A Blizzard spokesperson dropped by the official World of Warcraft forums last night to discuss yet another major overhaul to the game"s mount system. Player mounts will soon be cheaper to acquire, available at earlier levels, and -- in some cases -- even a little speedier. As part of the upcoming 3.2 patch, you can expect the following changes to be implemented in order to "further improve the leveling experience in World of Warcraft":

Apprentice Riding (Skill 75)

• 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 20 (instead of 30)
• Cost: 4 gold
• Mount cost: 1 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 20 guiding them to the riding trainer

Journeyman Riding (Skill 150)

• 100% land mount speed
• Requires level 40 (instead of 60)
• Cost: 50 gold
• Mount cost: 10 gold
• Mail will be sent to players at level 40 guiding them back to the riding trainer

Expert Riding (Skill 225)

• 150% flying mount speed; 60% land mount speed
• Requires level 60 (instead of 70)
• Cost: 600 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 50 gold
• Can now be learned in Honor Hold (Alliance) or Thrallmar (Horde)

Artisan Riding (Skill 300)

• 280% flying mount speed; 100% land mount speed
• Requires level 70
• Cost: 5,000 gold (faction discounts now apply)
• Mount Cost: 100 gold

Additionally, all mounts will take 1.5 seconds to summon -- instead of the usual cast time of three seconds -- and Wrath of the Lich King"s Cold Weather Flying skill will, unfortunately, retain its 1000 gold fee.

Blizzard"s Zarhym later clarified the reasoning behind the game"s easier-to-acquire rides. "The game has gotten quite a bit longer, and allowing players to get from A to B faster only very minimally decreases difficulty; more so, it decreases time spent traveling," explained the Blizzard poster, continuing, "We don"t want to discourage players from trying out the game if they have not yet, and we especially don"t want to discourage existing players from trying out new characters because the leveling process from 1-80 seems too daunting after flying around Northrend grabbing purples for a while."