8.1.5 PTR: New Pets From Raiding With Leashes VI, Children's Week, DMF

DMF balloon companions cannot battle and are not cageable.
We're kicking off 2019 with a new PTR cycle. Patch 8.1.5 PTR is up and new Pet Battle content was added.

At least 20 new pets so far:

• Raiding with Leashes VI: Pets of Pandaria (Mogu'shan Vaults, Terrace of Endless Spring, and Heart of Fear)

- 11 dropped pets and 1 meta-achievement reward

• Children's Week updates

- 4 new pets

• Darkmoon Faire additions

- 3 new pets

• Last but not least, 1 pet from "A Quest"

Some of my personal favorites/highlights of the RWL6 set.
Full list of 8.1.5 datamined pets can be found here.

The Pet Journal doesn't list specific bosses for the RWLVI pets yet. It's interesting that there are only 3 MoP raids listed for the achievement too. The last raids, Throne of Thunder and Siege of Ogrimmar are missing from this set of RWL pets. Will these 2 raids get their own RWL treatment? Or will they simply not be included? There are a number of pets that already drop from these raids, but we'll have to wait and see if they'll be grandfathered into RWL or if they'll stay as separate, standalone drops. Whatever Blizzard decides it may set precedence for future similar situations where pets are released as drops from raid bosses ahead of that particular raid's corresponding RWL achievement.

List of existing MoP-raid dropped pets (Throne of Thunder & Siege of Orgimmar):

• Blackfuse Bombling
• Droplet of Y'Shaarj
• Gooey Sha-ling
• Ji-Kun Hatchling
• Kovok
• Living Fluid
• Living Sandling
• Pygmy Direhorn
• Son of Animus
• Viscous Horror

The Brawler's Guild will also be making its return. No new pets from there so far, but the 2 previously released pets (Clock'em and Tylarr Gronnden) will be available again. Same requirements as before.

That's it for now. They only announced the return of the Brawler's Guild and Children's Week updates during last year's BlizzCon preview of 8.1.5, but it's possible more Pet Battle content (even more than RWL6?!) could be added in this upcoming patch. We'll have to wait and see.

Children's Week Bugged... Again

unfortunately this year's children's week hasn't been so swell for everyone as we had initially hoped. yes, there are new pets, yes, the northrend bug was fixed, but a new bug seems to have popped up. this one involves the stormwind/orgrimmar quest chain and the shattrath quests. some players have been unable to receive the final quest for the stormwind/orgrimmar quest, while others haven't been able to even start the shattrath questline despite being eligible to receive and complete the chain.

a blue poster has acknowledged that they are aware of the bug, but currently do not have an ETA on when it will be fixed:

"While I don't have any information available I can state that our QA team and Development are aware of this issue affecting some people. They are looking into and hope to have a resolution implemented as soon as possible."
- Vrakthris

there's no work-around that i know of at this time, but i'm hoping one does come up if blizzard cannot fix this devastating bug before the in-game event is over.

i don't know about everyone else, but i'd like to know why a bug like this has reared its ugly head all of a sudden. it was pretty easy to pinpoint the cause of the northrend orphan bug; the quest timer was simply not reset in time for players to complete a second time. however, unlike the nothrend issue, both stormwind/ogrimmar and shattrath questlines have been pretty stable in previous years, and nearly all players have been able to complete them. was it the major changes to this year's quests? that doesn't explain the shattrath bug, though, as it did not receive any update (other than the addition of a new pet reward) that i'm aware of. why is this bug afflicting only some and not all players? does it involve certain phasing, perhaps?

in any case, my heart goes out to my fellow pet collectors that are suffering from this issue, and i absolutely hope that it is resolved in time.

UPDATE: the thread linked above has been updated with a possible work-around. try destroying the orphan whistle and talking to the Matron to receive another one. hopefully that will help unlock the rest of the quests. understand that this may or may not work for everyone.

UPDATE #2: if the above work-around doesn't work for you - "If the final quest in the Children's Week line for Azeroth or Shattrath has not reset, so you are unable to obtain a pet, please submit an in-game petition. Make sure you do the other quests leading up to the last one, a Game Master should be able to assist you to manually complete the quest."

Happiest Time of the Year

i don't think many other holidays can rival children's week as "best time of the year" for pet collectors.

but yes, it's that time again! two new companions to collect and collectors can FINALLY adopt their second nothrend pet. :D (just remember that the dalaran one comes in the mail, so don't be alarmed if it doesn't show up right away.)


i'm absolutely ecstatic about the new pets. i've always wanted a baby marsh walker and little snail! although, i have to admit that this snail's not all that little. not to mention he's pretty quick for what's normally a slow moving creature. :P


and i can't forget about my new curious wolvar pup. i'm sorry you had to wait so long for me! now that you're here, though, we'll go on grand adventures together. :)


if you have yet to do the new stormwind/orgrimmar children's week quests, what are you waiting for? the alliance one was pretty neat, and i'm sure the horde quests are just as interesting. i had to sigh at my orphan at the end, though. i ended up chasing him around for a bit before i could finish lol. he just wouldn't sit still while he was flying the kite, and i needed to pick up the last quest before i could complete the chain! insert the rolling of eyes here. kids. not so much my thing. :P

pets, on the other hand... totally my thing! :D happy collecting to all the collectors out there.

New Children's Week Quests

i can't remember the last time i made so many updates in such a short span of time. it's a busy time for collectors!

anyway, with children's week nearly here wowhead has details for the NEW stormwind and orgrimmar children's week quest chain. as mentioned before, a new pet reward has been added to the chain, scooter the snail.

don't forget about the orphan quests available from shattrath in outlands! a new companion reward, legs, has also been added there as well. i'm not sure if there are any updates to that particular quest line, though.

and last but not least, who could forget the northrend orphans? will we finally be able to adopt our second dalaran orphan? hopefully the devastating bug that made it impossible to complete the dalaran quest chain more than once has been fixed this year!

i'm very excited for this year's children's week. don't be alarmed if there are bugs or issues, though. with large changes being made left and right there are bound to be glitches. i'm going to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

A Word From Our Sponsors

one last comment on the northrend orphan quest bug: it's good to see our money spent on Blizzard PetStore pets going to good use!

.....kidding! (or am i? ^_~)

this post was just an excuse to make use of my new "does not approve" picture :x

No Love For the Children

"Update: We are aware of the issue that is currently affecting the Children’s Week quest line in Dalaran which does not allow players who have completed the quest line last year to take part in it again this year. We do not currently have a fix planned to address this issue at this point in time." - Aredek

"To clarify, this issue won't be able to be resolved for Children's Week this year. If you completed the quest previously you won't be able to complete it again for the other pet this year." - Bashiok

translation: we probably won't be fixing this issue this time around. i say "probably" because i still have some hope (however small and weak it may be) that blizzard will pull a bunny out of a magic hat and fix the northrend children's week quest chain. extending the in-game event due to this devastating bug would also be a plus...

it's quite disappointing that there seems to be a lack of attention and TLC for this year's children's week bug. many other in-game events that have had similar bumps and hurdles were tackled and fixed with such fervor. yet it is apparent from the blue post's comments addressing this issue, that blizzard has "better" things to do at the moment.

i suppose i can't blame them considering the alpha testing for cataclysm is now out, a starcraft 2 date has been released, AND they still have yet to announce a blizzcon 2010 ticket sale date. blizzard has quite a bit on their plate at the moment, so one little (big?) bug in-game will probably be last on their 'to-do' list.

still... this is very disappointing news for collectors.

But I Want THAT One Mommy!

the northrend children's week quests for the curious wolvar pup and curious oracle hatchling are currently bugged. Q_Q if you completed the quests last year and got either pet, the dalaran matron will not give you the quests for the other orphan this year. at least not until the blizzard devs nudge miss matron (probably during this week's maintenance).

so i guess i'll be waiting until then to complete my collection. worst case scenario: blizzard doesn't fix this bug at all and we'll have to wait yet ANOTHER year for a chance at that second northrend orphan. but i'm crossing my fingers that that doesn't happen.

since there doesn't seem to be any other new addition to this year's children's week, i'll just be hanging around dalaran waiting on the matron to stop being stingy with her kids :P