I've been on a recent pet-hunting binge in World of Warcraft. Though I've always been a fan of collecting games, I'd avoided getting into this one because it seemed like once I got started started, I would feel compelled to catch everything... and that seemed like a tall order. Now that I'm actively working on WoW's safari achievements, I can tell I was right. In between rare spawn pets, pets that only spawn during certain weather conditions or certain times of day, and my horrible habit of accidentally killing pets I mean to catch (my Terrible Turnip isn't very high level yet), I'm pretty sure this is going to take approximately forever to finish.

So I ask you, readers: are you, too, compelled to try to catch 'em all? And if so, how is your personal safari quest going?

A note to anyone who hasn't started this crazy quest to catch every pet: don't start! Your sanity will thank you.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics

Grab yourself a drink and get comfortable because these are some hefty patch notes. There are a lot of changes coming to almost every aspect of the game -- classes, garrisons, professions, items, you name it. Here are a few highlights.

• Collecting all heirloom items awards a special mount usable by level 1 characters.
• Tertiary Stats for Avoidance, Speed, and Leech now provide about four times as much benefit per stat point.
• Lumber Mill and the Trading Post no longer require Garrison Resources to build or upgrade.
• The Mage Tower now accepts Ogre Waystones as work orders awarding Apexis Crystals and a chance to receive an item that allows instant completion of a mission that's in-progress.
• Players may find an item while completing a Bounty, Relic, Dungeon, or Raid daily quest from the Garrison visitor that that allows them to summon one of six new raid or world boss in the Garrison (10-40 players).
• Characters can now accrue up to a maximum of 60,000 Apexis Crystals (up from 20,000).

View the complete notes after the break for much more, including a ton of class changes.

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Filed under: News items, Warlords of Draenor

Patch 6.1 is getting ever nearer, and as we learn more about what the patch will bring we all have our favorite things about it. So this week when we caught up to talk about what we were playing this weekend, we also also took the time to talk about our favorite things in patch 6.1 (so far).

Are you playing WoW this weekend? Jump into the comments to tell us what you're up to -- and what you're looking forward to in patch 6.1. Otherwise, read on for what team WoW Insider is playing this weekend.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion

Pet battling isn't easy. Sometimes you come up against the perfect team, all of your attacks seem to miss, and you're left floundering. And sometimes, like in the video above, you try to rig things in your favor. (Though the active word is definitely try.)

Yes, Mooclucking clearly understands all of our battle pet frustrations. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like a good solution for them. We'll just have to do our best to keep forging through even the toughest pet battles... and maybe steer clear of the pug while we're at it.

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Interested in the wide world of machinima? We have new movies every weekday here on WoW Moviewatch! Have suggestions for machinima we ought to feature? Toss us an email at moviewatch@wowinsider.com.

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Filed under: Machinima, WoW Moviewatch

At long last, the new blood elf models have finally appeared on the patch 6.1 PTR. These are still a work in progress according to Blizzard. All of the faces are still using similar geometry, but new faces are slated to be added in a future PTR build. In the meantime, you are encouraged to give Blizzard your feedback on the new models and animations on the forums (US feedback thread, EU feedback thread). Want a preview of how the models are shaping up? Check out our new gallery below!

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Filed under: News items, Warlords of Draenor

"So while wandering around Shadowmoon Valley and getting in fights to test out my wide-range of dwarves taunts and insults in SpeakinSpell (and probably traumatizing a whole generation of players to boot) I stumbled across an odd gathering of draenei on the shore," writes submitter Arugadh of The Brotherhood of Iron on Wyrmrest Accord (US-A). "Three small girls and their fathers were gathered around a skeleton that they'd unearthed on the beach. At least, I think they unearthed it. Judging from the expression on that one child's face as she turned and looked at me ... well, I'm not ashamed to say that I scrambled back onto my golden charger and hightailed it out of there before they decided to unearth my skeleton right out of my flesh."

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Want to see your own screenshot here? Send it to aroundazeroth@wowinsider.com. We strongly prefer full-sized pictures with no UI or names showing. Include "Azeroth" in the subject line to ensure your submission dodges email spam filters; if you'd like to be credited, also include your name, guild and realm.

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Filed under: Around Azeroth

Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Matthew Rossi will be your host today.

Guys, I love you all as if you were my children. My children who leave a lot of comments in the comment section. So many comments. 737 comments as of this moment. That is a lot of questions, statements, pictures, videos, non sequitur, all sorts of things.

I have to admit, on nights when I can't sleep (that's all of them) going through the Queue is like a portal into another dimension. Luckily, they still play WoW over there.

Chrth asks:
Q4TQ: If you were one of the humans on Fenris Isle, would you have chosen to become a Worgen or to be raised as one of the Forsaken? Consider this from a real life perspective, not game-wise (e.g. "Worgen because I love the Alliance" is not what I'm looking for).

Would I rather be trapped in a rotting corpse that's slowly deteriorating, forced to consume the flesh of the living and unable to feel, or would I rather have awesome werewolf superpowers? Yeah, that's a toughie. I guess I'd have to go with awesome werewolf superpowers.

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Filed under: The Queue

We have epic followers, we have a legendary follower, so why not heirloom followers?

Well, as is often the case when I have one of these ideas at three am, there are potentially a lot of reasons why to not have heirloom followers. For one thing, we level our followers and get them better gear and so on - a follower you could somehow send to your alts would mess up this whole process. Would they scale to your level? What level would they top out at? Could you gear them up? Could you make them epic?

All good questions. But man, it's daunting to have to try and get all the same followers over and over again, especially ones that are on rare vendors. Sometimes I wish I could mail my little minions to my alts, just so I wouldn't have to deal with flying out to the Spires of Arak yet again.

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Filed under: Breakfast Topics

So once again the folks at Wowhead are hard at work datamining away at Patch 6.1 on the PTR, and they've found something very interesting - new heirlooms. Specifically, neckpieces. A whole host of them, in fact.

• Eternal Talisman of Evasion
• Eternal Amulet of the Redeemed
• Eternal Will of the Martyr
• Eternal Emberfury Talisman
• Eternal Woven Ivy Necklace
• Eternal Horizon Choker

At present they don't seem to scale down on Wowhead, and they say 1 to 60 which seems odd to me, I'd expect 1 to 90. But that On Use is pretty amazing, all told. Since we're also talking about the heirloom tab coming in this patch as well, it's a good time for a set of necklace heirlooms.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Warlords of Draenor

We've been waiting for new blood elf models since Warlords of Draenor was announced, and now we finally know when we're getting them. Patch 6.1's PTR will have the first look at the blood elf of the future, soon to be the blood elf of the present. These are very definitely works in progress, so there are things to keep in mind - currently all male blood elves have the same facial geometry, for instance. But you can hop on the PTR yourself and take a look right now.

To my eye they don't look very different, just improved. But what do you think?

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Warlords of Draenor