Warcraft Mounts

Beta tester Daddylicious just sent me some gorgeous screenshots of the Abyssal Seahorse — much better than the one I took.

And this is my favorite here. As Daddylicious says:

It looks pretty sweet standing still, but is VERY choppy when moving. It also appears to sit way too high on the surface of the water. (I suspect they’ll work that all out.)

But you should definitely check out all these screenshots. Click on the small versions to get the full images. Both the seahorse and Vashj’ir are just gorgeous.

I inadvertently went AFK for a bit there, but I am back today with actual honest-to-goodness Cataclysm mount news!

As you may or may not know, one of the level 80-82 zones in Cataclysm is Vashj’ir, and all of Vashj’ir is underwater. One of the first things you learn there (via a quest) is how to breathe and walk underwater. But the quest givers also set you off down a long quest chain on your way to catching your very own underwater mount.

Now this is all very cool. But until today, the Abyssal Manta that you eventually obtained had obvious placeholder graphics: it was a nether ray mount, just like the Sha’tari Skyguard Riding Nether Rays. The only difference was that it ‘flew’ through the water instead of through the air.

In the latest beta build (12604), however, the Abyssal Manta was replaced — right out of our mount tabs! — with the first of the new Cataclysm mount models: an Abyssal Seahorse.

The swimming animation on the seahorse is a bit jerky right now. (It makes me a little seasick after awhile.) But I’m sure Blizzard will smooth that out. And I am absolutely in love with the delicate filigree bridle and metallic tack. These mounts have a whole ocean of personality (if you’ll forgive me the terrible pun).

Incidentally I apologize that the pictures aren’t a bit better. Unfortunately upping my graphics right now causes my client to crash. This is a new bug (for me at least) that started with this beta build, so hopefully it will be fixed next build and I can get some prettier pictures.

No word yet on how we might obtain other seahorse colors, but there are several other colors in the game data files, including the purple seahorse you see here, a pretty goldish color, and two absolutely gorgeous light blue and green tones. There also seem to be a couple different colors of tack available – gold, silver, and copper — and each color has a version without the full saddle.

I’m not sure yet which models might actually make it into the game so I haven’t set them up with their own mount pages yet, but I’m linking the images below so you can check them out at your leisure.

With the lifting of the Cataclysm beta NDA, there is suddenly a lot of information floating around out there.

Unfortunately for us, not a lot of it seems to be focusing on mounts. Well, not a lot of the first-hand information, at any rate. All I really have to share at this point is rumor and data-mined models. Which are pretty and all, but …

So! If you are in the beta — and I know that some of you lovely people must be! — then I beg of you, please snap me some screenshots of anything mount-related you may run across and e-mail it to me at mania@warcraftmounts.com.

Remember to turn off your UI first (Alt-Z by default), and let me know what name you would like me to credit or whether you would rather be anonymous.

And I will thank you eternally!

Here’s a bit of belated news: Cataclysm is in closed beta and the NDA on testers has been lifted.

Yeah, I should have posted this yesterday … but Blizzard should have waited until I was out from under a rush contract to start beta!

At any rate, this means that we are being inundated with information about the upcoming expansion — including mount information.

I’ve added a Cataclysm mount page here on the site. I’ll be adding to it as we find out more, but at the moment all I have posted is the four new paladin mounts, which seem pretty safe bets.

Unfortunately I haven’t seen a lot of first-hand reports from beta testers themselves.  From what I’ve seen on the beta forums, where posting is restricted to beta testers, neither goblin nor worgen mounts are in game yet. But there may be new faction or reward mounts out there and I just haven’t heard. I do keep hearing about an underwater mount, but I don’t have any solid details yet.

What we do have, however, are some clues from the game client itself: namely creature models which have the word ‘mount’ somewhere in their name. I’m have a few pictures to share (and more tomorrow or the next day, but I’m running out of time tonight).  

But please keep in mind that:

• These creatures may never make it into the game.
• If they do make it into the game, they may not be mounts.
• If they are mounts, they may not be available to players.
• Regardless of all that, they may end up looking quite different from how they look now.
• And many of these models have bits missing (which is why I caught them on a grey background, so you can see the silhouettes).

In short: don’t get too excited yet, and don’t judge these potential mounts based on what you see here.

Camel: You may remember the silhouette I posted of the camel mount a bit. I have a better image now, although as you can see not all the bits are textured yet. My guess is that he comes from Uldum. (Yeah, that’s a pretty safe guess.)

Dark Phoenix: Considering how rare the regular phoenix is, I’m guessing this one will be even worse. But oh my goodness how I’d love to have a flaming deep purple mount!

Dragons: There are two dragons with ‘mount’ in their names right now — a Deepholm dragon mount and a Skywall dragon mount — but neither has textures. Still, I grabbed a shot of the non-mount versions so you can get a basic idea.

I’m not sure if those green crystals on the top one are supposed to be attached or not …

And that’s it for tonight — I’m exhausted. As I said, I’ll try to get some more posted tomorrow.

(And by the way: If you are lucky enough to be in the beta and want to help out, please send me screenshots! Or just some notes about the mounts you’ve seen. Whatever you can spare. *grin*)