Accuracy Changes and WTB Killer Stuffed Animal

Another patch was released for the alpha and there were tons of accuracy changes for many pet attacks/abilities and a new pet was added.

Hit More, Miss Less
The accuracy changes come after a recent discussion on Twitter about hit chances versus damage ranges. Based on the feedback LeCraft received (which was overwhelmingly for higher accuracy/less RNG for hit) he Tweeted that the updates were implemented in the latest alpha build.

Wowhead has a full list of all the abilities that were changed, as does MMO-Champion (in a different format). I think nearly ALL abilities listed saw their hit chances go from less than 100% to 100%, which is wonderful considering even a 90% chance to hit will cause frustration due to unfortunate misses.

Because of the increase in accuracy to these abilities, the damage ranges were also altered (lowered) slightly. Judging by all of the responses to LeCraft's initial Tweet, though, I don't think many battlers will mind the damage changes (if exchanged for a better chance to land the hit).

We'll see if all of this sticks after more testing. So far the response to the accuracy changes have been well received. You could say it's a "hit" :P

Now if only something could be done about the "hit chance" of your capture crate when battling wild pets.

New Tailoring Pet
A new pet was added to the Pet Journal, an Elekk Plushie. Since the Pet Journal is still incomplete on the alpha, LeCraft gave us a preview of what it would look like.


Tailors will be able to craft it, but the item is BoP. Currently the pet can be caged, though, so yay for us non-tailors! No recipe has been implemented for it yet.

Initially, this pet sounds pretty adorable, yea? It's a plushie of a baby elekk, how could it not be fluffy and cute? LeCraft mentioned some additional details on this pet that makes the cute-factor a bit sad, though.

"Well, it's a *regular* stuffed animal. Which means it just sits there and stares at you when you summon it." - Tweet

"And when you take it into pet battles... well they are all imaginary abilities. It just takes a beating." - Tweet

After learning this, it seems like it would be a little heartbreaking to send the Elekk Plushie into battle. I wouldn't want any of my pets to go into battle if they didn't stand a fighting chance at all. :( Except maybe if it was a pet rock. I would assume that a pet rock would be really difficult to "kill" (defeat) since it's... a rock and can withstand even the largest of hits. The only attack it would truly be susceptible to is perhaps some sort of crush that smashes it to pieces.

Anyway, it was revealed that because this pet would be the first of its kind (not a real battler, but can still battle), it's still undecided if this pet will actually be implemented.

"Yeah, we were worried people may not think it was funny. It may not make it."

Personally, I'm torn between being excited for a new profession crafted pet and sad that an adorable stuffed animal will get beat up in a pet battle. One person suggested that perhaps the Elekk Plushie should join the ranks of the other no-battling pets, like the squires, balloons, and kites. I wouldn't object to that, but at the same time I wouldn't mind seeing a fierce little stuffy kicking butt in a match. Maybe tailors should join forces with engineers and sew on some rockets/additional weaponry to the plushie pet. :P

Pet Battletaur
Last but not least, as mentioned in LeCraft's Tweet on the latest alpha patch, a new NPC was placed near the pet batttle trainers in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Pet Battletaur is a new vendor that provides players with batttlestones that increase pet level to 25 and raise quality to rare. This is likely only for alpha, and is meant to aid players test new pets/changes. The Mythical Battle-Pet Stone is BoP and not consumed when used. Very convenient for testing!

I doubt that this particular leveling stone will make it onto live servers, but we'll see. Maybe it will be an extremely rare find/drop. There are other versions of leveling battlestones that raise your pet's level by one only, which seems more reasonable for release.

WoD Alpha: New Achievements and Pets

UPDATE: Looks like there are two new battlestones for testing - Training Beast Battle-Stone of Testing and Training Battle-Stone of Testing. These stones are epic quality and instead of raising a pet's rarity, it allows a pet to gain one level upon use. Interesting!

MMO-Champion is reporting a new WoD Alpha build. Datamining has revealed a couple of new pets and some new (test) achievements.

New Achievements
The new achievements fall under the "Battle" section and involve unique challenges for battlers. Note that most of these have the prefix "[TEST]" and may still be works in progress. The end result might not be what we see today.

Beast Beat-down - Finish a battle with a Beast ability.

Hydraulics - Win a pet battle with an Aquatic and a Mechanical pet on your team. 5 points.

If One Is Good... - Win a battle with 3 Vengeful Porcupette pets.

Survivalist - Win with three pets alive!

We've Got a Bleeder! - Win a pet battle with Bleeding as the final damage.

The requirement trend for these latest achievements seems to be a special trick or maneuver to earn a win. I could see this becoming a thing, evolving to include more and more difficult feats. Win a battle using only damage over time attacks! Or.. Outlast your opponent with only avoidance and heal moves! Use 3 Viscous Horrors to win a...err... maybe not that one. :P

It's kinda fun to think about the different challenges developers might come up with for us, and ways to complete them. I bet the devs will have just as much fun brainstorming ways to stump and infuriate us. XD

New Pets
The two new pets that were included in the latest alpha patch are the Grovestrider Hatchling (BoP) and Lifelike Mechanical Frostboar (BoU). I'm pretty curious about both pets, since a grovestrider makes me think of a Darkmoon Strider (but maybe more SAVAGE?), and a the boar most definitely sounds like an engineering pet. It would be our first true boar companion, even if it's mechanical.

I'm torn between hoping for a traditional boar model or a new SAVAGE one. Call me crazy, but those little baby swine are kinda cute. Then again, a mechanical anything will likely not be on the cuddly side. Unless you're a gnome. Pretty sure they cuddle their wrenches at night as they sleep. :P

Screenshots of WoD Alpha Models

Blizzard: WE HEARD YOU LIKE PUPPIES, SO HAVE SOME PUPPY.

I don't know if that model can get any cuter. Maybe if it has an animation where it chases its own tail, gnaws on an over sized bone, or dozes off to sleep. Yep, I think any of those additions would create a cute overdose.

More screenshots of the WoD alpha models can be found on MMO-Champion. None of which have been confirmed as pets (yet), but we can hope!

There are so many awesome looking (yet familiar) creatures. Other than the frostwolf pup, I can't wait to see the toucan, hippos (baby version please!), the odd hydra/plant thing, and of course the sporebats. I have a soft spot for the sporebat for no apparent reason other than they are adorably squishy looking. If any of the updated sporebat models come as a vanity pet...I'll probably squee out loud and bounce around in my chair for a good three minutes lol. :P

Patch 5.3 PTR: New Pet, Achievement, and Battle-Stone

A new pet and achievement was datamined in the latest 5.3 PTR build. And a new type of battle-stone?

The newest pet is called the Blossoming Ancient, and according to the Pet Journal on the PTR it's from the Blizzard Pet Store is not cageable. This can/may change in the future.

From the image on MMO-Champion, it looks very much like a mini Ancient that roams around the druid-y, forest areas of Azeroth. But this not your ordinary Ancient. No, according to MMO-Champion and Wowhead, this pet actually changes colors depending on the Season! That being said, four color variations have been datamined to showcase its shift in foliage.

That's going to be such an awesome pet, and I've been waiting for a new pet with a neat animation for a while! Glad to see they implemented one that sounds so awesome.

Now if only we could decorate it for Winter Veil. ;P

New Achievement + Battle-Stone
Another new achievement was also datamined, and this may bring an extra perk to traveling around and doing Pet Battle dailies. The achievement, appropriately named The Longest Day, requires you to complete all the Pet Battle dailies listed. Currently, there are only three in the criteria, and they're low level, but this could change over the course of the PTR.

The reward for completing this achievement is a Marked Flawless Battle-Stone. This is new, BoA, but can be applied to any pet family type. It should not be confused with the already existing BoE, generic Flawless Battle-Stone.

My question is if this achievement will be tiered, progressively listing more dailies as the tiers get higher and higher, and rewarding a Marked Flawless Battle-Stone for each tier completed.

I think it would be neat to reward those that go out of their way to complete many dailies per day, but having just one achievement and one rewarded Marked Flawless Battle-Stone doesn't seem to fit well. There are so many Pet Battle dailies, and I'm sure there are many who actually do the majority of them on a daily basis. To credit only a few of the quests and not the rest seems stingy.

Plus what will the impact be of having only one Marked Flawless Battle-Stone? Since it's new and so unique compared to the existing stones, will players feel like they need to hang onto it and "save" it? If there were more available (through the achievement), will players feel less likely to hoard the Marked Battle-Stone?

Well, we'll see. The PTR is still up and running, so changes can occur at any time. I'm pretty excited for this new pet and achievement, though!

TCG Contest and Pre-sale

MMO-Champion is giving away some TCG pets (thanks to WoWTCGLoot)!

2 x Sand Scarab
2 x Purple Puffer
2 x Eye of the Legion
2 x Landro's Lil' XT
2 x Landro's Lichling

To enter, simply comment on the post linked above. You can earn additional entries by providing a useful comment and/or submitting a high quality screenshot to the WoWDB pages. More information and details on the contest page! The contest closes Friday, February 1st @ 11:59 PM EST, so don't delay in entering. :)

Speaking of TCG, WoWTCGLoot is holding their usual TCG pre-sale for the upcoming deck, Betrayal of the Guardian. This time the pet loot card is the Gusting Grimoire. Much like previous pre-sales, those that pre-order with WoWTCGLoot will have a chance to win a bonus loot card (which loot card has yet to be announced). Perhaps some extra incentive to get your order in early? :P

Possible Raid Pets In 5.1

UPDATE: Added the bosses and raids that each pet will come from (as previewed in the Pet Journal on the PTR).

MMO-Champion has the latest from an upcoming PTR build. Two new achievements and 13 new pets!

Achievements:

Classic Raid Collector - Collect all of the battle pets listed below.
Pandaren Spirit Tamer - Complete the Pandaren Spirit Tamer quest.

New Pets!:

Anubisath Idol - Emperor Vek'lor (Temple of Ahn'Qiraj)

Ashstone Core - Golemagg (Molten Core)

Chrominius - Chromaggus (Blackwing Lair)

Corefire Imp - Magmadar (Molten Core)

Death Talon Whelpguard - Broodlord Lashlayer (Blackwing Lair)

Fungal Abomination - Loatheb (Naxxramas)

Giant Bone Spider - Maexxna (Naxxramas)

Harbinger of Flame - Sulfuron Harbinger (Molten Core)

Mini Mindslayer - Prophet Skeram (Temple of Ahn'Qiraj)

Mr. Bigglesworth - Kel'Thuzad (Naxxramas) Reward for Raiding With Leashes Achievement

Stitched Pup - Gluth (Naxxramas)

Untamed Hatchling - Razorgore the Untamed (Blackwing Lair)

Viscidus Globule - Viscidus (Temple of Ahn'Qiraj)

Mumper just confirmed that these new pets will be from vanilla raid bosses. They are set to be BoP drops, and from both 10 and 25 man raids.

"A set of 12 new pets have been added to all four of the vanilla raids, 3 in each. Drops from bosses." - source

These pets will be from Molten Core, BWL, AQ40 and Naxxramas. The droprate is described as "not too bad".

Can't wait to find out which bosses drop which ones! Although some of them are fairly obvious. ;)

Normally I'm against raids dropping pets, but seeing as how these will only come from vanilla raid bosses, I can let go of my stubborn opinions for this one. :P

Vanilla raids should be readily accessible by everyone, even those that haven't participated in the recent raid content. Even if you haven't done Trial of the Crusader, Icecrown Citadel, Firelands, etc., the older raids such as Molten Core, BWL, AQ40, and Naxx should be fairly easy to solo and/or clear with a relatively small group.

I'm all for the majority of collectors getting a chance at these babies. :)

Four New Pets Datamined

MMO-Champion datamined more companions from the latest 5.1 PTR patch. Pandaren elemental spirits!

Pandaren Fire Spirit - BoU

Pandaren Air Spirit - BoU

Pandaren Earth Spirit - BoU

Clock'em - BoP

You may be wondering, 'There's fire, spirit, and earth, so where's water?' Well the Pandaren Water Spirit already exists, and only the PTR datamined finds are listed above. The water version was added in patch 5.0.4, but was never released.

But hopefully it will be soon! Along with the other three elemental spirits. :)

It's great to see another mechanical companion possibly coming soon, although I'm half expecting a clone of the Clockwork Gnome. If it's not and the Clock'em pet is a whole new model, then great! If not, then oh well. A new companion is a new companion, and old model or not, it won't stop me from collecting it. ;P

Terky Tease In Latest Beta Build

MMO-Champion datamined the upcoming beta build and found another pet!

Except... this pet isn't available to players and is technically not new. Terky was part of an iCoke promotion waaaay back when WoW was in vanilla. It's no longer available.

My guess is that developers had to add this pet in and tag it as a battle pet for the (few) players that actually managed to snag this companion. It sits in the same boat as other discontinued pets, such as the Onyx Panther. Even though we can't obtain them anymore, they still need to exist in the Pet Journal for those that do happen to have them in their collection.

So it's unfortunate, but Terky is just a tease for most collectors. :(

It's a shame that the majority of players still don't have access to a standard (non-clothed or themed) baby murloc pet (of any color), without having to shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

UPDATE: After a bit more digging, a few players are saying that this pet and the promotional quest that rewards it was never really meant to be completed. Yes, it was an iCoke promotion, but it was only considered and fell through in the end.

So it was implemented, but Blizzard changed their mind and decided to make the pet unavailable to players. However, before the quest and companion could be removed from the game, someone picked it up and shared it with everyone else.

I can't verify any of this information, but this makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is why Blizzard would reintroduce Terky as a battle pet. Is there hope for pet collectors that an originally skinned baby murloc might be readily available in the near future?

Or it really is just a teaser. :(

UPDATE #2: The Pet Journal says its source is from an iCoke Taiwan promotion. So much like many other promotional pets, this was region specific.

Why You Want to Befriend the Tillers NPCs

UPDATE: According to El, after becoming best friends with Sho, she will mail a Chirping Package to you which yields the Red Cricket.

MMO-Champion has a preview of "WoW-ville" (play on Farmville), and previously datamined pet was revealed as a reward for taking part in raising your friendship with the Tillers NPCs!

I haven't tested it yet, but it sounds like after reaching a certain amount of friendship with either one (might be a specific NPC? not sure) or more NPC, they will mail you the Red Cricket (Bind on Use)!

Note: This isn't actually the Red Cricket, but I'm guessing it will have a similar model.

The cricket model is really awesome, so I'm definitely going to work towards getting this cute little insect. Plus the whole concept of raising a farm in WoW seems pretty interesting and intriguing.

El from El's Extreme Anglin', has a Tillers Farming guide that might help you get started.

If Farmville was never your style, El also recently Tweeted that unlike Farmville, "WoW-ville" doesn't really have the social inter-dependence aspect.

It sounds like the Tillers farming gameplay is worth a try at the very least!

More Achievement Changes

A new patch coming soon to a beta near you! MMO-Champion and Wowhead News have all the fun details, but here are just the pet related discoveries.

- Many pet achievements are having their point rewards reduced. This might make completing the achievement Time to Open a Pet Store (and earning the Jade Tentacle) a little harder. (Note: read edit below)

- The Feral Vermling reward is being removed from the Zen Pet Hunter achievement, and placed as the reward for Going to Need More Leashes (which has also been changed to require collecting only 250 unique pets, down from 300).

- A new reward for the That's A Lot of Pet Food achievement: Venus.

I haven't had a chance to add up all of the pet-related achievement points to see just how many areas you'd need to complete to earn the Jade Tentacle, but I expect it to include nearly all of the achievements (if not all of them).

I'm a little miffed by this, because I was hoping I wouldn't have to put in too much time with the PVP aspect of Pet Battles. If the only way to earn 300 pet battle achievement points is by completing ALL related achievements, then I suppose I have no choice, do I? *insert defeated sigh here* I certainly hope the Jade Tentacle is worth it.

EDIT: Well now I'm not sure what to think. According to Mumper on the forums, the Jade Tentacle will be a reward for the collect 400 unique pets achievement. So maybe I don't need to worry too much about earning so many achievement points afterall? Only time will tell.

On a less stress-inducing note... the new Venus pet definitely has my imagination going! First thing that comes to mind is a venus flytrap type of companion. That would be pretty amusing, having yet another pet that eats other critters haha. I just hope it doesn't go for the wild pets that I'm trying to capture! :P

Well, that's IF it's a venus flytrap. There's no icon for the pet item at the moment, so it's tough to say what this pet will be. Maybe it's a mini-planet. Maybe it's a little Roman goddess of love. Maybe it's a... um, what are some other "Venus" related things/people?

Anyway, I'm eager to find out more!

Update: MMO-Champion has an image of the Venus icon. It's a plant! XD

Pet Battles Testing This Weekend

All signs point to yes so far - Pet Battles will be available for testing on the beta servers this weekend! *excited*

MMO-Champion has datamined the upcoming build and the first thing that jumped out at me:

Time to Open a Pet Store - old reward: "Zookeeper" title. new reward: Jade Tentacle.

You read that right. A JADE TENTACLE. Are we finally getting an actual tentacle pet? I can't help but giggle at the thought. XD Yes, yes. I'm so immature.

Oh, and no, the "Zookeeper" title reward hasn't been removed completely. It's been moved to a higher tiered achievement.

Anyway, there are loads of revamped pet-related achievements. I won't list them all here. Instead, here are the NEW ones:

- Take Em' All On!: Win a pet battle aginst a pet of every family.
- Going to Need More Leashes: Collect 300 unique pets.
- That's a Lot of Pet Food: Collect 400 unique pets.
- Taming the Great Outdoors: Defeat 15 wild pet tamers.
- Taming the World: Defeat 45 wild pet tamers.
- Trainer Extrodanaire: Earn 100 pet battle achievement points.

To view the full list of updated/new achievements, go to the MMO-Champion post linked above. There are a CRAP-TON of pet achievement changes.

The beta servers are still down and patching will take some time. Hopefully Blizzard will release the Pet Battles blog post in the meantime. I'd like to see what they have to say in response to some questions/concerns about battling and collecting in MoP!

UPDATE: More pets found in this latest beta patch!

- Porcupette: BoU, no indication of source yet.

- Yu'lon Kite: Previously an on-use item and not a true vanity pet. Latest beta build has turned it into a true vanity pet. BoP. Inscription created.

- Chi-ji Kite: Same as the Yu'lon Kite.

Two New Pets and Reporting Pet Names

Wowhead News datamined two new pets from the upcoming beta patch: the Thundering Serpent Hatchling and the Jade Crane Chick. The hatchling is BoP while the chick is BoU.

It's not clear where either pet will come from yet. There was a Thundering Cloud Serpent Hatchling that was on the guild vendor for a bit (NYI). This newly datamined hatchling could be one in the same, but it's still too soon to say.

The Jade Crane Chick could come from any number of sources, but if it's a baby version of the crane mob, I'm very eager to see its model! Even if it's just a miniature version and not a unique baby-ish model, I can't wait to get a preview of it.

There was a third pet added to this latest beta build, but it's not necessarily new. The Singing Cricket was previewed in an earlier build as the reward for the achievement Pro Pet Mob, although it didn't have its own item or spell ID at the time. This pet is currently BoU.

Additionally, MMO-Champion datamined something interesting:

REPORT_BATTLEPET_NAME_CONFIRMATION - Are you sure you want to report %s for inappropriate battle pet name?
REPORT_PET_NAME_CONFIRMATION - Are you sure you want to report %s for inappropriate pet name?

Looks like players will be able to report any inappropriate names given to companions, which makes sense. If a name is deemed unfit for your toon, why on earth would Blizzard allow you to give that nickname to a vanity pet? Why would anyone want to name a pet something horrible anyway? :(

Unnamed Pet Model

MMO-Champion has a screenshot of a datamined model from the latest beta build. The colors are STUNNING! I hope they'll all be available at some point or other.

I don't know about everyone else, but it's cute enough to be a pet to me - possibly the MoP CE pet? Or it could be the new guild rewarded vendor pet, the Thundering Cloud Serpent Hatchling!

Although the model seems a bit reused I'm loving the colors of these baby serpent hatchlings, and who could say no to those big round eyes? I hope they have some neat idle animation or companion/environmental interaction. If this is the intended Thundering Cloud Serpent Hatchling pet, how cool would it be for it to suddenly have a lightning aura during a rain/thunder storm? :D

Quickie Beta Update

Quick update on the latest beta finds - I need to get back to leveling in D3! :P My Fetish Shaman hungers lol.

MMO-Champion datamined the lastest build and found the following:

Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling - Bind on Use. Will this be the MoP CE pet? What on earth does a Padaren Dragonling even LOOK like? Black spots around its eyes and a white tummy; I'm giggling at the thought of a panda-patterned whelpling tbh.

Glyph of Shadowy Friends (Your shadow form extends to your non-combat pets.) - This is a minor glyph for priests, obviously, and I'm jealous like WHOA! How awesome will it be to have a little shadow form companion run around with you everywhere? Lucky duckies. Makes me almost wish I played a shadow priest. Almost. :P

And from Wowhead News:

Two tamer NPCs have been discovered, Steven Lisbane and Julia Stevens .

According to Imthedci on WarcraftPets forums, there's a small quest chain to win a duel against Julia (located in Westfall). I haven't checked it out yet, but looking through the chain, it seems the same as the quests to learn how to heal and revive your pets that can be completed in Goldshire. Except this time it's against an actual tamer and not just a trainer.

I think that's it for now! Back to Diablo 3 and my chicken loving Fetish Shaman. :D

Pets For Sale On The Black Market

MMO-Champion has a preview of a new feature on the beta: The Black Market. It looks like certain NPCs from around the world have decided to expand their business into the shadier areas of Azeroth.

"It allows players to bid on special items that are not normally sold by NPCs. For example, Mei Francis normally sells mounts in Dalaran, but in this case he is auctioning Ashes of Al'ar!"

If you check out this screenshot, you might see a familiar name listed on The Black Market AH. Breanni, how could you?! :P

This is probably hinting that certain pets will be available from time to time on the new AH. Perhaps companions that are especially difficult to get or even pets that are no longer available. Hell, The Black Market would be a good opportunity for developers to sneak in those pesky holiday loot bag companions during the off-season. I'm all for multiple sources for those particular pets.

Do I dare hope for CE pets, older TCG pets, and event-exclusive companions as well?

It's too late, I'm already thinking about it now. Damnit.

There will probably be much discussion and disagreement over which pets should and should not be available through The Black Market. I can already think of a few pro's and con's IF companions in the aforementioned categories are included in the "should be" bunch.

We'll have to wait and see just which pets will be available through The Black Market. Which is fine, since that will give us some time to farm and save up some gold. It's just a preview, but 10,000 gold for a pet?! Shame that Azeroth's bankers don't give out bank loans. :P

MoP Beta - Title Change and Three New Pets

Ok. Blizzard is DEFINITELY trying to get as much out for testing before next week. :P Another beta patch!

It looks as though the developers agree with a portion of the pet collecting community and found that the "Tamer" title just didn't fit, so the achievement Time To Open a Pet Store will award the title "Zookeeper" instead.

I'm not sure if it's "*name* the Zookeeper" or "Zookeeper *name*". Wowhead News has "the Zookeeper", while MMO-Champion lists it without the "the" portion. Either way is fine, tbh. At least people won't mistake Quintessence for being untamed anymore! XD

New pets were also datamined from the beta:

Aqua Strider
Grinder
Hopling

All three of these pets are BoP.

Now, this is absolutely PURE speculation on my part, but seeing how a new Children's Week orphan was recently discovered, and now these three named, blue item quality, and BoP pets have been suddenly added as well... could these companions be the reward choices for next year's Children's Week event?

This is all based on... well nothing other than these items being datamined in the relatively same time frame. To me it just makes sense that if you're working on an upcoming project that has multiple pieces or parts, why not just complete all the parts at once?

Anyway, that's just my best guess! There's no indication of where these pets will come from yet.

I'm glad to see that Blizzard is still implementing some non-pet battles companions. Players who won't be participating in the new feature will have new things to collect in MoP too. :)

Singing Cricket Achievement Reward

MMO-Champion has datamined info from an upcoming beta build. Ready for this? Singing Cricket. It's the new reward for completing an achievement to raise 75 pets to level 25 (Pro Pet Mob).

My hope is that this cricket will actually sing! What's an appropriate genre for a cricket, though? Opera? The blues? Or perhaps it will be more like the Singing Sunflower and just hum a short melody of sorts.

I wonder if they plan on bringing back Laura Shigihara to compose and voice the sounds for the Singing Cricket (she did the vocals for the Singing Sunflower). That would be pretty neat. :D

Oh, and there's a new pet-related item: Battle Pet Bandage. Not sure how this will be used, though. Will we be able to use these to heal our own pets during a pet battle? Seems a bit unfair. Will companions require healing after each battle? Hopefully I won't have to make all the bandaids... I plan on doing a lot of battling!

Keep These Beta Patches Coming!

MMO-Champion has news of a new beta build coming soon! Sometimes having insomnia isn't such a bad thing. I can catch more of these late night updates heh. ;)

So what's new in the latest beta patch? Not much in the way of pet-related stuff, but the placeholder for the MoP CE pet was added. There's still no information on what this companion will be, though. Oh Blizzard. Such a tease hehe. XD

Another possibly significant update can be found in the datamined client strings. Reading the descriptions of some of them seem to hint that a pet battle team of three will require some unlocking through achievements.

So an example and possible scenario for this: you start out with one possible pet on your team. To add a pet in the second slot you'd need to complete a certain achievement, and the same goes for the third slot.

I'm not sure which achievements we would have to complete. It might require winning a battle against a Pet Trainer/Tamer, or it could be as simple as collecting your first wild pet. Since most of the pet achievements are still non-functional (at the time of this writing), we'll have to wait and see what the achievement rewards are at a later date/time.

I don't even know what to make of the "PET_BREED_QUALITY" client strings, and I don't think I want to speculate about them right now. A legendary pet breed? Err... either it's simply one of the pets from one of the legendary weapons or a very, uhm, EXTRAORDINARY offspring from two special pets. Blizzard did mention possibly allowing us to "grow" our own pets on our personal farms in The Valley of the Four Winds, but I haven't heard much news about that since the initial MoP Press Tour. We'll see!

Newest Beta Patch Info - Tons of Achievements

According to MMO-Champion, a new beta patch will be released soon. Datamined from it are some Pet Battles achievements as well as two new pets! Finally, more pet goodies to look through. :D

The two new pets discovered so far: Terrible Turnip and Red Cricket. Both pets are Bind on Use, and so far there's no indication on how collectors will be able to obtain them.

I'm guessing the turnip pet might come from the Tiller faction. Could this be one of the pets that will require reputation and "Craftsman tokens" that Bashiok hinted at in his beta blog post a while back? We'll have to wait and see.

WoW Insider and WoWhead are listing 5 new pets discovered in the latest beta patch, two of which I just mentioned. The other three are "new-ish" imo. Both the Gilnean Raven and Shore Crab don't have item IDs for the corresponding spell, so I'm going to guess that they'll be wild pets. In fact, if my memory is correct, the Shore Crab was actually a critter that was spotted when pet tracking was available on the beta.

The Fishy companion, however, does have an item ID. This pet is BoP, and again, still no concrete source for this one or any of these pets.

As for the Pet Battles achievements... well there are quite a few of them. Check out the MMO-Champion link above to view them all or check out this post after the break. So far they don't have any rewards attached to them, but that could change at any moment.

The current companion collecting achievements (collect 100, 125, etc.) are still missing if this list is to be taken as the "final" version of pet achievements. But it shouldn't be, and is likely to be updated and changed in the future.

If the current collecting achievements don't make it into the expansion, though, I wonder where the rewards for them will end up. I don't think they'll be removed entirely, so no need to panic at this time, but it would help settle many a pet collector's mind if there was some indication that they would be reintroduced and still readily available come MoP. We'll see.

Once I get my beta client patched, you can bet that I'm going to dive in and browse through the achievement tab to see what I can uncover.

Here's all the pet-related achievements:

Details On MoP Pet Trading

MMO-Champion has a translation of the WoW China Developers Q&A, and within it there were two responses that answer some large nagging questions about pet trading and Pet Battles in MoP:

Q: Will there be any rules about pet trading? Will we be able to trade pets of limited editions (like Panda Cub) or Blizzard Store pets （like Wind Rider Cub）? How about achievement pets?

A: We plan to allow players to trade Blizzard Store pets excluding Guardian Cub (because it's not BoP and it's unique). Collector's edition and other limited edition pets (like Mini Tyrael or BlizzCon pets) will not be tradable, either.


Q: You said earlier that not all pets can take part in pet battle system. What are the exceptions?

A: Currently the exceptions are pets with humanoid children models. They will not be included in pet battle system. Nor will the Guardian Cub.

So there you have it! Confirmation that Blizzard PetStore pets WILL be tradable (except for the Guardian Cub), but CE and other limited edition pets will NOT be tradable.

Big bummer for those hoping to finally get their hands on a Murky or the original CE pets. Then again, I think we all kind of knew that this is how Blizzard would choose to handle the VERY rare and exclusive companions. If they had allowed them to be traded, their stance on keeping some pets "rare" would be flung out the window completely and they wouldn't be able to use that excuse argument in any future situations. :P

Not to mention it would be opening a can of worms that I think should be remained closed. Some want to be able to trade the CE companions, while others don't. There's really no room for grey in this specific debate, so best to avoid it completely and continue doing what we've been doing which is not trading these rare and highly desirable pets.

As for the exceptions in Pet Battles... I suppose I can understand why they would leave out any humanoid children models, but at the same time that just makes Pet Battles feel wrong altogether. What about the Elwynn Lamb? The White Kitten? All those fluffy and very passive animal-like critters that seem out of place in a battle scenario? There are baby animals in our collections too, not just children.

If Blizzard is deeming it inappropriate that a child-like "pet" can't pick up a toy sword to play "knights and dragons" or a toy gun for "cops and robbers", why are we sticking cute little creatures into arenas to bite, scratch, and fight it out with other adorable pets?

This is touching on an ethical issue here, so maybe a longer post is necessary to discuss it in depth.

Lastly, my best guess why the Guardian Cub won't be allowed to battle is because of the special coding that's used to make it BoP for the first 24 and then suddenly switch to BoU. I bet something weird happens when that code is mixed with the Pet Battles code. Maybe the cub goes super saiyan, and becomes the ultimate, unstoppable killer. :P