Blizzard announced about a week ago that the World of Warcraft is shrinking, albeit not the way you would expect. The extraordinarily popular MMORPG has finally become so large that Blizzard will be speeding up mounts, as well as the rate at which you can get them.

For the unfamiliar, mounts improve a player’s basic movement speed (thereby helping your fiancee to finish “one last quest” before taking out the garbage). The list of major changes follows (the complete list is at 1up):

Apprentice Riding (land only)
+60% speed (unchanged)
Level requirement: 20 (down from 30)
Training Cost: 4 gold (+1/mount)

Journeyman Riding (land only)
+100% speed (unchanged)
Level requirement: 40 (down from 60)
Training Cost: 50 gold (+10/mount)

Expert Riding (land/flying)
+60% speed (unchanged) / +150% (up from 60)
Level requirement: 60 (down from 70)
Training Cost: 600 gold (+50/mount)

Artisan Riding (land/flying)
+100% speed (unchanged) / +280% speed (unchanged)
Level requirement: 70 (unchanged)
Training Cost: 5000 gold (+100/mount)

Major Warcraft updates tend to fall into one of two categories: they either shrink the world as with this update, or make it grow with content patches and expansions. Rancorous players have complained that the former types of updates pander to casual gamers and new adopters, and since the World of Warcraft’s advent, the level requirements for the first mount have indeed been cut in half. However, Blizzard is likely just trying to keep a stable population in earlier parts of the game to help players rise to the top (and therefore keep paying their monthly fee).

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