Today Blizzard announced their new Recruit-A-Friend program. And one of the rewards for recruiting a friend is … *drumroll* … a zhevra mount!

Here’s the relevant quote from the Recruit-A-Friend FAQ:

How can I earn the exclusive in-game mount?

For each person you refer who upgrades to a retail version of World of Warcraft and purchases two months of game time, you will be able to give a character on the account you sent the invitation from an exclusive in-game zhevra mount. This unique mount can be claimed through the website, is only available to Recruit-A-Friend participants, and can only be applied to a single character.

If you’re interested in this deal — and I definitely am! — make sure that you read the rest of the Recruit-A-Friend FAQ so you understand exactly how this works. There are other neat rewards as well, including triple experience, free summons, and even free levels! But mostly I just want that zhevra …

There are several different color variation of the zhevra mount available in the WoW client data, but from the FAQ I am guessing that we don’t get a color choice — we just get the black & white zhevra shown in the screenshot Blizzard has posted. We won’t know for certain, though, until the first recruits start signing up for two months of game time.

(Many thanks to Riri for cluing me in about this!)

The changes didn’t go off entirely smoothly: Last night the pre-existing items used to summon mounts all displayed 0 charges and wouldn’t teach beta testers the spells to summon the mount, although newly purchased mounts were working correctly. But Blizzard pulled the server down briefly this morning and fixed the problem.

So how does this change work? When you log in after the WotLK expansion launches, you will still have all your normal mount items in your inventory or bank. But the first time you use a mount item (like the Horn of the Brown Wolf), you don’t immediately mount up. Instead, you learn the spell to summon the mount, and the item (the Horn in this case) disappears from your inventory.

Now you can pull up your Character Info (C) panel. There is a tab on the bottom called Pet. At the top of the Pet tab are three buttons: Pet (only useful for hunters), Companions (for non-combat minipets), and Mounts. You want Mounts.

When you click on this button, you see something like the picture above. As you can see, you get a 3D view of the mount plus a big “Summon” button. You can summon your mounts from this interface, but it’s a lot easier just to pull the icon for the mount you use most out to an action bar like you can do with any spell.

You can store 12 mounts per page and there are multiple pages. (I actually have no idea how many pages you get, but I suspect that, like your Spellbook, the number of paged in the Mount panel just grows larger as needed.)

Unfortunately, there are still some rough spots with the new system. All my mounts converted fine (once Blizzard fixed last night’s bug), but some of my minipets won’t teach me their spells. And the 3D view is … a bit off sometimes, as you can see from this shot that I call “Brewfest Rump”.

But overall the system seems to be coming along nicely. And it will definitely be a big boon to mount collectors of all stripes!

It’s a nifty system. Hunters and warlocks already have a tab labeled Pets on their character screen. We just added a couple of extra tabs on the Pet screen, one for Mounts and one for Companions. Your pets won’t really feel like spells. The first time you use the item, they move permanently to the Pet page where you can examine them (you can rotate them like a hunter pet) or summon them.

We know with this system plus achievements players will want to try to get back any pets or mounts they managed to delete previously. No promises, but we have a couple of ideas for how you might be able to get those pets back.

Ooh! Being able to rotate the mount in 3D like a hunter pet in the pet panel will be really neat!

Blizzard poster Wryxian posted about this change on the EU General Discussion forum:

We’re pleased to announce a convenient upgrade to the way that mounts and vanity pets are handled in Wrath of the Lich King.

Players will be able to “learn” a mount or non-combat pet much like learning a spell, recipe, or new ability, and these creatures will then show up on a new Pet tab within the Character Info section of the interface. Players will be able to access and preview their learned mounts and vanity pets through this tab.

Once learned, the pet icon or mount icon will no longer appear in bag spaces or bank spaces. This inventory space will be made available once again for other adventuring needs. Pets can still be set to hotkeys by dragging them to the hotkey bar, much like any other spell or ability.

This is very exciting! Personally I think that this makes collecting mounts much more attractive. Not only does it solve the bag space issue, but it also means that you can have all your mounts available at any time and you have a handy list of the mounts you’ve gotten in your UI.

This change isn’t yet available on the current WotLK beta build, but as soon as it is I’ll have some pictures of the new interface for you.

Here’s the details:

• All of the mounts that previously had a level 40 requirement now have a level 30 requirement.
• The base price of the mounts is still 10 gold (minus any reputation discounts).
• They still require the Apprentice (75) level riding skill.
• Apprentice (75) Riding now costs 35 gold (base) instead of 90 gold (base). And you can still subtract reputation discounts when appropriate, of course.
• The first class mounts for the paladin and warlock are still bought from the class trainer, but now they can be purchased at level 30 instead of 40.
• Level 60+ mounts are unchanged.

So we get our first mounts sooner and cheaper! With a 20% Exalted discount, learning to ride and buying your first mount could cost as little as 36 gold (28 gold for the skill + 8 gold for the mount).

Of course, you now have 10 fewer levels to get to exalted, either to buy a cross-race mount or to get the best reputation discount. But even in the worse case the cost is cut in half. This is great news for all mount collectors! (And normal players too.)

You can find the current patch notes on the official WoW site, although as I write this they haven’t been updated yet. Mania’s Arcania has a copy of the notes from the patch download, however.

Update: Warcraft Mounts is now updated with Patch 2.4.3 data. Enjoy!

And why is that exciting, you ask? Because apparently the Headless Horseman now drops the Headless Horseman’s Reins, which summons the Headless Horseman’s Mount. And yes, it’s a fast flying mount. And yet it only required Apprentice (75) Riding and level 60.

Yup — a level 60 mount that flies! That’s new! Of course, it may well change before Patch 2.4.3 makes it to the live realms. But we’ll definitely have to keep an eye on this one regardless.

Kisirani writes:

The decision was made to give Horde the Kodo and Alliance the Ram this year. I apologize if there were expectations that the Alliance would get a Horde mount; we were in discussions about this for a long time. I hope that you’ll enjoy the holiday regardless.

And later:

I understand, considering expectations, that you’re upset, and this isn’t a decision that was reached lightly. I’ll be monitoring feedback all through the testing phase, but please do keep in mind that civil and constructive statements serve best.

I am glad that they will be “monitoring feedback” and I personally intend to provide copious “civil and constructive statements” during the testing phase in hopes of helping them to change their minds.

Brewfest is a holiday event that occurs in October and which roughly mirrors the real life holiday Oktoberfest. Last year, characters on both the Horde and Alliance sides had the opportunity to redeem Brewfest tickets for special Brewfest Ram mounts.

Although these mounts do have unique colors, they are close enough to normal Dwarven Ram mounts that many Alliance characters were not particularly excited by the reward. But for Horde characters, this was our first and only chance to get a riding ram. (I personally worked my butt off to get a lovely ram for my orc main. But then I’m a little mount-obsessed.)

And there were hints that Blizzard would be correcting the mount imbalance with this year’s Brewfest, especially after the art for a Brewfest Kodo was found in the client data files. If both Alliance and Horde could choose from either a Brewfest Ram or a Brewfest Kodo — well, that would be just about perfect!

But today Blizzard activated Brewfest on the Public Test Realms in order to test out their changes before the event proper in October. And today we learned to our dismay that Brewfest Rams will only be available to Alliance characters, and Brewfest Kodos will only be available to Horde characters.

I haven’t heard yet if existing Horde characters with a Ram get to keep them (as I mentioned, I can’t seem to load the forums no matter what), but I can report that my orc still has hers on the PTR.

That’s a good sign. But it really doesn’t help my two additional Horde characters who already saved up their Brewfest tickets last year, but weren’t high enough level to complete the quest and get a ram. To add insult to injury, one of them is a Tauren … so she’s not even getting easier access to a kodo mount.

Oh, I will still be happy to have the opportunity to get a better looking kodo mount — the existing kodos are pretty plain — but a ram would have been so much cooler. I’m just not sure why Blizzard didn’t open the possibility to get either mount type to either faction. I’ll admit that I’m a collector, so I’m more concerned with my ability to get a mount than with the supposed rarity value of the mount, but especially given that a good many Horde characters already have the ram … It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Initially I thought that Blizzard might be adding new mounts at level 30, but I was misreading the patch notes. Instead, all of the mounts that previously had a level 40 requirement now have a level 30 requirement. The base price of the mounts is still 10 gold (but you may get reputation discounts), and they still require the Apprentice (75) level riding skill.

And learning to ride is now considerably cheaper: Riding trainers on the PTR will sell the Apprentice (75) riding skill to level 30+ characters for just 35 gold (base cost) instead of 90 gold (base cost). With a 20% Exalted discount, that means that learning to ride and buying your first mount could cost as little as 36 gold (28 gold for the skill + 8 gold for the mount).

On the other hand, you will have 10 fewer levels to reach Exalted reputation before you can buy your first mount. So that may raise the expense a bit. At worst, however, the cost for your first mount has been cut in half.

Do keep in mind, however, that right now these changes only exist on the Public Test Realm — and that they may change without notice before they reach the live realms.

• Mounts at 30?! Yes, it’s true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
• Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.
• Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to investigate any more right now — I’m already late getting on my plane. But I’ll post more as soon as I can!