In the world of Azeroth, mounts aren’t just something you use to get from A to B. World of Warcraft players are avid collectors and, for many, gathering mounts is a full-time hobby but why are they restricted, for the most part, to just one character?

Since Battle.net was introduced into WoW in 2009, more and more features have become bound to account (BoA) rather than bound to a specific character. The announcement at BlizzCon that pets and Achievements would be the next items to go account-wide overjoyed many but many players are still wondering: where are the account-bound mounts?

The idea of collecting pets, naming, battling and even trading them is exciting - even if Pokemon came up with the idea years ago. It’s turned an idle hobby into something with a point, a purpose which can benefit not just your main but all your alts too.

During the Intro to Mists of Pandaria panel, Cory Stockton stood up and said: “Pets are something that pretty much everyone in World of Warcraft has in some way, shape or form … Not everyone is a collector and has all the Achievements but … it’s a feature we felt we could expand upon and offer some new gameplay.” Well,. Blizzard, why stop at pets? Yes, they're one step ahead of us. In the Q and A, Stockton hinted as much, saying: "We will be testing out account wide features with pet battles and if it proves successful there, we would certainly want to the same thing with mounts."

Mounts are just as collectable and - barring the Sparkle Pony and Winged Guardian - all are bound to single characters. I have a level 85 character with numerous limited edition mounts such as the BlizzCon Bear, the Big Battle Bear and several rocket mounts not seen outside of the TCG. Unfortunately, they’re stuck on my main and none of my alts can benefit.

How can Blizzard solve this? Well, for starters, they could make the vast majority of mounts account-bound. So, if you got, say, a mount from a loot card, BlizzCon or bought it from the AH then it would automatically appear/be sent to all your characters. Perhaps, as they plan to do in Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard could go one step further and actually make them useful. We’d love to see aerial battles or the ability to ride and use weapons at the same time.

A day may come when all mounts will be bound to account.

That said, some mounts should be linked to specific Achievements and, like legendaries, keep their status. Making mounts - whether PvP or PvE - like Invincible or the Life-Binder’s Handmaiden seriously hard to get encourage effort and rewards achievement. Seeing Invincible on a level 20 twink is just not cool - just look at the infamous Horde NPC Johnny Awesome and his Sparkle Pony, Twinkles. Raid mounts should remain with whichever toon vanquished the boss. They should never been able to be sold or account-bound. They are a badge of honour and that should always mean something in Azeroth.

The other aspect are mounts where you have to pay large amounts for. Anyone who's bought a Mechano-Hog or Vial of the Sands will want them on their other characters. Some mounts - like the Mechano-Hog - should remain expensive and only crafted by a specific profession. It would be nice though, if you didn't need to be a Tailor to use a magic carpet. So, perhaps, Blizzard could offer a discounted option for people with the schematics for specific profession mounts or, if you have other characters, the option to get a discount on making that mount on an alt.

Blizzard has a great opportunity to revolutionise aspects of the game which appeal to their players. They’ve started with the pets and hopefully will eventually focus on other aspects, like mounts, which will change how we play. After all, we’ve been using mounts in dungeon and raid combat since Ulduar. Can it really be that hard to implement it into the game outside of a raid?

Even better, if Blizzard can make pets account-bound then there’s really no excuse to take this one or two steps further and apply the same rules to mounts. Many players have over a hundred and it would be nice to give some of the older, less used ones, a new lease on life.

We’re at a crossroads, that pregnant time in an expansion’s evolution where everything and anything is possible. What do you think Blizzard should do about mounts? Should they be made accessible to not just one of your characters but all of them and do you think mounts should be given something to make them a bigger part of the Azerothian experience?