The new horse in town

There is a new thing available from the items shop over at Blizzards. Several bloggers have already voiced their opinion – some of them outraged in general, some not bothered, some worried about the direction the item shop will take in general and so on and so forth.


Who am I to resist the temptation to join in on such a hotly debated subject?

So let’s first get those facts out of the way that’ll only impact the serious statements to follow. I queued (in an online shop, for a virtual item that won’t ever make any impact on my real life) for several hours (started the queue at roughly 55.000 people waiting). I got two of them horseys for a total value of 40€ - one for my wife and one for myself.

And personally – even though they only look “okay” in flight and quite “meh” on the ground, I already know I’ll love them.

See… I do run with quite many alts. My “main” (that’s the Koch person I keep boasting about) has collected a ton of flying mounts (including a rather lovely, but slow, blue dragonhawk). On my alts I usually practise an “as few as necessary” approach to mounts – which used to be limited to two one slow riding, one slow flying. Now, with the earlier available riding skill training, I end up owning three on all my alts. Slow ground at 20, fast ground at 40, slow flying at 60, northrend flying at 68 and that’s it. I still refuse to buy epic flying for all of them – the alts intended to stay gatherers get it and so do the ones I really like. If an alt has not entirely convinced my by the time we get to 70, they don’t get an epic flappy.

Okay, I admit it – all of them except for the shaman have it by now. I bought 9 times epic flying. And it just cuts down on the frustration factor of levelling, so shush.

Anyway... back to the flying horse.

This one will upgrade itself. I won’t have to worry about replacing icons on the quickbar, I won’t have to bother finding one of the “classic” styles that suit me – it’s perfect. Lowest effort required. And even though the total savings are now extremely low (as compared to 2006, when an epic mount was expensive and the training dirt cheap), it’s still a few shiny golds I’ll never have to spend again.

More importantly, though, is a piece of coding that makes me jump with joy. The new horsey can go at 310% speed if the owner has at least one 310% speed mount of their own. So it’ll be very fast – and it’s possible to do it.

Now my campaign for the speeding up of the blue dragonhawk can finally start in earnest. And I think I know at least one other person who would be interested.

Final note: Technically you get two mounts. I don't own one of the Headless Horseman's Horses, but I presume the behaviour is the same. The same buttons summons both a ground mount (if you are in the old world, in Northrend without cold weather flying, in Wintergrasp during a battle or in Dalaran) and a flying mount (in the Outlands, in Northrend with cold weather flying, in Wintergrasp when no battle is on and on the Dalaran landing pad and the balcony). Be careful, though, your mount does not change it's abilities when you move from a non-flying into a flying area on its own. You will need to dismount and remount.

No problem usually, but try this: mount up in front of the Dalaran bank, ride through the sewers to the sewer exit and gracefully jump out of the sewer exit.

See that ground rushing towards you? And the wings of your horse not spreading out and flapping?

This is where you wish your horse could have flown .... and look, it seems I was not the only one...