Some more information on Wrath has bubbled to the surface. This is like Christmas every day for me! I'm very excited. New bits in today's installment of Facts of the Lich King:
Some Wrath mounts will be able to take passengers (!), and ground passenger mounts will work in the old world as well! This sounds awesome -- although it might be boring to be the one who's not driving, it could also let you take a break. And being able to cart around lower-level characters in the old world will really speed up those instance runs.
Trainers and AH will stay in the old world. Not surprising, but incredibly irritating. At best, it's a minor inconvenience and burns your Hearthstone timer. At worst, you're stuck in Stormwind for an hour when you could be doing much more interesting things, all because you wanted to respec or buy some mats. Not to mention the leveling-up process -- going back to the old world every level to train was obnoxious in BC, and it'll almost certainly be obnoxious in Wrath.
You know that awesome Amani War Bear? The one that has been sold for 20,000 gold? Well, you'd better work on getting it as soon as possible if you want one, because when Wrath of the Lich King comes out, it will no longer be attainable. Currently you get it as a reward for a time-based challenge in the ten-man raid Zul'Aman: free all four prisoners in time, get bear.
Tigole just posted in the official forums that upon Wrath's release, the bear will be replaced with "a very good, epic item," basically to preserve the prestige of having gotten the bear at its intended difficult level. He says they plan on doing a similar thing with the "Hand of A'dal" and "Champion of the Naaru" titles as well. I can understand this move -- it would probably be trivial to get the bear with a raid full of level 80s. And there is still a fair amount of time before Wrath comes out.
However, it makes me sad to see something become impossible to get. I think it would be a better solution if they made it so the bear could only be attained by a raid containing no members above level 70, personally. As Zach pointed out to me, the change that they're proposing now means that no Death Knight will ever be on a bear mount, and that's just sad. Unless, that is, they introduce a polar bear mount in Northrend -- did somebody say panserbjørne?
Both Duncor and John "BigBearButt" Patricelli were on the podcast with me last Saturday, and despite my being a bit behind (Liberty City claimed most of my time last week), the show went really well.
We chatted a lot about the mounts of Warcraft, including why you can't ride most of the bug mounts outside of AQ.
And we answered lots of emails -- a few more jokes, a little advice, some good thoughts about Trinkets (and maybe putting an extra inventory slot in there), player housing, and lots of making fun of Duncor for quitting the game.
And we figured out the real pronunciation of melee -- here it is.
Definitely give it a listen -- there's a lot of good stuff in there. As usual, the show is available over on WoW Radio, or in iTunes if you'd rather get it that way.
And here's a special announcement: This coming week on the WoW Insider Show (which will be live on WoW Radio at 3:30pm EST on May 10th), we'll have a special Mother's Day edition of the podcast. Not only will we have Robin Torres (who is herself a mother) on with Turpster and I, but both Amanda Dean and her mother will be live on the show as well. Moms and WoW -- next week on the WoW Insider Show.
WoW Insider has put together the ultimate guide to every mount in the World of Warcraft. From the first Pinto you'll get as a budding HumanMage, to the rare epic flying mount the Ashes of Al'ar, we cover every mount available to every race, faction, and class in-game.
A Warcraft mount holds a special spot in all of our inventories. It allows us to travel Azeroth, Outlands, and soon Northrend in blazing speeds rivaling those of the mighty Alliance Gryphons. Many people have names for their mounts and become uniquely attached to them. Others make it a point to try to get every mount available to them, often spending years collecting the necessary reputation with each faction.
And who doesn't like to go even faster on the fastest mount? For the speed demon in all of us there are several enchantments and trinkets that make our rides travel faster than before.
Check out WoW Insider's Guide to the Mount of the World of Warcraft for every mount in the game. And don't forget to check back whenever there is a new content patch - as the World of Warcraft grows, so will this guide.
WoW Rookie is brought to our readers to help our newest players get acclimated to the game. Make sure you send a note to WoW Insider if you have suggestions for what new players need to know.
Grinding for reputation is a part of the game.Think of it as leveling up with different factions.Last week we looked at the levels of reputation.This week we'll examine some of the reputations that you encounter in Azeroth.
Each of the major cities represent factions reputations that you can grind up with by completing quests and donating cloth.Increasing your reputation with the cities of your faction gives you the opportunity to purchase their racial mounts and tabards, in addition to discounts from vendors.For example if you play a Human, you can rep up to exalted with Darnasus in order to get a Nightsaber mount. Be warned, though because of scaling restrictions some models may not have access to all racial mounts.
As Eliah reported in the undocumented changes post yesterday, MMO Champ has done a little searching through the PTR files, and come up with some interesting changes to mount speed items. According to the code found yesterday, Blizzard was trying to change items like Carrot on a Stick and the Riding Crop to mount enchants (like the Shoulder or Head enchants available from many places for rep) so that they simply enchanted a mount with a faster speed rather than taking up a trinket slot. Sounds like a great way to cut down on trinket space, right?
Not so fast -- (ha! get it? "fast"?) as Dariusmdev points out, this would actually mean that you'd have to buy even more Riding Crops, probably even throwing up the price on the servers. Because instead of getting one mount trinket and using it for all your mounts, you'd have to get one enchant per mount that you have. Good news for Leatherworkers if the change goes through, not so good for people who like to use a lot of mounts.
Which may be why Blizzard may have decided against the change at all -- according to Eliah, this change isn't actually implemented on the PTRs yet. So mount enchants are only in the code for now, and not actually available in the game. But it does show that the folks at Blizzard are actively trying to come with ways to help us handle trinket management, and that's definitely appreciated.
Before 2.4.2 is even up on PTRs, MMO-Champion and World of Raids have undocumented changes listed on their sites. That's dedication! Of course, given that none of this can be verified, you should take it with a grain of salt, but most of the time changes found in the game files end up going live. Here's what's been noticed so far:
Most mount-speed-increasing trinkets (Carrot on a Stick,Skybreaker Whip, Riding Crop) have been changed to enchantments, which can be permanently applied to a single mount in your inventory and cause it to become soulbound. Furthermore, Charm of Swift Flight (which will stay a trinket) now also reduces the mana cost of Flight Form and Swift Flight Form by 115 mana, and Carrot on a Stick is now craftable (1x Simple Wood, 1x Fine Thread, 1x Golden Sansam). I imagine it would be an engineering recipe.
This seems like a good change for the most part, since we won't have to use add-ons to swap in our riding speed trinket all the time (and we'll save an inventory space). However, it does have the major drawback that you'll need to get a new one for each of your mounts, which could get expensive if you're a mount collector. More business for the leatherworkers, I suppose.
Continuing on the mount theme, a sort of horned Swift Zebra mount appears to have been added to the game, as well as a Headless Horseman's Mount (both pictured).
Aspect of the Viper has been buffed. Previously, it generated mana equal to up to 55% of the hunter's Intellect every five seconds; now, it generates up to 55% of the hunter's Int plus 35% of his or her level. This means a boost of up to 24.5 mp5 at level 70.
There are also some changes to various items and recipes; check MMO-Champion for those. What do you think of this mount trinket change? Oh, and if you haven't seen the official patch notes yet, check Adam's post from early this morning.
Update: I just signed on to the PTR, and was unable to verify the change to Riding Crop. So this might well not end up happening after all.
With solid confirmation that Naxx will be "floating" off to Northrend (and not exist in two places at once) also comes a strong hint by Bornakk that they will be removing the ability to get Tier-3 armor pieces along with the rest of the current Naxx loot. Bornakk says that "For players who want the look and the stats of tier 3 armor at level 80, hopefully they are already farming the dungeon for them." This is a very strong indication that post WotLK, the current Tier 3 gear will be no longer available.
Before today it has been pure speculation that this removal of loot would or would not happen. The only time that the WoW Insider staff can think of this happening before (save for the holiday and special events) is with a few old mount models getting changed. And that is nothing compared to entire loot tables being removed from the game. Note that the changes in patch 2.3 to old world loot were just that – changes, not removal.
In many ways this removal does make since, given that the armor models will be reused in Wrath of the Lich King's version of Naxx. While there is similar looking and colored gear floating around WoW, none of it is really twenty levels apart and powerful each in their own right.
However with that said, the removal of items from the game like this stirs a mixed reaction in me.
As I was perusing the very first review of Grand Theft Auto 4 yesterday, I noted that the "collectibles" in that game are going to be pretty intriguing. While a lot of collectible items in games (say, all the packages in the previous GTA games, or the flags in Assassin's Creed) are fairly superfluous, I find that some (like the orbs in Crackdown and the billboards and jumps in Burnout Paradise) actually make the game more fun -- while traveling through the game world, you can keep an eye out for extra stuff to do and see.
World of Warcraft has never really jumped in on that idea, however. Obviously, there are plenty of collecting quests, but usually they're for killing mobs. And there are plenty of things to collect in the game -- noncombat pets, tabards, and mounts, and so on -- but none of them really give you a reward when you find a certain number of them, or give you bonuses based on how many you've picked up.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For me, hiding some fun, optional collectibles (and giving small rewards based on just finding them) in a world as lush as Azeroth would make exploring an already great environment better. But I'm sure some would see it as a cheap tactic to make people hunt for widgets. What do you think?
The subject of flying mounts and their use in Northrend comes up fairly often on the official Wrath of the Lich Kingforums, as a result of Blizzard mentioning we may not be able to use them right away in Northrend.
Why can't we use them in Northrend? Well, the reasoning seems understandable. They want the progression through the Northrend content to feel natural, they want you to experience the setting they've put there. You have to admit, Outland became far less dangerous to you the moment you gained the ability to fly over every single threat there is in the world.
The most common theory on the forums is that you'll need to purchase wing defrosters or wing mittens at level 80 to regain your ability to use a flying mount. A silly, cynical concept, and I don't think that's their only option. Yesterday we discussed weather, so perhaps a blizzard in the Howling Fjord could force you to the ground, or a thunderstorm in the Borean Tundra. Alternatively, a swarm of gargoyles(and frost wyrms?) could be conveniently placed to throw you off of your mount and to your doom should you fly too high in these starting zones.
There are many different things that could be done, and I'm very interested to see which route Blizzard will go with it. You know, as long as I don't need to put mittens on my Nether Ray. Where would I even put them!?
Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, Kara or BT, everyone can get in on the action and down them some bosses. This week, a bear talks about... bears.
Since the introduction of Zul'Aman many raiding guilds have been fascinated by the time trial; defeat all four animal bosses within 45 minutes and the last prisoner will gift you with a scary-looking bear mount, plus the adoration of your entire server. This article will take you through preparing for, and succeeding at, the Zul'Aman timed run.
Okay, so you want to get a bear.
Perhaps there are ten people in your guild who, bored with farming or wiping, want a slightly different challenge to take up an evening or two a week. The end goal of getting a bear mount (or ten) is an incredibly fun one to aim for, but it's also a lot of hard work (provided you don't just want to pay 20,000 gold).
The first stage in collecting your very own bear cavalry is to assemble a good team. While you can put together a run with whichever guildies feel like going from week to week, we recommend at least starting with a fixed group that's optimised for success. As you become experienced at running the gauntlet, it won't matter quite as much if the team isn't static.
Several of you have passed word to us concerning an opinion article by Jim Lynch, a "journalist and community manager" from ExtremeTech. He recently wrote a piece concerning the "Ten Reasons World of Warcraft Sucks". If you would like to laugh a bit, I'd go over and check it out.
I don't want to rip into him for his opinions. He's entitled to them. Opinions are things like "they need new battleground maps," or "Paladins are not good tanks." While we might vehemently disagree with them, they are opinions nonetheless, and they are not facts. Facts are things like "Blizzard can put in new battleground maps," or "Paladins can tank."
What I can do is correct some of his facts. First, he says that a player must spend 5000g to get a flying mount. It only costs 1000g. He suggests a price of 1200g as an appropriate amount to charge for a flying mount, looks like he's 200g too high.
For those of you who do not frequent the forums, you might not know that since patch 2.4, there has been a Tauren outcry.
It seems that cows everywhere are logging in to find that their weapons are roughly 50% smaller than they were previously. Should you take your weapon out to get a better look at it, you'll get to watch it grow back to pre-patch size.
Unfortunately, this is not a bug. Hortus has confirmed that it was an intentional change because certain weapons would clip the ground while sheathed.
While the Tauren have been getting some support on the forums, some players seem unsure of why this is such a big issue. Let's take a deeper look into why players are upset, including the fact that cows will seemingly be the brunt of even more jokes. Not innocent jokes either; not like "steak! It's what's for dinner!"
As previously reported, the latest push from the notoriously progressive Patch 2.4 revealed that a Black War Elekk has been added to the game, but some more digging has also unveiled the Swift Warstrider, a PvP version of the oversized chickens that Blood Elves ride. The models for both mounts have been in the game files since The Burning Crusade was launched but were never introduced into the game, despite slavering anticipation from many players. It looks like there'll be a use for those extra Marks of Honor, after all, as the mounts are finally available on the PTR from each faction's respective Mount vendors -- Raider Bork in the Hall of Legends for the Horde and Lieutenant Karter in the Champion's Hall for the Alliance -- for 30 Marks of Honor from Alterac Valley, Arathi Basin, and Warsong Gulch.
Strangely enough, the current model for the actual Warstrider on the PTR seems to be the Swift White Hawkstrider which drops of Kael'thas in the Magister's Terrace, rather than the customary black mount in the game files. This can possibly change when Patch 2.4 finally goes live, or it could stay the way it is... Patch 2.3 on the PTR had one color for the Cenarion War Hippogryph while there were several models found in the game files, including a lilac one that my wife fell in love with and was prepared to pony up 2,000 gold for. The Black War Elekk also currently shows the Hawkstrider icon, rather than the normal Elekk icon. It looks like the patch isn't quite ready to go live just yet. Enjoy the mounts!
Both Duncor and John "BigBearButt" Patricelli were on the podcast with me 
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