Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Current Collecting Progress and Thoughts on Hatespark

I haven't had a chance to sit down and write a proper blog post due to a busy RL, but I'm going to remedy my lack of posting right now. Yaaay...? Hopefully I'll find time to write more in the coming month(s)!

My collecting spree has pretty much ended now that I've obtained nearly all of the "guaranteed" pets. The only ones left on my immediate list are highly RNG-reliant and/or are still unimplemented (I'm looking at you Sea Calf). Still, I managed to add two new pets my collect recently, both of which I'm glad to have!


Syd the Squid finally dropped for me on month 3, day 3 of the Darkmoon Faire. I guess VonFeasel needed quite a bit of time to warm up to me; I'm glad I finally made a good enough impression on him. :P To be honest, I wasn't hopeful for anything this month and was fully prepared and expecting to go another month without seeing the little squidy. I'm ecstatic that I was wrong!

What I am a little disappointed about, though, is that Syd doesn't seem to have any interesting idle animations/interactions. I mean, Mindbender Ghur'sha from one of the Throne of Tides encounters has no qualms about sitting on your head, although it does mind control you in the process. But how neat would that be if Syd randomly sat on your head from time to time? Sure, there's the Tentacled Hat from fishing but it's just not the same. I don't know about everyone else, but I'd proudly wear Syd on my head. :P


The other pet that was recently added to my collection (as of today) is the Deathwatch Hatchling, WoD's Challenge Mode pet. A guild called Check Please on Ysera earned guild-gold in all WoD Challenge Modes and was kind enough to open up free invites to collectors seeking this pet. Truly a generous offer! They're closing invites soon, which is understandable. They've already given so much to many, many collectors; no hard feelings if they can't or choose not to keep up with the demand. :)

The ravager model looks neat in general, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well the Deathwatch Hatchling matched the color-scheme of my draenei DK that I created to level in Check Please. Dare I say that it was just meant to be? lol naaah :P

Aaaand Other Stuff
The WoW 10th anniversary event was extended by a week, which is a good thing... I think? This will hopefully give collectors an extra chance to get a hold of their own Hatespark the Tiny from the anniversary edition of Molten Core. More Hatesparks floating around might also drive the prices down on the AH a little (just a little though).

My experience with the anniversary raid was pretty rough, though, so my hat and heart goes out to those still running it in hopes for the pet. I hear that some runs aren't quite as bad now, and there's actually some organization between raid members. Regardless it's still a hefty time investment (a few hours, even with a solid group), with no guarantee that the pet will drop. Pretty disappointing for us collectors, if you ask me.

So while it's great that the opportunity to collect Hatespark directly from the raid is still available (ends January 13), it's only a small consolation for those seeking the pet. There are other factors that trump the extension of the event. Limited availability, limited time, drop rate that's not 100% or even close to, large time investment and possible toxic raiding environment. All of these things puts a stress on those that consider pets the opposite of "optional content".

I've always been in the boat of balancing the factors that collectors will have to contend with, in order to create fun, fair and desirable content. That being said, I can't say that I consider the pet drop from the anniversary MC to be very balanced. Maybe the drop rate could have been adjusted, or a mechanic should have been implemented to increase your chances incrementally each time you run MC.

I hope that in the future, limited availability pets similar to Hatespark the Tiny will be distributed in a less punishing fashion.

6 comments:

  1. I really want Hatespark the Tiny but can't face MC more than the single time I ran it - it was awful. I suppose it is a history lesson into just how bad raids were back in the day.
    I'll just wait until I have enough gold and buy one :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Raax: Another option would be to seek a trade for it. You'll probably need to trade a handful of pets for Hatespark, but I'm sure someone out there would be willing to discuss it.

      Delete
  2. Hatespark is really frustrating.
    I've bought one from the AH because I've saved up enough gold previously.

    I'd love to see pets like this available to buy from your pet menagerie. They could charge 500 or 1000 pet charms for it, but it would give collectors an opportunity to get this pet even when the event it was related to is over.
    The Menagerie was nice at first, but there is just no motivation to aquire more an more pet charms.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Sarge: That's a good idea! I wouldn't mind seeing Hatespark for sale on the Menagerie vendor, although perhaps as a one time purchase. Otherwise those that did spend a lot of time, energy and resources to obtain it during the event may feel their efforts trivialized.

      Delete
  3. I would have had it like the Vampire Guy from Karazhan. If you kill the boss you get the pet but it's not tradeable and unique.

    Also, Argh. No sign of Syd, leftovers, herby, or miney pets. I've got 5 tier 3 and 1 tier 2 herb garden and 5 tier 3 and 4 tier 2 mines. Lots of herbing and mining and no drops (no doubt they were on the ones my guards kill). Got another darkmoon Eye today. Maybe I need to offer it in trade for Syd. Seemed to work for you. haha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Anonymous: The downside of the Vampiric Batling is that no one else even had the hope of getting it after the event was over. Blizzard probably wanted to avoid that same issue by making Hatespark tradeable. To balance it being cageable though, they had to make it difficult elsewhere.

      Only I think they went a little too far with how difficult it was to obtain -- the low the droprate combined with the hours-long run and potentially toxic raid environment.

      I think if they had implemented a mechanic that made it so that if you run MC enough times Hatespark would eventually be 100% drop for you, that would have worked better. It would not only give collectors hope for the pet and reward persistence, it would also give many a reason to keep running MC throughout the anniversary event.

      But alas, the event is nearing its end. Just a bummer that Hatespark put a damper on the whole thing for collectors. :(

      Delete

Creative Commons License
Perks N Peeves by Quintessence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.