pets
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Aspyr (not EA) releases Sims Pet Stories for Mac
Good news for you Sims completists out there (or anyone with a daughter on a MacBook): Aspyr Media has released Sims Pet Stories, the standalone Sims Pets game that lets you train, play with, and care for cats and dogs destined for the Pet Show. The reviews aren't exactly shining, but according to the user ratings at the bottom of the page, anyone who wants a cute and funny game that runs on a Mac should like it.Of course, the more cynical side of me notes that this is yet another Electronic Arts game being ported by Aspyr instead of being released directly by EA. What did they promise us at WWDC again? [via MacWorld]
Amazon still has Burning Crusade CE in stock
In case you really wanted it, the Burning Crusade Collector's Edition apparently isn't all that collected-- it's still in stock at Amazon for $74.99, a few bucks off the original price. The original Collector's Edition is a little harder to find-- it's been out of stock for a while, and copies are going for around $200. eBay is the same story-- you can buy the BC:CE for as little as $50, while the original CE is going for much, much more.My guess is that it's the old laws of supply and demand-- by the time Burning Crusade dropped, everyone knew it would be a hit, so Blizzard made a bunch, while the original CE probably had a lot fewer copies made. But the noncombat pets might be a draw as well-- the original CE had Diablo, Zerg, and Panda pets, while the Burning Crusade only had a pretty unimpressive Netherwhelp pet.And the other interesting question is what will happen when the next expansion drops. Being that WotLK is much more integral to the Warcraft that everyone knows and loves (while BC was much more involved with the ancient history of Warcraft), will people who've skipped Burning Crusade so far be more inclined to pick it up when Wrath releases? Maybe the BC:CE will get rarer as we get closer to Northrend.[ via WoW Ladies ]
Breakfast Topic: Toys
We play this game called World of Warcraft, and naturally it's about war, various sorts of fighting and skirmishing and so on. Most activities are involved in this fighting in one way or another, even if indirectly. But we also know that some things in the game have absolutely no effect on your fighting skills whatsoever, and yet these are some of the items in highest demand. Non-combat pets, unique mounts, cute outfits, and so on.So now imagine that you get hired for Blizzard just to design more of these non-combat items. What kinds of items would you create? What would you make players do in order to get them? What do you think they would add to the game that isn't already there?
DIY'er makes a pet access control system
If you're looking for a way to get your pups eating what you want, when you want, you might want to check into one DIY'ers clever solution for an RFID feeding scheme. The trouble all began when a gentleman named Mike Larsen needed to feed one of his dogs a special diet even though food had to be out constantly for his canines -- thus making that goal quite difficult to achieve. After discovering no commercial products to suit his needs (likely due to an apparent patent-hoarder), he decided to put his own solution together, using some RFID key fobs, a small proximity card access kit, a Radio Shack AC adapter, some loud buzzers... and a little bit of elbow grease. The system works by essentially "scaring" the special-diet-dog away from the food by the use of a loud buzzing sound, which isn't subtle, but certainly effective. Check the video after the break to see the system in action.[Via Make]
Sit! Attack! Read! Good doggy
Player Zoa of the European server Vek'nilash is concerned that not every Hunter is using their pet to full potential on raids. She has created a guide to help her fellow beast masters pick the right kind of raid pet and talent spec for maximum usefulness. She also goes boss by boss and rates each one according to how much danger your pet will be in for each fight. Plus she lists tactics for your pet for each encounter.I don't have a raid level hunter, but this guide for raiding with your Hunter pet looks well done to me. What do our more experienced readers think? Is Zoa dishing out good advice to your class? Can you add any more insight to her boss encounters to keep your pet alive and contributing to the raid? Any great tips she missed?
Engineers continue to dream
Rikora over on the official forums posted about some hopes she has for what engineers will be able to do in the next expansion, such as building siege weapons and other such machinery. You've probably already heard that engineers will be able to craft flying mounts, but other than that we haven't heard so much. Other posters got pretty creative too, though. There were suggestions of more goggles, more pets, more fun trinkets of course, but one suggested that we make remote controlled planes that can shoot each other down. Another person suggested that there be little remote controlled machines that could sneak past enemies and scout about or throw an optional switch in an instance. The obvious thing that somehow didn't happen with the Burning Crusade, is just to provide upgraded versions of existing trinkets that actually help as much as the old trinkets did, a Gnomish Battle Piglet, perhaps, or a Goblin Gnome Launcher. One poster to the forum thread said Engineering should be a bit on the overpowered side, and I agree wholeheartedly, especially since many of its items can't be used in Arenas. To my mind, it should almost be like a secondary class unto itself, with lots of different abilities, from crowd control to healing -- nothing as powerful as a native class ability of course, but something to make engineers feel really glad for choosing their profession and putting lots of work into it. One of these days, Blizzard has got to listen.
Addon Spotlight: Feed-O-Matic
I wasn't going to write about this "so soon" after discussing Trackmenu, but after The Blog King presented appetizer and entree courses on hunter management, I thought this add-on would make the perfect dessert helping. The cheesecake, if you will. (Cherry cheesecake, of course.) Our friend Gazmik Fizzwidget is a goblin of many talents, and unlike most goblins, his inventions do not tend to blow up. As I said, I spoke about Trackmenu not too long ago, but he has also created an excellent add-on to aid in the sometimes arduous task of keeping your pet fed. Keeping your pet fed is important because, after all, if it's happiness drops too low for an extended period of time, the pet will desert you. Hunters who have invested an extended amount of time and money into their pets will tell you that losing your pet is a bad thing. Re-training from scratch is not a pleasant experience, especially if you acquired a rare pet at a low level that you're particularly fond of. So what exactly are you to do to keep your pet happy? With the default user interface, you are forced to continually monitor that tiny little tri-colour box beside your pet's unit frame (that I swear looks like a coffee cup) and click the feed icon, and then click the food. It's time consuming, repetitive, and tedious. Our friend Gazmik has written another gem called Feed-O-Matic that makes feeding your pet so gleefully simple it's the next best thing to total automation! Installation is simple and typical of most add-ons. Probably the most difficult thing is choosing a key to bind to the pet feeding process in the Feed-O-Matic configuration window. Once you have defined your key, Feed-O-Matic will intelligently monitor the contents of your inventory and only feed your pet the food that your pet likes, each time you press the feeding key. It will choose foods in the order of your pet's preference. So if one food will give a higher happiness yield, it will use that up first before moving to the next type. It will also optionally ignore food items that are cooking or quest items. It can also be set to consume "shorter" stacks first to maximize your bag space, although this is less of an issue since the recent changes to the stacking mechanism. Lastly, (and this is perhaps my favourite feature) it can even be set to make your pet growl audibly when it's hungry so you don't have to watch the happiness monitor at all! I don't know Gazmik personally, and I wouldn't normally review two add-ons from the same person in such rapid succession, but it just seemed like a perfect topical flow today. Remember: He's got what you need!
Petopia looks at pet feeding
Petopia has posted a nice guide to feeding your Hunter pet, from the basics all the way up to the math behind each pet feeding tick. If you've ever played a Hunter, you already know that when your pet gets unhappy, you need to feed it, but did you know that the difference between your pet and the food's level affects just how happy the food makes it?The guide also has some interesting info about "raw fish" and "raw meat," two food categories recently added to the game. At this point, apparently raw fish and meat are interchangeable with their cooked counterparts, but in the future, Blizzard may create pets that only eat raw food, or that are only interested in eating cooked food.Anyway, if you've played a Hunter all the way to 70, most of this will be very familiar to you (even if you only knew that an unhappy pet wanted food). But as a very general overview of pet feeding tips and resources, it's a good one.
Of collector's editions and unique pets
While we haven't received any confirmation that there will be a Wrath of the Lich King collector's edition, but since there was a collector's edition for both the original game and the first expansion, it's a reasonable guess to think Wrath of the Lich King will have one as well. And when it comes to collector's editions, over at WoW Insider, we ask the important questions: what will the unique, collector's edition pet be? Purchasers of the original collector's edition received their choice of a mini-Diablo, a Panda cub, or a Zergling, while purchasers of the Burning Crusade collectors edition received a Netherwhelp. So what companion will we have to keep us company as we venture through Northrend? If it's a Penguin I feel that alone would be worth the extra cost of a collector's edition box.But what about you? Do you care about collector's editions or the novelties they include -- like unique pets?
Learn 2 play ... with your pet
I was reading a post on the Hunter forums that asked a simple question: how do I separate my beloved hunter from the millions of huntards out there. The reply was a resounding: learn to play your class. With that in mind, I was excited to find someone had created not one, but two excellent guides to help newbie Hunters with the basics.Alanoymous of Vek'nilash is responsible for creating both 'A Guide To Choosing A Pet - BC Revised' and the follow up 'A Beginners Guide to Pet Taming, Training and Care.' In the first post, he covers the wide range of pets available for various PvP and PvE situations. He also recommends the best pet in those scenarios. Then in the second post, he talks about what is involved in keeping your new pet happy and well-trained.If you are looking for more in-depth information about pets and their abilities, you can also check out two well done hunter pet sites: TKASomething and Petopia.
BigRedKitty: The Stable Situation
Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary. Damh's first pet was a bear. A regular brown bear from the outskirts of Ironforge, nothing special, not unique, no cool talents. We called out to Mrs. BRK and asked her what we should name him. "Ooo! You should name him Googlybear!" We love Mrs. BRK and sleep quite soundly because we take great care not to get on her Enemies List, yet this naming-travesty couldn't happen. "Honey, he's a ferocious killing machine. Remember I showed you the movie trailer to this game, the hunter standing in the snow outside the gates to the big city under the mountain, a massive bear at his side? That's me and that's my bear. He needs a name that inspires fear, that causes our enemies to flee in terror, and you give me Googlybear?" "He's so cute! He needs a smoosh-kiss right on the nose. And his name is Googlybear. Type it. Now." We typed it. /sigh Thus Damh and Googlybear joined forces and ran around killing stuff and getting not-quite-so-phat green loot and experience and everything else that goes with it and things were good. Until our pet needed a new spell and we had to train another animal to get it; that's when our problems began.
BigRedKitty: The Whole Scorpid Thing
Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.
