As I type this, the Public Test Realm is currently down for another update. But I was able to get on briefly earlier this evening and found that Hallow’s End, the Halloween event, has been activated on the PTR.

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.

Well, I can finally get at the WoW forums again! And that means I was able to track down Blizzard poster Kisirani’s statements about the changes to Brewfest mounts that we discussed yesterday.

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.

For some reason I can’t get to the WoW forums today, but I’ve heard some unfortunate news (by way of WoW Insider).

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.