MoP Beta Achievement Updates - PVE to Collect

Wowhead News datamined a Chain Pet Leash from an upcoming beta build.

No clue how it will be obtained or any details about it. Its tooltip says it's unique and BoP, so it will most likely be the same as the Rope Pet Leash and the Red Ribbon Pet Leash. My initial hopes of finally being able to have more than one companion out at the same time kind of went out the window. :(

Also, from the new beta build - new pet achievements and reward updates:

- A Rare Catch (New) Capture a rare quality battle pet.

- An Uncommon Find (New) Capture a uncommon quality battle pet.

- High Quality (New) Capture 10 rare quality battle pets.

- Quality & Quanity (New) Capture 50 rare quality battle pets.

- Challenge Conquerors: Gold - Guild Edition now rewards the Thundering Serpent Hatchling.

- Newbie now also rewards the ability to trap pets.

- Ling-Ting's Herbal Journey now rewards Hopling.

There are also three changes to a few pet spell tooltips. The addition of "Battle Pet", which makes me wonder if there will be a distinction between a non-battle pet and a battle pet, or if they're one in the same.

I'm not quite how sure how to feel about these new achievements and their rewards. Collectors without a guild or a consistent guild group will likely have trouble completing these achievements and might have problems acquiring the pet rewards. There are still some players who are missing the guild-vendored companions because of the guild requirement. Add to that a requirement to complete dungeons/challenges and this might be a recipe for some serious discontent.

I've never been very fond of mixing PVE content with pet collecting as they're not exactly very compatible styles of gameplay. One requires a team effort while the other is more of a solo endeavor. Combining the two usually leads to some collectors feeling pressured to move into an area of gameplay they might not want to take part in.

Yes, I know it's all "optional", but for a person seeking to collect as many pets as possible, it's not optional or else what's the point of participating in collecting in the first place?

For now, I'll just wait and see how things turn out. Thankfully the pet collecting community is welcoming and supportive of each other. Even with the guild and PVE requirement for a few pets, and although some collectors aren't too keen to head in that direction, many players are still able to obtain these pets because others are willing to open up their guilds to fellow companion-seekers just for the sake of acquiring a specific pet.

A Bit of WoW Pet Collecting History

If you played WoW during the Burning Crusade, you might remember that the Firefly pet item had its own unique flavor text. "Still flying..." it read.

It was pretty unique since it was one of VERY few pets that had any detail like flavor text added to it. This gave the pet that extra charm that made it that much more desirable. Of course the text went away once pets became trainable spells, and the pet items disappeared once learned.

Well, with the prospect of flavor text being brought back for companions in the Pet Journal in MoP, it seems only fitting that this pet receive its original flavor text, right? Unfortunately, the Firefly has a new description in the journal so far.

But! There might still be hope!

There's a suggestion thread on the MoP Beta forums to bring back the original "Still flying..." flavor text for this pet. With enough positive support maybe we can change the developers' minds about this little companion's journal description.

One thing that I'd like to clarify is that it's not just about the TV show and paying homage to it, but it's also a piece of WoW history. The pet's flavor text is a reminder of ye ol' pet collecting days when bags overflowed with pets and you had to lug them around if you wanted to summon them.

Our past is what helps shape our present and ultimately our future, so these little things are memories we should never forget. Adding the Firefly's original flavor text is not only an acknowledgement to a kick ass show but also to how far we've come as pet collectors. It's not a huge deal, but there's tons of sentimental value behind it.

It's not asking for a lot, just a little bit of nostalgia and homage to an awesome TV show. Blizzard has every right to deny our request, but it doesn't hurt to try so long as everyone maintains a mature stance on the matter. :)

So if you remember how awesome the pet was back in the day and think the Firefly should reclaim its unique and glorious flavor text, leave a supportive comment on the forum thread linked above!

WarcraftPets MoP Beta Key Giveaways

WarcraftPets is having another Twitter and Facebook giveaway! This time it's for MoP beta keys.

To be eligible, simply follow the WarcraftPets Twitter and Facebook. Tuesday and Thursday will be Twitter giveaways, while Wednesday and Friday will be Facebook giveaways. Keep an eye on their feeds between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM (EDT). In previous instances, the only requirement was to follow and then Tweet or respond to a FB post with your WarcraftPets username during the announced time frame. Sometimes some pet-trivia is involved! ;)

If you have yet to receive an invite to the beta, now is your chance. It's before Pet Battles is fully unlocked too, so you might have some time to settle in and take a look around before diving into the world of wild pets, pet combat, and so on. There's quite a bit to preview and test too!

Good luck to all those interested and entering. :)

We Come From the Woods

It looks like I might not need to be as jelly of priest collectors as I originally thought. Druids get a new fun minor glyph too! Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature allows druids to temporarily "tame" a critter that can't otherwise be captured or collected.


Here are some notes on the glyph/ability:

- It's pretty much the same as Critter Bites except it lasts for an hour instead of just three minutes.

- Unlike Critter Bites, you can only befriend one critter at a time using the Charm Woodland Creature ability.

- There's no cooldown on the ability.

- You can't use it on capturable wild pets - only on normal critters.

- Zoning or logging off causes your new friend to despawn.

- You can have a vanity pet and a charmed critter friend out at the same time.


- Rather than having a "companion" tag, the critter will have a "minion" tag instead.

- There will be purple, swirling glow on top of the critter's head and it's the result of "befriending" it. This animation will remain for the full duration of the buff that's given to the critter.

It's an amusing minor glyph, and while I still think the spriest one is cooler, I could see my druid collector having a bit of fun with this.

One thing that would make this glyph/ability 100x better, though, is if the befriended critter persisted through zoning and logging. It would still only last for one hour and not be considered a true vanity pet, but it would definitely make this minor glyph more attractive.

When compared to other druid minor glyphs, there's not as much point/value in this glyph since it really only comes in handy when you're in a location with a unique critter, and plan on staying in that area for a while.

There are tons of awesome critters out in the world, yet many are exclusive to specific areas or zones. It's such a shame that those critters won't and can't follow me back home or to a raid that I'm attending. Even if I've used my druid powers to hypnotize it to love me. :P

We Come From the Shadows

Remember the new Shadow Priest minor glyph, Glyph of Shadowy Friends, that was discovered a while back? Well it's ready for testing and preview on the beta and I just couldn't help myself!

It's not a game-changer or game-breaker, and it really is just for funsies. But boy, oh boy, is it amusing to go through your collection just to see what each pet would look like with an extra tinge of purple hue!


First let's take a look at the Dark Phoenix Hatchling without the spriest glow.


Now here it is with the glyph activated. Pretty neat, huh?

My alt priest will be going shadow more often than not in MoP just so I can play around with my pets. All I can say is that I hope all the priest collectors enjoy this new glyph to the fullest. Am I jelly? YES! ;)

Here are a few more screenshots of some of the more interesting companion plus shadow priest coloring combinations. Some of them almost seem to disappear with this new glyph!

Feral Vermling Update

Wowhead News and MMO-Champion datamined the upcoming beta patch and the Feral Vermling seems to have gotten an update since we last heard any news about it.

This pet was originally discovered to be the reward for completing the achievement Master Pet Hunter, but after the next beta build it will be rewarded for completing Zen Pet Hunter instead. The tooltip for the achievements might still need some time to update now that a 150 tier was added.

Seeing how this achievement is the last in the "capture" tier, it makes sense to have a reward for this one instead of the tier before it.

One thing that seems odd to me, though, is that this companion is still tagged as a BoU item. I'm aware that all pets will be account wide and many (but not all) will be tradable, and if this achievement is account wide as well it's likely you'll only get one of these pets in the mail after completing it - so it might not really matter so much in the long run. Still, it seems strange that a personal achievement reward isn't BoP.

You can bet I'll be working hard on collecting wild companions in MoP. Not just for this achievement reward, but for the pets in general! :D

Also datamined are rewards for other pet battle achievements. Most notably "Strong Trap" and "Pristine Trap". I'm guessing both are more of spell changes to increase the likelihood of capturing a wild companion during a battle, rather than actual items you can run around and use. Hopefully Blizzard's pet battles blog post (coming "soon" XD) will have more information on this.

Lastly, judging by the string changes, (PET_BATTLE_TRAP_ERR_5 - You already have 3 of this pet) you'll only be able to have 3 of the same pet in your journal at one time. So if you've captured three deer in hopes to find one of better "quality" and attempt to capture one more, that error will pop up and you'll probably need to release or cage at least one before being able to capture another deer.

This concerns me somewhat since there are currently different colors of the same model/pet that exist in the wild. With a cap of three of the same kind, I hope that this means there will only be three to four color schemes for the companions with different versions of it roaming in the wild. Otherwise, how will I be able to choose?! :(

Engineering Crafted Pet In MoP

Had a busy weekend, but I'm back! I was hoping to find pet battles unlocked on the beta upon my return - color me disappointed. Oh well!

Wowhead News wrote up a MoP engineering preview, and according to this write up engineers will be able to craft the Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling.

Unlike many other datamined engineering contraptions that have an on use ability that summons a temporary companion, this one is an actual pet. Not to mention that the other items are trinkets and such.

The pet is BoU so don't worry if you don't have the engineering profession on a particular toon. Just be sure to buddy up with a pal in the expansion. :P The mats for this companion aren't listed yet (that I know of), but hopefully they won't be too troublesome to acquire.

If this dragonling really does come from engineering, I'm extremely glad that it is BoU. I had my go at swapping professions just for the Pet Bombling and Lil' Smoky waaay back when they were Bind on Pick Up, and while I can definitely call it an adventure and labor of love, I'm not too keen on doing it again lol.

Getting a Battle Pet Trainer to Sell You a Pet

I finally figured out how to purchase the Gilnean Raven from the Battle Pet Trainers on the beta lol. Am I behind the times? I have been putting in quite a few hours in D3 lately, so don't blame me if this is old news! :P

Anyway, it's a pretty simple concept - the trainers will sell/train you a companion but only the pet of your toon's race. It costs 50 silver, and regardless of the trainer you speak with, they will only offer you your race's home pet.

So for the raven, you'd need to be a Worgen to purchase that particular pet since that companion is the Worgen's "home pet". If you're a Night Elf, the trainer will offer you a Great Horned Owl instead, if you're a Troll you'll only have the option to learn the Black Kingsnake, and so on.


The newest race, the Pandaren, get the Jade Crane Chick. I suppose this is an incentive to create a Pandaren if only just for the crane pet.

It should be noted that if you don't especially WANT to play or keep a toon of a certain race, but would still like their home pet, you could create an alt, learn both Battle Pet Training and the companion from the trainer (to purchase the pet requires the ability to pet battle), and then delete that character. Doing this won't remove the pet from your journal.

For those that have already filled up all character slots on a server with certain races and can't afford to delete or add any new ones, you could create another toon on a different server of any race you don't already have. Once you have their race's home pet, you could then delete that alt. I'm 90% sure "account wide" means cross server too, so you'll have access to your shiny new companion despite having learned it on another server. Yay! :D

Alternatively, you could simply head out to a vendor that sells the pet. Most of the companions that are associated with each race already have specific vendors and actual pet items that you can purchase. I'm not sure if these vendors are going away in MoP, but I doubt it.

The only new companions that you can't buy off of a normal vendor are the Gilnean Raven (Worgen), Shore Crab (Goblin), and Jade Crane Chick (Pandaren). It should be noted that the chick does have an actual item ID for it, but it's not clear if it will be up for sale from a vendor or not.

Last but not least, remember that in MoP the vendor filter will have a mind of its own, so you might need to check and uncheck some of the filters to get the Battle Pet Trainer to show you which companion is your race's home pet.

And as always, this is still the beta so things could change and how it currently functions might not be how it works in the final release.

UPDATE: Here's a list of each race and their purchasable/trainable companion from the Battle Pet Trainer. These are subject to change.

Alliance

Draenei - Blue Moth
Dwarf - Snowshoe Rabbit
Gnome - Snowshoe Rabbit
Human - Orange Tabby Cat
Night Elf - Great Horned Owl
Worgen - Gilnean Raven

Horde

Blood Elf - Golden Dragonhawk Hatchling
Goblin - Shore Crawler
Orc - Black Kingsnake
Tauren - Brown Prairie Dog
Troll - Black Kingsnake
Undead - Undercity Cockroach

Pandaren - Jade Crane Chick

Two MoP Beta Pet Previews

The latest beta patch didn't seem to change much in the pet journal or for pet battles, at least nothing that I've found so far. Pet battles is still not available for testing.

One thing that is worth noting is that some players can summon both the Jade Crane Chick and Thundering Serpent Hatchling on the beta.


The journal's information on the Jade Crane Chick says that it should be available from a vendor in Stormwind and Orgrimmar, but both NPCs don't seem to be selling anything at the moment. This might change in the future once pet battles is officially open for testing.


And as many have already seen first-hand, the Thundering Serpent Hatchling is available for purchase from the guild vendor for 300 gold. What guild achievement unlocks this pet? I still have no idea despite combing through the achievement tab and searching for any possible leads online. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Note: Not pictured properly in the screenshot is the pet's flickering lightning aura. It's very faint in the image above, but in person it's much more prominent. This companion also currently has the same idle animations as the Soul of the Aspects. I'm hoping that it will get its own unique animation or interaction with other pets/the environment, yet I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.

MoP CE Pet and Terrible Turnip Preview!

Wowhead News and MMO-Champion are reporting a new beta build coming soon, and this time the first preview of the MoP CE pet (AND possible mount) was discovered!

Looks like the collector's companion will be a Lucky Quilen Cub. For those curious what a WoW Quilen is, it's a lion-esque creature, as seen here. So I guess just imagine a smaller, cuter version of that mob as a minipet?

There's still no image or model preview for the new pet, but if it really is a baby Quilen, it'll be the first CE pet in a while that's NOT a whelp. *gasp* Good thing? Bad thing? It all depends on your personal preference.

For me, since I most likely won't be getting the CE version (unless I want to invest in ALL the CE pets that I possibly can), it will just be interesting to see what this new pet looks like. I also find it intriguing that a CE mount (Imperial Quilen) was also datamined. I'm not big on collecting mounts, but I think this will be the first CE mount.

MMO-Champion also has an interesting image that's named "turnippet" - first preview of the Terrible Turnip?! There's an orange version of it as well but the coloring makes it look more like a carrot than turnip lol.

For some reason I'm extremely amused and hypnotized by this possible turnip companion. Could it be it's large, glossy red eyes? It's oddly shaped, er, feet foot? If that can even be called a foot. Maybe "root" would be more appropriate? I can't wait to see the final version of this pet! It doesn't look nearly as terrible as people make turnips out to be. This veggie looks adorable if anything. :P

UPDATE: Wowhead has a 3D model preview of the turnip in all its glory. Judging from the datamined animations, it looks like the Terrible Turnip will likely be similar to other plant-like pets and submerge when idle and then pop up out of the ground to move around. The death animation is especially amusing. XD

Sand Scarab

The latest TCG expansion deck (Tomb of the Forgotten) was released today and with it the common pet loot card, Sand Scarab! It's the first beetle companion that's available for collectors, and it's pretty awesome.

If you have a thing for matching pets with pets, this one would go lovely with the larger, hunter pet version. :)

Sand Scarab Pre-Order

WoW TCG Loot and WarcraftPets is doing another joint pre-sale for the Sand Scarab! The sale will run until June 11, and the pet will be officially released June 12.

As usual, those who pre-order with WoW TCG Loot will be automatically entered into a random drawing for another loot! This time there's one Rocket Chicken and ten Little White Stallion Bridle available in the giveaway.

Be sure to pick up your Sand Scarab while supplies last and before June 11, and good luck to all that pre-ordered on the pet loot!

New Music and New Achievement

MMO-Champion datamined pet battles music. Yes, pet battles will have its very own music! I normally don't play the game with sounds on, but I'll probably try it out at least a few times to get the full "battle" effect lol. :P

What's more is that it looks as though each race might get their own battling theme. MMO-Champion only has previews for Human and Orc currently, but who knows? More might be added in the future.

How to describe the music so far? To me it sounds somewhat whimsical, while a friend of mine remarked that it reminded him of the original Warcraft soundtrack. I only dabbled in the original Warcraft games, so I can't say if that's an accurate description or not.

There's also a new pet leveling achievement, Newbie. It's pretty interesting that Blizzard felt a need for an even lower achievement than raising a pet to level 5. Perhaps an indication that leveling pets will be more of a challenge than we currently believe? Based on my personal observation, I thought the task to raise a pet to level 5 was adequate enough as a starting point for the tiered achievement. Then again, since battling, leveling and the whole system is still not fully functional and missing possibly crucial parts of the experience, my observations are likely largely biased and incomplete themselves. We'll see how it plays and feels once the entire system is open and ready for testing.

Anyway, there wasn't much in the way of pet-related news in this latest beta update. With E3 going on this week, I'm wondering if we'll see more beta patches or if this will be it for the week.

2012 Arena Pass Ending

The 2012 Arena Pass tournament is coming to a close - June 5th at 1:00 AM PDT for NA regions and 10:00 PM CEST for EU.

I hope everyone that signed up managed to get the necessary games in to be eligible for Murkimus. According to both NA and EU Terms of Use, the pet should be mailed to qualifying characters within 4 weeks of the end of the event. So now it's time to play the waiting game. :P

More Poking Around On Beta

Diablo 3 has eaten up a lot of my free time, but I finally made my way onto the beta. Not much has changed with pet battles since I last checked up on it. It's still not ready for testing, as the new level requirement to train it is now 91 (the level cap was finally raised to 90 on the beta).

BoP pet items are still useless, and I hope developers have a plan for these homeless companions. Even if I cage the same pet and remove all versions of that particular companion from my journal, any extra BoP pets I have on that particular toon still can't learn them. Damn that error message! I can still learn a second caged version of a once BoP vanity pet, though. Well, that's a WIP for ya. :P


The guild vendor has been updated with the new Thundering Serpent Hatchling and can be purchased for 300 gold. I'm not sure if this is the finalized version or simply a placeholder, and I'm also unsure which guild achievement will unlock this companion (or if it's even a guild achievement that awards it).

I can currently purchase a hatchling, but oddly enough, it says I already know it (but I don't, really! *cry*). This puts it in the same boat as the other BoP pets that are "already known", making it impossible to add to my collection at this time. I'm sure it's just an indicator that it's still a WIP, but... but... Blizzard, such a tease! lol

The Jade Crane Chick is lovely (as expected) and can be previewed in the pet journal. Heck, I even saw a character running around with the actual pet on the beta already! A comment on Wowhead indicates that freshly copied toons might automatically receive this pet, or perhaps it's just a bug. Either way, it's so cute and will match perfectly with a larger version (if they're tamable by hunters).

The journal says that it's available for purchase from Audrey Burnhep (Stormwind) or Varzog (Orgrimmar), both pet trainers. I've visited the former and despite taking and completing her quest to learn how to heal my companions after battle, she's currently not offering any pets for sale. Perhaps yet another WIP.

Wild pets that are capturable are back to being unattackable using traditional spells and abilities (thank goodness!), for both players who have pet battles trained and those who do not.




Last but not least, when you cage a wild pet, it will indicate its quality in the name. As you can see in the screenshot comparison above, a caged version will reflect the quality of the pet. One is common (white name) while the other is uncommon (green name).

For the most part, quality still doesn't seem to have any impact on the pets (that I've noticed yet). The only difference between the two deer is the uncommon one has one more health point than the common one. I haven't tried to capture a grey quality deer, so I'm not sure how that one would compare to the two I currently have. It's possible that higher quality pets might have an advantage while battling in the future and for the finalized version of pet battles, but for now it's just name color.

Other than that, I haven't noticed many other changes. Again, it's still all being sorted out and worked on, so all of the above could change or become outdated news quickly.

That's about it for now. I'm procrastinating a bit with getting my druid to level 90 on the beta, but I'm very eager to start flying around panda-land and exploring. Not to mention taking an up close and personal look at all the possible Pandaria pets to collect (and lamenting over the critters that I won't be able to add to my little army :P).

Chance to Win a Sand Scarab

Wowhead News is doing a TCG loot code giveaway in celebration of the release of the upcoming TCG expansion deck, Tomb of the Forgotten.

They have five Sand Scarab codes and one mount code from the new deck to hand out, and to enter simply leave a comment on this post here. The deadline for entry is Tuesday at 12:01PM (PDT).

Good luck to everyone entering, and don't forget to keep an eye out for WoWTCGLoot's pre-sale for the loot cards of the new TCG deck. :)

Can't Have Thunder Without Lightning

Wowhead News updated their page with some 3D model previews and they have what could be the Thundering Serpent Hatchling! The colors are stunning, but what's even more awesome is that you can see lightning flickering off of and around the first model (the green one). It doesn't appear that the other two colors have the lightning effect. They might be WIP or just miscellaneous test models.

I had to rotate the model viewer around a bit and zoom in and out to be able to see it properly. It's "hovering" in the air and likes to do its animations high up, so play around with it for a bit to get the best view for you.

I'm somewhat disappointed that the idle animations are a copy paste of the Soul of the Aspects so far, but at the same time it's understandable. Not every pet can have a unique animation (although if I had my way... *evil cackle*). That would require a lot of time and energy invested into a project like that, because well.. there are a LOT of pets.

At the same time, one can still hope for something spiffy and new yea? :)