So I Herd U Liek Mounts

I'm serious, they are

I said I’d write about the mount changes so here I am doing it. Overall I’m “meh” about the new changes to the mount systems. Level 20s get mounts, k. The boost to welfare flyers is super duper though. It also makes sense to lower the requirement for it because people were just getting flight at level 70 and immediately sailing into northrend only to find themselves landbound once again.

To all the people saying this is Blizz yet again dumbing down the game, stfu. When has leveling in WoW ever been hard? The first 20 levels solo if you don’t know how to pull maybe. MAYBE. But the rest of the time a person is on cruise control, unless they’re a new player which ultimately these changes aren’t benefiting that much anyway. The mount isn’t going to do their quests for them. The raptor is not going to run out into the barrens and collect the OH SO HARD TO FIND zhevra hooves. No. The only difference the mounts are going to make is that it’s going to cut the time running to the next flight point down by 2 minutes. NOES DUMBING DOWN THE GAME AGH.

I support faster travel in WoW – it’s true. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m discontent with the change then, right? It should be a good thing?

My issue is that for most veteran players – this change is merely tapdancing cautiously around the GIGANTIC ELEPHANT in the room. Said elephant is edging nearer and nearer to the fine china cabinet and nobody cares because they can still get around him to reach the door.

What I mean is that leveling any alts, at least for me, is a complete chore and a snorefest. Roll alt, pick hair, do starting quests, lament lack of flight points, run to flight point 1, do the same goddamned quests for a 20th time, run to the next flight point, etc. The only excitement of rolling an alt for me is playing a new class, and now I honestly have no new classes to try. I’ve played them all. So where’s the fun in leveling an alt for me? Oh wait there isn’t any.

So now my alts get mounts at level 20? Super. Will that make Ashenvale any less godawful? Fuck no it won’t. A horse is a horse, it’s not a miracle worker.

Obviously not everyone is like me. Not everyone has played the game for as long as I have, and not everyone has a ton of alts. But the point is – I exist regardless.

I did the recruit a friend program with Tif and holy shit I refuse to level any alts without it now. I just can’t do it. It made the leveling tedium slightly less unbearable because I wasn’t spending long periods in zones that I’ve run back and forth around for 4-5 years.

But honestly – I don’t think it’s fair to make us pay that much money for something they’ve fucked up on. They haven’t added any low-level content since TBC and from the looks of it there won’t be any more coming any time soon. They’ve essentially said, in so many words, that they’d prefer to consider vanilla content finished so they can work on new stuff for the higher levels. That’s great for me when I’m on my 80 and raiding, but on my off time when I want to level an alt it goes like this: OH LOL TIME FOR STRANGLETHORN AGAIN BOY DO I LOVE COLLECTING TROLL TUSKS.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the blanket idea of say, starting all chars at 55 like DKs. No thanks. New players should still experience the oldworld content because it’s pretty awesome. Additionally if you only have one character past level 60, you probably could stand to do the older quests on alts a few more times before your eyeballs threaten to explode just from looking at the starter intro. ‘Cause that’s what happens to me when I roll alts now.

If only there were a way to tell how old accounts were and how many 55+ characters were on it in an attempt to gauge if that person should be tortured by running through desolace for the 10th time. Oh wait there totally is.

People bitch about veteran rewards because they think they’re the sign of a dying game. No no you fucktards. Veteran rewards are the sign of an AGING game, which is exactly what WoW is. WoW has not grown up with its veteran players, at all. Most older games realize that their veteran players are, um, sick of the old content? So they introduce the incentives to keep them around and going. There’s nothing wrong with an aging game – at all. And the sooner people admit that, the sooner we can get some nice changes going on. WoW might be heading towards the senior citizen home, but it’s still going strong. It’s going to run laps through those halls.

Are veteran rewards unfair? Maybe if you’re giving them something ridiculously overpowered. I’m not asking for the sword of 1000 truths (southpark version, not the shitty game version) here. I just want faster leveling on my alts. I don’t even want a vanity item FFS. There’d be no way for players to outwardly tell if someone has an exp veteran reward, hence no outright hostility like in other games where that one asshole stood next to me with his stupid wings all day like a gave a crap about how awesome they were. Plus anyone can freakin’ buy an exp bonus reward through RAF anyway. I could buy RAF again, but like I said: doesn’t seem at all fair to have to keep doing it so I don’t have to suffer through the content 29042094 times.

And before anyone points it out, yes I have the heirloom shoulders. But know what? They stay on one faction. Super awesome and cool account bound AWWWRIGHT.

But besides that – enjoy your mounts everybody. I remember when I started playing I had to actually borrow money to get my level 40 mount. Mmm. But I loved that raptor. It was awesome.

Oh and also since NCsoft lifted the NDA on Aion I feel I must talk about it briefly. BUT THIS IS A WOW BLOG yeah no you guys have to see this.

Scan this pic and look at the emotes. See the console icon there? See it? Are you prepared for the obvious joke? lololol.

Yeah I can see why people think I’m a 14 year old boy but wuteva, I love being me.

And for those that were wondering Aion was okay. It’s aiming for a niche which it fills admirably. But it’s still a niche. I enjoyed it but uh, don’t know how long that enjoyment would last for me. Plus I’m one of those, “OH GOD THE WOW PLAYERS ARE INVADING.” stereotypes that the aion playerbase rants about constantly on their messageboards so lol.