5.4.1 PTR: RAF Pet Rewards

Wowhead recently uncovered possible pet rewards from the revamped Recruit-A-Friend system (release date TBA) on the PTR.

There are currently four possible pets that will be redeemable through the RAF program, but they will probably add more in the future.

Golden Pig
Jade Tiger
Silver Pig
Zipao Tiger

So far all of these pets are unique (may only have one), BoP or BoA, and non-tradeable. They are also all the Asia-exclusive pets, which may mean we'll finally have access to the originally unobtainable companions. There are other limited-time pets that were Asia-only, so they might add those to the RAF system in the future too.

All that being said, I'm very eager to learn more about the updated RAF program. My main concern, though, is whether or not this will cost collectors an arm and a leg to acquire all of the pets.

Right now, to be eligible for RAF rewards, your friend (or you if you referred yourself) must purchase the full game (not sure if this means all expansions or just the original) and two months of game time.

The price for a month's worth of game time is $14.99, and depending on what "full copy of WoW" means, it could range anywhere from $20 (for just the Battlechest which I think includes expansions up to Cata) to $50-60 (for the Battlechest + MoP expansion).

IF (and I stress if) they maintain the same requirements for the updated version of the RAF program, just for these three pets, you'll be spending at least $139.96 for four separate accounts and one month game time for each one (technically, you need to buy 2 months but you get one month free for your main account per RAF account, so it's like buying 2 months of RAF time for half price). YIKES. All is this assuming my math is correct and prices haven't changed.

However, developers mentioned in a recent interview that they will be changing how the RAF program works. They haven't gone into detail about it yet, but they mentioned using RAF tokens to redeem pets. How we'll obtain these tokens is still unknown, but hopefully the cost won't be too high.

I mean, for $139.96, you could buy a few TCG pets or even one of the older, rare ones (if you find a good deal). For $130, you could buy 13 Blizzard Pet Store companions, compared to just four from the RAF system (under current conditions).

I'm definitely glad that they're considering giving us access to previously these pets, though. There have been many requests for the Asia-only pets, and perhaps Blizzard has finally found a way to fit them into the game.

I'll wait to see how they change and update the RAF system, and hopefully the eligibility requirements for the rewards will be tweaked/tuned to allow for more reasonable access to the goodies.

I hope Blizzard keeps in mind that even if they release these pets to other regions through RAF, if the price is too high, those pets will still be out of reach for many collectors. It would be a nice gesture in general, but the situation would still be somewhat the same (unavailable to many).