Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Evolution of Pets, or "Tail Wagging and Other Fine Motions"

I'm trying to decide if Blizzard is giving us fewer but overall more complex vanity pets, or if the vanity pets we've received recently (Perky Pug, Core Hound Pup, Pandaren Monk) are just special treats.

If you look at one of the early pets, such as Mr. Wiggles the pig, his special motion was pretty unique: he ate grass while idling.

We were all "Oooh, look at that grass eating!!"

Now consider the Perky Pug and Core Hound Pup. Not only do they have special idle animations (the pug wipes -- yes, there's a pun in there -- and the core hound rolls over and tosses a bone from one mouth to the other), but they also move. They don't just stand there with a twisting tail and occasional grass-eating. They shift from paw to paw, they look around, they play while they wait.

(For the record, considering the number of people getting hacked these days, I approve of only giving Core Hound Pups to people with authenticators. I thought "I wonder if this authenticator will be a hassle" when I got one and it isn't. At all. It doesn't add more than 2 seconds to logging in unless you have outside forces at work, such as a sucky connection or an unreal tendency to lose things or dyslexia, and account restorations are draining a lot of Blizz resources that could be used to make us more pets.)

What I'm interested in seeing on the pet front is whether or not Blizz continues to give us more of these evolved pets or whether these pets are special "Oh we just had some spare time between people getting hacked" items.

Personally, I don't mind getting fewer pets in the future if they all get this level of time and detail. I don't know anyone who would say "Yes, give me lots more generic recolor pets instead of a couple of really cool new ones."

Crazy people, maybe.

5 comments:

  1. I loved the rat you get from children week.

    She does the cute thing with the mouth critters do as idle animation (don't know how that's called in English). And a rat kind of is a perfect match for a warlock, in my opinion.

    But the first time I saw the sewer rat I was sold and after endless hours of fishing (and seeing the "I smell giant rat" followed by the "25 fish" achievement in guild chat...) I finally owe one and haven't really used another pet since then. :-)

    Best pet ever. Especially if you throw her the thing they bring back from the pet shop. :)

    And Stinker + black Cat is really funny.

    And on my tank who is engineer I normally use Lil' Smokey which makes this incredible annoying noise and hope some melee plays with sound and wait how long it takes until he complains. Unfortunately, it happens only rarely. :-)

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  2. I like to hit spacebar while on a hawkstrider to make it squawk... pretty much constantly. I didn't realize it had an annoying sound until my brother told me to stop. I just liked seeing the animation. XD

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  3. I know what you mean :-) <3

    I'm a lucky owner of the hawkstrider from Magisters' Terrace. I love the sound. And the annimation of it. :-) You have to love it when you owe something as rare as that. :-)

    But the best animation is when it picks his side for insects. :-)

    I really have to get a new mount for my human DK. I hate hate hate this *Wwhiiiiiiii-Plumb" sound from the DK mount when you summon it. Don't know what to get thought. The alliance only has cute tigers. The other mounts stink.

    I could try to farm the baron mount... Nah, probably not. :-)

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  4. The Baron mount can be farmed a few times an hour, if you're willing to do the grind. Just takes about 100 runs. It'd be a great mount for a DK.

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  5. @Kring -- dunno if you'll see this, but there's an addon to replace the deathcharger's scream with a more pleasant sound: "Quiet that horse!"

    Still works even as of 3.3. :)

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