March 2009   « Archives | Current News »

UPDATE: News from the patch 3.1 PTR keeps pouring in...

Argent Tournament Pets
The new Argent Gruntling and Argent Squire pets have been confirmed. After completing several days' worth of dailies to become a Champion of the Argent Tournament, Horde players will receive a little orc boy and Alliance players will receive a little human boy. These tireless servants will follow you to the ends of Azeroth, catering to your every need. Well maybe not... but they sure make cool new companions! Plus they will display pennants of the factions with which you've achieved Exalted Champion status if you ask them to (special thanks to our pal El from El's Extreme Anglin' for this submission).

After becoming an Argent Champion, players can complete new daily quests to receive Champion's Seals. These tokens can be used to purchase cool new armor, weapons, tabards, mounts, and pets. There is a separate quartermaster for each race, each selling a different pet for 40 Champion's Seals. NOTE: These Argent Tournament pets are currently not BoP. If they stay that way, any player should be able to acquire all 10 pets!

New Crab Pet
El has also discovered a new pet crab, the Strand Crawler. This little guy has a chance to drop in the Bag of Fishing Treasures rewarded from the new Northrend fishing dailies.

New Mechanical Pet?
MMO-Champion has reported a new possible pet: XS-001 Constructor Bot - Right Click to summon and dismiss Mimiron's XS-001 Prototype. He really hates water. This sounds like one of Mimiron's many mechanical creations that will be coming soon to an Ulduar near you.

Updates to Existing Pets
We also have some exciting pet-related news from the PTR patch notes:

• Horde characters may now obtain the quest CLUCK! from Chickens. While Farmer Saldean won't be selling Special Chicken Feed to the Horde, perhaps "Westfall" William Saldean in Brill might...
• Sprite Darter Eggs: May now (very rarely) drop from Sprite Darters in Feralas. Note that only Horde characters can attack and kill Sprite Darters.
• Tiny Emerald Whelplings: May now (very rarely) drop from Adolescent Whelps in the Swamp of Sorrows.
• White Tickbird Hatchling is now classified as a Pet.

On a separate note, we have exciting news for our pal Frosty. No longer will he have to share an icon with the Netherwhelp. He is getting his own unique icon that looks just like him. Way to go, Frosty!

With nearly 30 matches under my belt, I must admit the Arena Tournament has been a lot more fun than I expected. My team has been averaging 3-4 min per game, so we can expect to reach the requisite 200 games for our pet murlocs a lot more quickly than I had originally expected. We've even been holding our own with a whopping 50% win rate!

I hope everyone else is having a fun time in the tournament. I just wanted to pass along some important information. It seems that some players have been /afk'ing out of the games as soon as they begin (presumably in an effort to minimize the time to reach 200 matches). Others have been entering the games without gear and without putting up a fight. Such actions are definitely not in the spirit of the competition. If these players are found in violation of the arena rules, it may result in disqualification of the team and its members. Therefore, we suggest you heed Blizzard's recommendation: "...all players [should] put forth an effort to compete in the spirit of the tournament."

NEW Pets! We've been expecting these latest additions ever since their names and icons first appeared on the PTR. Now we can finally see the new Mechanopeep and Sen'jin Fetish in all of their glory. The Mechanopeep, which will be the first Argent Tournament pet that gnomes can obtain, is a mini version of the Red Mechanostrider mount. It comes complete with noxious smoke and incessant mechanical sounds. Quick, order yours today!

But wait... there's more. If you call within the next 4 minutes, we'll throw in the Sen'jin Fetish for free (just pay shipping and handling). This pet will be available first to trolls. It's a cool floating mask pet that, when summoned, assumes one of three different forms and plays Jungle Madness music (click here to see it in action).

We'd like to welcome Kyrella to the WarcraftPets.com team as our newest Site Admin! Kyrella will be taking over for Lurie as Community Leader. She'll be handling many incoming questions and comments, as well as helping site members with their accounts. We suspect you'll also be seeing more of her in our comments section. If you're a member of the site, please give her a warm welcome.

We'd also like to wish Lurie the best of luck. He put in several months of excellent service to WarcraftPets and he will be missed.

I've made a few changes to the site in recent days. The most noticeable change involves the Top 50 Collections page. In the past, multiple-character collections (those spanning more than one character) had been given priority, loading by default. Users would have to physically select the "Top 50 - Single" link in order to review single-character collections. At one time, this made sense. There were many more multiple-character collections. But today there are far more single-character collections (roughly 4:1). With more incentives to collect on a single character, it appears that this type of collecting has become the norm. Therefore, single-character collections now have priority on the Top 50 list.

Additionally, I made a few changes to our news archives page whereby it now displays Past Features (such as my 'Ode to Vanity Pets' poem) that were otherwise buried in previous news stories.

NEW Pets! Thanks to the tireless testers of the PTR, we have more sneak peeks of the Argent Tournament pets. This week's feature companions are the Teldrassil Sproutling and Mulgore Hatchling.

The Teldrassil Sproutling is the first AT pet available to Night Elves. It's a little gray ent with purple leaves, whose idle animation includes dancing and falling asleep. It's the perfect companion for resto druids!

The Mulgore Hatchling is the first AT pet available to Tauren. It's a miniature plainstrider, which we already knew from it's icon. But what we just found out (to my utter elation) is that it's pink! This little fellow behaves a lot like his cousin, Egbert, running around wildly and randomly (though sometimes he does opt for walking casually).

Finally, it looks like all AT pets will remain BoU! When questioned about the relatively high cost of these companions, a Blizzard poster responded, "Keep in mind the pets aren't soulbound. There's a little bit of that in the price."

For years it's been impossible for engineers to obtain both Lil' Smoky and Pet Bombling on the same character. But patch 3.1 (which is fast becoming THE patch for pet collectors) finally makes it possible for engineers of either specialization to obtain both pets! According to the latest patch notes...

Engineers can now obtain the schematics for Lil' Smoky and the Pet Bombling from certain creatures found in Gnomeregan. Specialized Gnomish or Goblin engineers can obtain both schematics equally. The repeatable quest that used to randomly grant these schematics has been disabled.

With this change, any engineer should be able to learn the schematics that will be dropping in Gnomeregan. At this time, it's unknown whether the schematics will remain BoP, forcing countless engineers to brave the depths of one of the least popular dungeons in WoW. But hey, it's worth it, right? Right...?

It's been five months since build 3.0 went live and vanity pets became spells. The Blood Parrot and Coyote Spirit were the only two pets on our site that were excluded by the developers from the pets tab. We'd been hoping that Blizzard would somehow find a way to add these "hat pets" to the pets tab and make them count toward pet-related achievements. But it's becoming clear that this isn't going to happen, at least not anytime soon. So we've finally decided to follow suit and remove these two pets from our database. As a result, members will notice these pets missing from their collections.

The choice to do this wasn't easy. Many of us have worked very hard to collect these pets. But it isn't all bad. Now the collections of members will perfectly mirror their in-game collections, making it easier to track achievement-based goals. Additionally, removing these pets from our database allows us to present a much clearer definition of what constitutes a true vanity pet.

For posterity, we've added the profiles of these two pets to a Vanity Pet Archival with the hopes that none of our other beloved companions will ever be added to this page.

Noblegarden is now underway on the PTR. Blizzard has completely overhauled this event with lots of new items and achievements, including a Spring Rabbit pet. The [Spring Rabbit's Foot] that summons this bunny can be looted randomly from brightly colored eggs hidden around starting zone towns. You can also purchase one from a Noblegarden Vendor in exchange for 100 chocolates (also found in eggs).

Occasionally when you loot an egg it may turn you into an adorable pink bunny with blue spots. I was so excited to get the pet bunny, thinking it would look the same. Alas, my hopes were shattered when I summoned my Spring Rabbit and found it was just brown and white (like the old Snowshoe Rabbit skin). /cry. Blizzard if you're reading this, please give us a pink bunny!

Fortunately this little critter has more charm than your average pet rabbit. When it is far away, it will leap in an arc to land at your feet. If it spots another of its kind, the two will fall in love and spawn patches of flowers that develop into baby bunnies. When the fling ends, the two rabbits go their separate ways with broken hearts.

NEW Pet! The new pets for patch 3.1 just keep coming and coming! Today's feature companion is the Ammen Vale Lashling. This lively little orchid behaves similarly to another beloved pet from the plant kingdom, the Sinister Squashling. Both make a rustling, shuffling sound while walking and will randomly burrow down into the ground so that only their heads show.

The Ammen Vale Lashling is the first Argent Tournament pet that will be available to Draenei, while other Alliance races will have to complete several more days of daily quests to unlock it. Since all of the Argent Tournament pets are BoU, Horde players will be able to purchase the Lashling through the neutral auction house. That is, if other players are willing to part with theirs!