you will need exalted to buy them now, rather then ride them.

http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/27212767.htm

If you have (any) epic mount, you will have the skill to ride epic mounts come patch.

So I won't have to do anything for my 60 human priest, who is currently on an AV ram? 

So it would seem.

Yes, you'll get the 150 Riding Skill once the patch comes around. As of right now my plan is farm my brains out to grab the AV Ram, and when patch rolls around pick up my Epic Tiger. I'd only end up saving around 70g or so by going:

650g Ram + 80g Tiger + Free Journeymen Riding vs.
720g Journeymen Riding + 80g Tiger

Also, the AV Mounts now cost the same as the Level 40 mounts and require Journeymen Riding so they really cut down the savings by going that route (used to save at least 150g, now only 72g with all discounts).

I only dropped by because I heard the Blood Elf mount is going to be a chocobo.

Queue song! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh2TrTtl4-w)

The funnier thing is it's called a cockatrice. Would you ride the cock? Blood Elves love riding the cock. You can buy a bigger cock.

What's more, the only one seen so far* is multicoloured.
Yes, BE males ride the rainbow cock. (Although that's hardly a surprise to anyone who's heard the BE male voices or watched the animations)


*If there aren't blue or yellow normals, and black or gold epics...I'll be very surprised.

Urge... to... roll... Blood... Elf... rising...

I normally dislike elves, but elves purpose built to take the piss out of elves? Hard to resist.

BIG COCKS INSIDE! (http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/dokwlko/mount_cockatrice.jpg)
EVEN BIGGER COCKS! OH YEAH! (http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/dokwlko/mount_cockatrice_elite.jpg)

Draenei mounts: Normal (http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/dokwlko/mount_elekk.jpg) and Elite (http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n267/dokwlko/mount_elekk_elite.jpg)

It sounds like the mount changes might be going into today during the downtime.

Edit, Damnit, beat to the cocks by mear seconds.

Also, for some fun, check out the http://wowexposed.de/wp-includes/showroom.php and dressing room all the "tier 4" sets on every class / race combo

Elite WOW mounts are ugly.  I want the old ones back.  The non-armored ones.

Those dranai mounts are way ugly.  The cocks are ok, though.

I'm not fond of epic armor either.  I think there's one set that looks really nice - the T3 priest set.  Bloodfang's not bad, the mage stuff isn't bad, warlock stuff meh, but everything else just looks like shit, imo.

the tier 4 warlock armor has got to be some of the coolest looking stuff in the game

I really like the cocks.

The draenei mounts are ugly though.  I'll definately be working a different faction up if I play one.

I was going to nab a new line for my signature, but it is apparent that the cock-talk is only going to escalate.

Lantyssa gave a wonderful quote.  I must nab it.

Speaking of mounts... would a mage be able to polymorph people off flying mounts I wonder? If so it would be awesomeness to dismount midair and PoM->Poly and slowfall to the ground as your victim goes splat. Or camp areas where you need flying to access...

You're welcome.

(The irony of it makes it even more amusing.)

I can't see the cocks  :cry:

Here is a working picture of a real big cock.

http://www.wowguru.com/gallery/files/be-mount-id1664/ (http://www.wowguru.com/gallery/files/be-mount-id1664/)

That's a shiny, upright, proud cock all right.