The etiquette of using another player’s Yak or Brutosaur mount

I have the Grand Expedition Yak. I bought it back when Reforging was a thing, and I often used it when we were running Throne of Thunder so my raid group could Reforge new pieces of gear, since there were several spots in that raid that counted as outside and would let you mount up. Back then, I already noticed people trying to use the mount while I was on it, and I tried as best I could to let them, especially if they asked me somewhat politely.

When the mount became a transmog mount, I was ecstatic. I love transmog, as you may well know. But my ecstasy quickly changed into annoyance when people began going from asking me to let them use the mount — which I was fine with — and into demanding I stay mounted on the thing for extended periods of time so that these complete strangers could rotate through their entire transmog collection. It simply wasn’t cool.

I’m not the transmog vendor

I thought about this when reading this Reddit thread. Admittedly, the screenshots don’t make the person with the Yak look great, either, but I’ve been the person cussed out for daring to dismount before someone who hadn’t even asked me not to was done using my mount, and I’ve always found it annoying. First off, how can I even know you’re using it if you don’t tell me? And secondly, it’s my mount — I paid a lot of gold for it, and if I want to dismount and do something else, that’s my right. If you want to transmog your gear, there are people in Orgrimmar and Stormwind you can go to who are NPCs, or you can buy your own transmog Yak.

This is also the case for the Brutosaur mount. I’m sure it’s very annoying when you’re in the middle of posting your auctions and someone dismounts from the Brutosaur. But they’re not an auctioneer. Even absent things like asking to use it, people don’t log into WoW just to let you use the mount they spent five million gold on. If someone is on their Brutosaur letting people use it, that’s a nice thing they’re doing, it’s not something they owe anyone. In my experience, most people with a cool AH or transmog mount are happy to let other people use them, but it’s not required of them.

Let’s all try and be civil about our mounts

I am not ignorant of the fact that these mounts can be used to be a jerk. Yes, you can mount up, wait to see someone come over to use it, and ride away. I don’t personally do that, but I know people do, and I’m sure it’s quite irritating. But it’s their mount. While I would hope everyone with such a cool mount uses it in a cool way, and is willing to let others use it, there are limits to what we can expect of other players, especially players we don’t know. I’m not sure if we’ve lost our ability to be civil about these things or if I just notice it more because I’m old and cranky, but the number of times I’ve gotten a hostile whisper for riding away on my Yak from someone I had no idea was even using it has gotten entirely out of hand. Once, I mounted up in the middle of the Nazmir swamps, mogged my gear, rode off and got a hostile whisper from a player I hadn’t even seen using it.

So let me offer you advice if you see someone on a Yak or Brutosaur and you intend to use said mount instead of going to the transmog vendor or AH.

• Ask first, preferably politely. This helps because sometimes we have no idea you’re even there or trying to use the mount, plus it’s just nice.
• Don’t take forever. I didn’t log onto the game to be a transmog vendor, I have WQ’s and a dungeon I want to get done. Please try and be quick about this.
• Please don’t whisper me if you didn’t ask and I rode away. Seriously, I probably didn’t know you were even there, and I have no way to know you’re using my mount if you don’t tell me.
• This is a video game. I am not a small transmog entrepreneur and nobody on a Brutosaur is an adjunct Auctioneer. We’re here to play the game same as you. If we leave to go do other things, that’s not exactly a surprise.

Hopefully, we can cut down on the instances of people treating other players like the wait staff. Sitting on a Yak letting everyone shave a minute off of their travel time by avoiding finding the Oribos transmog vendor isn’t what I subscribed to World of Warcraft to do.