Deathy Needs Rehab

an amusing blue post in response to the obviously bugged deathy animations and vocalizations:

For those of you who attended or watched BlizzCon 2010 and claimed a Deathy pet, you may have noticed that he’s acting strange. In fact, he seems to think he’s Grunty the Murloc Marine. This is an unintended consequence of the groupthink from which all murlocs suffer. Deathy will be undergoing an extensive rehabilitation program and should be acting appropriately destructive once his idol, Deathwing, shatters the world in an upcoming patch that will debut prior to the release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. - Nethaera

this is not new news for most pet collectors, but it's good to have some official confirmation that deathy will be updated in upcoming patches (4.0.3 and 4.0.3a)!

i wonder what murloc rehabilitation consists of? group therapy, recreational swimming and... fish? :P

Beta Enchanting Pet Recipes Found

as of the most recent beta build, the magic lamp recipe can be purchased from an enchanting vendor in the twilight highlands for 20 hypnotic dust (new enchanting mat).

the vendor, a female draenei named senthii, is located in the starting alliance quest hub (highbank) area, but the zone is phased until you've completed the first set of quests for that area. once the alliance have "won" the small island, the vendors will become visible.

because the twilight highlands is a level 84-85 zone, this means that you will not be able to access these vendors until you've reached a minimum level of 84 to complete the quests for highbank.

the recipe is bind on pick up, however the companion pet created is NOT and therefore can be sold/given away. this is good news for all collectors since the recipes are faction specific, so the only way of obtaining a horde version of this pet if you're alliance would be through the neutral AH and likewise for the alliance one if you're horde.

and last but not least, i'm assuming that the horde equivalent of the alliance starting area in twilight highlands is where the enchanted lantern recipe will be sold, but i haven't confirmed this for myself yet.

well now i know what i'll be doing for the next few days! time to work on getting my enchanter up to level 84 as well as level her enchanting to 525 just so i can get a nifty screenshot of the magic lamp pet. :)

**UPDATE: as suspected, the horde equivalent of the magic lamp, the enchanted lantern recipe, can be purchased from a male blood elf NPC named fallanos within dragonmaw port in twilight highlands. much like the alliance version of this starting quest hub in the zone, you need to complete the first set of quests in order to be phased in properly and gain access to the vendor.

New TCG Pet Confirmed

wowtcgloot.com has found confirmation that landro's lil' xt will indeed be a new companion pet loot card found within the upcoming TCG expansion pack, worldbreaker. a screenshot of what the NPC, landro, has to offer was shown at blizzcon with the pet as well as a couple other items listed.

the only thing left to confirm is the appearance of this new pet. since the tooltip states: "A near-perfect, goblin-manufactured knockoff of the Wonderworks original" it's very likely that it will just be a model copy of the already existing lil' xt, but we'll see.

love him or hate him, it looks like copies of XT-002 Deconstructor will be doubling in numbers amongst the collecting community. that sneaky raid boss!

Pebble

i finally completed the achievement rock lover on the beta, however i think it's bugged at the moment. despite reloading and logging, i did not receive pebble as a reward for completing the achievement. i already submitted feedback on this issue, so it should be fixed prior to cataclysm being released, but here i was hoping that i would have a cute screenshot of my very own pebble for this write up. :( oh well.

how to obtain pebble is pretty straight forward, so here are just some updated tips:

Day of the Dead 2010

the in-game halloween festivities are coming to a close soon, and then the short two day in-game celebration of day of the dead will begin! it will be interesting to see if an actual companion pet will be released with this year's day of the dead.

last year's event was heavily bugged which was frustrating. many collectors were upset that they were unable to enjoy the company of the on use companion, the macabre marionette, because of the bug and therefore had no other opportunity to play with the pet due to the short duration of the event. what came as the biggest shock and disappointment for pet collectors was when it was discovered that the marionette wasn't a true vanity pet and would disappear once the in-game holiday was over.

hopefully the day of the dead glitches have been resolved in time for this year's version. that, and i'm hoping for an actual companion pet version of the macabre marionette! but i won't hold my breath :P

Because a Moose Wasn't Enough

breanni, site creator and owner of WarcraftPets.com, had the privilege of touring blizzard headquarters this past blizzcon weekend and even got to briefly speak with the infamous ghostcrawler about vanity pets!

some exciting things mentioned:

- baby seahorse pet (NYI - may or may not be released after cataclysm)
- renaming vanity pets in the same fashion that hunters can rename their pets (something for the faaaaar future, but not completely out of the question)

there you have it. ghostcrawler promised a moose. now add to that a baby seahorse pet and the ability to rename vanity pets. JUST KIDDING! :P

while there's no actual confirmation on when or even if the above will actually happen/be released, at least blizzard is considering it.

i absolutely can't wait to see if these ideas will pan out or if they will remain on the back burner indefinitely. i'm hoping for the former, but i understand that there are probably more pressing issues to address before something as whimsical as a feature to rename your companion pet is added into the game. plus this gives me plenty of time to come up with over 100 names to give to all my companions. :P

Pet Pathing

ever since patch 4.0.1, i've noticed pets having some trouble following their owners. not just vanity pets, but hunter pets, warlock pets, and any guardian or summoned creature. they seem to get stuck at certain points such as doorways, ramps, and other transitional areas where they had no problem walking through before. it's almost as if a "no pet" sign was placed and they dare not disobey lol.

since i haven't really been outside of dalaran lately, i can't say if this happens everywhere, but i do notice it occurring repeatedly within dalaran. specifically in the alliance inn, around the dalaran fountain, and within dalaran sewers. my companions just can't get past an invisible line and in the end i'm either forced to move out of range which despawns them or i have to dismiss and resummon them on the "safe" side.

other times they will do their best to make their way to me by doing a giant loop or lap around the area, as if there's something blocking them from taking the most direct route to me. my toxic wasteling felt the need to take an extra long run around the outer area to follow me around the dalaran fountain today.

it's pretty strange. or perhaps i just never noticed it before? my gut feeling says it's more of the former than the latter though. i never had any trouble coaxing a pet into the inn before, but ever since the patch... whether i'm going into the inn or heading out, they just seem to want to hang out in the doorway.

hopefully this will be resolved in the next patch or in the expansion. azeroth has always been such a pet friendly place, it would be a shame if companions were suddenly shunned and discriminated! :P

Awaiting Deathy

since i wasn't able to make it to blizzcon this year, i had to make do with the internet live stream. actually, it was actually quite pleasant to be able to watch nearly all the panels from the comfort of my own home. haha. but i do regret being unable to meet up with some guildies as well as the warcraftpets crew. :( hopefully next year.

another downside is that i'll have to wait a while longer before i can finally claim a deathy of my own. at the moment i hear his vocalizations are bugged and he's a bit grunty-ish. that should be updated and fixed with the next patch, though.

there's also an interesting youtube video of deathy's (possible) soon to come animations. i'm not too sure how accurate the video is, though. i missed the blizzcon art panel, but apparently there was a preview during that segment? rumor has it that it's pretty awesome. but i'll just have to be patient and wait. 6 - 8 weeks isn't that long... is it? haha. we'll see how long i can hold out before i start anxiously ripping out hair. :P

NEW Charity Pet!

moonkin hatchling coming in november!

alright, now that i've had some time to settle down and gather my thoughts, yes! michael morhaime announced at the opening ceremony of blizzcon that the moonkin hatchling will be available for purchase at the official PetStore in november. also, either part or all of the proceeds from this new companion will go to a (yet to be named) nonprofit charity in the same fashion as the pandaren monk.

speaking of which...

over 1.1 million dollars was donated to the make a wish foundation through pandaren monk purchases! so not only did many of us receive a new awesome addition to our collection, we were part of that 1.1 million dollar cause for a greater good. it's really heartwarming to think of it that way. :)

i'm so happy to see blizzard continuing this trend of donations to nonprofit charities through outlets such as vanity items and sales. collectors, while a small portion of the total in-game wow community, will really go that extra mile for something desired to complete a collection. this can be utilized for good or for evil. *queue the sinister villain theme music* however, blizzard's recognition of our overly zealous nature for all things vanity, and channeling some of that energy towards a beneficial entity such as the make a wish foundation is considered "good" in my book *queue the heroic 'saves the day' theme music* kudos to blizzard on this one!

and just because i can... doesn't it just make you swell with pride to be apart of an in-game community who gets a special announcement during the opening ceremony of blizzcon? :P just kidding, just kidding haha. but seriously, collectors are awesome. :)

Land Shark

i was on the beta trying for the rustberg seagull (again) and while attempting to complete one of the "kill this guy" dailies, guess what i discovered? a level 85 elite shark named tank. but this is no ordinary shark. he's got over 100k hp AND he can swim (uh.. walk? flop?) on land!

i saw him swimming around northern tol barad and thought, 'i should be safe here just on the edge of the water. at worst he may agro onto me and then evade bug.'

how wrong i was.

this badass shark literally swam up onto the beach, and when i proceeded to run he followed me further inland! it was quite a sight to see a gigantic elite shark named tank swimming on land while chomping my tiny druid. needless to say i died but i was too amused to care.

what was the point of this post again? oh yea. rustberg seagull. i'm probably undergeared or these dailies are meant to be done in a group, but wow i feel as though i'm beating my head against the wall for this companion! the dailies are quite tough since the mobs hit pretty hard, have a lot of hp, and have such a quick respawn time. when the expansion goes live, the rustberg seagull may just have to wait the longest before i get around to working for him.

anyway next time i'll have to post some screenshots of mr. tank and his on-land prowess. hmm... if an elite shark can make it up onto land, does that mean pet collectors can finally hope to see the baby shark pet that was datamined pre-wotlk? :P