Beta Open Until MoP

Well this is different. I have to admit that I didn't follow the beta very closely in previous expansions, but the general schedule seemed to be to shut down the servers shortly before the expac release date.

However, Zarhym recently tweeted that things are planned differently this year:

"I've confirmed the current plan is to keep beta online at least until the launch of Mists of #Pandaria on Septemeber 25."

Unless there's a change in their plans and another announcement, I guess we'll be testing things on the beta all the way until the 25th of September.

I'm not sure if this is a good or bad indication. Good because it might mean that they're taking testing to the extreme and attempting to work out/find all bugs so MoP will be as bug-free as possible. Bad because it might mean that there are still just a ton of bugs and untested things that they can't get around to. In other words, behind schedule, which could lead to shortcuts, overlooking things, and/or putting more things on the back-burner in order to prioritize.

Maybe I really shouldn't be reading so far into this, and just be glad that I can continue writing up this Pet Battle guide and checking out the new features/pets. No early deadline on the beta means a little less stress/worry for me. Although there is still a deadline for all this data for WarcraftPets. :P

Last Minute Beta Testing

I'm spending some time on the beta before the server shuts down, and the main thing I'm trying out is the tamer quest line.

Here's an updated thread of the entire tamer quest chain.

It's going well so far, although I might have stumbled onto a potentially irritating bug if it is indeed a bug.

The Battle Pet Bandages, that you have a chance to from the Sack of Pet Supplies (reward for completing the tamers quests), normally don't have a cooldown when used. However, when you use the Revive Battle Pet ability and then use a bandage, the latter is put on the same cooldown as the ability.

I don't know if this is intentional or not, since a CD on the bandages was never really mentioned. It kind of renders the bandages a little pointless if the CD is meant to be incurred when used after the main healing ability is put on CD.

The bandages are supposed to be an alternate way of healing your companions when the Revive spell is on CD and/or a stable master is no where to be found. Putting them on the same CD as the Revive ability pretty much makes them useless, unless they're always used before the main heal.

Well, we'll see. Hopefully this really is just a bug. ;)

Other than that, the quest chain is seamless and awesome. It's quite enjoyable, although the travel time is somewhat tiring. I found that it's necessary, though, because after defeating each tamer there's a 5 minute debuff that prevents you from engaging in another Pet Battle with a new tamer.


By the time you reach the next tamer, the debuff should be cleared or nearly finished.

The experience gained from the second tier quests and on is really nice too. I've been using higher level pets, and they don't earn as much experience as pets of appropriate level would receive, though. But the dailies even award experience, so I could see these quests and dailies as great ways to help leveling a second, third, fourth, etc. pet team.

Unfortunately, only the Grand Master Tamer dailies reward the Sack of Pet Supplies, while the normal tamer dailies only reward gold. This is significant since the bag of loot has a chance to drop the Porcupette pet lol.

After completing the entire tamer quest chain and unlocking all the Grand Master dailies, you'll have 11 chances to receive the Porcupette companion each day. But don't forget that most of the tamer quests from the main quest chain also reward a loot bag too. So it's possible to find the Porcupette even before starting on the dailies. ;)

I haven't completed the entire chain, and I don't think I will before the beta ends. That's ok, though, because I'm looking forward to doing it all on live when MoP comes out. :D

MoP Beta - Last Minute Changes?

UPDATE: According to Mumper's Tweet, "most were quest pets that were never intended for the pet battle system." So it looks like many if not all the pets on this list will not be capturable in MoP.

Even though MoP is just weeks away, there were some changes in the latest beta build.

Numerous wild pets are no longer in the Pet Journal. It's not clear if they've been officially removed or if the recent patch caused a bug for these companions.

- Amorous Rooster
- Crimson Moth
- Devouring Maggot
- Emperor Crab
- Eternal Strider
- Feverbite Hatchling
- Garden Moth
- Rabbot
- Shrine Fly
- Silkbead Snail
- Wharf Rat
- Wild Silkworm

Although these pets don't exist in the journal (on the beta) at the moment, I did see a few of these in the wild that were still capturable. So perhaps it really is just a bug? We'll see.

Honestly, I wouldn't be too upset to see a few (but not all) of the pets on this list officially removed since they were especially difficult to find and many had low spawn rates/times to begin with. Plus these pets share the same model as other pets, so it's not as if collectors would be losing out on a very unique pet.

If all these companions stay uncapturable, the total number of pets in the journal is 492. Finally, under the 500 cap! But not by much. XD

Frog Island

I was on the beta doing more research and data gathering for WarcraftPets, and I somehow stumbled on the strangest island in Krasarang Wilds.


Along the edges of the island, there were signs like the one pictured above. It looks like a red frog, right? It seemed pretty strange to me, and my curiosity got the better of me so I decided to see what this little area was about.

I soon found large boulders with MANY frogs on top of them. This is something I've never witnessed before in-game.


These frogs were just hanging around exactly as pictured above.

The orange ones periodically had a green glow, as if they were casting something, and then they jumped up and flicked out their tongues. In. Unison.

While they performed this odd ritual, the smaller green frogs surrounded them, as if in reverence. It was kind of creepy in a way, lol.

Is this island part of a bizarre quest that involves a large number of frogs in a small area? Are the frogs simply having a frog-only party? There were a few spiny terrapin on the beach, but it seemed as if they were being excluded from all the festivities.

Even though both the frogs and terrapin were critters, none of them were capturable. Frog Island was devoid of any wild pets.

Yup. Just... frogs. XD

A Scary Seed Success

Yay! The Ominous Seed that I planted yesterday on my Tillers farm on the beta was ready for harvesting tonight. This is what greeted me as I logged in:


It may look like I have the pet summoned and in front of me, but that's actually a herb node in one of the soil plots on my farm. The Ominous Seed that was once there actually turned into the Terrible Turnip even before harvesting! And obviously it dropped the pet for me after I looted it. :P

I'm so happy that I get to preview this little veggie before MoP. Honestly, my hopes weren't very high that I would get to see this one while on the beta since the droprate seems pretty random. RNG and I have never really gotten along lol.


The Terrible Turnip is adorable. :) It's summoning and idle animations are very similar if not identical to Lil' Ragnaros, though. That's kind of a bummer since this pet is so unique. Was kind of hoping for a unique idle animation too. I could see this pet doing a small dance for some reason haha.

Anyway, the Terrible Turnip is awesome regardless. I just hope I get this lucky with my Tillers farm once MoP goes live!

PS: I don't actually think turnips taste bitter, but I know some people do. ;)

A Scary Seed's Secret

Last night while tending to my farm on the beta, I looted an Ominous Seed! Naturally, I planted it right away.


Now all I have to do is wait for it to finish growing and harvest it at midnight tonight. Hopefully the rumors are true and it drops the Terrible Turnip for me. :)

Here are some extra details that may be significant or may not be:

- Droprate?

I got the achievement Till the Break of Dawn last night as well. I'm not sure if this means I also planted 100+ crops, or if the achievement counts each item received (crops are like herb nodes and can yield anywhere from 1 to 5 of that particular plant). Take that information however you please, but remember that each player will likely experience varying droprates.

- Increased chances?

The seed dropped from a crop (Green Cabbage Seeds) that I chose to plant not because of any recommendations from an NPC or anything like that, but because I needed the mats to continue leveling my cooking skill lol. So I can't confirm whether or not there's anything to boost the chances of looting an Ominous Seed. The trick may just be to keep on planting and harvesting until you find one.

It really does seem like a random drop from any of the crops you plant and harvest on your farm. I don't think reputation with the Tillers has any impact on your chances, but who knows?

Anyway, take this all with a grain of salt for now. More information from other sources will need to be gathered to get a better idea of the Ominous Seed.

I can't wait to check back tonight to see what I get!

Red Vs. Blue

Goldacc from WarcraftPets discovered where the Warbot and the Red and Blue Fuel might come from!


All three items are currently being sold from toy vendors in Dalaran and SW/Orgrimmar on the beta. The pet costs 400 gold and the fuel costs 20 silver.

Side note: I wasn't able to check if there are any differences between the original Warbot and the vendored one. The pet is unique, so I can't have more than one in my journal on the beta. I'm going to guess that there's no difference, though.

Finding it on a vendor is an interesting turn of events since the recipes for both the Warbot and the fuel still exist. Perhaps there will be two sources for these items - we'll be able to purchase it from the vendor or craft them ourselves? Or maybe the vendored pet and fuel are simply placeholders and for testing purposes, while the actual way of obtaining the Warbot and fuel will still be from Engineering and Cooking?

Things could change between now and release. We'll have to wait and see where this pet will wind up.

As far as I can tell, the Warbot and fuel won't be available until MoP, but maybe we'll get a surprise come Patch 5.0.4.

Oh and last but not least, two Warbots battling each other (not in an official Pet Battle, but just idling after being fueled up) don't reduce their health in the Pet Journal. Battling bots, go! ;)

That's One Giant Cricket

If you have a bug or insect phobia, the Red Cricket companion from Sho might not be the pet for you lol. :P

When I summoned it, I was expecting to bring out a cute little cricket, much like the small critters that wander around Pandaria. Well I was wrong. Very, very wrong.


No, this image has not been edited (other than some slight coloration enhancements).

No, the Red Cricket is not under the influence of any pet enlarging biscuit, potion, spell or effect.

And no, I didn't use any camera tricks to alter depth/size perception. My character is standing right next to the pet.

This really IS its current size when summoned on the beta. I'm not sure if this is a bug (no pun intended, really!) or if this is how it will look once MoP is released.

It's HUGE! I was caught completely off guard by how enormous it turned out to be. What the hell has Sho been feeding this thing? Steroids are bad! :P

Well, good thing I'll be stocking up on Magical Mini-Treats. Looks like I'll be using them quite often whenever this companion comes out to play. XD Then again, the cricket's unusual size is starting to grow on me. I'm starting to adore its gigantic hopping as it moves around. :)

Edit: Here's an extra screenshot of the Red Cricket when compared next to one of the wild cricket pets.


As you can see, there's a significant size difference. The smaller version is what I THOUGHT I would be getting when I summoned the Red Cricket lol.

And bonus video footage of the Red Cricket while under the influence of a pet biscuit!

Another Clone?

Another beta patch will be released soon-ish. In this next build, there's a strange pet that's being added. Or should I say re-added?

It's the Spectral Tiger Cub. If that sounds familiar, it's because this pet already exists. It's a rare TCG loot card that was released in 2009 (Scourgewar). The only notable difference between the new cub and the original are the item and spell ID's.

Old: item ID 49343, spell ID 68810
New: item ID 90953, spell ID 132759

This is either a bug or an additional/new source for the pet. Or some surprise that Blizzard has for us?

Some are already speculating that it will be another Blizzard PetStore companion, however, in previous situations where a TCG card model was re-used for a PetStore redeemable item, the pet's name was changed at least a little bit (TCG = Hippogryph Hatchling, PetStore = Cenarion Hatchling).

The only other example of a companion with two different item ID's but the same exact name is Murkimus. Even then, that pet teaches the same pet summoning spell.

Oh, I guess another example would be the Fox Kit, which is going to have an additional source in the upcoming pre-MoP patch. But in that pet's situation, the item has been changed/altered slightly to include the reputation requirement to purchase it from a vendor. The original does not have this text. Both teach the same pet summoning spell.

So the new addition of the Spectral Tiger Cub to the database is puzzling indeed!

Maybe it means something. Or maybe I'm just reading way too far into it. I can't wait to see which it is. I'm a bit nervous and excited at the same time. What have they done to my adorable little cub?! *bites nails*

More Beta Pet Battles Updates

Things seem to be slowing down or wrapping up in terms of beta news lately, but developers haven't forgotten about Pet Battles or companions! Here are the latest updates and changes.

"The only pets that are flagged as unique are in the categories listed below. This can of course change at any time, but this is what we are looking at for MoP release currently.

Achievement Pets
Blizzard Pet Store Pets
Promotional Pets
Guild Pets

Everything else will be allowed up to 3x of the same pet."
- source

I wonder if the TCG pets fall under the "Promotional Pets" category. It would be a real downer if they were since some players paid RL money to have multiple TCG companions on multiple toons. Unlike the Blizzard PetStore redeemable pets, the TCG ones are only mailed to one toon per code redemption. It would just be wrong if all those companions were squished into one when people paid for more than a single loot card.

While the devs have covered duplicate pets, what about the issue of having duplicates that you CAN'T GET RID OF? That might sound like blasphemy right, because I mean, you can never have too many companions eh? Well, if they plan on keeping the cap of 500 total pets (including duplicates) in your Pet Journal, most aren't going to want to keep those duplicate pets around. Yet last I checked, you can't cage or release some of them, which means clogged up pet slots. :\

Specifically quest reward companions. It seems punishing to have to skip over a quest on an alt just to avoid picking up the pet and accidentally adding it to your journal. But unless you can choose to remove any of duplicates and give them away/sell/vendor them, there's really no point in having more than one quest reward pet in your account-wide collection.

Hopefully they fix this or address it in the near future. Perhaps some sort of option at the Stable Master to help you "let go" of some duplicate pets that you wouldn't otherwise be able to remove from your journal? I don't know lol.

"We will be adding more diversity as we progress through the patches, it's something we know about it. You have to remember that most of the critters in the world were animals. We added as many new pets as we could without disrupting the general feel of the world. There is a unique pet in almost every zone in the game now. We took care to try and make these pets fit in the different family's. (undead, dragonkin, aquatic, elemental etc.)

This is just the beginning, we will be supporting the system with new updates every single patch." - source

I'm really glad that they plan on continuing to update and add to Pet Battles as time goes on. The minigame seems to have the potential for limitless features.

My biggest concern is replay-ability and whether or not it will become tedious and too "grindy" after leveling up your first few pet teams.

Adding more content when most players can't even get past max level for 2 teams is just asking for trouble. Rather than adding, perhaps changing, relocating, etc. might be more acceptable. I wouldn't mind seeing more than just critter, beast, and aquatic pets at low levels. Plus it seems like all the "cool" or interesting family types are the less encountered ones.

"A few updates:

- The bandage drop rate from Battle Pet Tamer quests has been increased significantly.
- The number of bandages dropped has been doubled.
- The stack limit has been increased to 10.
- We have reduced the cooldown on Revive Battle Pets to 8m.

We will be watching the cooldown feedback at this new value but we think that combined with the bandage drop rates, most players will be happy with the results. The increased chance at bandages are a great way to supplement any extra healing you may need while the heal is on cooldown." - source

Last but not least, an update to the healing and revive spell cooldown!

It's not a complete removal of the cooldown like many players have been requesting, but I think it's a pretty sweet compromise. 10 minutes to 8 minutes might not seem like much of a reduction, but it really does make a difference.

Plus with the increased stacking and hopefully higher droprate of the Battle Pet Bandages, Pet Battle gameplay should be a lot smoother and the flow will hopefully be less clunky.

The next question is will this heal/revive cooldown still be tolerable after your first three pets reach max level and you start to level up a second team? Or at that point will it just be too much of a monotonous hassle?

Again, one of my biggest worries is a tiresome and seemingly endless grind, and if it will put off players after a while. Anything to curve Pet Battles from turning into what feels like a chore is welcome. Except coming up with a mechanic that fits in and doesn't break the system might be a challenge.

Guess we'll just have to see where this road takes us!

Wanderer's Festival Hatchling

There are currently quite a few wild pets that depend on certain situations before spawning, and one of the newer ones is the Wanderer's Festival Hatchling.

This companion actually requires the festival to be "in town", which happens on Sunday evenings starting at 9 PM (server time) and lasts roughly until 11 PM (server time).


The festivities occur on Turtle Beach in the Krasarang Wilds (northeast beach). You'll know you're in the right area and the right time if you see floating lanterns on the water just before the NPCs spawn.


The Pandaren will then come out from the jungle to the sand, set up bonfires, kegs, lanterns and set off fireworks near the giant turtle statue. At the same time, many little Wanderer's Festival Hatchlings will spawn on the beach, so be ready to battle and capture! :)

I'm a Farmer (The "Good" Kind)

I've become best friends with Sho, and she immediately sent me the Red Cricket. :D Unfortunately, it doesn't have an entry in the Pet Journal yet, so I don't think it's fully implemented at the moment. I'm holding off on learning the BoU item until I'm sure I can summon it. Don't want to risk losing this pet! :P

Now that I've earned best friend status with one NPC, my next focus will be Farmer Fung. Apparently he'll mail an Enigma Seed to all his best friends, and between this seed and the Ominous Seed (see previous post), one of them might have the chance of producing the Terrible Turnip.

I'd like to see if either one is a 100% droprate for the pet or not, but I need to get my hands on some of these hard to find seeds first!

Granted, I haven't been planting religiously or for very many days, but both seeds don't seem to have a very high droprate from any of the plants I've planted and harvested. This could be why the Terrible Turnip is labeled as a "zone drop" in the Pet Journal.

Either that or it's just a tiny bit much to include "it has a low chance to drop from a seed, that has a chance to drop from a plant that you have to grow" all in the journal description lol. "Zone drop" just seems so much cleaner, if not vague haha.

Well, even though I've managed to claim my first pet reward from my little farm, there's still the potential for another. This is going to definitely keep me farming for a while!

PS: Something I forgot to mention that's probably significant is that this entire "farming" minigame and reputation/friendship grind doesn't unlock until you're level 90. So if you're thinking of heading out to the valley and getting started as soon as you log into the expansion, be ready to be stared at weirdly by a bunch of Pandaren, wondering why you're begging for seeds and friendship. :P

Another Reason to Tend to Your Garden

The Terrible Turnip might be listed as a zone drop, but the hunt for it might not be as vague or broad as implied.

According to some comments on the beta forums and from WoWhead, this pet might be from your very own Tillers farm.

I can't confirm it yet, but it sounds as though certain plants have a chance to drop an Ominous Seed when harvested. Or maybe the vegetable depends on which plant Jogu recommends to plant? Anyway, the seed then produces (or has a chance to produce) the Terrible Turnip.

Either way, this PLUS the Red Cricket from Sho just gives us even more incentive to tend to our farms!

Sheesh, there's going to be so much to do in MoP. From Pet Battling, leveling, capturing, and collecting to reputation and profession grinding and farming - I wonder if I'm going to still have time left in the day to raid with my guild lol. :P

Edit: I just planted some Striped Melons, Scallions, and Jogu recommended some Pink Turnip for me, so we'll see what comes of it all!

Why Are You So Cute?!

After defeating a Pet Tamer and receiving a Sack of Pet Supplies, I was ecstatic to find two Magical Mini-Treats inside!

Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but I love, LOVE small things. I know many players feel like companions should be bigger so they can be shown off and easily seen, but I lean more towards the smaller, the better mentality. Besides, these pets are for my enjoyment, not anyone else's, and I'm an absolute sucker for tiny cute things.

So naturally, I adore the Magical Mini-Treats. :)


Here's just a comparison between a normal sized Amethyst Shale Hatchling (on the left) and the same companion who's consumed a Magical Mini-Treat (on the right). Ahhh, the adorableness is overwhelming! XD

More Tweaks and Changes

Last week was quite... interesting... to say the least. Real life always knows how to be a party pooper heh. :P

Anyway, getting down to it, here are some notable changes to Pet Battles:

"We have made a few adjustments to the both the weakened by capture pets and the overall XP curve. Details below!

- Catching any pet level 15 or under retains its current level.
- Catching a level 16-20 pet will lose 1 level.
- Catching a level 21-25 pet will lose 2 levels.
- We have dramatically reduced the XP required to level for pets after level 10." - Mumper

"We have reduced the cool down to 10m in the next build." - Mumper

I can't comment on the "weakened" and experience change yet since I haven't been able to capture or play Pet Battles for the past week, but it doesn't sound too punishing. At the very least, I'm glad that there are level ranges instead of a flat and static level reduction. THAT, I think, would be pretty devastating.

Imagine capturing a level 5 wild pet only to have it be reduced to a level 1 lol. People would be screaming bloody murder if that were indeed the case. So I'm glad developers took that into consideration.

The reduction to the healing/reviving spell is a nice touch, although I think dropping it down to 7 minutes would be a better compromise for everyone. As I mentioned when I first started testing Pet Battles, I can normally run with the same team of pets for about 2 - 4 battles (with opponents of appropriate level) before they seriously need a heal, otherwise I'd be gimping my odds of winning.

But in some situations whether it's just unfavorable RNG or a bad call on my part, I might need to heal up my pets after just one battle. Most of the time I don't run into this issue one right after another, but bad luck does happen. I haven't acquired any Pet Bandages yet, so I've been reliant on the spell and/or the Stable Master.

Dropping the CD of the spell to 7 might be a good compromise since it's still a long enough cooldown so that it can't be constantly used, but it might be short enough so that players don't feel like that string of bad luck is getting in their way of fun.

Or being able to MAKE your own Pet Bandages so players feel like they have more control over the healing of their pets would be another possible solution. Heck, even being able to purchase them from a vendor might be enough too.

To strike a good balance, there needs to be an adequate amount of player control along with RNG/attrition.

I think that's what the biggest issue is here. Players feel like they're at the mercy of a CD and can't move forward unless that CD is reduced even more or removed completely. It's like a mental block that prevents any fun from being had because, let's face it, no one likes to lose. Starting out a battle with 75% health instead of 100% puts your pet team at a slight disadvantage, therefore making the odds of possibly losing that much higher. The player doesn't really have a choice, though, unless they want to take the time to travel to a Stable Master, heal up, and then fly back. Except it's pretty inconvenient doing so, especially in some zones where the NPC is out in the middle of nowhere. Plus travel time is just not fun, period.

Not to mention if a player happens to come by a very rare wild pet that they have to capture, but their team is less than ready and they're out of Pet Bandages. I know I would be heartbroken if I had to pass up that chance or take the risk of someone else coming along to snipe the wild pet while I'm off in search of a Stable Master.

At least if we could make our own bandages for our pets, the responsibility wouldn't fall on anyone's shoulders but our own if we're unprepared.

Well, we'll see. I have yet to try out Pet Battles with all the changes.

Hopefully all the RL issues will be over and done with soon enough and I can get back to what I'm passionate about: the pets! :)

More Pet Updates - Undocumented Changes

Thanks to the awesome users over at WarcraftPets, here are some undocumented changes that were discovered in the latest beta patch.

Biggest things to note:

- The Pet Journal now shows a wild pet's special spawning conditional. Here are just a few examples:






Note that not all wild pets require a unique time of day, weather condition, or season. So if you don't see any spawned in the area that they're normally found, someone might have just battled/captured them all and they will probably just take some time to respawn or they're just that rare.

- Wild pets will decrease in level when captured. I haven't tested this myself, but it sounds as if capturing a wild pet will yield a pet that has some level shaved off of it. The example provided: capture a level 23 frog but wound up with a level 19 frog in the Pet Journal.

- Player spells, abilities and attacks can now kill wild pets. Unsure if this is intended or not.

- Hostile mobs can attack you while you're engaged in a Pet Battle, which would result in a premature end to the encounter. Unsure if this is intended or not.

And just for funsies, here's a couple of screenshots of the Baneling as previewed in the Pet Journal!




Awww! You might think it's got a face that only a Queen could love, but I find it adorable. :P

It's Like Banelings, Banelings Whoaaa

I take one day off from my computer and a new beta build comes out. Figures! :P

Since I'm still in the process of catching up on everything, here's all the new additions, updates, and changes via WarcraftPets News.

There was a lot of stuff datamined, and I'll be damned if I rewrite all of that out again. XD

Stuff I'm most excited about:

- SC2: Heart of the Swarm CE redeemable pet is a Baneling! I am absolutely NOT skipping getting this comopanion. I'm not a huge SC2 player, but I really enjoyed playing and watching the campaign. (Long-live the Queen of Blades!!!!)

The following video is a necessary for those who aren't especially familiar with Starcraft 2, and is just plain old fun for those who are. :P


- Cooking will be able to craft Red and Blue War Fuel.

- Not only that, but Engineers will be able to craft the Warbot itself!

- JC'ers will be able to craft the Sapphire Cub and Jade Owl.

- Magical Mini-Treats, Magical Mini-Treats, Magical Mini-Treats! I can't tell you how long I've been hoping and waiting for these to be implemented. I enjoy larger mini-pets, but at the same time I absolutely ADORE tiny-itty-bitty ones. I'm extremely happy and grateful that developers took some time to create these. Now to figure out where they come from...

There's more that I didn't mention here, so be sure to check out the WarcraftPets page that I linked above.

I'm not sure where the recipes for the professions come from, but they all seem to be BoP as are the items they create. With pet collections being account-wide, this shouldn't be an issue for those with alts who have the professions listed. Although to enjoy the Warbot fuel, players will probably need to pick up cooking for each toon they want to use it on. Luckily, the fuel recipe only requires level 1 cooking skill.

Beta Update - "Already Known" Pets

I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, as this might just be a bug or an unintentional change, but I noticed while on the beta that the extra BoP Toxic Wastelings that I had saved in my bank had the "Already known" error removed from the tooltip.


(Image from April 18, 2012)
Previously, any extra BoP pets that you already knew had an error on the tooltip and produced an error when attempting to learn a second one on a toon that already knew it.

Currently, these items are still soulbound, but I had the option of caging the existing Toxic Wasteling in my journal. I did not attempt to cage it and then relearn it using the saved one in my bank, though.

If I can use the ones that I had in my bank, despite having already learned how to summon them, AND this is an intended change, then this is good news for those that saved any soulbound pets on live servers. If those companions are on the list of cageable/tradeable, then you might have some highly sought-after pets in your inventory/collection!

NOTE: I don't know if this applies to all saved soulbound pet items, since a second Brilliant Kaliri in my inventory still had the "Already Known" error in its tooltip. Perhaps achievement pets are the exceptions, while other saved pets such as the BoP ones from seasonal events are included in the change.

It might also mean holiday loot bag dropped pets will be more widely distributed post-MoP. I'm not against this in the slightest since I was never a huge fan of how these pets were obtained in the first place.

Some players have gone years without having one drop for them, despite the energy and dedication to trying for one. Ok, it keeps them playing, but not because they're having fun. Instead it's because they're hanging onto a thin thread of hope that maybe, just maybe next year it will drop from a once per day, RNG, limited time bag for them.

If this change goes through, other collectors and players will have the opportunity to either sell or be generous and hand out any extra holiday loot bag pets to fellow collectors.

We'll see what happens.

Misc Blue Posts

I have so much (too much) to write about! But rather than another wall of text, I'm going to focus on just the small stuff for now.

Here are some notable blue posts announcing upcoming changes for pets and Pet Battles:

"We are in the process of moving the pet combat logging to its own, separate tab. Hopefully on the next build but no promises." - Mumper

"There will be a way to get Warbot fuel in MoP. Still figuring out the specifics, but we are going to make it happen." - Mumper

The Pet Battle combat log is a bit spammy, so I think a built in separate tab will come in handy. If you don't mind having it in your main chat window, though, I'm sure there will be an option to include it there.


What I'm REALLY excited about is more Warbot fuel in MoP!! I've been hanging onto full stacks of the Red War Fuel and Blue War Fuel for the longest time, now. Since they're currently not available anymore, I've been reluctant to use them because part of me feels like they're so unique that using them freely and carelessly would be a "waste".

Now I can finally free up some bank space without the guilt. :) Hopefully the plan to make the fuel available again in MoP doesn't fall through, though. Otherwise I just used up a bunch for no reason other than inventory slots. D:


Giant thirsty Warbot demands more Red War Fuel. Size courtesy of Magical Pet Biscuits! :D

Last but not least, there are some interesting updates to Pet Tamers and their quests on the beta (should be implemented in the next beta build):

"- Unique Tamer emotes
- Unique Tamer pets
- Tamer battles have been tuned up in difficulty
- One Grand Master Tamer per continent. Defeating him/her will unlock all the daily's on that continent.
- The flow has been consolidated to work though our two main trainers in Stormwind and Orgrimmar.
- We have implemented more than 40 Tamer fights across the entire game. This does not include the boss fights!
- Daily quests on Grand Master Tamers offer the Sack of Pet Supplies as a reward.
- A new achievement reward for defeating all the Tamers. A "Tamer" title.
- All of the quests to fight Tamers are now account-wide. This means that the one-shot quests can only be completed by one character on your account. The daily's can be completed by any character, once per day. Account wide quests are denoted in the quest log." - Mumper

What I'm most interested in is bolded. Hopefully they will reset the questline for beta users, or give us the option to reset it. I've completed the majority of all the quests, and if it becomes account-wide, then I'll be locked out from testing the upgraded Pet Tamer encounters. I'd like to see just how difficult the battles are with them post-patch.

I'm also curious about how we'll access the 40+ Tamer battles. Currently you encounter each one in a questline (auto-accept quest), but there are only so many in the chain. I wonder if the rest will be linked with what's been previewed and tested so far, or if they will be off the beaten track and we'll have to somehow discover or unlock them.

Another thing about this update is the whole "Tamer" title thing. I remember when they first announced it as an achievement reward and I couldn't help but laugh at the potential silliness. "Tamer Quintessence" ...does that mean there was once a "Wild Quintessence" out there? :P

Pet Quality - It's Complicated

With pet collecting evolving into a more mainstream style of gameplay, Pet Battles, everything about companions is getting more complicated. That's just nature of evolution.

That being said, I've been putting off writing about this topic because it's not simple, black and white, cut and dry, or something that I have a firm opinion about yet. There are many sides, valid points, and shades of grey. It's something that we as a community and Blizzard as developers, are going to have to discuss at length and compromise over. Even then, there will still be some who are not satisfied.

In a couple of words: pet quality/rarity.