OMG STFU NOOBS
I feel rather... ashamed for typing that, really.
So World of Warcraft rolled out the 2.4.3 patch on Tuesday, in which they proceeded to break everything they were attempting to fix. Most notably, pretty much every rogue ability that made them annoying in PvP stopped working. I'd feel sorry for them, but rogues and hunters have a long tradition of mutual hatred and disrespect, so all I can say is... HAHAHA, SUCKERS.
Now, half the servers (including my main, but thankfully not my backup) crashed last night and they started a round of urgent maintenance and said they'd be doing hotfixes on all realms today anyway, so maybe it's fixed by now. But that's not the point. Point is, 2.4.3 lived up spectacularly to Blizz's motto of "If it ain't broke, LET'S BREAK IT!"
Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but it's really fascinating the things they manage to screw up sometimes.
Anyway. The one change they made that doesn't seem to be bugged is that Apprentice Riding and the 60% ground mounts are now available at level 30, rather than 40, and riding costs about half as much to train as it used to. From the reaction to this change, you'd think they changed all raids to be 5-mans with bosses that drop dead upon aggro. It's amazing. The forums are full of people screeching about how Blizz is noobifying the game and making it too easy and "catering too much to the casuals" (yeah, well it's about time they cater to 90% of their customers instead of the 10% that're elitist snots--QQ all the way to the battleground gear that requires Arena rating, assholes) and blah, blah, BLAH...
Thing is, nobody's actually explained how changing the required mount level makes the game easier. What it really seems to come down to is "OMFG I had to pay 90g for riding so everyone else should too!"
First off, if cost is your issue, I'd like to introduce you to the warlock and paladin classes. They've been paying all of 1g for their 60% riding and mount for quite awhile now. I didn't see any threats to quit and go to a different MMO over that.
For the record, over my WoW career I've bought level 40 mounts for no less than 8 of my own characters, plus paying for a friend's first mount. One of mine was a warlock, one was a paladin. (And while they got riding cheap, I promptly went off and bought their racial mounts for both of them rather than using the class ones.) The rest were the typical 90g with rep bonuses. My first character, I honestly had no clue WTF I was doing, but I managed to scrape together the 80g I needed (I had the rep and sergeant discounts... ahh, good old sergeant discount...) at level 40. I did not get to buy my new level 40 skills, or learn to use mail, let alone buy new mail to wear, but I had my mount. And frankly, if no other newbie has to mess with that, AWESOME.
I also bought my epic when they cost 900g, pre-BC when gold was actually hard to get. I assure you I was not bitching when they took the price down to 600. I just don't understand people who feel the need to whine "but OMG it was HARD for me! Make it suck for everyone!" Did they walk to school in ten feet of snow uphill both ways too?
Second off, starter mounts at 30 makes perfect logical sense. I never did quite understand why your first mount was level 40 when max level (when I started playing--still epic riding level now) was 60. Blizz isn't in the habit of making logical sense, and I feel when they do they should be applauded.
Third off, and most important... holy hell, people. It's a MOUNT. Furthermore, it's a GROUND mount. It gives a minimal tactical advantage in PvP and practically no tactical advantage in PvE, since if you try to run through a large group of monsters on your 60% mount you're probably gonna get dismounted and owned. (Unless you've got feign death. If you don't, HAHAHA SUCKS TO BE YOU... I mean... *ahem.*) It's not like you can fight while mounted. Nor can you mount while fighting to get away. It's certainly not like monsters see you have a mount and go 'oooh, that guy's awesome, let's drop purples!' It is a mount. It lets you get from place to place faster. The only real advantage it gives is that you have to spend less time walking from quest to quest, and more time actually PLAYING the game.
If that's noobification, then bring on the noobs.
**Aqua out**
So World of Warcraft rolled out the 2.4.3 patch on Tuesday, in which they proceeded to break everything they were attempting to fix. Most notably, pretty much every rogue ability that made them annoying in PvP stopped working. I'd feel sorry for them, but rogues and hunters have a long tradition of mutual hatred and disrespect, so all I can say is... HAHAHA, SUCKERS.
Now, half the servers (including my main, but thankfully not my backup) crashed last night and they started a round of urgent maintenance and said they'd be doing hotfixes on all realms today anyway, so maybe it's fixed by now. But that's not the point. Point is, 2.4.3 lived up spectacularly to Blizz's motto of "If it ain't broke, LET'S BREAK IT!"
Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but it's really fascinating the things they manage to screw up sometimes.
Anyway. The one change they made that doesn't seem to be bugged is that Apprentice Riding and the 60% ground mounts are now available at level 30, rather than 40, and riding costs about half as much to train as it used to. From the reaction to this change, you'd think they changed all raids to be 5-mans with bosses that drop dead upon aggro. It's amazing. The forums are full of people screeching about how Blizz is noobifying the game and making it too easy and "catering too much to the casuals" (yeah, well it's about time they cater to 90% of their customers instead of the 10% that're elitist snots--QQ all the way to the battleground gear that requires Arena rating, assholes) and blah, blah, BLAH...
Thing is, nobody's actually explained how changing the required mount level makes the game easier. What it really seems to come down to is "OMFG I had to pay 90g for riding so everyone else should too!"
First off, if cost is your issue, I'd like to introduce you to the warlock and paladin classes. They've been paying all of 1g for their 60% riding and mount for quite awhile now. I didn't see any threats to quit and go to a different MMO over that.
For the record, over my WoW career I've bought level 40 mounts for no less than 8 of my own characters, plus paying for a friend's first mount. One of mine was a warlock, one was a paladin. (And while they got riding cheap, I promptly went off and bought their racial mounts for both of them rather than using the class ones.) The rest were the typical 90g with rep bonuses. My first character, I honestly had no clue WTF I was doing, but I managed to scrape together the 80g I needed (I had the rep and sergeant discounts... ahh, good old sergeant discount...) at level 40. I did not get to buy my new level 40 skills, or learn to use mail, let alone buy new mail to wear, but I had my mount. And frankly, if no other newbie has to mess with that, AWESOME.
I also bought my epic when they cost 900g, pre-BC when gold was actually hard to get. I assure you I was not bitching when they took the price down to 600. I just don't understand people who feel the need to whine "but OMG it was HARD for me! Make it suck for everyone!" Did they walk to school in ten feet of snow uphill both ways too?
Second off, starter mounts at 30 makes perfect logical sense. I never did quite understand why your first mount was level 40 when max level (when I started playing--still epic riding level now) was 60. Blizz isn't in the habit of making logical sense, and I feel when they do they should be applauded.
Third off, and most important... holy hell, people. It's a MOUNT. Furthermore, it's a GROUND mount. It gives a minimal tactical advantage in PvP and practically no tactical advantage in PvE, since if you try to run through a large group of monsters on your 60% mount you're probably gonna get dismounted and owned. (Unless you've got feign death. If you don't, HAHAHA SUCKS TO BE YOU... I mean... *ahem.*) It's not like you can fight while mounted. Nor can you mount while fighting to get away. It's certainly not like monsters see you have a mount and go 'oooh, that guy's awesome, let's drop purples!' It is a mount. It lets you get from place to place faster. The only real advantage it gives is that you have to spend less time walking from quest to quest, and more time actually PLAYING the game.
If that's noobification, then bring on the noobs.
**Aqua out**