Most of your good mounts are at the Item Mall..So if you want a good mount bring your wallet..I like the game but the movement  in the game is slow.So if you want something faster to get around..The Item mall mounts is where its at.

"Winged Elves are able to fly at level 1, however, their wings will consume mana until they reach level 30"

This statement is incorrect, basic elf wings always consume mana no matter what the level.  You would think on a press release they could get simple facts straight.

Basic flight mechanisms are slow, if you want to speed up your avatar or want more variety in your method of flying, then spending in the cash shop is a necessity and it is not cheap.  You can spend $30-$50 on one.  If you like to pvp then get your $50 out you will most definitely need it.  This game can be extremely expensive if you enjoy pvp to keep up with the Jones.

But I will say that flight in this game is far superior to what is offered in Aion.  There are no areas where your flight is limited except in instances.  At present there are no instances that allow flight or jumping.

Ground transportation is faster, again only if you buy through the item shop, but then you are limited by the terrain.  None of the ground transportation is free except for horses, which require a big expenditure or a very grueling quest line.  Horses are rare in the game because of that.

The game is only expensive if players don't have the patience to earn the in-game coins.

Last time I played PWI $30-$50 was 3-5 million game coins, which was fairly easy to farm out once you hit level 60 or so (and still possible earlier). I have a store character that made over 4 mill a month and that was really slow compared to what other players could do selling more expensive items.

As for the wings, the basic elf wings use up mana and, if the player takes the skills to upgrade their natural flight, can be some of the fastest in the game. At level 30 elves, like other races, can opt to buy wings from the shop. The wings that are bought don't consume mana but their flight speed cannot be upgraded with the 'flight' skill.  Note that by level 10, the amount of mana consumed by the basic  wings becomes trivial in most cases since the character will be regenerating mana faster than the wings use it.

Some further thoughts: The 'cheaper' flight options (wings, mounts, swords) can usually be upgraded to the point they rival the fastest. Upgrading the most basic flight mount for a race to the fastest speed was less expensive then the highest-end mounts that had a high speed. (There's some still-faster mounts on the franchise servers  but I don't think they've hit PWI yet.)  Supposedly, you could do much the same with the ground-based mounts but as I never felt the need to get one I don't have first hand experience.

The flying and jumping in PW is one of the funnest elements of the game. And there's places where you can jump off a cliff and drop for what seems like minutes. What's more, because of the ability to jump real high (not to mention flying), the entire time I played the game I never once got stuck somewhere. Unlike every AAA MMO I've played and have managed to get stuck just walking around.

The movement option that's even more addictive and has the potential to nickle and dime a player out of their spending cash is the teleport stones. About 10 cents each, they are bought in 10-packs and make getting around PWI amazingly fast. Almost any place worth going to has a teleport station either right at it or very close by. The teleport stones allow one to zip from wherever one is to any teleport station they have on their map (and an option can be bought add every teleport station to the PC's map).

Teleport stones and the map is the first thing I buy on a private server; just too amazingly convenient.

-w