WOW slashes mount requirements

By Oli Welsh Published 12 June, 2009

Get faster ponies, earlier and cheaper.

Blizzard has revealed on the official World of Warcraft forums that it's dramatically decreasing the cost and increasing the accessibility of the mounts that allow players to get around the game world faster.

Regular mounts will now be available at level 20 instead of 30 (it was originally 40), "epic" fast mounts will be available at level 40 instead of 60, and flying mounts will be available at level 60 instead of 70 and have their speed increased.

The gold costs of the riding skills and the mounts themselves have been slashed, with apprentice riding at level 20 costing just 4 gold, and a basic mount costing 1 gold (the original cost for both was 100g back in the day).

Mounts will take half as long (just 1.5 seconds) to summon, while class-based travel skills - such as the Hunter's "aspect of the cheetah" that increases run speed - will be available at level 16.

Blizzard poster Zarhym explained that the changes would help make the game more accessible and shorten its intimidating length without affecting difficulty too much.

"The game has gotten quite a bit longer, and allowing players to get from A to B faster only very minimally decreases difficulty; more so, it decreases time spent travelling," he said.

"We don't want to discourage players from trying out the game if they have not yet, and we especially don't want to discourage existing players from trying out new characters because the levelling process from 1-80 seems too daunting after flying around Northrend grabbing purples for a while."

The changes will be applied in the next major content patch alongside a new battleground and the Crusader Coliseum mini-raid challenges.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #1 3 years ago

    I bought gold way back in the day to get my epic skeletal pony. And now look. That was er a few years ago now. Market depreciation :(

    Still, my mount was a vintage classic. Would fetch at least a pony on the AH this days.

  • poopmonster #2 3 years ago

    @Bertie,

    That'll be about 1g then...:p

  • MBar #3 3 years ago

    I bought gold way back in the day to get my epic skeletal pony.

    I bought gold in order to get my priority alt his epic flying mount, and believe me, I wouldn't have bothered if the normal flying mount was 150% speed at that time.

    Also note that classes with travel spells (e.g. Shaman Ghost Wolf, Druid Travel Form etc.) will be able to learn them earlier. Level 16 for the two I mentioned.

  • shamblemonkee #4 3 years ago

    i think you could get a monkey for it these days.

  • Eraysor #5 3 years ago

    Please make epic mount training cheaper, I'm still trying to get enough money :S

  • MaxHughes #6 3 years ago

    Casual much...

  • Hamflank #7 3 years ago

    Getting more tempting to hop back in as a casual and hook up with some old friends.

  • VicViper #8 3 years ago

    I got my Epic flying super late pretty much a month or so before warth hit, now I have an albino drake, anyway a reduction in price means that I can get alts mounted up faster so I'll wait till this patch hits before I start really leveling any of the ones I started recently

  • davisorle #9 3 years ago

    I started hating WoW ever since they made lvling easier in the first place and mounts on lvl30. Now even easier? WTF , if the kiddos nowdays cant wait a bit longer and cant save some G to buy their mounts WHY make the game so much freaking easier? Before it was worth lvling, taking ur time and learing your char/class. Now what? You get a bunch of noobs that lvl the one char after the other without much effort. Yeah, I dont apreciate it personally :p

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #10 3 years ago

    Whoops, typo, ta.

  • iokthemonkey #11 3 years ago

    I started hating WoW ever since they made lvling easier in the first place and mounts on lvl30. Now even easier? WTF , if the kiddos nowdays cant wait a bit longer and cant save some G to buy their mounts WHY make the game so much freaking easier? Before it was worth lvling, taking ur time and learing your char/class. Now what? You get a bunch of noobs that lvl the one char after the other without much effort. Yeah, I dont apreciate it personally :p

    ----

    Come and play LOTRO. It's like WOW for grown-ups. :D

  • LazyDan #12 3 years ago

    /people with neckbeards

    Also, any idea when this is gonna be out!? I have a level 64 which I'm loathe to spend any more time on until this patch now...

  • Rack #13 3 years ago

    Hmm, with that attitude LOTRO seems like WoW for spoiled children.

    You're complaining that players who don't have to spend so long waiting between quests are going to be somehow incapable of understanding the gameplay? Are you trying to parody the people who ridiculously complain that games aren't tedious enough or are you just an extreme example?

  • Kami #14 3 years ago

    WoW has to make it easier, the next year and a half will be bringing some huge name MMO's - Aion (already a solid MMO from the East getting a Western release at last), Huxley (Hopefully what Tabula Rasa should have been), The Old Republic (To say this is a huge contender would be a gross understatement of the facts!) and of course Final Fantasy XIV Online (And all bets are off on that one - a huge brand name to contend with).

    Even if it's just letting people who'll stay level up replacement characters faster so they can get into raiding content sooner, WoW needs to do it. It's a shame for people who not long ago bought their epic riding, but this is a game very much aiming to making life easier for those with little time - and it's likely going to work.

  • iokthemonkey #15 3 years ago

    Hmm, with that attitude LOTRO seems like WoW for spoiled children.

    You're complaining that players who don't have to spend so long waiting between quests are going to be somehow incapable of understanding the gameplay? Are you trying to parody the people who ridiculously complain that games aren't tedious enough or are you just an extreme example?

    ---

    No, it's just LOTRO is a bit more challenging. Trust me, I'm not one for four hour raids or punishing games but LOTRO is just more like what pre-BC WoW was and is more rewarding. It has that sense of tough areas being tough to get to and you don't feel as if you could walk from one side of the continent to the other un-molested. There's just a nicer feel to it in terms of, well, "adventure." It's like Turbine have taken the sense of wonder/threat/exploration from earlier games like EverQuest but married it with the accessibility and fun of WoW.

    WoW has become the popular choice and - whether its due to its increased playerbase or a reflection of the type of player it attracts - there are a lot of dickends playing it. There are also a lot of good players playing it and LOTRO, I'm sure, has its share of utter wankers. However, in all my time of playing LOTRO, I've only once had a beggar hassle me and I've never seen gold/power-levelling spam. Yet when I was playing WoW, pretty much every trip to the Auction House guaranteed at least three characters called jjjjiiijjjii macro-spamming gold and half a dozen LEETXKILLAs and ELFHUNTARXs opening trade windows and demanding cash from me.

  • rudedudejude #16 3 years ago

    It's simple because their new take-up is evaporating.

  • IronCladChicken #17 3 years ago

    @Hamflank I was thinking the same thing.

  • lennon #18 3 years ago

    @Crofto - I agree with you to a degree it can be annoying having to travel the long distances but I usually just fire up the xbox have a quick go on whatever the latest game is I am playing then go back when the journey is over. Think of it as in flight entertainment :)

  • sonicgoo #19 3 years ago

    With each expansion (next one up to level 90?) the route to the endgame gets longer and longer, so it's understandable that they want to make things faster. Never mind all those players suffering from Darkfall syndrome.

    less time waiting + more time playing = good!

  • _LarZen_ #20 3 years ago

    World of Warcraft is realy turning out to be a shity game...I expect to see comersials soon "even grandma can play now" it's THAT easy!

    MMORPG games that go casual is crap in my eyes...no glory for "working" hard to get stuff...becaus every noob has it now. Epics....who gives a shit anymore..everyone got one..even grandma.

  • sneetch #21 3 years ago

    Woot, was going to buy buy epic riding for my 62 rogue alt about a week ago (I hardly play him but still, it's freaking embarrassing to be above 60 on a slow-ass mount). Glad I saved my gold. :)

    A good idea, the travel time for a lot of quests in old, vanilla WoW is stupidly long and turns into tedious "busy-work" that just slows down the player.

  • sneetch #22 3 years ago

    @_LarZen_
    World of Warcraft is realy turning out to be a shity game...I expect to see comersials soon "even grandma can play now" it's THAT easy!

    MMORPG games that go casual is crap in my eyes...no glory for "working" hard to get stuff...becaus every noob has it now. Epics....who gives a shit anymore..everyone got one..even grandma.

    This change hasn't altered the difficulty in any way. It just reduces the time you have to spend running about on your way to actually play the game. And there have been a lot of granddads and grandmas playing since launch (one of our raid leaders was a granddad).

    WoW was never difficult to play and was "casual" from the start.

    The only "difficulty" was in grinding for kit to progress in raids, not because it was hard but because you simply didn't have the capability to take down a given boss because you didn't have the staying power or the +spell or resists or whatever other kit you required to take him down before your healers ran out of mana.

  • dingo75 #23 3 years ago

    And even more casual-friendly wtf?

    This week I brought my druid to 80.
    I leveled in feral gear (dps cat) but wanted her to be a healer.
    I checked about gear and lo and behold: Without running ANY instance I got a set that is close to 1500 Spell Power!
    Only by crafted items + AH. Most upgrades for me are in Naxx now.
    I mean why run Heroics these days anymore? :p

  • AOFanboi #24 3 years ago

    The game is getting so simplified I am expecting Age of Conan's "quest target indicators on map" any day soon now, eliminating one need to visit Thottbot.

    Seriously, most simplifications introduced in the later patches have been great: Eliminating spices from cooking recipes, "merging" mining attempts and eliminating the pointless failures, removing Poison crafting skill etc. Especially dropping the annoying quests/books to get Artisan and Master crafting skills. And once the price of mounts drop I won't have to spend 900 gold to get my DK his profession's flying mount...

  • InfiniteFury #25 3 years ago

    "after flying around Northrend grabbing purples for a while"

    The above statement pretty much summarizes WoW for me now.

  • butler` #26 3 years ago

    A needed change imo given the length of the game, and probably one that's welcomed equally by old timers.

  • Wyrm #27 3 years ago

    Anything that makes getting through the inferior low level content easier is a good thing.

    A basic mount isn't gonna help you clear end game raids now is it?

  • Sar #28 3 years ago

    I just got to 30 and got my first mount.

    GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

  • lemonfist #29 3 years ago

    This game seems to have changed quite a bit since I last played it in 2005. I remember what a pain it was collecting all that gold for my mount. I eventually decided it wasn't worth it and gave up, canceling my subscription.

    Making it less of a timesink can only be a good thing. It makes it much more likely that I'd go back and play it again some day.

  • r4z0rbl4d3 #30 3 years ago

    WoW is slowly dying, accept it... I guess WoW 2 is in the works.

  • Rack #31 3 years ago

    No, it's just LOTRO is a bit more challenging

    So it's just you have no appreciation for the difference between challenge and inconvenience.