Posts with tag companion-pets

I've spent so many hours on the (now ironically named) Timeless Isle that I thought I knew everything about it. I was researching how I could help Golganarr to spawn to finally complete the Timeless Champion achievement, and I realized I'd missed something.

I never thought to look for anything interesting by the Celestial Court itself. I figured it was static, like every other quest hub in the game, more or less. I thought the two vendors standing next to the emperor were the only ones who sold anything of note.

Then I stumbled across Whizzig <Merchant of Time> in Wowhead's excellent Timeless Isle guide. I was sure I'd seen this snail-riding gentlemen before. But it never occurred to me that he was, in fact, a "rare vendor." He sells four different vanity items for your Perky Pug, such as Dread Pirate Costume. He also sells Magical Pet Biscuits and (for some reason) a glyph recipe. All of his items cost Timeless Coins. If you've got thousands of extra coins laying around, you might as well spoil your pup.

Once I made this discovery, I took a closer look around the court. There are so many NPCs and so many of them sell useless things that it's easy to overlook things you might actually care about. At this point I also found a pandaren boy named Ku-Mo <Hand-Made Kites>. He sells the Sky Lantern pet for 7500 coins and a consumable Golden Glider for 1000. The latter works just like the engineer's version, but it only works on the island -- if you're willing to risk your neck on a makeshift glider a little kid cobbled together.

You can't help Golganarr to spawn, by the way. You just have to get lucky. Fortunately he has a zone-wide announcement like the Dread Ship Vazuvius, and he takes much longer to kill than the average rare.

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Have you've been wanting a Lil' Ragnaros at your side to make cooking in Halfhill more convenient? Did it recently occur to you that having the Pandaren Monk companion pet next to your playable pandaren monk would be amazingly cute? If so, you might want to check out the latest sale at the Blizzard store.

Following up last week's sale on mounts, Blizzard has announced that most Blizzard store pets will be 50% off until Jan. 1, 2013. (The sale is good for you too, EU players.) The new Cinder Kitten is not on sale, since funds collected from Cinder Kitten purchases are still being donated to the American Red Cross for Superstorm Sandy Relief. The Wind Rider Cub and Gryphon Hatchling plush toys aren't on sale either, even though they accompany redeemable digital pets. That leaves the following pets on sale.

• Soul of the Aspects
• Guardian Cub
• Cenarion Hatchling
• Moonkin Hatchling
• Lil' K.T.
• Lil' XT
• Lil' Ragnaros
• Pandaren Monk

And if you happened to miss Blizzard's Black Friday sale late last month, the World of Warcraft Battle Chest is on sale again, along with the two latest expansions, Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold?

In Mists of Pandaria, our companion pets will be more than just vanity items. We'll be able to tame them, train them, and pit them against each other in Azeroth's most adorable blood sport since School of Hard Knocks.

Pet battles are brand new, but the history of companion pets stretches all the way back to the game's earliest days. These faithful sidekicks have been tagging along with us from our first characters in 2004 to the final confrontation with Deathwing. They're more than just a fluffy diversion, however. Believe it or not, some pets have actually made the real world a better place, and some have irrevocably changed WoW as we know it.

If you like pets and mounts (or are married to someone who does, as I am), then we have news for you from the latest Mists of Pandaria beta information from Wowhead. What, you may ask, are we looking at?

• The StarCraft II collector's edition Baneling pet.
• A new schematic to craft the Warbot pet and recipes to make the fuel for it.
• The achievement for 400 pet battle achievement points, Time to Open a Pet Store, now grants the Jade Tentacle pet.
• The Ancestral Phoenix Egg from challenge modes will allow you to chose what color of phoenix mount you want.
• August Celestials offer the Reins of the Thundering Ruby Cloud Serpent at exalted rep.

Head on over to Wowhead News for the complete list of new stuff.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Cory Stockton, aka Mumper, has announced that pets caught in the wild will no longer be tradable and that this will be the case when Mists of Pandaria launches.

Mumper

We just finished a pass making all pets that are caught via pet battles in the world non-tradeable. This means these pets cannot be put in cages for trading or posting on the AH. We felt that the option to buy these pets on the AH would take away from the exploration/collection gameplay of the system.

This could always change in a future patch, but this is how it will go out with MoP. You should see the change in our next build.

source

In pet battles, tradable pets can be sold on the AH. Training and caging wild pets looked to be a lucrative endeavor, since the catchable pets spawn in various qualities such as poor and rare. Many buyers would have been happy to shell out their gold for a high-quality pet that they didn't have to grind for.

As of right now on the beta, pet spawning locations tend to be heavily camped. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in cross-realm zones.

[via alt:ternative]

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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Pet Battles are one of Mists of Pandaria's most anticipated features, and Blizzard's been taking their time implementing these furry free-for-alls to get the quality just right. Today the devs have unveiled a new Pet Battle system section on the MoP website highlighting the ins and outs of the system, including how you can get new pets in the wild, what Pet Battle stats mean, and more.

The devs have stated in the past that pet battling is meant to be a mostly stress-free affair. You won't see the names of the people whose pets you battle, and the game will only keep track of your wins, not your losses. Don't expect to find bleeding-edge Pet Battle progression groups any time soon. That's the right call, though -- the game needs more fun, casual stuff to do, not less.

Check out the Pet Battle guide, and if you have an MoP beta account, patch it today -- Pet Battles are playable!

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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The Pet Battle system is one of the most anticipated features of Mists of Pandaria, and the Warcraft Pets forums has uncovered some awesome wild pet information. Eastern Kingdoms seems to have been populated with some wild pets that eventually will be able to be fought and tamed in turn-based battles similar to a popular game we have all had contact with in the past.

Some pets are unique to zones, such as the Adder in the Blasted Lands or the Swamp Moth found in the Swamp of Sorrows. Some pets even have a localized spawn location, like the Tiny Harvester in Westfall over by Fulbrow's Pumpkin Farm. Specialized spawn locations for very rare pets? I'm intrigued.

Hit up the Warcraft Pets forums for a full list of wild pets that they've found so far. If you're fortunate enough to be in beta, lend a hand with their list.

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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J. Allen Brack, the production director for World of Warcraft, was interviewed by Wired.com about the upcoming expansion Mists of Pandaria, why Blizzard's introducing the Pandaren now, and what the future holds for the increasing number of expansions needed to be purchased in order to play an up-to-date version of the game.

Brack says that the idea for the first neutral race actually was rooted in the Goblins for Cataclysm, since the Goblins would have made an excellent neutral race, but the team was adamant about giving the Alliance a more sinister race to play. The Goblins for the Horde filled the whimsical role nicely.

The Pet Battle system coming with Mists of Pandaria is going to require a lot of tuning, according to Brack. The feel of the system is going to be much more "rock, papers, scissors" than "all-powerful rare pet wins the fight," giving a lot of hope to collectors out there who want to use some of the more esoteric companions in battle without having to always pull out the best pet.

Finally, Brack made an important point about the "expansions every year" comment and goal of the development team. Brack explains that the concept is nice but not something feasible in the present time and that Blizzard has not been successful with rapidly turning out content. Cataclysm, it turns out, took longer to develop than any other expansion.

You can read the full interview on Wired.com.

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World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is the next expansion, raising the level cap to 90, introducing a brand new talent system, and bringing forth the long-lost Pandaren race to both Horde and Alliance. Check out the trailer and follow us for all the latest MoP news!

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Pop law abounds in The Lawbringer, your weekly dose of WoW, the law, video games and the MMO genre. Mathew McCurley takes you through the world running parallel to the games we love and enjoy, full of rules, regulations, pitfalls and traps. How about you hang out with us as we discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the games we love to play?

Remember in the last edition of Lawbringer, when I wrote that the majority of the questions post-BlizzCon 2011 were questions about panda people, whether Kung Fu Panda would sue, and how Pandaren are possible in China? Well, there was a third question: How can the Pet Battle system exist in World of Warcraft when it is so spiritually and mechanically similar to the underlying game mechanics of the Pokémon franchise? The truth is that it is and it isn't as similar as you might suspect, and the key factors in any copyright fight don't hold up a potential cause of action.

From the BlizzCon presentation, we gleaned a good bit of information about the WoW Pet Battle system coming with Mists of Pandaria. Players have been collecting companion (or vanity) pets for years, little dudes and dudettes who follow your characters around looking cool, performing cute emotes, and acting as the occasional status symbol. Companion pets even became the first foray into Blizzard-accepted real-money gold buying with the Guardian Cub as an experiment in fighting gray-market gold selling. Companion pets have become their own meta-game in WoW despite the introduction of the actual meta-game Pet Battle system.

Companion pets will now be at the center of a minigame of their own. After years of collecting and coveting, finally these pets will serve a purpose beyond looking adorable or annoying Dalaran with chilling screams of "NEW TOYS, FOR ME?!" Many players have noticed that the Pet Battle system bears a striking resemblance to the biggest pet battle system franchise ever created, Pokémon. Do you know what Pokémon is? I'm sure you know what Pokémon is.