Back in the day, you needed to have the correct riding skill to buy a mount, right? How much did it cost to buy slow flying + mount and fast flying + mount? How fast were epic flying mounts back in BC?
I seem to remember the words Journeyman Flying and Expert Flying. Were those phrases in game, or slang or just misremembered?
Is it possible somewhere along the line my Expert Flying got turned into Expert Riding and I lost 130 percentage points of speed? Or did I remember spending a lot of gold on flying and assumed it was on the one that’s expensive today?
Can’t answer the rest but as for these names they were there when you purchase each level of riding so journeyman riding, expert riding, flying then cold weather flying and i cant remember the next one at 80.
Slow flying mounts were originally 60% both ground and flying speed (so it was better to use 100% ground mounts if you knew you won’t need to take off). What the price was for the slow flying, I don’t know, maybe 1k. Fast (same 280% as today) was the same 5k as it is now (at that time could be bought only at the Shadowmoon base, not sure any rep discount applied).
310% was limited to some special mounts and only converted to 5th stage of riding skill later (they were useable with the fast flying)
Back in Vanilla you cost get a mount at level 40 and this cost around 100g. This was quite a lot of gold back then, I made it to level 30 and had only made 30g after months of playing, I put a lot of hours in but probably not very efficiently as I didn’t know the game well then.
Whe TBC came out you could then buy faster ground mounts and skill at level 60 and this was around 1000g. I remember having to borrow a few hundred gold to be able to afford it then.
At level 70 you could buy slow flying. I think it was around 5000g for the skill, can’t remember how much the mounts were. This was a reasonable amount of gold but levelling 60 to 70 could earn you about that much if you were a gatherer / AHer.
Can’t remember if faster flying was available in TBC or if it came in Wrath. I know that if you got the Netherdrake from the rep grind that it flew faster.
In Wrath you could buy cold weather flying at 77 for around 5000g and this book was accound bound so you could buy it for your alts too at 5000g a pop. By then though gold was much easier to earn. This was when the Tundra Mamoth came out at 20000g which was a lot of gold then. I know someone who bought them on a bunch of alts (as mounts per soulbound to a toon then).
All this is from memory so might be a little off with some of the details…
“Epic mounts” with 100% speed were already in vanilla and costed indeed 1000 g which was super expensive in those days. If i remember right, in vanilla there was originally no riding skills, but speed came with mount. Lvl 40 you were able to buy and use 60% speed mount (100g i think) and lvl 60 the 100% speed “Epic mount” as it was called. Mounts you carried in your bags . This was changed later and also made bit less expensive.
For the OP, while i can’t remember exact price for the flying skills and mounts in TBC i do remember slow speed flying mount and skill were moderate in price to get while “epic one” (280% speed) was more expensive but not impossible to get either. Like someone already said here 310% speed was not available that day as flying skill but came in with some special mounts.
For OP question “Is it possible somewhere along the line my Expert Flying got turned into Expert Riding and I lost 130 percentage points of speed? Or did I remember spending a lot of gold on flying and assumed it was on the one that’s expensive today?” No, i don’t think it is. They have not slowed down any speeds players already have when rebuilding the flying skill system over the years.
The fast flying was 5000g. Quite a hefty amount at the time still and it was indeed 280% and 310% combined, with 310% being exclusive to gladiator mounts and ashes of al’ar.
I can’t remember the normal flying price, but it was perfectly affordable by anyone. Fast flying was considered luxury for the large majority of the expansion’s lifetime.
Also that protodrake (i wanna say… violet protodrake?) you get from meta achievement for doing all yearly event achievements was 310%. Normal netherwings indeed were not but gladiator ones were. 310% was hard to get back then.
. This was changed later and also made bit less expensive.