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An overview of 2.1 Hunter pet changes
Just in time for the impending release of 2.1 on the live realms. Petopia has created a page with everything hunters need to know about pet changes in the new patch.We already reported about a few of the new pets to be found, including a cool purple tallstrider, but there's at least one more out there called the Skettis Kaliri, probably found in the Arrakoa capital, a new quest area. In addition, there's those two new pet skills, Avoidance (which should help with DPS pets in raids and instances), and Cobra Reflexes, which increases attack speed at the cost of damage per attack. In tests, Petopia says it does increase DPS overall, but it remains to be seen how it will work on the live realms. Both skills should be trainable at the pet trainer (although that may be only for the test realm, again not sure).If you're a hunter (or just want to know what you might be facing in the high level battlegrounds-- I would hate to get beat up by a purple dodo), Petopia's page is definitely worth a look before the patch drops as a great overall view of what's happening in petland.
Petlink dog collar features GPS for peace of mind
Joining an already crowded field of products designed to prey on pet owners' love for their animals, a new GPS-equipped dog collar from Sweden's Petlink Development and M-Tech promises to give you Rover's exact coordinates by simpling texting the service over Telia's network. The self-titled Petlink device works much like the GPS PRO we saw a few years back, allowing Swedes and eventually Danes to pay around twelve bucks a month for the privilege of nailing down a lost pet's location on the off chance that they successfully escape from captivity their happy homes. Unfortunately Petlink -- like most other models in this category -- is a little too bulky for use on animals of the feline persuasion, so if you're a cat owner, this may be just the impetus you need to trade up to a nice Lab or pit bull. [Via Techdirt]
Children's Week + Outland = new pets!
The word on the Test Realm forums is that Children's Week has finally hit... in Outland! Apparently, much like the refugee children we've been escorting around from Stormwind and Orgrimarr, there are refugee children in Shattrath who also want to tag along with the heroes of their war. Thus far, there's been no report on any potential reputation gains as yet (which is what I'm screaming for) but screen shots of the cute new pets available from the quests have been posted. Apparently, you have your choice of "Sleepy" Willy, a baby Elekk, or Ethburt, as seen from left to right at the top of this post. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm going to have a really hard time picking one. They're all so cute! [via the WoW LJ community]
Pet stress patch clues you in on Fido's emotional health
Let's face it, being a pet in the modern era is pretty tough -- our furry friends live under constant surveillance and face crippling self-esteem issues brought on by a society hell-bent on upgrading them, and even replacing them outright with videogames and robots. Adding to the list of products designed to relieve Fluffy from these terrible burdens, Japanese outfit Medical Life Care Giken claims to have invented a patch to measure the stress level of cats and dogs. Based on studies linking sweat production to stress, the pin-sized patch goes on your pet's paw and changes color based on how much sweat it detects, allowing you to schedule doggie-therapy sessions accordingly. While we're not certain why it took a multi-year partnership with researchers at Toyama University to develop a sweat-powered animal mood ring, we only hope that Giken is hard at work on the fish and turtle versions of this patch -- it's been looking mighty tense in that tank.[Via MedLaunches]
Disabled inventor crafts DinnerUp pet feeder
After a solid four-mile run on the Doggy Treadmill, it's not too tough to understand why Fido is famished, but for folks who are disabled in ways that make bending down or moving around in general difficult, getting the pet food from the pantry to the bowl has been a serious chore. Thanks to a retired engineer (who was stricken by cerebral palsy) that figured he better solve his own problem rather than wait for someone else, the DinnerUp apparatus was concocted, and now it's on the brink of commercialization. The device mounts onto a kitchen counter or door and relies on a hand crank / clutching system in order to lift the attached bowls to a level that's easy to reach, after which it's lowered back down to the anxious pets below. Currently, Ray Dinham is assembling the units himself and offloading them to "satisfied customers" for £70 ($140) apiece, but it shouldn't be long before the manufacturing is "outsourced to a UK-based firm" and these gain some serious worldwide traction.[Via BBC]
PTR Notes: Pets aplenty
The good people over at Petopia have posted a lot of new info about pets seen on the PTR for 2.1. First, there's been four new pets found so far-- a new Blackwind Warp Chaser, a Ravager from Hellfire Peninsula, the Sky Shadows in Deadwind Pass (that scared the heck out of you even before the expansion was released), and this amazing purple tallstrider called a Dodostrider (that last one has hunters buzzing).One pet will be made untamable-- apparently there are issues with the Death Ravager that gets spawned in a quest in the lowbie Draenei area, Azuremyst Isle, and so hunters won't be able to tame him any more. Also, Petopia has PTR info on two new trainable pet abilities, Avoidance and Cobra Reflexes. Avoidance has two ranks and reduces the damage done to pets by AoE (this is aimed directly at endgame PvE pet viability), and Cobra Reflexes has one rank and increases attack speed at a cost to damage done.As usual, all this info is still subject to change. But it's great that Blizzard is getting more and more pets (and pet abilities) in the mix. Here's hoping the trend continues.
Guardian pets need a mind of their own
This forums thread points out something interesting about player "guardians." Not pets-- guardians like Shadowfiend (which a priest I know called his shadowfriend), the druids' treants, and my shaman's totem elementals. After players wonder why shadowfiends keep breaking shackles, Neth says something that made me do a double-take: shadowfiends, as guardians, have an actual AI that is supposed to go after non crowd-controlled targets first.That's news to me. I haven't spent a ton of time around shadowfiends, but in my experience, shaman and mage elementals and other "uncontrollable" pets (that's why they're called guardians) tend to go after anything that happens to be close to them. That's why they don't get popped when there's sheep or shackles around-- my guild could have used that fire elemental DPS on Moroes, but because it was so important to keep those shackles up, I've been saving the elemental for later. If there really is an AI (and if it works-- even Neth agrees that may not be the case at this point, though she says the shadowfiends on the PTR are supposed to be doing things right), then maybe we can start trusting summoned guardians not to touch CC'd targets until it's OK to do so.Of course, there's other ways around it-- normally, I just don't pop my pets out until I'm sure there's no more CC left to break, but my pets are leashed to my totem, so with careful positioning, I can still avoid CC. And I believe both mage and druid guardians are targeted-- they open fire on whatever you've got targeted at the time, right? But I'd love a little AI, or at least a little control, in something like my Searing Totem. If there's a CC'd target out there, it's not worth the trouble to drop it even for the extra DPS.
Wii Warm Up: Port authority
EA just announced that the Wii is getting The Sims 2: Pets and really, we can't say we're particularly thrilled. In fact, we're officially torn. The Wii, as a system, is terribly young, despite all the SuperCube remarks some folks like to make. The Wii only has a couple of years behind it, after all. Because of that, we're trying to be patient. One can't expect a revolutionary control system to immediately take root and manifest itself in awesomeness. So we're waiting. And while we appreciate the urge to throw us a few bones while we're waiting, we think we may speak for everyone when we say that, really, we have enough ports. Games that released year are ... well, they're pretty much last year's games, and if we wanted them, we probably played them then. Sure, we understand that if there's a buck to be made by printing a few more discs, someone's going to rush in to make it, but it just seems more and more gratuitous with every new generation. Enough already!Or are we alone in this sentiment? Maybe we just don't have enough love for the Sims any longer. It's hard, when we're so busy thinking of MySims.There is one thing that's interesting about The Sims 2: Pets, and that's the possibility of online features. Hurray![Thanks for the Sims tip, Limpit!]
"Why must you chase me, mechanical yeti?"
Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love the tonks. I cackle with fiendish glee anytime one of my guild mates pulls out a tonk while we're waiting on the rest of the group to get to an instance. Tonk wars are no end of fun.One of the things that has been conspicuously absent from the game for some time was more mini-games like the tonks at the Darkmoon Faire. Sure, you get the Battered Steam Tonk Controller as a quest reward in the Bone Wastes, but I already have a tonk. I had hopes when I did the Arcano Scorpid quest in Shadowmoon Valley... It seems like you should be able to battle them. But sadly enough, as a guild mate and I found out, once you've turned in the quest, you can no longer control the arcano scorpids. (We can only guess that it is still possible that you can battle them, considering they have attacks that only work on other arcano scorpids. But you'd have to never turn in the quest to be able to continue playing.) And yes, you can do the bombing run over and over in Hellfire, but without actually playing against another person, where is the challenge in it?So, what we'd like to propose is for Blizzard to actually build in some form of mini-games. Not a true PVP thing, like dueling or battlegrounds, but something of a smaller and potentially sillier bent. Like giving folks control of the arcano scorpids after the quest is completed. That way you could play Scorpid Battle Mechs to break up the monotony of puking your guts out while searching for that one perfectly ripe Arakkoa egg. Or hey, how about making those non-combat pets useful and let us fight them against each other? I can just see it now... Magical Crawdad, I choose you!
Surviving to see another ding
I'm facing exactly this issue right now (in fact, it's one reason why I'm thinking of rolling a hunter again and ditching my mage)-- Peterxt from Dragonblight want to know what the best class for surviving is. That is, what's the class that, when things go wrong, can get themselves out of trouble alive? I'm assuming he means solo-- everyone should stay alive in a group setting, or something is going wrong.The obvious answer, of course, is the paladin. It's one reason they're so hated-- they wear plate, they can heal, and just when you think you've whittled them down, they have that stupid bubble. In terms of solo play, paladins aren't the fastest killers, but they are very good at taking on adds one after another. When things go wrong, paladins have lots of escape routes.And in fact, mages have lots of escape routes as well. They fall apart easily when getting hit, but they have so many abilities to keep from getting hit that a mage with a little mana and their wits about them can actually survive almost anything-- drop a Frost Nova, Blink away, keep Frost Armor up to slow attackers when they do hit, and you can pretty much run your way out of trouble (not to mention, if you're frost, that ice block can be the ultimate survival tool). That requires a lot of technique, though-- if you really want to stay away from a graveyard, a mage isn't your cup of tea.Every class has their own escape plans (Vanish for rogues, Last Stand for warriors, and so on), but for my money, no class is better at surviving solo PvE then a hunter. Feign death is terrific, and if it doesn't work, there's always the option to let your pet tank while you flee. Or, now that they work in battle, traps. Or Scatter Shot. Or Concussive Shot. Heck, Misdirection even works on NPCs, so if you happen to see someone around that you want to tank for you, you can throw up Misdirection and exit stage left.Every class can survive if it's played carefully and well. But if you never, ever want to see a graveyard, I'd say hunter or paladin.
A look at Blizzard's stats, post-Burning Crusade
Last November, Blizzard finally made public a page full of stats for what's happening to all of us in game-- the most dangerous creatures, most gathered items, most completed quests, and so on. Ever since, I always find it fascinating to stop over there and see what's new, but today I realized that I haven't really seen it since Burning Crusade dropped. So let's take a look at what players are up to since the Dark Portal opened, shall we?Netherweave has jumped right to the top of listings in the Auction House, while Arcade Dust makes a nice showing at 7th. Of the Primal elements, only Earth is on the first page (most likely because it's the most farmed from all those Earth Elementals in Nagrand). It also comes from Mining, so it makes a good showing on the Most Gathered Items as well-- Copper leads that category by double everything else, though, most likely because of all the jewelcrafting going on. In fact, while Soul Shards are still number one, Copper Bars are the second Most Created Items in the realms, too. Interesting that you have to go to page 3 before you see a jewelcrafting item, though-- two sets of battleground tokens (Arathi Basin and WSG) are being made more than any Delicate Copper Wire.Warlock pets remain on the top of the Most Dangerous NPC list, but King Bangalash and those nasty Defias Pillagers have company-- apparently people are back playing their mains, and raid bosses like Shade of Aran, Gruul, Nightbane, and the Maiden are killing players by the thousands. The Most Complete Quests screen has interesting info, too-- almost all of the quests are newbie Blood Elf quests (there is at least one Draenei newbie quest mixed in, but BEs have the clear majority). You'd think people would be completing quests in Outland to level, but three months after BC release, maybe that's not the case anymore. According to the stats, it seems like the large majority of players has gotten their mains to 70, are raiding Kara and Gruul, and leveling up their Blood Elf mains.
Papercraft pets from Azeroth
Regular readers will know that I'm a huge fan of real world crafts based on WoW (I'm disappointed that it seems like that Crochet set never worked out-- if anyone plans to make the Twill set, let me know). And so I was thrilled to see these papercraft figures that "Eric" has put together-- he's making paper models of pets in WoW, and he's selling the plans (in a PDF files) to make them yourself. At least I think that's what he's selling-- his site is pretty barebones, to say the least.But he's got the bunnies and some dragonwhelps up, and over on his eBay page, you can see actual models of a few he's put together (I especially like the mechanical chicken). I'm not tempted to buy any, because I know I'd completely mess it up, but the few he's put together look awesome.More please! I'd like to see a papercraft Bangalash, and I know kids all over the world would love a papercraft Murloc. As you've probably guessed, I'm clueless about this papercraft stuff, but would it be possible to build player models this way, or is that too complicated?[ via WorldofWar.net ]
Blue Notes: Seduction, Pet Health, and Old Hillsbrad
Crowd control is an important part of the BC instances, especially heroics, more so than it was in the old world. Polymorph, sap, banish, and shackle all play their part, but up till now Seduce has not been very usable in Heroic-mode instances. Set for a change, this is. Thus spake Tigole:In an upcoming content patch (2.1.0) Warlocks will be able to use their succubus to seduce many humanoid creatures which are currently immune to charm effects.To clarify, the creatures do too much damage to allow them to be charmed (whether it be by a priest or by an engineer). Seducing them does not threaten the balance of the dungeon. This will mostly effect heroics. And it only makes things able to be seduced -- it doesn't make anything immune to mind control that was previously charmable. It's not a nerf for priests. It's a bonus for Warlocks.That makes some sense of why these mobs were no-seduce, too. And, as a healer, if there's one thing I love more than mana, it's crowd control.
More dev feedback for Hunters
Yay! That same old Hunter feedback thread in the European forums has been hit up again with some developer love. Before I get into it, I'd like to warn you that almost all the responses are either "the Devs see what you mean, but have no idea when/how/if it'll be fixed" or "the Devs see what you mean, but it's working as intended." This week they focused mostly on pet concerns, which is what they skipped last week. Here's a summary of the more interesting responses: Pet survivabilty: "Quite possible" that this might improve, but devs have to avoid making pets overpowered in PvP. Encounters un-pet-friendly: We see what you mean, and might improve in the future. Certain stats (e.g. crit, hit rating) don't help your pet, making gear with them less attractive: This is intended, but might change in the future. It's impossible to tell who out of multiple targets resists your FD: Devs agree, and would like to see it ifixed; no ETA. Pet kills don't count for player kills (for Rapid Killing, for instance) even when the player has tagged the mob: Fixed for 2.1. Growl scales by RAP, often giving MM Hunters better Growl threat than BM Hunters: Devs agree, but "no information available regarding what they will do to address this concern." Hunters' role endgame: DPS class, with utility as a bonus. "Hunters compare quite well to other DPS classes, but possibly a bit low, however this is something that is being looked at. Things will get adjusted here and there where required." People going through ammo too fast: Devs agree, considering what to do about it. It's good that the devs are being more responsive than usual about this, but it's a little frustrating to have so few concrete details. Vaneras's full post after the cut.
Games blamed for decline in Aussie pet ownership
As a medium, video games have been blamed for a whole host of society's ills. Violence, obesity, and educational underachievement are just some of the high profile problems that have been laid on gaming's doorstep at one time or another. But now, video games are being portrayed as the cause of a much graver threat; namely, the decline in Australian pet ownership. As Australian Veterinary Association President Kersti Seksel told the Sydney Morning Herald (and any other outlet that would listen) today's kids "interact more by playing computer games and less by going out there and throwing the ball to a dog." Why is this a problem, exactly? According to Seksel, "We need to learn people skills, physical skills, and sitting in the lounge room with a computer doesn't teach you that." Leaving aside for a second the idea of learning "people skills" from playing with an animal, implying that game playing and pet ownership are somehow mutually exclusive is a little ridiculous. You might as well argue that reading books and talking on the phone are dangerous pastimes because they take away from time with poor, neglected Fido. Pet ownership usually takes up only a small part of a child's day, and singling out video games for distracting from that time strikes us as a little opportunistic. And while "you can't hug a computer," as the SMH article points out in the lede, you also don't have to take a computer out for walks. Man's best friend, indeed.
New skills for Hunter pets incoming
A poster in the Hunters forum asked whether Hunters would, any time soon, be able to learn skills from beasts without taming them, or if not, if we could get more stable slots. Nethaera replied to let us know that new skills for Hunter pets are in the works, slated for the "next large patch" (she declined to give a patch number, but I'm thinking 2.1). Here's the pertinent information from her postings in that thread. The summary is that we will be getting new skills that are "trainable and transferable between pets," and autoattack/autoshot will be able to be toggled in the interface options.
Doggy Pedometer ushers in new era of dog training
Sometimes all we can do is tell you about a product and leave it as is. In this case, Yamasa Tokei delivers the canine accessory for which all jogging dog owners have been pining -- the Doggy Pedometer. Tripling as a dog tag, timer, and pedometer, this little gadget has several uses outside of the obvious. Say Scrapps runs away and you want to know how far he went. Or you don't have a pedometer yourself and go jogging with the dog all the time. Or you're a concerned pet owner and want to make sure Scrapps is exercising and running about in the back yard when you're away. Maybe you're a jealous spouse and want to see if your husband is running farther than he says. Perhaps you're an architect and you want to use Scrapper-do to measure long distances. Stop us now.
Broken CE pet for EU players, but Blizzard makes up for it double
So Burning Crusade is now live on the European servers, and one mistake has already been made. It's also been fixed, however, and the fix is pretty darn sweet.A few players opened up their expansion packs to find that their code for the Netherwhelp pet didn't work, and they weren't able to get their pet ingame. But Blizzard wasted no time in fixing things: they put up new instructions to get the pet, and they compensated players with not only the Netherwhelp pet, but another pet named Lurky the Murloc (brother, we assume, to Murky, the Murloc pet available at Blizzcon, and Gurky, the pet Blizzard has been giving away in a few places). In addition, they gave 2 free days of play to people affected.On one hand, I'm impressed that Blizzard fixed things so quickly, and was so generous in doing so. But on the other hand, I'm wondering: maybe my expansion could be broken somehow? Please?
Walkthrough: Sprite darter hatchling
Every guild meeting, I get comments on this pretty little dragonling. Some of you may know how to get it already, but if my guild is anything to go on, a lot of you don't. Like the last item I posted, this one's Alliance-only (sorry, Horde fans, but Alliance is what I play). It's a non-combat pet, like cats and mechanical squirrels, so all it does is flap around and look like something the art team did when they were tripping, but I like it anyway.It's not exactly hard to get per se, but it does require quite a bit of legwork. It all starts in my favorite zone, Feralas...
Breakfast Topic: The season of giving
I was in the process of doing a little Christmas shopping this weekend, and as I hurried home to catch an Onyxia attempt, the thought occurred to me: am I going to get my favorite guildies anything?I only play with a few real life friends-- most of the people I know well in my guild I've only known online through Warcraft. But we've had a lot of fun, and I've gotten to know some of them pretty well. Considering Blizzard has included giftwrap in the game, it's no stretch that I might want to grab them something during the holiday season as a gesture of goodwill.The only question, then, is what? RazorbladeKiss asks the same question over on Livejournal, and people suggest quite a few good things, from Snowshoe Rabbits to other faction specific cosmetic items. Almost anyone would love a good potion, or a few farmed mats you know they've been waiting for. But some things that would be really cool to give, like mounts or crafted items, are soulbound, or so common that every 60 has them. So are you getting your guildies anything in-game for the holidays? And if so, what?
