Collecting mounts has always been some players' favorite in the World of Warcraft. As the Wrath of the Lich King comes nearer, we will be delighted with the prospects promised in the newest expansion. With the expansion, mounts will be stored a new Pet tab on your character and will not take up bag space. Now you have space for an infinite number of mounts and that is a good thing, as there will be an impressive reward for collecting 50 mounts when Wrath of the Lich King goes live, your own albino netherdrake!
Since mounts did not start out as collectibles. Back in the olden days of original World of Warcraft, one could not achieve a mount till level 40 (now down to 30) and while the gold cost may seem trivial now,
Once you had your pouch of gold, you went to the mount vendor of your racial faction and purchased the allotted beast from a limited selection of colors. That color choice was your only choice.
You do not have to have any level of reputation to purchase the mounts of your own racial faction. Undead's racial affiliation is Undercity. Their racial mount is the skeletal horse. An undead can purchase a skeletal horse, regardless of his or her reputation with Undercity.
Blizzard soon realized there was an interest in owning mounts from other factions and opened up the possibility of attaining the right to buy the mounts of differing factions. If one obtained an exalted reputation with a differing racial faction from one's own, he or she would be able to purchase the mounts associated with that group. For example, humans are part of the Stormwind faction and ride horses. In order to buy a ram, the dwarves racial mount; a human would need to be exalted with the Ironforge faction. Exalted reputation could be achieved by completing the quests associated with a faction, but this was exceedingly tedious. So, Blizzard introduced cloth donations as an additional means of accruing the desired reputation points. Every city associated with a racial faction will have a NPC who takes cloth donations in exchange for reputation points. It used to be quite the status symbol, back in the day, to ride around town on the mount of a differing racial faction.
Of course the most desirable mounts were those from rare drops or gained through difficult quest lines: the Winterspring Frostsaber (Alliance only) or the Deathcharger from Baron Rivendare for example. Realizing there was high interest in obtaining different or unusual mounts, Blizzard has added an escalating number of mounts to the game.
Though achievements play a important role in the Wrath of the Lich King, it is the reputation which will help you with the faction.
Reputation will be helpful with the four races that make up your faction, Horde or Alliance.
Therefore, you can start with your farming of cloth, especially the runecloth. The cloth donations begin with 60 wool, then 60 silk, 60 mageweave and lastly 60 runecloth. Once the "60" quests are behind you, you can start turning in stacks of 20 runecloth as a repeatable quest. Each of the 60 cloth turn-ins garner 150 reputation points. Each stack of 20 runecloth receives 50 points in reputation.