TL;DR:
New player Dragon Isles quest “Home Is Where The Hearth Is”, can’t be completed because the game seemingly does not give you a mount to ride to fulfil the objective.
Preface: I am part of the Newcomers system as a Guide. I attempted to search the forums for any info on this topic, but didn’t find any or possibly overlooked it. Apologies if so.
Onward.
This week, I observed an increasing amount of players in Newcomer Chat have been asking about the quest “Home Is Where The Hearth Is”, the second quest upon getting to the Dragon Isles as part of the new player experience. It directs them to “Ride any mount from your collection” to Sil’nori Crestshade.
To try and figured this out for myself, I registered a new account untethered to my main account for the experience as if I was a brand new player. I went through Exile’s Reach area, and after completing that and getting moved to Dragon Isles, I selected a specialization as the quest directed me to. The next quest is “Home Is Where the Hearth Is”. After getting this quest, I realized there is no way to complete the objective as the game did not provide me any any mounts to ride.
A Google search suggests the player is supposed to receive a Tawny Wind Rider mount for use. People on reddit suggest that it should be in the inventory, but I had no mounts. I have re-logged, closed completely out of the game / restarted, went into my mount collection and filtered to “collected only”, and there are no mounts in that collection. There are no vendors in the immediate area that give/sell mounts. One last suggestion is that people referenced a quest called “Finding Your Way”, which I suppose would be offered if a new player intentionally took the ship back to Orgrimmar, which the game does not tell you to do. So with a “new player” mentality, I am stuck at this point.
Please keep in mind I looked for an answer as an experienced player. New players may not be likely to go that far, as evidenced by them asking in Newcomer Chat, leaving us Guides without an definitive answer.
This happened to my friend as well. I ended up having them exit the new player experience entirely just so they could keep progressing. They were a trial account at the time, if thats relevant.
I went back to this, and voluntarily got on the boat at the Wild Coast docks and went for a ride. The dialogue popped up about how I “traveled too far from the Wild Coast” and prompted me to cancel or end the tutorial. Why and how is this an option for NEW players? Anyways, I let it time out and it ported me within spitting distance of the Wingrest Embassy flightpoint, but I was unable to move. Hearthed to the Inn at the coast, had to re-log so I could move my character again. I firmly believe at this point a new player is almost guaranteed to give up.
It was only after ending the tutorial that I saw other quests pop up so I could progress.
Proposed solution:
Replace the required objective of riding a mount to the innkeeper that’s 15 feet away, and have it be setting your hearthstone to that inn specifically to end the intro experience and open up other quests to begin the Dragon Isles experience. Once you progress on foot to the quest “For the Benefit of the Queen” starts the “In Defense of Life” storyline that opens up skyriding and gives you Renewed Proto-drake, new players are almost* good to go. This all can be done within maybe 60-90 minutes or so of hitting the Wild Coast docks.
*Separate issue:
I got the Renewed Proto-drake. My complaint about is that players are not guided to look in their spellbook for the skyriding abilities, nor are the abilities added to the bar automatically. Yes a previous quest tells you how to put abilities on your bar, but I feel this should be an exception to that. The one skyriding quest tells them to SURGE FORWARD when no abilities are on the bar.
Hey man, thank you for the help you’re doing! My friend and I are very new and tried to play and got stuck with this quest. We are switching to alliance anyway because some other friends want to (and we dont really care lol) so I am hoping this will not be a problem then. Anyway, we ended up going to Orgrimmar and ““ending the tutorial”” via the prompt, and I tried to buy the 1 gold horse from this vendor deep in orgrimmar but I needed more rep with them or something so we couldn’t. This solution was from a bunch of google and reddit forum searches and still didn’t even fix it, plus we had to cancel the tutorial (which I really didn’t want to do since we literally know nothing about the game lol). I even just got back on to keep progressing through other campaign quests (in order) and I still haven’t gotten a mount.
edit: it says I am a death knight but that is a separate character I was playing by myself in. I also got a mount on that character very early but it wasn’t tutorial locked (probably bc it starts at level 8 or something). Just wanted to clear up some possible confusion since I definitely am a new player, but I know the difference between the 2 characters (in this instance)
I encountered this bug today as I began my journey in the game. I decided to test purchasing a mount from the store, and after that I was able to overcome the bug. This is by no means an alternative solution, but I just wanted to report that.
The Renewed Proto-drake, which is effectively the first mount a new player will get, comes after a good hour or so of questing. After you rescue the one egg, you will an area where you first meet Alexstrasza for the first time, you’ll get the “Skyriding” quest within 2-3 quests after that.
If this thread comes up in future searches:
NEW PLAYERS!! After getting the Renewed Proto-drake, if you mount up and your action bar is empty (1, 2, 3, etc), open your spellbook (default keybind P) and go to the General tab, look for the “Skyriding” spell (looks like a blue dragon), and add any NON-PASSIVE spells to your bar. This will help in the skyriding tutorial quests that come after. You may only have access to SURGE FORWARD at first, but the rest will come later.
The condensed version as of Dec 12, 2025 (SUBJECT TO CHANGE IN THE FUTURE) is: As a brand new player, when you get to the Dragon Isles, wait on the docks for the boat to get there, get on it and go for a ride. When the dialogue prompt asks you to end the tutorial, click YES. Stay on the boat which will take you to Durotar. DO NOT GET OFF. Let it cycle back to the Dragon Isles, and there should be quests you can start your campaign.
we didn’t get a pop up. A friend I just tried to get into the game he has 0 mounts for this quest I’m having to port him to old dalaran to buy a wind rider hopefully that works
Seriously blizzard this is unacceptable
For reference we used the recruit a friend option bought TWW bought monthly sub (still says he has trail account but whatever that should pass) this is just unacceptable for new players. How in the actual hell is a new player supposed to figure this out? I guarantee you so many people have quit from this and i don’t blame them.
I’m sorry that it didn’t work for you. It was the way it worked for me, but apparently still some issues with it.
Did the other quests pop up at all? Doing that mount up quest is only necessary to end the “tutorial”. They just need to remove that step or change it so it doesn’t ask for mount.
Seriously though, how is there no acknowledgement about this? This is the NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE! It makes or breaks whether the players continue on or quit in frustration. Literally a progress halting issue that needs to be addressed!
Can confirm as of 12/18/25. No mount is available, cannot advance this quest. Ahh well, I was almost going to subscribe, but this kinda puts me off it. Maybe I’ll check back in a month or so and see if it is fixed. That’ll be a bellweather (in my mind) on how much the devs care about new players, heh.
Any word on whether this has been fixed or not? I’m stuck on this quest, but being absolutely new to WoW, I have no idea if it’s still broken, or I simply missed the instruction on how to make a mount available.
Edit: Nevermind; went through with an Alliance character and it directed me where to click.