noncombat-pets
Latest
WoW Archivist: A fluffy history of companion pets
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? In Mists of Pandaria, our companion pets will be more than just vanity items. We'll be able to tame them, train them, and pit them against each other in Azeroth's most adorable blood sport since School of Hard Knocks. Pet battles are brand new, but the history of companion pets stretches all the way back to the game's earliest days. These faithful sidekicks have been tagging along with us from our first characters in 2004 to the final confrontation with Deathwing. They're more than just a fluffy diversion, however. Believe it or not, some pets have actually made the real world a better place, and some have irrevocably changed WoW as we know it.
The OverAchiever: Are pet achievements disappearing in Mists of Pandaria?
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, it's myth-explodin' time. Last week in the comment thread for OverAchiever: Achievements to do before it's too late, there were a few notes from readers who were worried that noncombat pet achievements were going to disappear in Mists of Pandaria. This shocked me, because I could have sworn I saw pet achievements flash across the screen during the spam I always get when I copy my main to a beta or PTR, and I hadn't been aware that these achievements were actually missing from the General category. I was also sure there would have been some pretty high-profile news about it if developers were planning to axe them. Especially with the introduction of Pet Battles, it seemed like a very strange time for Blizzard to get rid of related achievements. Then again, these are also the people who put the Aldor Rise elevator and Warsong Gulch rep in the game, so we already know they're capable of real cruelty. OverAchiever's pretty much pointless if I don't use it to investigate stuff that I could have warned readers about well in advance, and pets are serious business. So, another character copy onto the beta later, I have an answer for you about what's going on.
The OverAchiever: What we do and don't know about Pet Battles achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, you might as well come back next week. So here's the deal: This article's kinda stupid. I really wanted to write about pet battling this week, because if the idea of running around the world raining destruction on everything with a small animal of indeterminate origin doesn't appeal to you, then you are probably a communist. But pet battling has been functionally disabled on the Mists of Pandaria beta (you can only access it at level 90, and the current level restriction is 88), so all I can really do is nose around and dream of what's to come. If you want to skip this week's outing and return at a time when we're doing something a little more relevant or useful, I don't blame you. Go with blessings. And yet I still really wanna write about pet battling. My first pet in the game was a prairie dog sold by Halpa in Thunder Bluff. My next was a Black Tabby, which I camped Ambermill for the better part of two days to get off a now-vanished mob known as the Dalaran Spellscribe. While I have amassed in excess of 150 pets since then, the original two have accompanied me across the world into the darkest depths of the ocean and to the top of the highest mountain peaks. They were there when my guild sent Kil'Jaeden packing. They were there when I was alone in the darkness. They were there when the Lich King fell. They were there when I got my ass handed to me by a slightly less cooperative version of the Lich King. And by God, they're going to start pulling their fricking weight around here.
How to get all the Children's Week pets in one year
User CJGibson over on Reddit's /r/wow community made an excellent point earlier today concerning the Children's Week pets that are only available while the holiday is running. Ordinarily, it's only possible for one character to get three pets each year: one from the classic Azeroth quests (Piglet's Collar, the Rat Cage, the Turtle Box, or the Snail Shell), one from the Outland quests (Elekk Training Collar, Egbert's Egg, Sleepy Willy, or Legs), and one from the Northrend quests (the Curious Wolvar Pup or the Curious Oracle Hatchling). But you know how in Mists of Pandaria all of the non-combat pets on your account will be shared amongst your characters? If you run a series of alts through the quests and pick different pets on each one, you'll have all the pets on all your characters once the Mists of Pandaria content patch hits (or, at the latest, once Mists itself does). The tip was so brilliant that I slapped myself for not thinking of it, so I wanted to draw some attention to it here as quickly as possible. Pet hunters? Save yourselves four years' worth of waiting, and get cracking. If this is your first year with the holiday and you need any help with the achievements, you can find our guide to Children's Week here.
Murkablo already showing up in player mailboxes
The now-traditional BlizzCon noncombat pet hasn't usually become available for a few days (for BlizzCon attendees) to several weeks after the convention (for livestream customers), but it looks like 2011 is going to be different. We just got word from our readers Jeff and A Pence that this year's pet, Murkablo, is already available in mailboxes, at least for folks who've bought the stream. I logged in to check, and indeed, Murkablo is already here! If you've ordered the stream, your character's next trip to a mailbox should yield your own personal fire-breathing menace. Thanks to Jeff and A Pence for the tip! Turn to WoW Insider for all your BlizzCon 2011 news and information. Get ready to kick off the weekend with the WoW Insider Reader Meetup, cohosted by Wowhead and Gamebreaker.tv, and look for our liveblogs of the convention panels, interviews with WoW celebrities -- and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
The OverAchiever: Littlest Pet Shop
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, the bear wants her balloon. The Littlest Pet Shop option was the clear favorite among the choices given in a recent OverAchiever. While we've previously run a guide to Lil' Game Hunter (the 75-pet achievement), we haven't otherwise revisited the topic of noncombat pets in ... wow, more than two years. Suffice it to say that a lot's changed since then. For one, we get balloons now, which is Blizzard's most inspired addition to the stable of in-game pets and something that nearly caused me to wet myself when I first zoned into a heroic with an undead warrior tank running around with a balloon. The sheer incongruity of the game's skulls-a-plenty armor sets combined with a happy little balloon is still something that alternately horrifies and amuses me. When you stop to think about it, there's something a little twisted in going about the daily WoW routine of mass slaughter and mayhem with a balloon bobbing alongside you, but what the hell. Show me another MMORPG where you can have a balloon and annihilate existential threats to the universe. You can't accuse Blizzard of not covering the bases. If you're a hardcore pet collector, I could probably condense this entire guide down to "bookmark WarcraftPets.com and just keep consulting it," but I suspect we can make this column a wee bit more helpful than that. Even if you're not a pet collector, there's one quested pet in here that I highly advise you not to miss.
New Children's Week pets and quests
Wowhead News has unearthed some interesting additions to the Children's Week holiday, which starts this Sunday shortly after Noblegarden 2011 ends. For anyone worried about the meta-achievement For the Children, the achievements associated with the holiday haven't changed (more's the pity re: School of Hard Knocks), but the quest lines in classic Azeroth have. If you're Alliance, the brand-new quest series starts with Children's Week, offered by Orphan Matron Nightingale in Stormwind; if you're Horde, it starts with Children's Week, offered by Orphan Matron Battlewail in Orgrimmar. Both new quest lines will see you surveying the changes to the local landscape in Cataclysm, in addition to meeting important lore figures and paying your respects to the dead. Afterwards, you'll go out for the traditional ice cream treat and then visit a local vendor to get kites to fly. Wowhead News has more details on the individual quests if you don't mind spoiling yourself. The quest lines end with the offer of a new noncombat pet in addition to the usual Piglet's Collar, Rat Cage, and Turtle Box -- a new Snail's Shell! It looks like the Outland quest series will also offer a new pet called Legs, though there don't appear to be any new quests there. Experienced orphan herders thus have a reason to pick up a tyke again this year, and with any luck, the Wrath of the Lich King variant will be available even if you've done it before.
Breakfast Topic: Will you be buying either of the new vanity pets?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Blizzard has been selling us in-game items for a while now; however, it has kept this to noncombat pets and mounts -- things that, outside of counting for totals for achievements, have little to no real effect on gameplay. Some of the items Blizzard does for self-profit, and sometimes it sells in-game pets for charity. People who buy the items get different reactions from the community; the sparkle pony especially got a lot of hate. Personally, I have not bought any of the real-money pets, partially because I am not a collector and partially because I felt that paying for downloadable content should add something major to the game experience. However, I am considering buying the Ragnaros pet for one main reason: because Rags is my major epic memory of vanilla WoW, I always felt he was an awesome model and so imposing, and many of us went around saying "too soon" on Vent. Have you bought any of the vanity pets? Do you buy them all as a completionist/collector? Do you pick and choose the ones you think look cool? Do you only buy the charity pets? Or do you avoid real money transactions in games altogether?
Lil' Ragnaros and Moonkin Hatchling pets preview
Blizzard is previewing the two pets that will be offered this month in the Blizzard Store: Lil' Ragnaros and the Moonkin Hatchling. Lil' Ragnaros, pictured above, will not be associated with a charity. As reported before, however, a portion of the proceeds from the Moonkin Hatchling will be going to a charity that has yet to be named. Blizzard has not announced when these pets will be available to purchase or for how much. If they keep the same pricing as last year, however, the pets will be $10.00 (EUR 10,00) each. The full announcement by Blizzard and action shots of the hatchling are after the break.
Patch 4.0.3: Deathy is going to rehab
Deathy's identity crisis will be over before Cataclysm, according to Nethaera. His days of thinking he's Grunty the Murloc will be over once he goes through "rehabilitation" of some sort. Judging from the words Nethaera uses, Deathy will be fixed in patch 4.0.3. Nethaera For those of you who attended or watched BlizzCon 2010 and claimed a Deathy pet, you may have noticed that he's acting strange. In fact, he seems to think he's Grunty the Murloc Marine. This is an unintended consequence of the groupthink from which all murlocs suffer. Deathy will be undergoing an extensive rehabilitation program and should be acting appropriately destructive once his idol, Deathwing, shatters the world in an upcoming patch that will debut prior to the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. source BlizzCon 2010 is over! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. You'll find our liveblogs of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
Using the Corehound Pup to secure Guildbanks
Authenticator owners received a nice surprise in their mailboxes when Patch 3.3 dropped: the corehound pup pet. It's absolutely adorable and a completely unexpected bonus to having a secure account. But it has also caused much kvetching among those who feel they are too careful to ever need the authenticator. Pet envy caused some to sign up for the free application for their phone or buy the physical gadget in order to obtain the two-headed cutie. But they soon discovered that removing the authenticator from their accounts also removed the pet. Their loss can be your gain, however. One problem that many guilds have is that some of their high ranking members, with full bank access, have account security issues. When a guildbank gets raided by a hacker, it affects the entire guild -- not just the compromised account. One thing guild leaders can do to protect all members is require authenticators for bank access. Previous to patch 3.3, this was hard to prove. Now GLs can just ask to see your corehound pup.
Pandaren in the World of Warcraft
In among all of the "omg fake pets for real money" drama from this week's announcement, we may have missed something big: the Pandaren are now live in the World of Warcraft. The Pandaren are my favorite Azerothian race, even though they're essentially a joke -- Samwise Didier just loves pandas, and he made art for an April Fool's joke that Chris Metzen loved so much they decided to include the bears as real characters in Warcraft III. Since then, they've become fan favorites (not least of all, especially for me, because alcohol and ale are a big part of their culture), but we've only seen hints of them in World of Warcraft. There was a rumor going around a while back that they would never appear in the game because China didn't allow depictions of violence against the bears, but that was just a rumor. Still, the Pandaren have existed in WoW only as a Blizzard in-joke. We assume they're out there somewhere, but until now, no one has ever seen one. Of course we say "until now" because there are now little Pandaren monk noncombat pets running around, bowing, and doing magical kung-fu. Does this mean that the future Emerald Dream expansion will have us all playing as Brewmasters? While yes that would be awesome, not so fast again: Diablo and the Zergling from Starcraft are both in the game as noncombat pets, and they don't mean anything at all (although they were both included in the game before the announcements of Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 -- maybe Blizzard is working on a Pandaren-based puzzle game? Conspiracy theorists, assemble!). And just because we all have Grunty doesn't mean murlocs are suddenly going to take to spaceships with battle rifles in the official lore. But it's cool to see Pandaren actually in the game, even in pet form, and who knows, maybe we will one day find the legendary realm of Pandaria in our own version of Azeroth.
Activision-Blizzard makes lots of money, no update on Blizzard earnings
Activision-Blizzard has released their third-quarter numbers for the financial year of 2009, and as you might expect for the company in charge of Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, and World of Warcraft, business is brisk. They were expecting to bring in around $700 million, and ended up pulling in around $50 million more than that. It's good, we guess, to be the king. Blizzard, in particular, laid claim to three of the top five selling PC games in North America on the good side, and on the bad side, Activision acknowledges in the press release that they're happy to have WoW back online in China, but a little worried about the troubles it's seen over there lately. Strangely enough, there is no information in the earnings about how much money World of Warcraft has pulled in for the company, or any updates about subscriber numbers. Usually, that gets at least a mention, so maybe, with subscribers certainly down in China, Activision-Blizzard wants to keep that under their hat for now.
Mr. Chilly is in the mail on Battle.net accounts
You have until November 11th to switch your account to Battle.net, but the penguin pets are already in-game. I converted my account when I was first able to (which has had its ups and downs) and I logged on this afternoon to find Mr. Chilly in my mailbox on all characters. Like most Blizzard promotional pets, they are Bind on Account and sent to every character you have on every realm. They are also collectible, in that they don't disappear from your inventory after you "learn" them. So, if you have already switched to Battle.net, log in and pick up your new little penguin buddy.
Grunty vs. Zergling battle video
When Eldacar wrote in to the tip line that Grunty and the Zergling pets fought when brought near each other, I immediately forced The Spousal Unit to help me test it. We made the above video, with The Spawn cheering us on. Grunty is the Murloc Marine pet that came with attending or streaming BlizzCon 2009. The Zergling was part of the original collector's edition of World of Warcraft.
New pet and mounts achievements coming soon
You're a pet and mount maniac. You've hunted down every noncombat pet you can find, gotten a lucky roll on every rare mount you can possibly pick up, and after long last, you've earned both the "Lil' Game Hunter" and "Mountain o' Mounts" achievements. But still, you want more for some reason. More pets, more mounts, more achievement points.Good news: Bornakk says that there will still be more to find. While he says they won't be upping the achievements every time they bring out a patch that has more pets and mounts to collect, they will definitely add in new achievements periodically for collecting both noncombat pets and mounts (and, though he doesn't say so, we'd assume they'll add in extra rewards besides the achievement points, including extra pets or mounts to be earned at each level).So if you are in fact a collecting master and have already earned the 75 pets and 100 mounts (a much easier feat than it used to be) for both maximum achievements currently in the game, just be patient. There'll be new goals to go after soon.
The OverAchiever: Lil' Game Hunter
Every week The OverAchiever gives advice, walkthroughs and guides on completing your latest Achievement obsession. This week we look at how to track down 75 critters with a minimum of pain.At some point in your pet collecting career, it's best just to give up and admit you're obsessed. When Lil' Game Hunter went live with 3.0.8, I started looking at my options to get to 75 pets. Most people shouldn't have too much difficulty reaching 50 (Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart), but 75 is a little unnerving. I don't have any of the Collector's Edition, Trading Card Game, or fan event pets, and I also play Horde. That leaves me without access to the Sprite Darter Hatchling, and on a lot of realms also makes it harder and more expensive to get the White Kitten, on top of being more expensive to get the lion's share of the faction-specific pets (which, naturellement, are Alliance). What's up with the Horde and pet hate? Sheesh. So that was somewhat worrying, and I approach this achievement with one question in mind: is it possible to do this without having dropped money on CE, TCG, or event pets?
"Stinker," now with 50% more win
If you're a serious noncombat pet collector, by now you probably have the Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart achievement, which rewards a Reeking Pet Carrier containing a very cute little skunk called Stinker. That was reason enough for me to get to 50 pets, but the owner of WarcraftPets.com (and the namesake of the Dalaran NPC who sells pet supplies, Breanni) had been told at BlizzCon that there was something unusual planned for the wee skunk in a future patch.I didn't realize it at the time because the savages in my guild are still blowing up Crashin' Thrashin' Racers in raids instead of pulling out their usual pets, but it looks like 3.0.8 was the patch in question. Letters from Birdfall actually got video of Stinker's new behavior: when anyone nearby pulls out a Bombay Cat or a Black Tabby, he falls in love and starts chasing them, only to return to his owner with a broken heart. I'm off to go try this ingame, and suffice it to say that my own version of Pepé Le Pew is going to be out even more than he already is.
Veteran Nanny fixed, Violet Proto-Drake will still take a year to get
ashenmonuments spotted yet another undocumented change that will help you achievement hounds. Apparently Blizzard has updated the Veteran Nanny achievement from Children's Week to include pets you've already learned. So it won't actually take you three years to earn the achievement (since you can only get one pet per year). Any pets you have already should now count towards getting the points.Unfortunately, this won't help the Violet Proto-Drake seekers, because the Veteran Nanny achievement got removed in 2.4.3 as part of the Children's Week meta-achievements (probably because Blizzard noted that it took so long to get done). And even if it did count, you'll still need the Brewfest achievements... which you'll have to wait until this October to get (since Blizzard dropped the achievements patch after Brewfest ended last year). But Children's Week enthusiasts who have already collected pets in the past will have a little less work to do to pick up the Veteran Nanny achievement.
The children of Wrath
Starman over at Casual Raid Leader (is that the same Starman that does World of Warcast?) has a great idea. Right around college graduation every year, there's a study that gets nostalgic about what this year's students will never experience -- i.e. since this year's graduates were born in 1986, they've never known a time without Super Mario Bros., and so on. Starman suggests we do the same thing with incoming newbies and the new expansion -- the "children of Wrath" will never know a time when Onyxia was in the Stormwind throne room.Larisa has a few more: Children of Wrath will never have to go back and do old instances just for the achievement, or have to decide between keeping that noncombat pet or getting the extra bag space back. She was actually a "BC baby," and as she says, she's never tried to run 40 people through Molten Core, or known a time when there weren't any quest chains in Silithus.What else will the children of Wrath have missed out on? And are there really that many? I imagine that there are still quite a few vanilla players around, and it doesn't surprise me at all that there are plenty of BC babies (I recruited a few people during BC), but how many new players are really coming in to Wrath for the first time? Are there going to be that many people who don't remember when you had to run once instance over and over for rep, rather than just champion it?
