The previous post was about unneccesary upgrades. We have seen that we have to pay more and more for less and less upgrades.Yet there is a field of the game where even the illusion of upgrade is missing, yet people waste huge amount of money or time (=money) on them: mounts.
You most probably know what I'm going to say in short: conspicuous waste!
And if the idea is about buying a new mount next to your existing one, you are right, it's just stupid "look how rich I am" show.
However we all need mounts to travel. Let's see how can we save even more money on mounts!
At lvl 30 you can learn Apprentice riding skill, needed for the basic mount providing +60% speed. It costs 35G, but you most probably will be honored by your home faction so you can buy it for 31.5G. The mount itself is sold for 10G (9G on honored). However if you are paladin or warlock, you can learn a spell summoning your spell mount for 1G and get apprentice riding for free.
At lvl 60 you can learn Journeyman riding skill for 600G. You most probably will be revered by your home faction, decreasing the price for 510G. The mount itself will cost 100G (85 on revered). This mount will travel with 100% speed. (25% speed increase from normal mount)
However if you are warlock or paladin, you shall wait until lvl 61 and learn your mount spell for cheap. You still have to pay for the riding skill. Theoretically you could complete a long questline for the mount and the skill, saving money, however the time invested is much more than the money saved.
Here comes a valid problem: if your faction mount is so ugly that you can't bear watching it, (even I accept that gnomes want a replacement), you need a replacement. For a new faction mount you would have to farm exalted reputation, does not worth the time. My tip: run AV on lvl 60 for 50 medals and buy a Frostwolf/Battle charger. You save not just yourself from the ugly mount but also 85G. If you are already 80, you can still collect 50 AV badge. If you find this mount ugly too, the next tip is the lvl 80 daily quest reward in Brunhildar village (for me this is really-really ugly).
There is absolutely no logical reason for buying Mammoths, or Bears, or Choppers or anything that cost money. Period. Of course you are free to waste your money and time, but don't even try to claim that it was not pure waste. They can carry passengers you may say. Are they paying passengers? - I reply.
On lvl 70 you can buy Expert riding skill in your faction town of Shadowmoon Valley. It costs 800G, no discount. You can buy normal flying mount there for additional 100G. This mount travels with +60% speed in land and air.
The No1 tip here is that if you no yet bought it, than don't do it until lvl 77! Flying is impossible in Northrend until you reach lvl 77. You will have more money on 77, due to quest rewards (and hopefully following the advices here).
If you are druid, you can learn Flight Form on lvl 68. You get the expert skill for free next to this spell. This is an instant cast spell, while calling your mount take 3 seconds. So any mount is inferior to this spell therefor any druid with a flying mount is dumb.
The flying mounts sold in Shadowmoon are the same as used as taxi in Azeroth. In no way can they be ugly. So don't try to tell me there was a logical reason why you farmed endlessly for an exalted rep dragon. However there is one exeption. With outland abandoned, the materials for Flying machine became so cheap that this mount can be cheaper than 100G, so engineers may use this instead (ugly as hell for me BTW).
On lvl 77 you can and shall learn Cold Weather Flying. It will cost you 1000G, no discount. You will need it to fly in Northrend, you cannot access several areas without it.
You can learn Artisan riding skill in Shadowmoon Valley. It costs 5000G, no discount. You can buy basic fast mount there for 200G, no discount, they can travel with 280% in air, 100% on ground.
My opinion about it is simple: does not worth it, unless your income is based on herbalism or mining. There are taxi points in every land, you can take insane amount of taxi flies for the price of the fast mount. Of course you can spend your money here (I did), and it does add to your comfort. However you shall be aware that it's a comfort item and not a necessity.
Summary: if you are broke, but ride a dragon, most probably the wiser creature is the one below.
12 comments:
Another great post from the goblin here... and another one I completely agree with...
I am all about achievements - this is probably where I differ most from the goblin point of view - I am all about picking up achievements... and have paid for vanity mounts/pets that work to that effect...
But I only do so when I can afford it... when I have gold for enchants/gems/gear taken care of... not when I'm sitting at barely any gold...
Another "worthless" mount that I think bears mentioning here is the Death Knight flying mount... it's an undead Gryphon... wonderful - it works for both regular and epic flying skills... awesome... it costs about 600g more than both mounts combined... BAD
all it does is say "I'm a death knight" - but yet I see tons of DK's who have that and are flying at normal speed with unenchanted gear... complaining about not having any gold... you just spent 800g on a mount that does NOTHING IMPORTANT..
definitely one of my pet peeves...
thanks for the great post!
To be fair, if you can be bothered to do the rep grind for the netherdrake mount, you'll earn far more gold than the thing would ever have cost. Same with the nether ray.
But sound advice, definitely.
You can get a free drake mount.. just runing Strat HC in 25 mins (Achievement)..but to run that you should not be broken though :)
BTW @ Zach and..Gevlon.
Im DK, i rolled it on another faction (Horde), means started from Zero. On the day of buying a mount - i got ~arround 10000g already with no big effort.. (everything from mining while doing quests, and quest rewards..and to add also - "AUTO LOOT MOB" - which should be concidered to those who are lazy and leave unlooted corpses - selling "crap" is also an income :)
So i got undead gryph, 280% speed (and i enjoy it while mining now very much), and my financial status and gear is quite ok now. (you can check Scsi in Quel`Thalas EU).
Just let me ask - why to save 60-70k gold for?
For economical crysis?
For repairs?
Or for opening "BUY 1000g - for XX$ bussiness?"
I understand it might be that you like "monopoly" and get satisfaction of saving money.
But not every kind of people needs it TBH. They lvl up, gear up, raid - repair, improove their gear.
They can roll in the circle of the 1000-2000g and be just fine.
(if you are not noob and know how to and where to get items you are looking for - you just dont need too much expences, confirmed).
So the conclusion and rethorical question here: You save money - you save your time, right?
Then it means: when you want something, you just be lazy, do not seek it yourself - buy it on AH or what so ever? Because thats why you save for.
But on the other hand, you also say: "Do not buy expensive things, mounts, gems etc, "do it yourself" etc... save save save"
My rethorical answer - save in and do not show-off how dumb you are if the case is when you dont know how to operate with your money to be OK for WOW daily-life living.
Simple.
@Rytis: You seem to be successful, I'm happy for you. However most people are not doing so well as you. Most of them have problems with epic flyer, strike that serious part of them having problems with daily repairs.
You mine and don't leave loot behind. That's very good. However just because you are doing fine, don't believe that everyone does fine. Just ask around your guildmates and be surprised.
Well, IMHO a Epic flyer will cost you a lot but save a lot of travel time and time IS money. It is helpful not only when you are mining/ herbing but also when you are still questing or doing quests for money/ reputation. I will never miss the feeling of a epic flyer once I tried it ;)
Besides: I have a few (7) alts in the 70's and changed my main, three weeks before WOTLK from priest to paladin (who was mid 40 by then). All of them have an epic flyer and decent equip but I always try to remain a reserve of 5k Gold. why not more? Because unspend money does not work for you. ;)
Well might it be successful, might it be just..knowledge what to do with gold, coming from real life money experience or something..I dont know.
Dk is not the only one example i have.
The main one was Ally`s, Resto Druid. I never had over 2000g on him :) Really. To tell the truth current balance was rolling arround 500g, when I`ve quited playing WOW for almost one year. (till Wotlk came). And never had troubles in 10 - 25 raids on repair, pots, buff-food. (well at least i was not Tanking - they had and have hard days, trully :) ). Was just enough somehow. Daily quests, a bit of mining again. Easy done. Anyway, what else to do when you hit top lvl and raids and HC are saved. I hate to sit on the top of epic mount in city all day and Show-off how cool i am. Never did, and never will do. I better prepair for the next one. I better show of to raid or guild how much HPS/DPS i do. This is the real figure i care.
So im kinda sorry for those type of guys, sitting in the middle of city on their Bling Bling rides and chating in general chat how cool they are.
Im really happy for this blog and for your knowledgible mind and experience - and I hope people will find help in their finances thanks to You.
And they will stop wining about "how they dont have money and how they want something badly, but still do nothing about it - just wine". All day long.
Greetings and Thanks again.
Btw some of your posts were
helpful for me too. :) And i`m fond of your articles - just to read and smile about those you write in them. And sadly realise that you are completely correct.
I am all about making money, but I like to spend a bit as well. I just spent 1600 gold on a Red Drake mount and still have a lot of gold left and a lot in of stuff on the AH to sell.
To me, vanity are not needed, but you cant keep all that gold forever and it can be made back very quickly. Ignorant AH people make sure of it.
I have epic flying on two toons. My Warrior, who mines and my Paladin, who mines and herbs. They have paid for themselves.
I see the point you are coming from, but realize that there are also people for whom it is worth a few hundred or thousand gold to get the mount they want. I'm sitting on about 10k gold on my 80 tankadin, and while lvling my hunter I wanted her to ride something other than the stupid blood elf bird, so I bought her a bear. Yes, it cost me 800 gold, but to me, that was well worth it not having to stare at the butt ugly chicken for a long period of time.
So yes, vanity pets/mounts etc should not be bought by people complaining about gold, but at the same time, rich people can afford luxuries, and there's no good reason not to buy them if it will give them enjoyment, and not impoverish them.
What about this item?
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40586
I think it's awesome as it saves precious time, at least 10-25 minutes everyday (I'm tank, I only bought it for the hs effect even though I do use in my solo gear)
What's your view on that one?
While I enjoy most of your posts, and the parallels you often draw between Wow and the real world, and I agree with some, I strongly disagree with what I perceive to be the conclusions of this (and a few other) posts...
We typically play games for fun -- at least I do. And while some lessons we learn in Wow can be applied to real life, and they should, to me that's not he only purpose I play it. Here's what stirred me...
Different people have different views on what's fun.
For you fishing is boring -- you said it yourself a few times. For me, it may be a perfect way to relax while listening to some music, and let my mind drift away for 20 or so minutes before going to bed. Repetitive actions without much focus and mental commitment are perfect to make me sleep the instant I lie in bed.
Back on topic at hand...
For you the definition of fun seems to be efficiency, be it while doing heroics or raids, or finding countless ways to save and make gold. This is great, I spend about 30 minutes daily myself to scan the AH and play the arbitrage game. But that's where I draw the line.
If today I find it fun to mine around for 3 hours, so be it. It was fun, the game served it's purpose.
Tomorrow, I may find it fun to run Scarlet Monastery 20 times.
All in all, it's about accepting there may be different views about the same thing -- fun. The fact that you find spending money on a vanity pet or mount distasteful, or noobish is fine and in conjunction with your goals, but not everyone that doesn't share your goal should be called stupid ("buying a new mount next to your existing one, you are right, it's just stupid "look how rich I am" show")
As long as we both pay the same monthly fee to Blizzard, we both have the right to have fun in the game in the way we each perceive fun; just the means to an end -- the fun -- may be entirely different.
If you are grinding Argent Crusade rep and doing the Troll Patrol dailies, an epic flying mount is a worthwhile investment. I pretty much cut my time in half and never failed to pickup the time bonus.
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