After posting two articles concerning mount-related issues yesterday (Engineering mounts in Wrath and the changes to the Brewfest ram/kodo), I went back to Blackrock Depths with a group to have another crack at everyone's newest best friend, Coren Direbrew. This time I was in the company of a half-crazed warlock determined to get both Brewfest mounts. He'd missed his chance at the ram last year and sworn up and down that it would never happen again, only to be aghast at Blizzard's decision to make both mounts a boss drop. To him, I imagine, it was time to knuckle down and show that ugly, yellow-bellied, boot-licking, random-number-generator just who was boss. However, as the day wore on, he realized that -- insulting the random number generator? Not a good idea.

In the interest of preserving what little bag space I had left before patch 3.02 mercifully hits, I'd convinced myself that mounts were the ingame version of a used car; they got you from place to place a lot faster than you would have otherwise, and while they could be as flashy and rare as a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, they'd still do the exact same job if they were a 1994 Toyota Corolla, so what was the point of going nuts over them? In that vein I'd honestly told guildies that even if the Ashes of Al'ar had dropped, I wouldn't have rolled on them, as the convenience of swift flight form trumped anything that even the rarest mount could offer.

But after getting a surprise Swift White Hawkstrider on a heroic Magisters' Terrace, I'm starting to see where my insane warlock buddy is coming from. It's fun -- and a Tauren on an all-white-meat McNugget has the added attraction of looking hilariously stupid. I can't keep a straight face watching my main on her new mount; it's the perfect visual shorthand for "Not Serious." It's since occurred to me that people might be after particular mounts because -- role-playing or not -- on some level it's an expression of the character's personality, possibly more so once the character has the freedom to choose from an assortment of mounts. Certain mounts just seem to fit a toon better than others. Are you still working toward the mount that fits your main, do you already have it, or -- like my older self -- does mount choice really not matter to you?

Tags: ashes-of-alar, blackrock-depths, brd, brewfest, brewfest-mount, brewfest-mounts, coren-direbrew, magisters-terrace, mgt, mount, mounts, patch-3.0, patch-3.0.2, swift-white-hawkstrider

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics, Mounts, Bosses, Tauren