There’s been an insane amount of information coming out of dataminers and alpha testers for World of Warcraft‘s upcoming expansion, Shadowlands. We’ve seen dungeons, zones, customizability, and insights into the level crunch that’s going to be taking place.
The latest bit of news to come out is interesting to longtime players and newcomers alike. According to recent notes in Shadowlands‘ latest alpha build, 9.0.1, it seems that the training costs and mount trainers, in general, may be removed, allowing players to simply know these abilities innately.
It seems that flying will be free in Shadowlands and you will learn the appropriate riding skill automatically, without having to visit a flying trainer. https://t.co/GHLqvHCak8 #WorldofWarcraft pic.twitter.com/uvXggFSrpl
— Icy Veins (@icyveins) April 17, 2020
Icy Veins broke this news in a tweet embedded above. According to the notes that they’ve found, the description for Apprentice Riding, the first skill level which allows you to ride ground-only mounts at a 60% speed increase, now reads “You can now ride ground mounts.” Previously, it read “You can now learn to ride ground mounts. You’ll need to find a riding trainer for your race and then purchase a mount.”
The same change is applicable to Journeyman Riding, which allows for ground mounts to be ridden at 100% speed. Previously reading “You can now learn to ride fast ground mounts from your riding trainer,” it now only reads “You can now learn to ride fast ground mounts.”
It’s unknown if this was a planned change, or one in response to fan feedback during the alpha. Recently, for example, we discussed a post on the Blizzard forums that had gotten a great amount of recognition listing a huge amount of analysis on the alpha. One of the points raised in that post was that the mount training was jarring, as the level crunch made it come so quickly that players had to visit their trainers too frequently.
The remaining skills are also all kept the same, as the skills to fly and subsequent skills to increase flying speed remain unchanged. The level requirements for all skills also remain the same, with the first skill coming at level 10 and the last at level 30.
One of the concerns over this could be immersion, as it doesn’t make much sense for a character to suddenly understand how to ride a dragon after killing enough kobolds to hit level 10. Of course, gameplay might be prioritized over that, so having a character innately understand and unlock the ability to ride mounts to stop players from having to run to the nearest riding trainer might cause everyone to overlook that.
Removing the cost, as it seems they’ve done, is also sensible. Frankly, the amount of money generated in the modern iteration of the game is high enough that paying the relatively-minor price to train in mount riding hasn’t been a factor for several expansions.
