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Mount Changes Afoot -- Posted by Rushster at 9:42 AM [Link News] [Comments (43)]

Some mount changes that have been spotted regarding costs and skills that should be noted during v1.12.1 patch testing as highlighted on the EU boards:

Mounts now require only one, shared riding skill (blue mounts require level 75, epic mounts, level 150). Also costs of learning this skill are now significally increased. Previously, cost of learning riding skill was 20 gold for each kind of mount, without any discount. Now it will be 90 gold for level 75 and 900 for level 150. Level 150 of riding skills is required for epic mounts and will most probably include PvP mounts and all mounts that drop in instances (Tiger, Raptor, Baron mount, bug mount and maybe paladin and warlock mount too). For now I can confirm that it is required to ride Stormpike Battle Charger, rest of mounts require confirmation.

In addition to the change of riding skills, the costs of Blue and Epic faction mounts has been significally decreased. Now blue mounts costs 10 gold and epic mounts costs 100 gold.

I can't provide you with any information how it will affect the players that already have their mounts. Now when the majority of mount cost has been moved to the riding skill training, we may end up having our current mounts, but not being able to ride them. The reason is that, the new riding skill system is not in game yet and current system has only one level of riding skills, not two. This may require for every of us to learn the riding skills once again with the new prizes, however I hope that Blizzard will provide us with money previously spend for mounts. We will see.

All prizes are given without discounts, you can get maximum discount of 20% for Honored reputation and Sergeant rank.

Note: Listed changes are active on Test realm at 14th September and may change during the test, until they go live in other realms."

Blizzard has responded on this with:

There will be effectively two riding skill levels, apprentice and journeyman. The cost for the riding skill will be significantly higher than it previously was, however this is offset by a drastically lower cost for the actual mount.

For current players with mounts there will be a seamless transition to the new system. You will continue to have your mount; you will continue to be able to use it, etc. What this change does for players who don't yet have a mount or an epic mount is take the emphasis off of the mount itself, and put it on the riding skill. This helps give players access to more variety without requiring a large monetary investment if they, for instance, just want to pick a different colored horse.