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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsNorthrend-flying quest removed in favor of cash payout
by Michael Gray 
Oct 9th 2008 at 10:30AM
Drkshadow posted in the official forums with what he considers a slap in the face for folks looking to use their flying mounts in Northrend. (It's always a slap in the face, isn't it?) The quest to "attune" your mount to Northrend has been removed, and replaced with a simple 1000 gold payout. If you don't pay, you don't fly.
Bornakk confirms the change only a few posts later. He says turning the attunement into a cash payment makes it easier for more players to get. It might suck to pay the 1000G for each hungry alt. But, really, if you consider it -- how hard is it to farm up 1000G on your main? I think Bornakk makes a fair point -- it's probably easier to just grab cash on your main than take a relatively undergeared alt through a quest over and over.
Of course, we already knew that flying wasn't going to be very expensive. I guess someone might argue that 1000 gold can be a lot of cash, but that's really only a few days of dailies, or maybe a quick trip to sell loot at the auction house. At level 80, I'm just not going to get intimidated by a single grand.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, News items, Expansions, Mounts, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 9)
superfrank Oct 9th 2008 11:23AM
daily quests are a far better grind than killing the same mobs over and over which is what we had in original wow.
In the same way grinding instances is a far more fun (though less rewarding) grind than grinding daily quests.
Serahvin Oct 9th 2008 10:52AM
I don't get it. They're doing it to remove the "hassle" of repeating a quest on our alts, but we're going to have to do DAILIES (which are deadly repetitive and something I can't stand) to earn the money for flying? That's redundant. To me, dailies are way worse than doing a unique quest twice.
Llany Oct 9th 2008 11:03AM
This is a change that many in beta are not happy with, i myself am one of those people.
Sure its only another 1k gold and you only need to have basic flying ( 225 skill). But the thing is what about the next expansion? It basically means that yet again we will be paying again to fly on what ever place it is.
Bornakk answer is also extremely invalid in my opinion and of many others, for you see the quest was in done in Sholzar Basin, and sholzar basin is the first area where flying mounts are needed for questing, not only that but in the way of leveling Sholzar is also the next area you head too after doing Zul'drakk.
You are even sent to Sholzar from a mage at the landing point in Dalaran and by doing his quest it unlocks nessingwary's camp flight point which then would send you on the Flying mount Quest.
But here we are now ( for about a month) with the the cold weather flying being 1k gold. you can call it a gold sink, but its one that is not needed especially when the new mount thing is passenger mounts and that the 3person caravan mounts are 20k and we still dont know if there will be flying passenger mounts which would most likely be alot more expensive.
Amaxe Oct 9th 2008 10:58AM
Looking at the blue post, I think I can see one of the major problems with this. It will probably work with people on their mains who have been 70 for awhile, have gold and have had their flyers.
Look at it from the perspective though of the person coming into the game when WOLK comes out (or levelling an alt), going 1-57 Azeroth, 58-67 Outlands, 68-80 Northrend. Buying flight for them at 70 is kind of worthless, so it is essentially a raise in price for training by 1000g when they get to be able to fly at 77.
Z Oct 9th 2008 10:59AM
Which is more fun, doing a questline once per character to unlock flying or doing the same daily over and over for each character to earn the 1,000? I'm going with the former.
darian Oct 9th 2008 12:31PM
I don't know what the big deal is. Given that all of my alts easily had 1kg from questing 60-70, I'd be really surprised if the same couldn't be managed from 70-77.
If you have to grind dailies to do it, you're probably a spendthrift anyway.
Vincent Oct 9th 2008 11:01AM
Can someone please explain to me how completing a quest is far harder to complete then gather 1k in gold?
One is a simple one shot deal. You get it done, you can fly. The other will take a few days to gather the 'cash' required to pay.
Now maybe I play my alts my differently then most people but I level them and as such it would be far easier for players like myself to just complete a quest along the way then fork over 1k gold.
Agent StanSmith Oct 9th 2008 11:04AM
To me, its not about the 1000g. Sure, that's not a lot and can be done with dailies, its just so....bland.
Its like in vanilla, I had finished the awesome onyxia attunement quest (gone now, of course) and had MC and BWL attuned. So when Naxx came out, I was excited to go ahead and get attuned to Naxx as well. Then I see the so-called quest for that attunement. "Bring us money or things you got with money". Wow! thats almost the same as striding through stormwind having people salute you and confronting the broodmother of the black dragon flight who in her disguise has been bitching at you the last 60 levels.
Money Sinks = no creativity.
William Oct 9th 2008 12:53PM
EXACTLY. I'm agreeing with this guy.
Markainion Oct 9th 2008 11:12AM
I am not in beta, but I do know you make a lot more money per quest at 70 than 69. Even for quest that you can do at 60. I don’t know what the average quest will be giving around 77 in gold, but likely less than you make currently at 70. So 1k gold is likely still going to be a decent cost. Blizzards, should rethink this, or massively drop the cost of the epic flyer, or at least raise the regular flyer to 100 speed, and not make you buy the epic one to get the skill.
aaron Oct 9th 2008 11:13AM
1k gold in wrath is chump change, I made 7k gold in three days just selling gems in the beta, of course prices are inflated on the AH right now, but it's still stupidely easy, people need to chill out and wait till they actually see how easy ur gonna come across gold till lvl 77. I started with 15g when I transfered to the beta and now have 10k gold at level 78.
Fobok Oct 9th 2008 11:15AM
I've heard you need to actually have a flying mount to level to 80? So, doing dailies isn't an option then since they won't start bringing you money until level 80. Hopefully people can make 1000 by 77 then through normal quests.
I can have 1000 by 77... heck, I'll probably have 1000 by the time Wrath launches, but that's from the 70 dailies. If I was coming up fresh there's no way I'd have that support. And it's still annoying as that's 1000 I could be putting towards my epic flyer.
Miguel Oct 9th 2008 11:59AM
"I've heard you need to actually have a flying mount to level to 80?"
False. There are some questlines in SB, SP and Icecrown that are either made easier or do actually require you to fly around, but you can hit 80 just fine doing other quests that don't need you to fly around.
Fobok Oct 9th 2008 1:35PM
Thanks, Miguel, that's reassuring at least.
pudds Oct 9th 2008 11:15AM
Reply in the thread if you don't like the change (I don't). Perhaps we can get an undo on this one, just like the honor wipe.
This just makes my grind for 5k gold on my alt seem all the worse. I knew I'd want the epic on him (already have it on my main) for questing from 77-80, but it looks that much further away now that its 6k.
I know I can spend the 1k for my regular mount, but honestly, aside from getting up to flight only areas, my regular flier is useless. I'd have skipped buying it altogether if I didn't need it for those certain areas.
Blackhorn Oct 9th 2008 11:22AM
If you've almost got enough money for epic flight training right now, you will certainly have enough money for cold weather flying at 77 when the time comes. And you'll have plenty left over.
pudds Oct 9th 2008 11:50AM
I have no where near enough to buy an epic right now; I hate grinding and generally only do a couple dailies every few days.
Across 9 characters, 6 of which are 60 or higher, I have approximately 1200g.
I was counting on the level grind from 70-77 on two characters to make up the difference. Now I'm going to need 2k more (1k for the skill for each of my 70s), which sucks.
Dave Oct 9th 2008 11:16AM
This is just F*****G ridiculous, while 1000 gold isnt a lot on your main, when you have several alts that you can not even afford to give them an epic flying mount it IS A LOT! - this is just Blizzard's renknowned lazy IGNORANCE again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blackhorn Oct 9th 2008 11:17AM
How do all your alts get to level 77? How do they do it without earning a single copper? Tell me. I'm curious.
Jewbanks Oct 9th 2008 4:50PM
umm leveling through bc I started at basically 0 gold and had a crafting skill i was working on I netted about 11-1200g when i dinged 70. Plenty for my flying mount. But his point is sure he can make enough money for them to get it but its a big set back on them ever seeing there epic flying mount. Hell the price of getting an epic flying mount is eaten by getting 5 alts cold weather flying.