Tamed Worgen have become Winterskorn Worgs
by Mike Schramm 
Jul 23rd 2009 at 1:00PM
And here lies the final chapter in the Taming of the Worgen saga: Mania reports that, just a little while after the troublesome Worgen Garwal was hotfixed to be untameable, Blizzard has magically changed all of the already-tamed Worgen to level 68 (or Hunter's level minus five) wolves. Why level 68? Because, Mania says, they've all been turned into Winterskorn Worgs, a level 63-69 NPC that wanders around the Howling Fah-jord.So that's the end of that. Obviously, no one really expected to keep those pets as their own, and especially with all of the Worgen-as-playable-race speculation flying around, it wouldn't do for Hunters to have one of those humanoids at their beck and call. Some Hunters who went to the trouble of taming probably won't be too happy. But the good news is that the new white wolf in your stable is completely fixed -- it has all of the normal talent trees and abilities that wolves are supposed to have. Guess you and your pet Garwal were just never meant to be.
Filed under: Hunter, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Odds and ends, Blizzard, NPCs, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Mistat Jul 23rd 2009 1:05PM
What annoys me the most about this is that it comes after a number of them dissappeared from the stable. I know that mine became an empty stable slot on its own over a week ago, and my hopes shot up when I saw it back in my stable, only to find it was simply another little wolf.
It's one thing to take it away, it's another thing entirely to jerk around our emotions and get our hopes up like that, Blizz. Cruel, just cruel.
Agerath Jul 23rd 2009 1:09PM
Does baby want a tissue?
Jon Do Jul 23rd 2009 1:10PM
Pull on your three wolf moon shirt and your day will improve.
Tri Jul 23rd 2009 1:10PM
You were obviously never meant to tame him as a pet, so why so disappointed?
You took a chance, and it didn't work out, too bad. End of story..
Now go look for the next "wow this shouldn't be tameable"-pet and enjoy it while it lasts :)
t0xic Jul 23rd 2009 1:16PM
@ Tri:
I'm guessing after the light was shined on Worgen they probably did a broader review of other NPCs that shouldn't be tamed. In fact one would think it should be on a punch list somewhere for every patch/expansion moving forward to prevent this kind of thing. Whether that happens or not is another matter =)
cowy Jul 23rd 2009 9:06PM
It is disapointing. Like many things in the game, though, it was never intended to be tamed. At the end of the day, as awesome and badass as the Worgen was, we have to accept all changes (the good and the bad) made by Blizzard in order to fix the unintended.
My main is a hunter. I thought the Worgen was amazing and I do not resent Blizzard for removing it.
They are the ones working behind the curtain. Blizzard sees the future of things we do-not-yet-know. Perhaps there is good reason for this change that we are not yet aware of. You never know what the future holds, try to hope for the best. I don't think they intentionally try to "eff with us" or to be cruel.
Zal Jul 23rd 2009 1:11PM
Makes sense. Still a bummer but oh well.
Stages Jul 23rd 2009 1:18PM
Now I'm more inclined to believe that Worgen will be a playable race.
thebvp Jul 23rd 2009 1:23PM
Why?
Because other humanoids in the game are trainable? Oh, wait...
Or maybe they just didn't want humanoids to be trainable? Ockham's razor ftw?
LilBanshee Jul 23rd 2009 2:58PM
I'm with Stages on this. For a lot of reasons. Blizz didn't want Sandfury Guardian or Grimtotem Spirit Guide tamed in Vanilla WoW, but they didn't take them away, they just made them imposible to feed and therefore completely unusable outside of battlegrounds (they later eased off on the nerf-hammer for both of these). Blizz also didn't want players taming the Black Ravager quest mob or the technicolor warp stalker in Burning Crusade, but Blizz only disabled taming of these and didn't take them away from us. Blizz didn't mean for puddles of green ooze to be tamed in WotLK, but they let us keep them anyhow after making them untamable going forward (and they didn't exactly jump to make it untamable, they waited for multiple patches before acting).
Then a worgen was tameable. Oh noes, the horror! Blizzard jumped all over that in a panicked hurry and fixed it on the next business day after it was reported on WoW Insider, then made the unprecidented move of removing the pet altogether. That's more than just an unintended tamable pet, that's more than something that didn't make sense for the lore. That's damage control; it was interfering with Blizzards future plans for worgens so they had to remove this pet in spite of their prior policies on hunter pet bugs.
Arondil Jul 23rd 2009 1:24PM
See this is further proof that Worgen will be a playable race. Having one of your bretheren being a slave to some Belf Hunter would be demeaning. By extension, since Worgen are confirmed now, I'm thinking Pandaren as surprise playable race?
t0xic Jul 23rd 2009 1:27PM
It's a shame I could only downvote this once. I need more votes plz.
epsilon343 Jul 23rd 2009 1:31PM
While the removal of the Worgen seems to be good indicator towards them possibly becoming a playable race at a later date (having a fellow faction member enslaved to you wouldn't be the best thing in the world) I can't help but feel a lot of whiplash from your sudden jump towards Pandaren. I believe it's been said a number of times before that China has some laws/restrictions against showing violence against Pandas and that would be sort of a thorny issue being in a game that has a lot of violence.
It'd be really really nice if people would get off the whole Pandaren thing, either seriously or just to try and get a laugh out of people.
Gnosh Jul 23rd 2009 1:42PM
It's "been said" a number of times, indeed, that China has laws against virtual panda violence.
But it's not actually TRUE. There is no such law. At all.
impurezero Jul 23rd 2009 1:56PM
Even if this anti-panda violence law is true: So? They changed the models of undead players for China. Why couldn't The rest of the world get Pandarans, while China gets some reskinned non-panda looking version?
(Note: I doubt we're getting pandas. I just don't see why a supposed law in China would be the reason we won't.)
Grissum Jul 23rd 2009 5:54PM
Thanks for the comment. I was wondering when someone was going to ask about Pandarens as a plable race. I think there should be some healthy debate about this question.
Olicon Jul 23rd 2009 8:15PM
If the Alliance really do get Worgens, Horde hunters should be able to keep 'em as pets. *snicker
I still don't think we're going to see Pandaren any time soon. I can't really see what they would have to do with Maelstrom or Emerald Dream (which seems to be the most likely expansion) just yet. But then again, they are pretty druidic as far as I remember. Maybe they could find some place in Emerald Dream. Hell, since the Dream is another version of Azeroth, the fact that it is all twisted could somehow cause the Dream's Pandaria to be in closer vicinity to Dream's Azeroth and Kalimdor, putting them right into the game.
Moonkinmaniac Jul 23rd 2009 1:27PM
I think we're gonna see a lot more angry hunters now if the worgen don't become a playable race. People are already saying that ghostwolves, slimes, hydras, and queen wasps should be removed. I don't think it'd be fair since people have had them for so long, but its not exactly fair to let some things stay and some go either, despite the humanoid argument. If nothing else, regaurdless of if you tamed one or not or your opinion it should make you a little irritated to know that blizzard has so many customers now they don't care about losing some they anger for whatever the reason may be.
epsilon343 Jul 23rd 2009 1:32PM
Considering a Worgen is a former Human...it's a little bit more than just a vanity pet. It's more akin to slavery. Just saying...
theRaptor Jul 23rd 2009 1:35PM
No this has nothing to do with the possibility of worgen being a new race. This isn't spirit wolves. If you could tame humanoid mobs and blizzard suddenly took this away your argument might make sense.
There are several NPC NE druids in bear form around the game, guess what? You can't tame them because Blizzard only wants you to tame "beasts".