I'm not saying I think Anet should add mounts, or wanting to have the average discussion that most people seem to be concerned with (less community, gold sink, etc etc), but if they did want to add a "speed boost" at a higher rate, maybe attached to some of the useless transformations that you can buy from npc's (Jotun, Fire Elemental), since they have no use in costume brawling.
Then the gold sink would still be in place because they are temporary (until you leave, or need to enter combat).
Edited, Jan 30th 2013 3:33pm by Dyadem
The Scrying Pool: Mounts
After last week's outcry for mounts, The Scrying Pool looks at how they could be implemented in Guild Wars 2.
One of the regions where players expect to eventually see mounts is the Crystal Desert. While this zone won't be completely sand filled, you could probably imagine it having large expanses of dunes and desert plains. This open area would be the perfect setting for a mount to run free.
Some of you may be thinking “why would I invest in a mount, maybe even pay for special gem shop mount skins, if we can only use them on certain maps?” Well, I wouldn't have the players actually owning the mounts.
Having mounts in Guild Wars 2 in their traditional speed increasing forms would be a replacement for the current modes of transportation within a map: Waypoints. One of the things besides transportation that waypoints function as is a gold sink, a system set up with the purpose of removing gold from the game. If mounts are added in a buy once and forget it fashion, that continuous gold sink would be mostly removed in that area. So, to keep a gold sink active with this new transportation, I would have players rent the mounts instead of buy them.
In this system, players would find an illegible map has waypoints only near the portals that lead to the surrounding maps. These allow for quick travel out of the map and to the stables where mounts are rented. The rest of the map would not have a single waypoint, as travel would be done primarily through these rented mounts. As for the cost of the mounts, there are two ways it could be approached: have the mounts cost a large sum to account for any waypoint travel that would have originally happened under the waypoint only system or have the cost to rent a mount be low but add an attrition mechanic to them.
To give some quick and dirty examples for cost, with the high cost approach maybe you pay 10-12 silver and keep it while you are within the map. The problem with this is a player could rent a mount then receive an invitation to a dungeon, or dragon event, or some other group activity with friends. That player would then have to decide if he/she wants to go play with friends or not waste that just paid 10-12 silver, a decision that a player should never have to make. With the attrition method maybe the mount is only 1 silver to rent, but every 10 minutes the mount needs to eat some mount food that you pick up from the stable for like 30 copper each. With this players are not forced into remaining in a single map to make full use of the mount, but pay for the time they use.
The mount itself would then be part of the world, not something you magically pull out of your bag. When not mounted it would follow you much like horses in the Elder Scrolls game. The difference is I wouldn't make the mounts part of combat; they wouldn't fight your enemy and likewise would be immune to damage. It sucks finally buying your horse in Skyrim just to see it die to that stupid Frost Troll. Just to keep them out of the way, I would design it so that whenever the player enters combat the horse stops following. This way the player can move away from the horse so that it doesn't get in their line of sight and possibly making the combat harder. Players would also have the option to make the mount stop following, which would be useful when starting a jumping puzzle.