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Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Stop Leveling Your Alts, Now!

For me, the greatest piece of WoW news for the day was the fact that Blizzard will probably introduce a Tome of Cold Weather Flight in patch 3.2. This news was announced on MMO Champion, WoW.com and probably other sites. If this goes through, you all have me to thank for, dear friends.

I jest, of course. Or do I? It's funny or merely coincidental but every time I cancel my subscription (and I do it on a monthly basis because I don't want my credit card to be charged automatically), the reason I give Blizzard for my cancellation is that I'm upset at not being able to fly through Northrend as soon as I land there. I keep telling them that ok, it may be fun to go through Northrend on horseback the first time but when I have to level another and another and another alt, it becomes very boring and daunting. I won't kid myself: this change is not my own doing. However, I'm sure a lot of other people have complained about the same thing and finally Blizzard has listened.

I am very glad they did. This will make leveling a lot easier, for alts at least. We still have to pay the 1000G "tax" but 70-80 will go a lot faster. 1000G is nothing though, compared to the speed and convenience of riding an epic mount from 70 to 80.

So how does this new item work? Well, some people are having trouble understanding it so let me explain.
  • The Tome of Cold Weather Flight is a heirloom item.
  • It will cost 1000 gold same as the Cold Weather Flying skill.
  • It can be acquired once you reach level 80 from Mei Francis in Dalaran. He's the mount vendor NPC.
  • The Tome is account bound, meaning you can mail it to any of your characters that are of the same faction and on the same realm.
  • It can be used at level 68 to learn Cold Weather Flying, meaning as soon as you hit Northrend.
  • It is consumed when used. Here's where the confusion lies. "Why is it consumed if it is account bound?", people are asking. Well, that's because it's a one-use item. It cannot be sold or traded to another character unless it's the same account, faction and realm. This also ensures that an individual won't be able to buy this Tome unless they have at least a level 80 character.
That's it in a nutshell. It seems like an amazing change and for that reason I've decided I'm not going to level any of my alts before patch 3.2. As it is, I have too many things to accomplish on my 3 level 80s. My alts are a 70 rogue, an almost-72 warlock and a 66 shaman. For the shaman it's gonna be a twofer: both the mount changes and the amazing totem changes will benefit him.

What can I say, I'm really excited about patch 3.2. It seems like Blizzard keeps on pushing great stuff with every major patch and for that I love them. I can only imagine what patch 3.3 will bring. I do have a couple of ideas though: an overhaul of the ammunition system for hunters and the shard system for warlocks.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed this is a wonderful 'fix'. It was very disappointing to gain flying in BC only to lose it again for 9 or so levels in Northrend. Wonderful!

I still think the costs are way out of context, but cash is available in northrend if you can move around :)

Bloodshrike said...

Heh, I'm excited about it for very different reasons. Mounts at 20? Heck yeah, I have a server full of level 20+ characters, that I've been lagging on leveling because I hate running around the Barrens for the umpteenth time.

For my main, he just hit 65 today, but I'm torn between pushing to 70 so I can finally experience flight, or waiting for the patch, and being able to gather a whole bunch of XP by just flying around.

It's great news for any of my alts about to hit Outlands, since they'll be able to fly from the start.

Joe said...

Its a good patch I think, I can only hope that in 3.3 they consider giving you a bag or something like the totem thing for such items as tabards, if you have them all thats like 60+ tabards... not enough bank space :( Role on patches!

Skaut said...

Actually I am leveling up alts-but only low level ones spread across 5 realms! Anyone who is almost 20, almost 40 or almost 60 are being leveled to those points.

I actually only have 80s on one realm though, so the tome will help the 5 other 70+ who are leveling there-but my other 70+s on other realms are out of luck. I suppose that will show who has a high level alt and who doesn't.

It will be nice to get my still-only-level 72 engineer out and about and able to farm those mining nodes and air clouds!

Celebrandil said...

So we'll probably see lots of new "... the Explorer" once 3.2 hits, and they don't even need to be level 77 anymore. ^^

Safrienaer said...

I stopped working on my alts as soon as I heard about the land mount changes. Epic land mount for my 43 druid? Yes please! Maybe getting a mount for my 23 paladin will finally make me level him even further. Maybe it's just me but he stopped being fun to play when Wrath hit... <.<

frogi said...

The mount changes are brilliant but like you said Darth, something should have already been and needs to be done with Ammo and Shards. Its the only reason I don't want to play my Hunter and keep getting picked on with my DK hehe.

Darth Solo said...

I too hope they implement a "keyring" doodad for the tabards in 3.3. I'm hesitating to collect any tabards currently for this reason. All my bags are full and they can't take any more crap.

@frogi I still enjoy my Hunter. He's my main, after all. I think they did a hell of a job by getting rid of the quivers and increasing the stack size to 1000. That was part I though. In part II I'm hoping they will implement what they hinted at a while back: an equip-able item that goes in the ammo slot and acts as unlimited ammo. The beauty of it is that they can add some special properties to these items, such as various forms of magic damage, stuns, various procs, etc. Also, the quality of these items can be white, green, blue and purple. Engineers could also manufacture some of these. Lots of possibilites.

Celebrandil said...

Why would you carry any tabards around with you if you usually don't do WotLK heroics?

If you are doing the tabard collecting achievements - don't worry you can sell any tabard right after buying, the counter will not go down.

Joe said...

Just hit 21 on my Pally alt, so i can't wait to get his mount in, he's also made 2000g since his birth! 2000g!!!!! at lvl 21!

I do little dances sometimes!

p.s. this is Joe from JoeGamer, but i found my old blogger details :D

Skaut said...

@Celebrandil
"Why would you carry any tabards around with you if you usually don't do WotLK heroics?"

I can' speak for Darth, but I wear tabards for their looks. My 80 rogue is still sporting the Sporeggar tabard while my 80 Druid is now wearing the Tabard of the Illidari that I finally managed to get the other day. My Blood Elf Paladin will *only* ever wear his Blood Knight tabard. Since I pretty much only solo, it's more about how I want my characters to look and a little bit of RP. :)

Darth Solo said...

@Celebrandil there are still lots of tabards that a solo player can collect. Even if I don't do heroics or such, tabards are just another thing to collect, just like vanity pets. Besides, there's an achievement for them. Like Scout mentioned, it's also about the looks.

@Joe gratz man! I gotta say, you beat me good with 2000G at 21. How in the nine hells did you manage that? It's definitely not impossible but I'd be interested to hear.

Ash said...

Hmm feel pretty stupid about leveling 3 characters to 80 now, esp on a pvp server. I could have avoided a lot of raging if I had a flyer :)

Just found your blog - very neat!

Darth Solo said...

If only we knew several months ago... Oh well, life goes on. Luckily there are more characters waiting to be leveled!