My Interests with WoW Patch 3.2

It looks like patch 3.2 has arrived at last and is bringing a boat load of changes.  WoW.com has the release notes for the patch posted and has guides to changes in specific areas.

The aspect of the patch I have been looking forward to is the change in mounts.

The cast time for summoning any ground mount is now 1.5 seconds, down from 3 seconds.

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75): Can now be learned at level 20 for 4 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 20 directing them to the riding trainer.

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150): Can now be learned at level 40 for 50 gold. Mail will be sent to players who reach level 40 directing them back to the riding trainer.

Expert Riding (Skill 225): Can now be learned at level 60 for 600 gold from trainers in Honor Hold or Thrallmar. Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold for Alliance; Thrallmar for Horde). Flight speed at this skill level has been increased to 150% of run speed, up from 60%.

Artisan Riding (Skill 300): Faction discounts now apply (Honor Hold or Valiance Expedition for Alliance; Thrallmar or Warsong Offensive for Horde).

In order to further equalize the number of purchasable mounts available to each race, a new 60% speed ground mount has been added for night elves, and a new 100% speed ground mount has been added for the undead.

Flying over Dalaran and Wintergrasp is now possible so long as players keep a healthy distance above the ground.

You get them earlier, they cost less, everybody is happy.  I have been holding off on buying the epic flying mount for my level 80 hunter because I knew a price break on the skill was coming as a part of this patch.

One item elsewhere in the release notes surprised me a bit:

Tome of Cold Weather Flight: New heirloom item. Players who have reached level 80 can now purchase this book for 1,000 gold from Hira Snowdawn, the Cold Weather Flying Trainer in Dalaran. Similar to other heirloom items, this item can be mailed to other characters of the same realm, account and faction. The book is consumed when read training the character in Cold Weather Flying. Requires level 68.

So when you get to level 80 you can get cold weather flying for your alts so they can fly through Northrend from day one.

Another expected change, the accumulation of experience in battlegrounds has its own system built around it now:

Players will now be awarded experience for completing objectives and actions that yield honor in Battlegrounds (honorable kills not included).

Players who do not wish to gain experience through PvP can visit Behsten in Stormwind or Slahtz in Orgrimmar – both located near the Battlemasters in either city – and turn off all experience accumulation for the cost of 10 gold.

Disabling experience gains will prevent a player from gaining experience through any means available in the game.

Players with experience gains turned off who compete in Battlegrounds will face off only against other players with experience gains turned off.

Behsten and Slahtz can reinstate experience gains for players, for a 10 gold fee of course. Any experience that would’ve been accumulated if experience gains were enabled cannot be recovered.

So you can turn off experience gain now, or turn it back on, for 10 gold.  What isn’t clear to me is, if you turn off experience will you get gold in place of experience for doing quests, the way you currently do if you are at level cap?  I am going to guess that the answer is no since they did not mention it.

And then, of interest to me, is a heap of changes to the engineering profession, the chosen trade skill path of Vikund, may main.  While I despair about the usefulness of engineering from time to time, I always find something to keep me going with it.  New with 3.2 are a Wormhole generator for travel in Northrend, a new deluxe repair bot, and a steam powered auctioneer in Dalaran available only to Grand Master Engineers.  If only I did not crash every time I entered Dalaran.

A big patch day, so I imagine things will be a bit shakey for the balance of the week.  Blizzard has already extended the downtime for today because of the patch.

Now how many of my alts are going to be getting epic ground mounts soon?