Posts with tag egbert

Ever since Blizzard announced pet battles back at BlizzCon, I've been really excited about the feature. Oddly, though, I haven't tried it until today. I've been so caught up with other beta (and general World of Warcraft) activities that I've let the one feature I'm looking forward to most pass me by. This morning, I set absolutely everything else aside so I could take a crack at it.

The fun of it was the fact that I didn't even know where to get started. I've been following the countless pet battle guides floating around the internet closely enough to have a basic grip on the system's mechanics, but the first step, the starting point, never stuck with me. Where do I get the training? How much does it cost?

Luckily, finding that information in-game was easy enough. The trainers' being located in a capital city seemed like the obvious answer, so I stopped in Stormwind and checked in with a city guard. The guard was able to direct me to the pet battle trainer just like any class or profession trainer. An icon was placed on my minimap, leading me straight to Audrey Burnhep, the Alliance pet battle trainer. Between you and me, that seems like a seriously misplaced pop culture reference. What does Audrey Hepburn have to do with pet battles? Maybe she has a cockfighting history I don't know about.

Back in June I brought you the news that FigurePrints were bringing out a new range in their 3D printed collectable WoW models named FigurePets. The original line up featured a limited run of three non-combat pets: The Clockwork Rocket Bot, Stinker the Skunk, and Speedy the Turtle -- who was by far my favorite!

For the readers out there who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a set of the original FigurePets then you can attest to how awesome they really are -- these little guys rock! I've got mine standing in formation around my Kungen FigurePrint letting everyone who comes near my computer know that I am a WoW player (or should that be "playa?" It does sound far more "gangsta" that way).

So it gives me great pleasure to inform you that FigurePets are back with a brand new limited series of three new non-combat pets. The line up this time is as follows:

ashenmonuments spotted yet another undocumented change that will help you achievement hounds. Apparently Blizzard has updated the Veteran Nanny achievement from Children's Week to include pets you've already learned. So it won't actually take you three years to earn the achievement (since you can only get one pet per year). Any pets you have already should now count towards getting the points.

Unfortunately, this won't help the Violet Proto-Drake seekers, because the Veteran Nanny achievement got removed in 2.4.3 as part of the Children's Week meta-achievements (probably because Blizzard noted that it took so long to get done). And even if it did count, you'll still need the Brewfest achievements... which you'll have to wait until this October to get (since Blizzard dropped the achievements patch after Brewfest ended last year). But Children's Week enthusiasts who have already collected pets in the past will have a little less work to do to pick up the Veteran Nanny achievement.

Dalaran's local toymaker, Jepetto Joybuzz, has added some new items to his stock in the last few beta patches. Each one just as overpriced as the last! His items have no real use as far as combat and stats and that sort of thing, they're just for fun. They're toys! What did you expect? Let's take a look at what he has to offer.

• Grindgear Toy Gorilla - This one-use summoned pet will cost you 45 silver. It emulates Egbert from Children's Week, running all over the place like his butt is aflame. He only lasts 20 seconds, then disappears. It almost feels like that's a bug, that the item should disappear because you learned it like other pets, but it doesn't seem like that's the case. The item specifically lists a cooldown, and you can buy multiples. They stack.
  
• Trusty Copper Racer - For 30 silver, you can buy this race car that looks like the goblin podracer in the Shimmering Flats. It travels 20 yards, then... disappears. With the item. Hm. This one is kind of lame.
  

With The Burning Crusade, Children's Week was given a new tier of quests, based in Outland. Either this year or the last, I'm sure most of you have done these quests. Rather than replacing the old ones, it was simply an addition to the holiday.

If Children's Week receives the same treatment in Wrath, I'm itching to see what the rewards will be, or who(what?) we'll be escorting. The rewards in TBC were based off of the new content, so I have my doubts we'll have any accurate guesses for Wrath's installment at this point, but wrong guesses are still fun to make. Penguins? Walruses? Baby Bornakks?

And what will we be escorting? A baby Tuskarr? A baby Nerubian? Who knows! Like I said, I doubt we can make any accurate guesses at this point in Wrath's development, but it's still fun to think about.