pet-battles
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Darkmoon Faire updates in store for patch 5.1
Those patiently waiting for additional updates to the Darkmoon Faire will only have to wait until patch 5.1 for more to do and items to collect! Wowhead dug up the latest details on the Darkmoon Faire, including several new pets as well as a new attraction. The Darkmoon Carousel can be ridden with tickets, and it has an added bonus for leveling players -- you'll receive a buff simply titled WHEE! that increases experience and reputation gain by 10% for an hour. The Darkmoon Faire also gets its own Master Pet Trainer for players to defeat. Jeremy Feasel will be available on the island with a monkey, a tonk, and a Darkmoon Eye for players to defeat. What's that Darkmoon Eye all about? Apparently it's a new pet that's available from Darkmoon Pet Supplies -- something that may be obtained from beating Jeremy Feasel. If you haven't been doing any Darkmoon Faire dailies recently, now would be a good time to start, as there's a new pet available for tickets. The Darkmoon Hatchling is an adorable mini version of the Swift Forest Strider already available at the Faire. It'll set you back 90 tickets, but it's completely adorable -- and who doesn't like a pet that matches a favorite mount? Visit Wowhead for more details on the new items and sites from the Darkmoon Faire. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Fire kitten seeks loving home!
Last night Blizzard posted this adorable kitten's picture on their Facebook page. It was accompanied by this not-so-cryptic message: "This adorable, fired up little kitty is seeking a new caretaker. Adoption details coming soon!" What does it all mean? I have a sneaking suspicion that this fiery kitty might be a new Blizzard Pet Store pet, that is to say, one you can buy with real money. I'm saying this based purely on my own personal intuition, not on any hard evidence whatsoever. Perhaps I'm totally wrong, and it is in fact a pet you can get through some other means, such as reputation, or maybe even a drop or a very, very rare wild pet. All I know for sure is that this little fiery thing is adorable. Look at its little hat and collar, and those sweet, glowing, fiery eyes... Like a gnome fire druid. If he's a battle pet, which I suspect he might be, what do you think his moves would be? I'm going for fiery headbutt, and weaving between opponents' legs. Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
Patch 5.1 coming to the PTR soon
When they said they wanted to get patches out faster, they appear not to have been kidding, because patch 5.1 is already slated to head for the PTR soon. And it looks like it's going to be chock full of improvements. The Brawler's Guild, allowing you to engage in solo PvE content against various difficult monsters, similar to the Proving Grounds concept from a while ago. The ability to upgrade the rarity of pets in the pet battle system via an as yet undisclosed method. Wrathion's legendary questline will advance. You'll be able to spend valor points to upgrade items. All of this and news of the advancement of the Horde/Alliance conflict. If you're wondering how that will move forward, patch 5.1 will have the answers for you. Coming soon to a PTR near you. The complete text of the announcement is behind the break.
Addon Spotlight: Still more pet battle addons!
My colleague Robin posted a brief piece with some of the Pet Battle addons you guys recommended on last week's Addon Spotlight, but you have all commented on her piece with even more addons, which brings us to today's Addon Spotlight! This is why WoW Insider's commenters are awesome. It's impossible for me to know about every fantastic addon out there, and that's where you come in! It's a collaboration, and that's more than fine by me. From the midweek Addon update, I've drawn three fantastic Pet Battle addons, one of which I'm literally blown away by. It's one of those addons that seems so good it's almost cheating! As an aside, do you like my Blizzard Community Manager battle pet team? What have you been naming your battle pets after? Zarhym doesn't get as much battling action as Bashiok and Crithto. Let's get started...
How to choose between the same pets, but different stats
Something I was surprised to notice when I began collecting battle pets was that the stats were not always consistent within the same pet type. While Mr. Wiggles is always Mr. Wiggles, a rare Mouse does not necessarily have the same stats as another rare Mouse. The inconsistency of stats applies to both purchased pets, like Undercity Cockroaches, as well as wild pets, such as a Cheetah Cub. (Have you killed a cheetah so that you could capture her baby? I have. We are bad people.) At this time, many of us have more than three of quite a few battle pets. Extra quest pets, like Winter's Little Helper, can just be caged and sold (when cageable, of course), since they all have the same stats. but how do you choose which purchased pet you should keep? And what about the wild pets? I'll show you my favorite stat, and you can show me yours.
Are pet battles too inaccessible for new WoW players?
Recently there were some complaints on the official forums (shocking, right?) about how expensive pet battles are. The argument by many is that new players should have easier access to this feature. In the Pet Battle Q&A from about a week ago, Cory Stockton explained: Cory Stockton [ ... ] the 100g training cost is going to make it difficult for a new player to get caught up in Pet Battles super-early, and that's by design, because everyone should learn how to play World of Warcraft first. Having said that, a new alt that can get 100g from another character can start the Pet Battle system at level 5. source In answer to the more recent forum post, Zarhym reiterated: Zarhym The cost is there, in part, because pet battles are intended to be a fun mini-game, particularly for players who've been around a while and want some new ways to spend their time while logged in -- it's not a profession. The system isn't really targeted toward new players while they're focused on leveling and character progression. This is why there is a low level cap, but a buy-in barrier. It allows players with high-level characters and/or lots of alts easy access to the system, while reducing the risk of it being distracting or confusing for people just learning the core gameplay systems/mechanics. source More from Zarhym after the break.
The Queue: Internal strife
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. I don't know what Adam's war on the Tillers is all about, but he's pushing us dangerously close to civil war. I'm pro-Tillers myself and will not be content until I own the biggest farm on Pandaria. Though I suppose eradicating the Tillers and taking their land for myself might actually help that along. I'll have to think about this. Sara asked: Is there a difference in battle pet performance according to common, uncommon, etc?
Pet and Mount pane searchable in patch 5.1
The new mount panel is fantastic, and avoids many a noob moment like I had back when my paladin was brand new and had just learned to summon the class mount -- I couldn't find it, not realising that there was a "Mounts" tab in my spellbook. However, it has its downsides. I don't suffer from this that much, as I'm not a huge collector of mounts, pets, or anything for that matter. I only have about 70 mounts, and that's a very ambitious estimate indeed! For those of us who are serious collectors, pet and mount panes new and old suffered from a serious problem: a lack of searchability! Last night, in a Twitter conversation with Community Manager Zarhym, Lead Encounter Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton said that a search function for mounts is "en-route for 5.1". Even with my measly 70 mounts and even fewer pets, I'm rejoicing. And, of course, glaring at the Abyssal Seahorse that mocks me from the top of my mount list. What else could Blizzard do to improve the basic UI? I'd love to see a similar search added to the spellbook. My shaman was very confused indeed at the loss of Earth Shield, and eventually discovered that it had been taken away from her until level 26. A search could have made it far easier to find that! And I'd love to see a favorites section in the mount and pet journals. Mostly to get rid of that pesky seahorse. [Edit: Thanks to all readers who pointed out that the pet pane is searchable already! I must write pieces immediately after titles so I don't forget key details!]
Addon Spotlight: Pet battle addons?
So, from an addon perspective that Mists launch went off pretty darn painlessly, didn't it? I have to say I was impressed, as you may recall from last week's Addon Spotlight, I was not entirely sure how it was all going to go down. Did you have any addon problems? I know I had to switch off addons to actually get myself to Pandaria in the first place, but that is far more a reflection on my abysmal rural internet, and heavy server loading, than on the quality of work of our beloved addon authors. I've been doing a lot of addon mailbags lately, to help people over the hump from Cataclysm to Mists, but this is the last one for a little while. I will, potentially, continue to tack them on to the end of other Addon Spotlight columns, depending on whether I receive questions that I think might be troubling a lot of people or not! If you have questions, or suggestions, do email me on olivia@wowinsider.com. I will try to get back to you! Let's delve into the mailbag once again with a great question about Pet Battle addons!
How to tell pet quality during battles
Collecting wild pets for your army can be tedious, particularly since you can't tell the quality of the potential pet before you fight it. You can, with either a macro or an add-on, tell the quality during the battle, however. With this information, you can trap the creature or not, as you see fit. The add-on is Pet Battle Quality Glow. It is out of date, but still functions without errors. So you just need to enable out of date add-ons in the AddOn List located on the Character Select Screen in order for it to show up in game. As seen in the screenshot above, Pet Battle Quality Glow changes the icon color of the pet you are fighting, indicating its quality. Just like items, blue is for rare, green for uncommon, white for common, and grey for poor. The add-on also changes the color of the name.
Pet Battle Q&A with Blizzard Devs
Amongst all the excitement about pandaren and monks, it's easy to forget about the arrival of Pet Battles with Mists of Pandaria in a few hours. Blizzard CM Kaivax is definitely not a forgetful soul, and has posted an in-depth interview with Lead Content Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton. It's a great interview, in which Cory clarifies some design philosophy behind the Pet Battle system. The 100 gold cost, which makes pet battles pretty out of reach for new players, is intentional, and part of the design of the feature. As Cory says, everyon playing pet battles should be playing World of Warcraft first, and pet battles as an aside. It's an addon, an additional feature to make use of in your spare time, so Blizzard don't support players who only want to do pet battles. Once a new character reaches level five, though, as long as they have a generous benefactor they can get going and battle some pets right away. This also means, of course, that players on trial accounts will find it pretty impossible to play pet battles, as they can't trade, can't auction, and, even if you're thinking "I could vendor enough stuff to get to 100g", they have a cap of 10g. And trainers don't seem to accept instalments. Cory also clarifies some important points with regard to PvP realms, including what happens to your pets if you get killed, and what happens if you die while trying to capture a pet. And, he talks at some length about recent changes in the pet battle philosophy, and more to come in future! Hit the jump for the full post.
WoW Insider interviews Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak
Mists of Pandaria is a gigantic undertaking of an expansion that has subtly reworked everything that was painful about Cataclysm and turned it into a fun and interactive work of art. Responsible for much of that is Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak, who graciously sat down to chat with us about the changes, and what went on behind Mists' development to make it the expansion we've all been waiting for. What makes Mists so fun? The substantial revamp to endgame, and the crazy number of quests and content to complete. The key to Mists is the sheer amount of quests and content to play through, presented in an interactive and entertaining environment designed and executed by Kosak and crew. Read on if you're wondering where that that world event we were expecting went to, what exactly happened to the Jade Forest, or how dailies are going to be less grind and more fun.
Five features I wish World of Warcraft had
The game is eternally evolving. Sometimes that means things get added, and sometimes that means they get taken away (Oh, Have Group Will Travel, I miss you every day). This means the game is in a constant state of evolution and therefore that there's always room for improvement. With Mists of Pandaria changing the game and adding features like Scenarios, Challenge Modes and Pet Battles, and Cataclysm having already added void storage and transmogrification, the mind moves to what we could potentially see in the future. What features do we all want to see? I have no idea. Seriously, how could I possibly know what you want to see? I mean, you might tell me in the comments, but that's in the future. There's no way I can have read the comments on this post before I finish writing it. However, I'm fairly in touch with what I want to see. And so, here's five features I wish WoW had. (Note - I didn't say more bank space or void storage tabs, but man, I want those too.) 1. Mentoring One of the features the lamented MMO City of Heroes had that I always enjoyed was its Mentoring system. Now, this isn't something WoW's developer's are unaware of - it's a fantastic system which allows higher level characters to play with their lower level friends, either by raising the lower level character temporarily in order to be able to survive higher level content, or by lowering the higher level character to the lower level. The current system that can raise or lower gear levels for beta testing and which will normalize gear for challenge modes could be used in such a fashion, and I think it's an idea long overdue for WoW to blatantly pilfer and run with it.
Account-wide pet duplicates clarified
While account-wide pets and mounts will be going live with patch 5.0.4, the exact process involved has still been somewhat muddled. Game Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton clarified the process somewhat in a post about battle pets yesterday. While pets that are unique, such as achievement, pet store, promotional and guild pets, will be combined into one pet in your UI, others will have duplicates available. Because of the nature of the merge, these duplicates will bypass the rule that only three pets of one type can be had with the new pet system. Any duplicates you have that can be caged will be tradeable, or you can simply release anything you don't wish to keep. This news should be a welcome relief to pet collectors who have multiples of the same pet on many different characters. Mumper Pets will still be merged on MoP launch, but instead of placing them in your bags or mail they will be placed directly in your pet journal. You will be allowed to have more than 500 and 3x per pet during this process. Any pets that are flagged as unique will be merged into one and also placed in your journal. (Unique pets are from Achievements, Pet Store, Promotions and Guild) You will be able to cage any pets that are tradeable and you can release anything that you have more than one of. A few examples: A B.net account has a total of 6 Wolvar Pups across all of it's characters. On merge the B.net account would have 6 Wolvar Pups. This would be the only time an account is allowed to have more than 3x of a single pet. A B.net account has a total of 3 Murky's from BlizzCon 2005 and 4 Nuts from the pet collection achievements across all of it's characters. (both unique pets) On merge the B.net account will have 1 Murky and 1 Nuts. Hope that helps clear things up. source It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
The Queue: Pet battles
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today. Today's edition of The Queue is all about pet battles and the upcoming patch 5.0.4. NunoMarce asked: Regarding Companion Pets, I'm still in dark about what Pets I can and cannot put in a cage and sell. Suppose I've been stacking Mr.Grubbs from the Eastern Plaguelands, can I sell them once the xpack hits? What about Rep based pets, like the Tiny Sporeling? I was under the impression the only pets you couldn't sell were CE ones, but this has changed recently?
Breakfast Topic: How excited for pet battles are you?
I don't know about you guys, but I find myself getting maybe a little too excited for pet battles. First of all I'm a huge collector of all items like pets and mounts, and I just have to catch them all. The pet battles themselves are incredibly fun, and even with the seemingly obvious comparison to a certain other pocket pet fighting game, it is being implemented pretty well. It also helps that pet battles justifies my years of obsessively obtaining every single pet I could find across multiple continents and worlds. Not only is it giving me all the justification I could ever want for grabbing these pets, but it also adds considerable elements to the user interface. The new pet journal looks absolutely amazing. It is clearly organized with all the information you could possibly want on your pets, and the team UI is something I wish a few other games would have had when dealing with miniature pet fighters. With the number of obtainable pets that you can find, battle and tame, I find myself sometimes just sitting around rubbing my hands together and cackling like an evil genius. That's perfectly normal, right? Besides, now is the time where I get to exact my revenge! They laughed at me when I farmed for hours on end to get a Disgusting Oozeling, but I will have the last laugh when it melts their faces! Feel my wrath, fruit vendor, it is time for war! Oh ... well ... I'll just be over here making more videos until it goes live. So how about you? Do you find yourself getting super-excited about the incoming pet battles?
Fox Kit added to Tol Barad vendors in next patch
Ever wanted one of those wily Fox Kit pets from Tol Barad? In order to get one, you have to endlessly grind the foxes on the main island -- well, until next patch, that is. Warcraft Pets reports that according to tweets by game designer Jonathan LeCraft, the Fox Kit will be placed on vendors in the upcoming pre-Mists of Pandaria patch. Included with the tweet was an image of our sly little friend on the Tol Barad vendors. Lest you think this will be an easy purchase, however, you may want to think again. Not only does the Fox Kit cost a whopping 200 tokens from either Hellscream's Reach or Baradin's Wardens, it also requires exalted reputation with whichever faction your side happens to be affiliated with. This late in the game, that shouldn't be an issue for most players -- but if you haven't tasted the delights of Tol Barad, you may want to get cracking now. Besides, who doesn't want a Fox Van Allen of their very own?
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.
The OverAchiever: FAQ on pet battles and early achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women. With turnips. I was an avid player of Pokemon Crystal and absolutely loved the game. It was hard not to when I had a Thick Club-armed Marowak with both Rock Slide and Bonemerang that hit everything like the fist of an angry god. Since Blizzard announced the new pet battle system for WoW, I have also been a fan of that -- never mind that it wasn't actually in the game until recently. If tear-assing around the world with a small, vicious creature that smites your enemies is wrong, I don't want to be right. The pet battle system went live on a recent beta build for Mists of Pandaria, but I was one of the players afflicted with the crash bug on entrance to the actual battles. Suffice it to say that it is difficult to evaluate something when you are driven offline by doing it. However, that was fixed, and even though a bunch of LUA errors are still driving me out of the game at times, I return with tidings of great joy for prospective owners of dynamite rabbits. You'll also find our early collection of pet battle posts helpful, although some of the information collected there has been overtaken by recent events. Warning for those browsing on mobile devices: This is an image-intensive article.
Lichborne: Passing time until Pandaria on your death knight
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Lichborne for blood, frost, and unholy death knights. In the post-Cataclysm era, death knights are no longer the new kids on the block. Let's show the other classes how a hero class gets things done. With a release date finally forthcoming for Mists of Pandaria, we have less than two months until the expansion drops and even less time until we reach patch 5.0.4. With all that in mind, how do you pass the time until then? This week, we'll take a look at a few things death knights can do to look and feel their best when the expansion drops. Solo to swell your stables Soloing is a time-honored death knight tradition, and with the expansion winding down, it's the perfect way to pass the time. When choosing your soloing target, you may factor in nostalgia, transmogrification needs, or just plain ease of access. Another popular reason is grabbing mounts and pets. In the Cataclysm era, both Vortex Pinnacle and The Stonecore normal modes drop a mount. Soloing same-level dungeons can be a bit hairy, but considering these two were in the game at the start of the expansion, you should find that even with Dragon Soul raid finder gear, you'll barely break a sweat in blood spec. As a bonus, both of these mounts will be going account-wide in Mists of Pandaria, so you'll be grabbing some possible stylish mount options for your alts as well.
