That's an expensive horsey.
Part 9 of the Summer of Warcraft series.
One of my constant gripes as a newbie in World of Warcraft is the slow pace of travel. It’s glacial, even when you rent a flight. I am consistently amazed at how much I can get done on a flight between Lakeshire and Ironforge – let the dog out, go to the bathroom, do some dishes, let the dog back in, play another video game…
Walking, even with a relatively swift human priest, is just mind-numbing boredom. And you do a lot of it. But my friends have always assured me. “Don’t worry, when you hit 30, you can get a mount, and it’s much better.”
So, last night, while toiling through the repetitive raucousness of gunshots and pig squeals that is Razorfen Kraul, I finally brought my Tauren hunter up to 30. I turned to my group and announced, “I have the urge to mount something.” This morning, I slowly hauled my character’s big bull ass over to Bloodhoof Village to purchase a Kodo, a lumbering dinosaur-looking thing that passes for transportation in this game. The shop wanted 8 gold for the beast. I only had 5. It was disappointing, but not terribly so. BUT WAIT, in order to train my character to ride this beast, I was informed that I must spend 29 gold. What?
I haven’t even earned a total of 37 gold with my hunter, ever. Even if I had traveled more efficiently, had not bought abilities that I rarely use, or had not bought armor for a friend (just so I could have someone to quest with), I would not have had the ability to save up more a quarter of that amount. Sure, I could have crafted leather bags and sold them at the auction for cash. But I already have a job that requires tons of boring, repetitive button clicking and no creative input, thanks. This is supposed to be a game, right? Supposed to be fun, right?
I can see how, in the early days of Warcraft, when the world was small and everyone still played on the old continents, a mount was more of a vanity thing. “Look at my rich ass traveling faster than you!” But, two expansions into this collective hallucination, mounts have ceased to be vanity and become necessity. Waiting until level 30 to get one and then having to farm a spectacular amount of gold is just asinine. If I ever want to play with my higher level friends, it’s going to take another year at this travel pace.
And here come the “stoopid noob” criticisms. Fine. But, as has been my point all along in this series, newbies pay Blizzard the same monthly rate as level 80s. If Blizzard insists on keeping Warcraft’s pacing this slow for the fewer and fewer newcomers coming to the game, there is going to be little incentive for them to stick around, since there are no longer as many players learning and slogging through at their level. It’s mostly free accounts and veterans power-leveling their alternate characters. My Alliance roll-playing server is filled with ghost towns during the week. Kalimdor is a little better on my Horde player-vs-player server, but not by much.
As I’ve said before, all the action is elsewhere, and I’d like to get there someday, not some year. But perhaps Blizzard has ceased to care.
I had 100 gold by the time I hit level 30, and I did not really try – just selling stuff made with my professions and the occasional green drop.
You can go farm stuff like striny wolf meat, in use for cooking leveling – can sell a pack for a few gold (check your server auctions) and you get it in 5 mins.
In the next content patch, which will probably be along in a few weeks, you’ll be able to buy that mount at level 20 for 1 gold. The training will cost 4 gold. (All prices may be lower with faction discounts.)
Here’s a link to the patch notes for the upcoming patch: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
It’s taken long enough, but Blizzard does seem to be interested in alleviating some of the low-level travel tedium.