i'm downloading this game right now to give it a try and i've been watching alot of youtube gameplay vids and this guy says you have to pay real money for mounts?!? is this true?

you can. I've played it before its a hardcore grindfest game.

you dont have to,
1) there are minigames, where you get 30days mounts, you pay some phirius coins, and after a few days you get the mount.
you can do this all over again, and again.
2) get a horse from a npc for gold (short therm, till you got the minigame horse)
3) you get rewards for bosskills, which you can trade for short therm mounts, too
4) you can trade your gold for diamonds, search a trusted trader (high-lvl, big guild)

oh ok cool ty

mounts are the least of your problems as a free-to-play player.

you don't need a diamond shop permanent mount for leveling, you can do just fine with npc bought mounts for 15 min and 2 hours, at higher levels you can buy them with some tokens you get from killing some bosses in high level instances, and when you have enough gold, you can buy it from a trusted player that sells diamonds as Hell Knight said.

even they say is a free to play game, if you ever plan to finish high level instances you need to invest loads of time or real money, cause in order to make a good gear you need a lot of items from item shop. spending time will probably will give you gold that you can spend to buy dias from trusted players.

my advice is to not spent a cent unless you are sure what combo class you want to play and know few things about the game. all items you buy from item shop (including mount, toy pets, etc) are bound and not transferable in any way.

also about the grind fest, i played several online games of this sort and i dont think is such a grind fest but neither a perfect story line with loads of quests specially for second class or last 5 levels(58-62). dont expect World of Warcraft experience, but has some nice features and the one i like most is modding your gear.

but what i like is that they have a nice way for beginners, you get a fairy as help witch will provide you some free stuff and some help until level 30. level 30 being the level high enough to decide if you like playing the combo or try another.

I have a 30 day mount voucher from getting a rom game card. Ill sell it to you. Probably is illegial on jsp but its legal in rom. If you play grimdal. Pm me: zeruina