July 2008   « Archives | Current News »

Bornakk, an official WoW forum moderator, finally broke the silence about the new pet that was gifted to attendees of last weekend's Worldwide Invitational. To correspond with the big announcement of Diablo 3, attendees will be able to redeem a Mini Tyrael pet! So it looks like Mini Diablo will finally get some competition from his own universe. This pet won't be available until patch 2.4.3 goes live. I intend to add it to this site around the same time.

NEW FEATURE! I often receive suggestions to add a forum to this site. However, I lack the time and resources to integrate it with the site (at least for now). But this community really needed something to allow members to more easily share their news with one another. Hence the new Latest Comments feature.

This feature includes all community comments updated within the past three days, listed chronologically with the most recent updates shown first. So when you have something new and exciting to share, the community is more likely to hear about it. Additionally, feel free to direct comments to specific members. For example, you can type "@Breanni: Hi Breanni!" to say hello to me.

In addition to this feature, members will notice the following upgrades:

• Special markup was added so members can easily link to other members' profiles.
• MVP (and admin) comments have been color-coded to match their titles.
• Members can easily report offensive comments.

NOTE: While working on these upgrades, I rewrote several stylesheets. So if any pages look strange, simply hit the refresh button in your browser.

Much of this work is paving the way for the highly anticipated Pet Comments, which will be coming further down the road. I hope you all enjoy this new feature as much as I do.

When visitors contact me, I often receive many of the same questions. Therefore, I created the help desk to assist the community with common site-related concerns. This detailed site FAQ features questions and answers for many topics, including account management, collection management, community interests, and more. As always, any feedback is appreciated.

FYI: On a sidenote, I also moved some links around in an effort to make the site a little more user-friendly for newcomers. Here's hoping I succeeded.

Where'd my comment go? All comments are still intact. However, they've been moved to the new bio section of each member's profile. Please use your bio to record PERMANENT info (such as character names and realms, personal top 10 lists, etc.) and use your comment ONLY to post news and sentiments you wish to share with the community. Those who are interested in reading more about you can find the additional info within your bio.

Your task: If you saved a comment before this change, review your bio and copy your news and any community-specific sentiments into your comment. Remember, your comment will be shared with the community via the Latest Comments page. Others won't enjoy reading the same things you've already posted, so keep your updates fresh and interesting.

Size restrictions: These new comments are intended to be brief. As such, the character limit has been reduced to 500. However the new bio section may be up to 2,500 characters. So overall you've got 2,000 more characters to play with. Use them well.

Mini Tyreal added: First up, Mini Tyrael has been added to the site. All of you who were lucky enough to nab him can add him to your collections. Also, be sure to check out his profile and give him a rating. (He'd prefer a good one, but I doubt that will be a problem!)

New whelpling icons: Perhaps thanks to our own Darkra, who kept at the suggestion forum with this request, all of the different colored whelplings now have uniquely colored icons. Cool beans!

New [pet] formatting: At the suggestion of Squirralfire, I've added the ability for members to easily link to any pet on this site within comments and bios. Instructions can be found on both the bio and comment updating pages.

Messaging: Lastly, the ability for members to send private messages to each other is coming soon. But I do have some reservations about enabling this option. It's possible that stability of the site could suffer if too many messages are flying back and forth. It's also possible that it might be too tough for me to moderate. But I'm willing to give it a try and see what happens. It should be enabled within the week.

I've taken the liberty of adding three pets to the Bestiary. Note that these pets are not new and have not been flagged as such. They are older promotional pets that were only ever released on Asian servers (specifically China).

I've known these pets existed for some time, but I lacked enough info to add them to the site. In truth, their profiles are still full of a lot of speculation on my part. For example, I totally guessed at their official names, items, and icons. Furthermore, two of the pets may in fact be one pet. I'm not sure whether both Chinese Dragons were released, or if Blizzard simply created two colors and only one actual pet (although unconfirmed rumors suggest there are two).

Why add them at all?
It's nearly certain that none of us will ever be able to collect any of these pets. But my goal is to make this the definitive small pet site worldwide. So I believe it should include every small pet in existence, even those that are only found on regional servers.

Three Asian beauties
With the addition of these three pets, this site is ever closer to including every small pet ever released by Blizzard. Check 'em out:

• Poley (the Polar Bear Cub)
• Tiny Red Dragon
• Tiny Green Dragon

So no polar bear cub in WotLK?
Your guess is as good as mine. True, Blizzard has never reused the model of any promotional pet in the design of a new pet. But because of its unavailability on EU and US servers, we may yet see this pet in Northrend. Only time will tell.

NEW FEATURE! Members are now able to send private messages to one another. This feature allows the community to coordinate in-game trades, pet collecting runs, and hopefully long-lasting friendships.

So long as both members have messaging enabled, either party can open a dialogue. To send a message, visit a member's profile and click the 'Email {Member}' link (at the bottom of 'Vital Stats'). To ensure privacy, both the sender's and the recipient's email addresses will remain hidden. You can, however, choose to share your email address to simplify the communication process.

It appears as though Blizzard has chosen to honor my work on this site by immortalizing me as a pet supply vendor in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion! Thanks, Blizzard!

I—or rather my double—is situated in Northrend's capital city of Dalaran. So far, her goods include [Rope Pet Leash] and [Fetch Ball]. Let's hope she'll also be selling 28+ slot pet bags or expandable kennels... anything to help us collectors increase our bag space. For more info about these items, click here.

So start saving your gold, folks... my in-game counterpart is eager to sell her specialty pet wares (and hopefully I'll get a cut of the action)!

I'm still stoked that Blizzard's honored my work on this site with an in-game NPC. My counterpart (screenshot) is a vendor of <Pet Supplies> in WotLK, situated in the capital city of Dalaran. As of today, her goods include rope pet leashes and fetch balls. Dalaran is currently very much unfinished, so perhaps they'll be adding more to her shop as they get closer to release.

As far as these two items go, the [Rope Pet Leash] (seen with Murky in the screenshot linked above) is a reusable cosmetic item that provides a tether from you to your pet. I'm hoping a macro can be written to summon a leashed pet with a single click. I'm also curious to see how this leash affects already tethered pets, like the Dragon Kite. I'll post about that soon. We may also see other types of leashes, such as chain and leather.

The [Fetch Ball] is purchased in lots of 5 and stacks up to 10. It's a consumable that can be thrown from your inventory and retrieved by whatever pet you currently have summoned. But surprisingly, the ball doesn't wind up back in your inventory—it simply vanishes from the pet's mouth into oblivion. I'm thinking they made it a consumable as money sink. But personally, I would prefer a much more expensive ball if it would just reappear in my inventory when returned by my pet. Perhaps they'll add something like that in the future.

Two days ago I reported how lead designer Tigole stated, "Big changes are in store for mounts and vanity pets." Well, today we know what those changes are. Nethera, an official Blizzard representative, had this to say:

We’re pleased to announce a convenient upgrade to the way that mounts and vanity pets are handled in Wrath of the Lich King.

Players will be able to “learn” a mount or non-combat pet much like learning a spell, recipe, or new ability, and these creatures will then show up on a new Pet tab within the Character Info section of the interface. Players will be able to access and preview their learned mounts and vanity pets through this tab.

Once learned, the pet icon or mount icon will no longer appear in bag spaces or bank spaces. This inventory space will be made available once again for other adventuring needs. Pets can still be set to hotkeys by dragging them to the hotkey bar, much like any other spell or ability.

So there you have it, folks. Bag space is no longer an issue at all for collectors—all minipets will be treated like unique spells! The other nice thing about this change is that it should enable me to much more easily determine what belongs on this site and what doesn't.

P.S. With the announcement of this change, I'll be suspending my work on the Peripheral Pets and Items guide, since this change will make much of that guide obsolete. I'll likely rework the guide in some other fashion.

The WotLK expansion introduces the Achievement System into the fold, allowing players to show off their in-game accomplishments. When you earn an achievement, your guild will be alerted, as will everyone in the general vacinity of your character. Additionally, achievements are listed in the armory and accessible in-game so you can compare your feats to others. Points are earned for each achievement, but so far the points are strictly for show and cannot be spent.

Achievements offer something for everyone and every play-style, and that includes pet collectors! Here are several (but not all) of the pet-related achievements to date:

• Plenty of Pets - Collect 15 unique vanity pets. (10 pts)
• Plethora of Pets - Collect 25 unique vanity pets. (10 pts)
• Shop Smart. Shop Pet... Smart - Collect 50 unique vanity pets. (10 pts)
• Veteran Nanny - Acquire Egbert's Egg, Sleepy Willy, and Elekk Training Collar on one character. (50 pts)
• Sinister Calling - Obtain a Sinister Squashling Pet. (10 pts)
• Avast Ye, Admiral! - Obtain the Bloodsail Admiral's Hat... and try to get some fresh air every now and then. (Feat of Strength - 0 pts)

There are many more, several of which involve collecting an ultra-rare pet, such as CE pets and those only available to attendees of Blizzcon or the Worldwide Ivitationals.

Note that many people have speculated that another of these feats, Tuskarrmageddon, which requires killing 1,000,000 Tuskarr, will reward a pet item: Baby Seal Club. However, Tigole (lead designer) confirmed that this is actually an inside joke and will be removed in the next build. Sorry—no baby seal to report yet.

Other database sites have turned up a list of acceptable pets for WotLK achievements that involve collecting X vanity pets. Many of you have contacted me to share this list, but not all of these pets are new. So I decided to report them here to set the record straight about which ones are possible new pets.

Here's the list of what many collectors believe are new WotLK pets, along with my comments:

1. Baby Shark - NEW WotLK "Baby Shark" pet.
2. Competitor's Souvenir - NEW non-WotLK pet (China only); recently added to this site.
3. Fortune Coin - not new; Korea-only pet; listed on this site.
4. Frosty's Collar - NEW WotLK CE pet "Frost Wyrm Whelp".
5. Ghostly Skull - unknown pet; could be NEW.
6. Gold Medallion - NEW non-WotLK pet; recently added to this site.
7. Golden Pig Coin - not new; China-only pet; listed on this site.
8. Green Dragon Orb - not new; China-only pet; listed on this site.
9. Orange Murloc Egg - unknown pet; likely a promotional pet (not necessarily new).
10. Polar Bear Collar - not new; China-only pet; listed on this site.
11. Red Dragon Orb - not new; China-only pet; listed on this site.
12. Silver Pig Coin - not new; China-only pet; listed on this site.
13. Vampiric Batling - unknown pet; could be NEW.
14. White Murloc Egg - unknown pet; likely a promotional pet (not necessarily new).
15. White Tiger Cub - unknown pet; could be NEW.

In addition to these, there have been unconfirmed rumors of penguins and scarabs. Rest assured, I'll be adding official news of any confirmed new WotLK pets here.