Mounts!

If you're relatively new to the game, or haven't played before Wrath of the Lich King, players couldn't originally mount until they were level 40. Yes, this meant you had to continue to run around for another 20 levels and using the flight masters to get around. Of course this is what slowed down leveling times significantly. That and you needed about 90-100 gold to buy the training, and 8-10 gold for a mount. All for a 60% movement speed increase. At level 60 you could upgrade to a full-on 100% speed increase but that required about 900-1000 gold and another 80-100 for the mounts.

But, Warlocks and Paladins did not have to bother with any of the above steps to get their mounts. To get their level 40 mounts, all they had to do was complete a simple quest and learn the spells to summon their mount. At level 60, they had to gather a whole bunch of obscure materials and a bit of gold (much less compared to 900-1000 though) for a very lengthy but epic quest chain that ended in interesting final battles. As Paladin, I completed these quests with a bit of difficulty, as I hit 60 a week after the Burning Crusade dropped, and suddenly found myself unable to find groups easily to complete the dungeon portions of my Charger mount quest. Eventually I'd pull through and with the help of some friends I was finally able to complete the quests. That was quite the accomplishment for me.

I'll never forget that day.

At level 70, players were now allowed to use flying mounts, which originally boosted movement by 60% both on land and air. Going from a 100% movement speed increase on land, this felt very slow. If you had the money, however, players were allowed to fly even faster, at 280% movement speed, and 100% on land. But this option was very costly, setting back players 5000g, which wasn't too hard to save up if you did your daily quests and made constant use of your professions and the auction house. There also existed flying mounts that solely flew at 310% movement speed but were very hard to obtain. Nowadays 310% riding speed is just another available riding skill for another 5000 gold, or less when you apply the faction discounts.

Happy riding!