as of the latest PTR build, a new pet popped up: the cenarion hatchling.
while i do not have any personal or official confirmation of where this pet is from or how it's obtained yet, there is a comment on wowhead's PTR site stating that it will be one of the possible companions available from the new call to arms feature. the comment may or may not be accurate.
nonetheless it is... interesting. IF it's true, i think MANY will be quite upset.
from the summoning spell description, the cenarion hatchling sounds very similar to the hippogryph hatchling, which can be acquired only through the trading card game loot cards. these loot cards are rare and normally go for about $100+ on ebay, making them somewhat inaccessible to most players.
what does this mean? a pet such as this being added to the call to arms goodie bag loot table will mean quite a few players will want in on the reward. however, as i mentioned before, because tanks and healers will be the "least represented" in the random dungeon finder the majority of the time, this completely cuts pure DPS out of the picture and unable to try for this highly sought after companion. at least on their main collecting character, that is.
it also means that many hybrid classes may take on pivotal roles such as tanking and healing, even if they may not be qualified to do so. this will lead to an increase of potentially failing pug groups and player frustration. and for what? a shot at a rare (and new) companion.
it should also be noted that the tiny sporebat that was officially announced as a possible vanity pet reward from the call to arms goodie bag does NOT have a reputation requirement. the original tiny sporebat requires players to be exalted with sporeggar. although both items teach the same companion summoning spell (same spell ID), the two items are different and have unique item IDs. this indicates that players who receive the tiny sporebat via the call to arms system will not have to grind the sporeggar reputation to learn the pet.
overall if the above turns out to be true, i will have to side with the many who already disagree and are dissatisfied with the call to arms feature. not only does this have the high potential to negatively affect the PVE community, it also impacts the collecting community in an especially unfavorable way.
i'm hoping that at the very least, no new pets (such as the cenarion hatchling) will be added to the call to arms feature and the comment on wowhead was a premature one or is only applicable to the PTR. otherwise i may have to break out my angry tree macro again.
Perks N Peeves by Quintessence is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Whilst I agree as a collector, handing out freebie rares makes a mockery of our hard work. As a DPS class I can't wait for shorter queue times.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if there are pets that can only be gained from this new goodie bag or they put in some pets that have been retired (vampire bat etc.) I'll be dusting off my healing spec.
Don't forget, that just because you're a tank/healer you won't be offered the goodie bag everytime - only when your class isn't represented enough (which might be if the queue times get to half hour or something).
Interesting Times
@Raax: unfortunately there's no guarantee that this feature will actually shorten level 85 heroic dungeon queue times. we'll have to wait and see if this system even makes a difference, or if it will just cause more grief than necessary.
ReplyDeleteso far, all of this sounds like a mediocre temporary fix, but for long term it may not be sufficient enough to truly address the queue time issue. (not to mention it has the potential to cause more of a problem than anything for collectors.)