Posts with tag mount

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we find ourselves gleefully counting the inhabitants of our private stables.

Greetings, folks. After last week's tour through the 2011 Brewfest, we're going to wrap up our Mountain O' Mounts series today with a few ill-tempered complaints from WoW Insider's resident cheapskate, and then turn to ... well, that part's up to you. I have a lot of different OverAchievers I would like to do, but no particular preference as to which we'll do next. There are several popular series and guides from Wrath of the Lich King that I would like to update -- among others, I'm interested in revisiting evil achievements, entertaining achievements, tabards, and feats of strength -- but we still haven't done Molten Front achievements, and I've been getting a lot of requests to do a Littlest Pet Shop guide since that was added to the game.

In the grand tradition of lazy writers everywhere, I'm going to let you pick!

Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same.

We have a couple of fun topics to talk about today on Addon Spotlight, mostly notably what to do with GupPet, my personal favorite mount addon that hasn't been updated in some time. It makes me very sad, you might imagine, that this robust beauty of an addon is sitting unmanned and not updated, requiring my own hand to make things right.

In addition, we've got some questions about action bars and bags, both incredibly important topics. Let's get to it, shall we?

Hi Mathew,

Guppet hasn't been updated in some time and it doesn't recognize the Flameward Hippogryph. I was wondering if there is another add-on that does a similar function (i.e. randomizing mount selection). I have a ton of mounts across multiple characters and I like to just be surprised what pops out sometimes. Thanks a ton.

Tiek

GupPet is in a sad state of affairs. The addon is one of my favorites, period, for its robust pet and mount configuration. Not only can you set priorities and preferences for all of your mounts when you want to randomly call them, but auto-companion pet summoning is included, as well as a built-in collector's interface for finding all of the pets and mounts you are missing. One-button random summoning, 3-D model mount and pet preview, mage, druid, and shaman class support, and more is right there in the package. There's a problem: It hasn't been updated since January.

Blizzard has finally seen fit to give Worgen players -- or more specifically, the Gilnean faction -- their own mounts. Worgen originally had no racial mount because of their innate ability Running Wild, which allowed the Worgen to be their own mounts, dropping to all fours and moving at mount speed. The new Gilnean mounts appear to be unarmored horses coming in brown and grey colors. It is presumed that players will be able to purchase these mounts if they are exalted with the Gilnean faction, much like how other factions' mounts work.

Players were torn over Running Wild, mostly because each mount collected counts toward the achievement Mountain o' Mounts, which rewards a Red or Blue Dragonhawk to fly around on. Many Alliance players were upset over the fact that Horde players had an easier time collecting 100 mounts because of the Goblins' trikes. Horses make sense for Worgen, as Worgen are still essentially a Human nation, and Humans in Warcraft ride horses. These two particular mounts seem a bit plain, though. These new mounts are coming in most likely to ease the disparity between mounts when faction changes occur. All in all, this is good news for Alliance mount collectors.

The World of Warcraft Armory/community site has been updated with a useful new feature showing players the mounts and companion pets they have collected so far. You'll be able to see where each pet or mount comes from or who drops them, a picture of each, and even a listing of not-yet-collected pets and mounts, making it easier to be an achievement hunter or collector.

The armory has changed drastically from its original interpretation and implementation, adding features over time that give players a more cohesive out-of-game experience. What is most interesting are the potential tie-ins later on with the previously announced WoW APIs coming down the pipe in the near future; we are still unsure of the amount of data that developers will be able to access from the WoW armory. I would not be surprised to see collected pet and mount data also being part of that package.

We've got a pretty full-featured armory at this point. What other types of data do you think the armory could or should provide? Perhaps next we'll see a tabard and title tab, showing players' collected tabards and a scroll list of titles earned. The sky is the limit, apparently.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. Today, we are convinced that archaeology's RNG won't apply to us.

There are a number of interesting (and by interesting, perhaps I mean "occasionally very expensive and likely to drive you insane via RNG-laden accessibility") mounts available from professions, though for some of them, you'll have to be a practitioner in good standing before you'll ever be able to learn them.

Regrettably, I am the bearer of some very bad news this week concerning the Vial of the Sands for all those of you who like circumventing the highest costs in the game.

Also read:

• Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts
• Mountain O' Mounts in Outland
• Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend
• Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons
• Mountain O' Mounts in raids
• Mountain O' Mounts from achievements
• Mountain O' Mounts from PvP

Blizzard has just released the Winged Guardian, the newest mount in the Blizzard pet store, which of course means I had to buy it and quickly throw together a video of this majestic beast in action. The Winged Guardian works as both a ground and flying mount, scaling with your riding skill all the way up to 310% mount speed.

Over a year ago, WoW players ran the gamut of emotions when the Celestial Steed was introduced. Now, however, DLC (downloadable content) has become a fact of life for many games and virtual worlds. In fact, many people (myself included) don't understand why these mounts don't come out even more frequently, because there is obviously a market for these cool extras.

Check out the video of the Winged Guardian in action. So far, I like this guy. He feels thick and beefy, with a lot of weight to him -- definitely an imposing presence. Plus, it's not another dragon, and we can all be excited for that.

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The Winged Guardian flying mount is now available for purchase at the Blizzard pet store. Much like its Celestial Steed counterpart, the Winged Guardian is available to every one of your characters in game and costs $25.

Head over to the Blizzard pet store now to buy this awesome flier. EU players can get the mount at the EU Blizzard store.

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Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we continue the Mountain o' Mounts grind in Outland with a few notes on BC reputation.

If you're catching up with us after last week, we've finished off both The Ambassador and the first leg of Mountain o' Mounts. I have to confess that I approached both achievements from the perspective of a player who wasn't necessarily at the level cap (I've been leveling a goblin priest lately and greatly enjoying the benefits of faction tabards in dungeons), and I completely forgot that the Argent Tournament even existed. Whoops. (Either that, or I've got one hell of a mental block concerning jousting.)

This week, we're going to hit the dark portal in pursuit of more mount and reputation achievements. Outland is the single most fruitful continent for getting lots of mounts from a limited set of factions. If you've got the patience to make it to exalted with the three factions that sell transport around this shattered hellhole, you'll have an additional 19 mounts at your disposal. You can bump this up to 21 if you count the two PvP talbuks available from Halaa, but these days you'll probably have to arrange a battle royale in the zone in order to get the kills (and tokens) needed. More on this in a bit.

Otherwise, your three targets here are the Netherwing, the Sha'tari Skyguard, and the Kurenai/Mag'har. But first, a brief history lesson for all those of you who joined the game in Wrath of the Lich King and still need to work on your Outland reps ...

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we contribute to Azeroth's obesity epidemic by refusing to walk.

Mounts: They get your ass from point A to point B, and if you're lucky, they'll do it as stylishly as possible. They're the most immediately visible status symbol in WoW and often give you a one-glance note on the kind of player at whom you're looking. People astride Invincible can be counted upon to be hardcore raiders from the Wrath of the Lich King era, someone riding a Violet Proto-Drake is never new to the game, and players rocking a White Stallion are seriously old school.

Players who have been around for any length of time almost inevitably accrue a stable's worth of beasties to cart them around, but some folks go the extra mile for the Leading the Cavalry and Mountain o' Mounts achievements. In Cataclysm, these are a lot easier than they once were, although you should still be prepared to dump a ton of gold and time into them no matter what. Fortunately, the first part of the Mountain o' Mounts trek should also net you The Ambassador achievement and title.

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

Last week on The Lawbringer, I introduced you to the world as it is, a battlefield littered with the corpses of stolen accounts, inconvenienced players, and a priceless reputation on the line. This week, we look at concrete solutions to actually helping the gold selling system wind down and remove many of the hurdles that instant gratification with purchasing gold sets up for Blizzard. You might have mixed and angry reactions to what I'm going to talk about, but do give me the benefit of the doubt. I think being open-minded might win this fight.

So what can Blizzard do besides selling its own currency? Here are my suggestions for the first steps that Blizzard needs to take in the new war against gold selling.

Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we begin an epic search for transportation across the Uldum sands.

The developers' strangest and most eccentric additions to the game often wind up numbering among the things that make World of Warcraft truly great, and -- fortunately for this column -- many of them are achievements as well. Today, I'd like to talk about something that, strictly speaking, is not yet an achievement. As of the most recent PTR build (13750), we know that it's going to be one in patch 4.1, and I am highly delighted that the Grey Riding Camel is now fair game for OverAchiever.

If you've followed Cataclysm zone or reputation news at all since the beta hit, you've probably known about the two camel mounts available at exalted with the Ramkahen faction. Getting them is a pretty straightforward process: Quest in Uldum, meet the kitty people, buy the kitty tabard, get the kitty people to fall in love with you -- and sooner or later, a Brown or Tan Riding Camel will result. Actually, that makes the process sound a lot more salacious than it really is, but I digress.

The Grey Riding Camel has always been different, and in order you get one, you'll engage in a little quest worthy of the zone's Indiana Jones feel. As with all Indiana Jones stories, it all starts when you find a valuable artifact after an agonizing search ...

Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Running parallel to the games we love and enjoy is a world full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

The Lawbringer has in the past been used as a personal launching pad for some of the more out-there or esoteric ideas that I have in regards to the World of Warcraft and virtual currency in general. You guys seem to love it, and there's always plenty of great discussion about these ideas. For the next two weeks, I want to introduce you to my thoughts on how Blizzard should be attacking gold sellers and, at the same time, working to remove some of the content gates that gold has erected in the MMO we all love. This week, we will set up the story and the history of it all, and next week, we will talk about hard conclusions.

Gold selling isn't going away as long as fungible and liquid currency exists in MMOs. Gold is "fungible" because it can be exchanged for something exactly like it, at a 1:1 ratio -- gold is gold. Gold is also liquid, as it can be used and exchanged for other goods or services. Short of Blizzard's getting rid of this type of currency altogether or selling its own currency for a cheaper price than gold sellers can furnish it, people will sell gold and items that can be traded.

Blizzard has shown that it has the guts to go after gold selling as an industry but has so far failed in scope to bring down the snake that slowly poisons everything it has worked to build. As sellers become hackers, and as hacking chips away at the good will, reputation, and stability of the game we love to play and the company we love to patronize, there has never been a more urgent time to fight the gold fight. The strategy needs to change from focusing on the people who sell gold to a combination of those that sell and the gold itself.

For a long time now, the Wintersaber Trainer grind (for the Reins of the Winterspring Frostsaber) has been one of the last holdouts of the old world's long, slogging reputation grinds, featuring repeatable quests that give relatively small chunks of reputation and require slogging all over a zone. Admittedly, the grind is a lot easier these days thanks to tweaked drop rates, slightly higher reputation gains, and old world flight, but it still stands as a symbol of a different time.

In patch 4.1, this will stand no longer. The Wowhead blog is reporting the Wintersaber grind is being turned into a series of daily quests that put you in charge of the care and feeding of a Winterspring Cub on the PTR. After 20 days worth of dailies which earn you Winterspring Cub Whiskers, you'll be able to turn in the They Grow Up So Fast quest for your very own set of reins. In addition, you can buy a Winterspring Cub permapet from a vendor in Everlook. It's Bind on Equip and sold by a neutral vendor, so even Horde and Bloodsail Admirals can get thier hands on it.

New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. WoW Rookie is about more than just being new to the game; it's about checking out new classes, new playstyles, and new zones.

When you hit the end of your leveling process, there are a few obvious things to do. You can gather additional gear by doing heroics, and you can start exploring the wide world of raiding. You can start cruising the world of PvP, especially if you already did some battlegrounds while leveling.

Another way to spend your time is collecting mounts. You can cruise Stormwind and show off your collection, or just enjoy the roleplaying value of having 100 cool rides. The game even has a series of achievements to show off your accomplishment. You get Filling Up The Barn for 25 mounts, Leading The Cavalry for 50 mounts, and Mountain o' Mounts for 100. As you'd expect, you get a new mount for achieving Mountain o' Mounts.

Let's talk about a game plan for getting to 100 mounts.

It's morning. You wake up in a groggy haze, your mouth tasting like coal and cheap beer. Staggering outside your hut, you rub your eyes in disbelief as you notice something missing. Something large, furry, covered in pieces of barrel and horned. Wait --

Dude, where's my ram?

Another Brewfest has come and gone. Sadly, we'll all have to wait another year for endless rivers of cheap beer, luscious beer meats and hilarious hallucinations. Holidays are always a great chance to mix up your usual routine, so we ask: Were you lucky enough to pull a mount from the cold, dead clutches of Coren Direbrew? Did you get your Brewmaster title? Did you even care?