wyvern
Latest
Have we already seen future mounts?
One of the things I never forgot in the run-up to patch 2.3 was seeing the photo above from MMO Champion. This was before the Cenarion War Hippogryph went live, and it was the faction's new (albeit expensive) reward for reaching exalted. Boubouille, as so often happens, datamined a bit more than what Blizzard actually permitted to go live, and the skin at the top left was what wound up being the Cenarion Expedition's flying mount. Sprinting for the CE quartermaster when the patch hit and discovering that that was the only model available (and that it couldn't walk) was a bit of a let-down, to the point where I decided to wait on buying the mount in the forlorn hopes that the other mount colors and animations would go live. Quoth the female Tauren, moo hoo hoo. Since then it's become apparent that the hippogryph at top right became the Argent Hippogryph (score!) and the one at bottom left is now the Silver Covenant Hippogryph. That some of the Tournament daily quests award Silver Covenant/Sunreaver reputation makes me suspicious that the hippogryph and Sunreaver dragonhawk are eventually going to be rep mounts. That still leaves two hippogryph skins "left over," and you've got wonder if they're going into the game -- and if so, in what capacity. EIther way, there aren't words to describe my happiness at not being consigned to the ugliness of a wyvern (the airborne version of Tauren cat form) forever. I'll grant that my main is a Druid so I had a ready escape anyway (and I thank thee daily, Blizzard, for thy boon of total win in the guise of swift flight form), but sometimes a girl likes options.
The Queue: Battle.net
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. So we said that we would have a special edition of The Queue this past Saturday. It never happened. Why? Well, the intent was for it to be entertainment while we all sat in the queue for BlizzCon tickets. Yammer about BlizzCon, get excited, all of that sort of thing. Adam and I put ourselves in the ticket queue, were getting ready to push the post out, and then... ticket sales were over. It was kind of a pointless post at that point! So it never happened. We apologize for that.The ticket sales went surprisingly smoothly. We're always going to find something to gripe about (holy crap why don't they have more tickets) but the whole thing didn't come tumbling down this year, and that's such a massive improvement over last year. It was a good thing.Dusseldorf asked..."Is there any benefit to converting my account to a Battle.net account? I see problems with Battle.net users logging in all the time, and was just wondering the point of converting."
Is Leading the Cavalry possible?
I mentioned the Leading the Cavalry achievement earlier, the achievement that requires 75 mounts to... well, achieve. The big question is, is that actually possible? Let's find out!Let's use a Forsaken for our example, since they have no factors working against them like racial boundries on mounts. Keep in mind that some races will have a harder time, like Tauren can't use two of the five Horde mounts, and Gnomes don't allow anybody but Gnomes and Dwarves to use mechachickens.The Horde has Peacocks, Raptors, Wolves, Skeletal Horses, and Kodo. From a glance at Wowhead, there seems to be...
Breakfast Topic: Flying Mounts and Professions
The Engineering flying machine has been out for a while now, and it's been a pretty big hit. It's a nice classic piece of Warcraft tradition and lore and good unique reward for someone with enough gumption to craft what may seem like hundreds of Adamantite Rifles on their way to 375 Engineering. Of course, something that shiny is going to attract admirers and tons of people who want one for themselves. The issue crops up every few weeks on the general forums or the suggestion boards: Someone wants a crafted flying mount of their own without switching professions. If they got themselves up to 375 in their chosen skill and want to spend another thousand gold or so on expensive trade skill items for a flying mount, why shouldn't they? It'd be a great way to show pride in your trade skilling prowess and give one more way to shed that plain old Wyvern or Gryphon and set yourself apart from the crowd. You could go with, say a nice flying carpet for the tailors, maybe a flying mortar and pestle for the alchemists. Now, I tend to agree that it's probably good enough that Engineers are unique in getting a flying mount in the same way that, for example, Leatherworkers get drums or Blacksmiths get weapons and armor. But then again, I also have to say that Engineers already get some pretty awesome goggles for a unique reward anyway, and a flying carpet would be pretty sweet. So what do you think? How about a leather-winged glider for Leatherworkers? Or do you think that it's enough that the Engineers have a mount that's taken from previous lore and people should stop asking for silly stuff that's never appeared in Warcraft before?
Breakfast Topic: Changes mid-flight
I'm sure you've all been there. You volunteer to actually fly to a summoning stone for your group, and suddenly you realize you're out of arrows, or your fourth and fifth drop out. If I had a nickel for every time I desperately wanted to hop off my ten minute flight down a continent, I'd have at least a dollar. Doclrea recently made a suggestion that would be helpful to commuters everywhere. What if, at certain points during a flightpath, an option would be given to veer off and land at one of several nearby destinations? Heck, I'd probably take advantage of such a system even if I had to pay a little more. What do you think? Would you like the option to land at an alternative, on-the-way flight path, or do you prefer things the way they are? Can you think of any other flight-related changes you'd like to see?
Holla for Halaa
Blizzard has posted a helpful page of tips on how to run, in my opinion, the best setup of organized World PvP so far: Halaa, the conquerable city in Nagrand.The tips are pretty straightforward: stick together (team-- where's my CS homies at?), do as much bombing as you can before heading into the town, and make sure, once you've liberated Halaa from its evil oppressors, that you stick around to keep control and defend against any counterattacks. One thing I like about Halaa is that the Wyverns make it super easy for even lower geared players to join the fight and make a real difference. Plus, the layout is done well, and I like, as we heard at BlizzCon, that Blizzard went with a pretty persistent reward-- it's no fun to conquer something just to lose it again in 5 minutes.And Halaa, surely, will serve as a model for the next big noninstanced PvP zone coming in Wrath of the Lich King, Lake Wintergrasp. Blizzard hasn't actually designed the zone yet, but they did share their goals with us-- multiple targets and rewards, a persistent effect, and of course while Halaa doesn't have them, siege weapons will make an appearance as well.So if you haven't tried Halaa yet, definitely check it out. From everything we've heard, this kind of thing is the future of where World PvP is headed.
Around Azeroth: One day, a wyvern quit his job...
I admit, I've seen more than one or two shots of bugged mounts in my time. Occasionally some sort of error will cause a bat, gryphon, or wyvern to not vanish upon landing -- instead the character will be shown mounted still, but with full control over their movement. However, this collection of shots, sent in by reader Skeez, is certainly the most amusing I've seen of such an event. First, we see Skeez's wyvern friend decide to take off from Hammerfall on adventures with him...
