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My first day with Mists of Pandaria's pet battles
Ever since Blizzard announced pet battles back at BlizzCon, I've been really excited about the feature. Oddly, though, I haven't tried it until today. I've been so caught up with other beta (and general World of Warcraft) activities that I've let the one feature I'm looking forward to most pass me by. This morning, I set absolutely everything else aside so I could take a crack at it. The fun of it was the fact that I didn't even know where to get started. I've been following the countless pet battle guides floating around the internet closely enough to have a basic grip on the system's mechanics, but the first step, the starting point, never stuck with me. Where do I get the training? How much does it cost? Luckily, finding that information in-game was easy enough. The trainers' being located in a capital city seemed like the obvious answer, so I stopped in Stormwind and checked in with a city guard. The guard was able to direct me to the pet battle trainer just like any class or profession trainer. An icon was placed on my minimap, leading me straight to Audrey Burnhep, the Alliance pet battle trainer. Between you and me, that seems like a seriously misplaced pop culture reference. What does Audrey Hepburn have to do with pet battles? Maybe she has a cockfighting history I don't know about.
Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: You always want what you can't have
Each week, Blog Azeroth hosts a Shared Topic for bloggers to answer on their blogs and then link to in the forum. This week, dragonray from Azerothian Life asks: What is in game that you want, but you can't have? Is there an animal you want to tame, a critter you want to collect, a tabard that has the perfect design for a transmog set etc etc. What is it you want, but know you can't get your hands on and have to stare at longingly whenever you log in? I wish I had the original World of Warcraft Collector's Edition companion pets: Mini Diablo, the Zergling, and the Panda Cub. I don't have to stare at them longingly whenever I log in, because people rarely have them out. But I do have to look at the Collector's Edition box on a daily basis.
StarCraft II Collector's Edition to include WoW vanity pet
Blizzard has just recently announced StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty's collector's edition. Normally this isn't something we would talk about here on WoW.com, but the contents make it worth mentioning. Specifically, WoW players will receive a Thor mini-pet, seen to the right. For those of you who don't follow StarCraft at all, the Thor is a new ubermech unit for the Terran faction. It's not only voice acted by Chris Metzen, but the pilot of the unit is based directly off him. One of his old aliases is Thundergod, after all. The Thor is big and it's bad-ass, and that's about all that you need to know. I wonder if it will interact with Grunty and the Zergling? BigDownload has the full scoop on the contents of the collector's edition. There's great value there, even for people who don't play WoW. The collector's edition also includes a 2GB flash drive made to resemble Jimmy Raynor's dog tags, a 172-page art book, a behind the scenes DVD and more.
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.
Tyrael gets more emotes, can now sleep
Everyone loves Mini Tyrael, the angelic little pet given away to attendees of last year's Worldwide Invitational in Paris. While the little guy looks awesome (indeed he's my favorite pet), he's always let folks down by doing, well, very little. He didn't make a noise when you clicked on him but he would /dance with you. Well, Blizzard has finally bothered to address the situation and make Tyrael into the pet he should be. After all, he is an angel, they're supposed to be cool.I was in Stormwind the other day meeting a friend for an impromptu party to celebrate the fact he had just gotten El Pollo Grande. So while we compared chickens and abused the /chicken command, I got out the Foam Sword Rack and my Ogre Pinata and then summoned the little guy. Even now it amazes me how many people come up to me and whisper to inquire how I got/crafted him and could they get/buy one. As we were dancing, I noticed big green zzzz's coming from my beloved pet. At first I thought someone had cast a spell on him as he'd never done this before but it turns out he was just bored. Yes, Blizzard may not have added any sound effects but Tyrael now passes out when he gets bored (perhaps he's waiting for the release of Diablo III?). He will toss and turn for a bit, as if having a nightmare about Sanctuary and Diablo, and will wake up after ten seconds or so with a cool ripple effect to remind us just how divine he is. I've yet to find someone with the Mini Diablo pet and see if they will fight it out, a la Grunty and the Zergling though.Hit the jump to see a video of Tyrael's emoting awesomeness,
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.
Choose my Adventure: Insert funny title about being level 25 here
WoW.com readers, it's up to you to decide the fate of Turpen the Gnome Warlock with Choose My Adventure. Help test the site's new features by participating in this event, casting your vote toward the many aspects of Turpen and following his exploits on Alex Ziebart's WoW.com profile!Well, you guys wanted me to run Deadmines. As you can see, I ran Deadmines. Many thanks go to Urse (Healer), Child (Tank), and Sneafoo (Noob Rogue of Doom) for 4-manning the thing with me. Urse was pretty overleveled for the place so healing was hilariously easy, but Sneafoo made up for it by starting the run at level 12 and aggroing Gruul from the pirate ship.I went further than that, too. I didn't stop at Deadmines, I did Wailing Caverns, Blackfathom Deeps and Shadowfang Keep as well. I was kicking around the idea as soon as someone suggested Deadmines, but I didn't think I would manage to land a group for either of them. When I went out to the Barrens to get my Succubus (Angva) at level 20, that sealed the deal for me. I picked up the quest The Orb of Soran'ruk, and despite the fact that its quest rewards sucked, it gave me more reason to try and get the groups together. I put out a call to all of the various resources I knew, LFG and community chat channels (your server probably has a few good ones) and all of that, and managed to score a few groups.
New Starcraft 2 screens 'make it rain' zerglings
Click above to play "Where's Waldo's half-eaten corpse?" What's this, more StarCraft II screenshots? Admittedly, we're a bit powerless to stop ourselves from looking at these 10 or so new images from a Fansite kit that Blizzard discreetly updated (our compatriots say only eight of these are new, but we count two more that we've never seen before). If you take nothing else from these screens, just remember that zerg rushes still elicit a sensory overload billed directly to your occipital lobe. Latest pics are in the front of the gallery. So Blizzard, how about a public beta soon to feed our addiction? %Gallery-3311% [Via Big Download]
Phat Loot Phriday: Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer
Been a while since we did a staff, and considering how badass (and just plain weird) this baby looks, why not this one?Name: Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer (Wowhead, Allakahzam, Thottbot)Type: Epic StaffDamage/Speed: 145-323 / 3.20 (73.2 DPS)Abilities: +70 Stamina, +47 Intellect, which makes it perfect for Warlocks, though really any caster would probably benefit Improves spell critical strike rating by 36, spell haste rating by 55, and increases damage and healing by 259. In other words, it rocks. Having a two-hand weapon limits you a bit, but this baby is your one stop shop for every stat important to a caster. Definitely a beautiful caster staff. And it's in the shape of a stretched-out Felhunter, or, depending on any conspiracy theories you may have about Blizzard continuity, a Zergling (more on that in a second). I couldn't find a video for you, but apparently it writhes and the mouth opens and closes as you hold it, too -- pretty weird and wacky. So about the Zergling thing -- Zerglings, as you may know, are the lower-rung units in the Zerg race of Starcraft, another Blizzard game. They look very similar to Felhunters in WoW, and it's true, this staff does look a little bit more like a Zergling than any other Felhunter we've seen in Azeroth. Plus, the name of the staff seems to be a reference to a Devouring One, another Zerg groupie. And it comes from Outland (a place out in the middle of space), and we have already seen Zergling noncombat pets in game. So I submit to you the conspiracy theory of all conspiracy theories: What if Warcraft and Starcraft are taking place in the same universe? And what if, depending on timelines, Zerglings are Felhunters and vice versa -- what if the Zerg is an evolved (or primitive) form of the Burning Legion? Just something to bend your mind a little bit on this Friday afternoon. How to Get It: Drops from the marquee star of the last expansion, Illy Dan himself. Drops at a rate of somewhere between 10-20%, so not super rare, but unless you're seriously farming the guy and/or are a Warlock or high DPS-doer who really needs a nice staff, you might have to wait a bit.But who doesn't want this thing, really? Put an "of the Devourer" after anything, and it becomes instantly more desirable. Tell me you wouldn't want a "Cupcake of the Devourer." Have you heard about that new Apple product, the "iPhone of the Devourer"? And dude, I'm so jealous -- my friend just got a "Nintendo Wii of the Devourer"!Getting Rid of It: Sells for 18g 39s 48c to vendors, disenchants into a Void Crystal. You should keep it though -- if the Zerg do invade Azeroth, maybe you can hold it hostage or something.
Blizzard wins the prank wars
Well, what else would you expect from the company that brought you murlocs? April Fool's day is in full effect in Blizzardlandia, and World of Warcraft isn't the only game to get the treatment, but it's a good place to start!Molten Core: for consolesHeavily trading on fond gamer memories of Atari's Adventure, Blizzard brings us the console version of its popular 40-player raid dungeon Molten Core. The game's site features screenshots alongside concept art, and a trailer, even, with an 8-bit, pixelated version of the company's logo. We won't spoil the show for you, but the best bullet point for the game has to be 'Has sound'. Check it out and wait for your chance to pre-order!
