Traveling through Azeroth used to be
a real pain (especially if you were -- like me -- Alliance) but Blizzard's latest round of changes has been directed at traveling. This means
mounts and travel forms are about become accessible much earlier, even if they cost the same. This isn't the first time a
travel form has been changed to make it easier to get, nor is it the first time the
level at which you can get your (insert racial mount here) has been
nixed. This is the first time there have been dramatic changes across the board, regardless of class and the reason is simple: to make it easier to hit 80.
So, constant readers, I'm curious to know if you think this is a good or a bad thing? Will it encourage you to finally get that alt of yours past level 22? Have you just entered Azeroth, perhaps, do you think this will make it easier to move through the old world on your quest to 80? Tell us in the box below.
Tags: game-discussion, gamer-discussion, mounts-at-level-20, nerfing, world-of-warcraft-discussion, world-of-warcraft-hot-topics, world-of-warcraft-topics, wow-discussion, wow-hot-topics, wow-issues, wow-topics
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Patches, Blizzard, Mounts
Jun 17th 2009 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
Danny Jun 17th 2009 8:10AM
Obviously its a little help but its nothing to make slogging through another 80 levels that much more appealing.
MusedMoose Jun 17th 2009 8:07AM
I think this can only be a good thing. I'm the unfortunate combination of casual and altaholic, so after getting a few characters to 60, going back to a pre-mount level feels veeeeerrryyy slooooooooowww. Being able to get around faster at a lower level will help a lot, and I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way.
What I don't understand was previous QQing about this making the game "easier". That makes no sense to me. Getting a mount at 20 doesn't mean that the quests will suddenly give more XP or that things you need to kill for a quest will spontaneously off themselves in your presence. It just means leveling will go faster, without as much running in-between quests. Am I missing something, or are people just whining?
Coldbear Jun 17th 2009 8:37AM
I understand the reasoning behind early mounts and greater-speed abilities.
Good for Blizzard that the game is so huge now that they need to do pretty much anything they can to help people get to endgame in a reasonable time.
But I really wish they wouldn't add more portals and instantaneous travel to the game. Oh well.
Here's to being in the minority.
JaneLame Jun 17th 2009 8:39AM
Yep. I can't really see any downside of it (not that I level alts anymore).
Gessilea Jun 17th 2009 8:49AM
I agree completely. I freaking LOVE the mount changes. Love love love!
Stomy Jun 17th 2009 9:20AM
After getting my 3rd toon to 80 with an epic flyer it's what ever to me now lol
Eternauta Jun 17th 2009 9:27AM
..."I think this can only be a good thing. I'm the unfortunate combination of casual and altaholic,"...
Same case here.
..."I agree completely. I freaking LOVE the mount changes. Love love love!"...
This ^
..."What I don't understand was previous QQing about this making the game "easier"...
For some people, faster = easier. Not my case.
... as if walking north to south in Desolace/Barrens and back again for hours made you a better raider/pvp'er ¬¬
My opinion? No. It will just make you tired and wanting to stop playing. Some old world zones are horribly designed IMO. Blizz improved a lot in Outland and Northrend.
And new players will play alone 'till they reach max lvl and then starts the real game, the MMO part of the game. If they can get there faster or less stressed, then they won't get bored too quickly and will keep paying $15 every month.
Everybody wins IMO.
HealsofSteel Jun 17th 2009 10:25AM
Anything to make leveling easier and faster is better in my book. I have always felt the game begins at the level cap. Thats where the real fun begins in my book. You start getting better gear and running heroics. Then you begin raiding and fighting the supreme baddies in the game. You also get to do Arenas and BGs with others of your level. Very good stuff.
This change will make it easier to level, I welcome the change. I understand those the feel new players need to learn to play their character classes - but is 80 levels of mind numbing grinding, questing, or running instances really necessary? Northred is not going to be any easier and that should be sufficient time to learn a character's roll and how to play.
Jonathan Jun 17th 2009 11:32AM
"... as if walking north to south in Desolace/Barrens and back again for hours made you a better raider/pvp'er ¬¬
My opinion? No. It will just make you tired and wanting to stop playing."
On my first character, Desolace almost did me in. I got so absolutely sick of having to travel from one end of the zone to the other to do any quests. I'd have to say it's probably the worst designed zone in the game.
Inexplicably, my girlfriend loved it.
tatsumasa Jun 17th 2009 12:38PM
"I have always felt the game begins at the level cap. Thats where the real fun begins in my book."
why do people feel this way? if the game began at end-game then that's where you'd begin. but you don't, you begin at 1 and everything in between that and the level cap is part of the game. just because you've done it once doesn't mean you've done it all. there is so much more to this game than whatever the newest hardest raid is. i think blizzard is doing their customers a disservice allowing people to skip more and more.
the other down side to making things easier and faster is that more people are getting to the end without having any idea how to play their roles in groups. in vanilla wow you didn't have people signing up for your raids in questing greens because of attunement, and through that attunement came practice and experience. now we have people thinking they are ready for ulduar the second they ding 80 and blaming people who have put time and work into their characters getting blamed for not taking them.
people say this mount speed doesn't hurt anyone and it doesn't make the game easier. bull. and people are compartmentalizing this. look at it along with everything else blizz has done to make the game faster and easier. if this were the only leveling nerf they'd ever came out with i'd be all for it, but along with all the xp-to-level nerfs, getting rid of attunements, being able to buy everything instead of working for it, or just having things handed to us (class mounts come to mind) they are dumbing the overall game down and it does hurt people in the long run. one thing blizz and i disagree on is whether everyone should see the most difficult content. i don't feel it makes people elitists when they put all the work forth into earning their way to that content, and it takes something away from the scale of the game when anyone and everyone can be the greatest heros of the land simply by lowering the qualifiers of what a hero is.
Agerath Jun 17th 2009 8:08AM
This article really needs proofreading.
As for the changes, they're a boon to my alts. Can't wait.
woodrow Jun 17th 2009 8:10AM
Many people don't seem to like this change too much, but I think it's great. Granted I've already bought epic flying on 4 toons, so I've spent my fair share of gold on mounts, but this change is going to motivate me to level my alts more, especially the few I have sitting above 40.
VSUReaper Jun 17th 2009 1:04PM
The reason I dont like these changes is b/c now people can just rip thru the quests without fighting all the mobs to get to the actual one you need (thinking OL). As for the old ground mounts... I dont feel all warm and fuzzy about them b/c I did it the hard way just fine, so why does anyone else need a free hand out?
craig Jun 17th 2009 8:10AM
It will help, but you still need xp to level. Fast travel to quest givers and towns will make it less World of Walkcraft, but it's still a grind to level alts.
Cainte Jun 17th 2009 8:13AM
I think that the changes should apply to alts on an account that has already hit 80. Part of the game is learning how to do things the hard way before they get easier, escpecially on a PvP server..
Magresda Jun 17th 2009 8:32AM
How is spending more time running from place to place "harder"? This is perhaps the smartest leveling change blizzard has ever made, they are making it faster to level without actually decreasing the difficulty.
eM Jun 17th 2009 8:49AM
@Magresda
And why exactly "faster" is "better"?
Magresda Jun 17th 2009 9:52AM
@eM
Because Blizzard are adding 10 new levels every expansion. Right now 1-80 takes just a little more time than 1-60 took in Vanilla, and with this change it's probably going to even out.
Assuming blizzard continues to raise the leveling cap, we'll soon be looking at levels 1-100. If they didn't compensate by decreasing the time required to level 1-60 (or 70, 80 and 90), we'd have two problems:
1. The grind would be freaking huge, naturally.
2. Players would be spread out over too many different levels.
They are centering everyone around the 60-80 levels, and that's necessary to both keep the leveling time down, and make sure you have someone to play with.
hoocheymomma Jun 17th 2009 10:12AM
The fact that you are overlooking is that WoW is a multiplayer game, and if the population of a realm is spread too evenly across 80 levels, it becomes very difficult to find people to play with.
The point of the changes are to speed all the alts and new players' progression into "current" content so that everybody can play together.
Have you played on a full server? Blizz can't handle that kind of load very well. Even with a full server, if you spread the entire population across all 80 levels, everything gets kinda deserted. I am an alt-aholic myself, and I play on a low-medium population realm, and I can almost never find a pickup group for dungeons in the 25-58 level range.
And, to repeat what others have said, speeding up travel is hardly making it "easier".
Forcing people to run on foot everywhere was always kind of a crappy money grab on Blizz's part. The longer it takes you to get places, the more $15 installments you must pay. It makes absolutely no sense that there should be any level requirement on any mounts anyway. Last time I checked, in real life, and in most fantasy/science fiction, there has never been a link between a person's battle prowess and that person's ability to ride a horse.
Super Guest Man 9000 Jun 17th 2009 8:13AM
I can see this being a great boon to leveling characters, and for those unable to afford epic flying the change to normal flying will be greatly welcomed. [shamless bragging status: on] As someone with 10 characters with the lowest being 65 I won't benefit too greatly from these changes, but it will be nice for others [bragging status: off]