WarCraft Battle Pets

Mists of Pandaria Pet Battle Updates

Garwulf — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:20:04 +0000

Blizzard held a press event yesterday, sharing all sorts of juicy updates about what’s to come in Mists of Pandaria. Among the deluge of news…some insight into how the Pet Battle System is shaping up.

Here are a few key updates regarding the pet battle system…

Player involvement in pet battles is planned to be totally anonymous. Player names will not be shown, and in addition, there will be no chat – or interaction of any kind – between players.
PvP Pet Battle losses will not be recorded – only the wins will be tracked. The intention is for PvP pet battles to feel fun and casual.
When you challenge another player while out in the world, your interface will transition to the Pet Battle UI. When the pet battle is over, the UI will return to the normal gameplay view.
When entering a PvP Pet Battle, players will see each other’s characters across from one another, along with the player’s pets lined up in front of them.
PvP Pet Battles will feel like an NPC encounter, except in this case, the NPC will seem much more intelligent and less predictable.
Pets will be swappable during battles – even while in the thick of it. Players will be able to tag in a new pet in the middle of a fight, with the pet even running up to the enemy pet to attack!
There will be an estimated 100 Wild Pets scattered about Azeroth.
Battle Pets can all be named.
Battle Pets will be usable account-wide – across all characters.
Pets will require leveling, and will possess stats such as: health, attack, defense and movement speed.
Pets will have a talent system consisting of a maximum of six abilities, of which the pet can have three. These abilities may be re-talented, but only when not in battle. Pets unlock new abilities as they level.

So there ya go… the Pet Battle system is deep in development and seems to be shaping up pretty nicely, although I’m not entirely sure I like the idea of the system only tracking wins. I think for the pet battles to really catch on and become a popular WoW mini-game – there will need to be a slightly more competitive atmosphere to it.

I think a little less anonymity would be a welcome change, but I can see keeping player dialogue out of it. In my opinion, there’s little at stake in this, so why not let players enjoy being a bit more casually competitive with it? As long as the trash-talking is kept out of it, why not let the top “pet battlers” attain some glory..?!

If you lose a bunch…who cares? However, if you end up being a top pet battle strategist, it’d be nice to make a name for yourself in certain circles.

What do you think?

Cory Stockton on Pet Battles in Mists of Pandaria

Garwulf — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:31:15 +0000

Yesterday, at Blizzard’s press event, WoWHead had a chance to discuss a some Mists of Pandaria with Blizzard’s Cory Stockton. During the interview he touched on the development of the Pet Battle system. The information he shared was not much different than what he announced at BlizzCon last year, but from what he said, it sounds like the developers are taking the creation of this new mini-game very seriously.

Cory Stockton on Pet Battles in Mists of Pandaria

Q: One last question. Watching Arthas fight Illidan today for pet battles was awesome–but the battle itself seemed kind of short. What’s still in development for pet battles? Also, at BlizzCon, you were talking about complex ways to get pets–some only spawning in cities, some in the rain? Is that still in the works?

Quote from Cory Stockton

All of those things are still planned. What you saw today is what the actual battle will look like and working in game. But we’re currently totally in development on the abilities and how everything works in the back and forth. We just got the game up and running in real time, but what you’re not seeing is all the gameplay. We’ve actually been playing a paper version–we cut it out and that’s how we’ve been tuning it for things to be in the game.

As far as depth goes, it’s a pretty deep game if you really want to get into it. There’s different abilities you can pick and stats–those stats can be random when you catch the pets.

Will TCG and Blizzard store pets also work?

Absolutely. We plan to have the majority of pets work, almost all of them.

As far as your questions about PvE, all your details are making it in. There’s a number of pets you’ll just find in the world, but some will only spawn when it’s raining, or the winter time, for example. I just put one in the other day that only spawns between 9 pm and midnight–during that time he pops every 15 min. It’s a really limited period, and you can imagine people in town talking about it when it spawns.

Pet battles are something we look at as totally optional content that’s also really deep if you want to get into it.

From the sound of things, it seems Blizzard is trying to do something really special with the new Pet Battle system. I’m anxious to see a game play video.

By the way… who won? Arthas or Illidan?

WoW Pet Battles on the iPhone

Garwulf — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:02:24 +0000

WoW Pet Battle App for the iPhone..?

Looks like Blizzard is still giving some serious thought to creating an iPhone App for the Pet Battle system. This was something that had been touched upon at BlizzCon 2011, and it seems the idea is still very much alive.

At Blizzard’s press event yesterday, Tankspot sat down with J Allen Brack and asked him some questions about… WoW, the upcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion, how in the hell Blizzard is going to pull off an MoP beta test with 1M participants – and – if Blizzard had any plans for future remote WoW apps, similar to the auction house and guild chat features they offer now.

J Allen Brack on WoW Pet Battles Coming to the iPhone

Q: Is there anything new coming for the World of Warcraft Remote in the future? Personally I was looking at the Pet Battle system and going, “I would love to play that on my iPhone” or something like that.

Quote from J Allen Brack

I think that’s a good idea. It’s something that we definitely have talked about and I would love to do someday. We did introduce the guild chat as the most recent feature we’ve introduced to that. Pet Battle is definitely something we’ve talked about.

I for one think this is bound to happen. Not only would Blizzard make a killing off of direct sales of the app, but it would serve to further boost popularity of the pet battle system, in general, resulting in a likely increase in sales for Blizz’s virtual pet store. It would also provide a nice test bed for future WoW mini-game app ideas.

Now – It’s – Time – To – Dance!

Garwulf — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:35:47 +0000

Spread some festive holiday cheer in your neighborhood bank or auction house…

Get your fellow players’ toes tappin’ with some Party G.R.E.N.A.D.E.s — the 5th item up for grabs in the Holiday WoW Loot Giveaway.

Here’s the code:

0379039970280321945504364

Have fun!

Have Yourself a Purple Puffer Christmas

Garwulf — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 05:40:42 +0000

Redeem this code tonight

If you are quick

You’ll have a pet that’s outta sight…

9547664683220234102042004

The 4th loot item up for grabs in my WoW Loot Holiday Giveaway is a fancy new Purple Puffer pet!

Don’t Let the Lichling Steal Christmas

Garwulf — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:10:44 +0000

Be quick and you can steal him first!

WoW Holiday Loot Giveaway #3 is a Landro’s Lichling companion pet.

Here’s the code…

7447404238742399814149925

Purple Puffer Giveaway

Garwulf — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:41:57 +0000

I haven’t seen much news in the past week or so about the upcoming Pet Battle System, so to liven things up around here I figure why not give away another Purple Puffer pet..? Sounds like a good idea, right..?

The rules for entering will be more or less identical to the last contest, but this time I want to make the entries a little more interesting. Instead of just saying, “pick, pick me..!”, tell everyone which companion pet you’d most like to add to your WoW pet collection. I’m just curious to know which pets players covet the most.

I’ll pick a winner next Friday, November 25th, at 10am PST. The winner will be chosen at random, and notified immediately. After that, the winner has 24 hours to respond, otherwise the Purple Puffer goes into a second chance drawing. Once the winner has confirmed receipt of my email, I’ll send them their Bloat the Bubble Fish loot card code.

The Purple Puffer loot code is not redeemable until Patch 4.3 hits, which will likely be either next week or the week after.

If you want to know what the Purple Puffer is going to be like in-game, have a look at the Sea Pony preview below. The Purple Puffer will probably be animated exactly like the Sea Pony, only they’ll be a puffer fish inside the bubble instead of a seahorse.

Alright… well good luck to all who enter!

This contest is now over. Thanks to all those who entered, and grats to the winner!

Pet Battle System Q&A with J. Allen Brack

Garwulf — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 01:32:20 +0000

A few weeks ago at BlizzCon, WIRED.com sat down with WoW Production Director, J. Allen Brack, and asked him some questions about the upcoming expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Some of the Q&A was specifically targeted at the announced Pet Battle System that will be coming in MoP.

Here’s what he had to say…

Wired.com: Another thing that people either love or hate is the pet battle system. Would you liken it to Pokémon, as some are calling it? How would you describe the gameplay? Is it just a fun side thing, or are we going to see some serious pet PvP tournaments?

Quote from Brack

That’s a really good question. I think a lot of that is going to determine on the tuning which we haven’t actually made yet. The point of it is just to be a very fun thing that players can do. But you’d be amazed how hardcore people get about certain things. Actually, you probably wouldn’t be amazed… [laughs]

So that’s definitely a goal for us, but more importantly it has to be fun and give something to players to do with their pets. People have been collecting pets for a lot of years now. When we put the very first pet in, people were super excited. Some said “Hey, I want my pets to battle each other.” Now we’re saying, “OK, that sounds great. Your pets should be able to battle each other. Let’s build a system around that.” When we did Cataclysm, we removed pets from your actual bags and put them all in your spell book, which means there’s a lot of people who have a lot of pets.

Wired.com: You said you’re still working on the pet tuning. How are you going to balance that? Are rare pets better, or is it how players equip them?

Quote from Brack

It’s definitely going to be how players equip their pets. So you’ll be able to say, “Hey, I want this pet,” and that pet maybe is the ultra rare one that has these three or four abilities. Someone else can have a common pet that has similar abilities or different types. It’s much more a rock, paper, scissors kind of approach in terms of how the combat is going to work as opposed to, “I’ve got the one uber-rare pet and now I’m all powerful.” That’s how we’re going to do it.

Wired.com: Are you worried about farming for rare pets, then? I can see China starting pet farms for rare pets because pets are…

Quote from Brack

Pets are very special. They’re close to people’s hearts. We haven’t seen a whole lot of farms in terms of stuff like that. That’s a really interesting question. I really hadn’t thought about how that would work. We’ll definitely be looking at all the various drop rates and how people actually get all the various pets in the game. Our goal is to actually have all the pets that you currently have translate right into that system. So there will be new pets for you to get. But you’ll also be able to start using your existing pets as well.

J. Allen Brack (Photo: Blizzard via WIRED.com)

There’s much more to the Q&A than this, but I mainly wanted to report on the responses specifically aimed at the Pet Battle System.

I like how he compared the proposed Pet Battle System to that of Rock, Scissors, Paper, because it means the game will involve much more in the way of strategy and counters, rather than the… I spend the most time farming for the best pets, therefore I win approach.

The entire interview is really good, and gives us some additional insight into what Blizzard has planned for Mists of Pandaria. There aren’t too many specifics, of course, but it provides a nice overview of what they’re striving for with MoP.

Visit WIRED.com to read the full interview.

Sea Pony Pet

Garwulf — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:15:09 +0000

As I’d mentioned in the previous post about the upcoming Darkmoon Island zone in Patch 4.3, there is going to be a new and exciting aquatic pet — The Sea Pony.

The Sea Pony is a seahorse companion pet that can be obtained by fishing the waters off of Darkmoon Island. El’s Anglin’ reports that the area can be fished effectively with Fishing skill as low as 75, making this pet available to nearly anyone willing to put in the time it takes to catch it. El mentioned having caught this pet after more than 700 casts, with one person on WoWHead claiming as few as 166 casts, so expect that it will take awhile to catch this cute little companion.

Here’s a video preview by syigamer of this new Sea Pony pet, along with a glimpse of the new Darkmoon Island wharf area.

Sea Pony Video Preview

The Sea Pony also serves as a preview for what the Purple Puffer will be like. I imagine it will share the same summoning animation, as well as water globe appearance. Both pets are going to be very popular, I’m sure!

Darkmoon Faire Pets Preview

Garwulf — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:02:24 +0000

Patch 4.3 is going to introduce us to a whole new level of the Darkmoon Faire. Instead of the same old traveling carvival that we’ve been used to all of these years, players will soon have a chance to venture to Darkmoon Island, and experience the faire like never before – on a grand scale, with loads of new attractions, games, prizes and more…

For the full preview of Darkmoon Island and all that it has in store for us, please visit the official preview post.

At any rate… the reason I’m posting about the new Darkmoon Faire is because it brings with it some new pets! There are 6 new pets that will be available through the Darkmoon Faire, at a price of 90 Darkmoon Prize Tickets each. Of these 6 new pets, I think it’s safe to say that at least 3 of them will be battle-ready in Mists of Pandaria.

The New Pets Available at Darkmoon Island in patch 4.3

Darkmoon Cub

Darkmoon Cub (Source: MMO Champion)

The Darkmoon Cub will most likely be available for Pet Battles in Mists of Pandaria. I think one of the qualifiers for the new system will probably be ‘intelligence’, meaning most creatures or machines possessing some form of brain will be able to compete. That said, I expect this new Darkmoon kitty cat to be available for the upcoming Pet Battle System.

You can catch a glimpse of the Darkmoon Cub – well, it’s rear-end mainly – in the Darkmoon Faire preview video near the end of this post. Look behind the Darkmoon Turtle at 5:25 and you’ll see a portion of the Darkmoon Cub, mostly blocked from view by the turtle.

Darkmoon Turtle

Darkmoon Turtle (Source: MMO Champion)

This cute little guy looks quite a bit like Speedy, one of the Children’s Week quest rewards, but with a slightly different color and pattern on his shell. As with the Darkmoon Cub, I’m sure this turtle will be able to participate in the battle system in Mists of Pandaria. Given their ‘tanky’ nature, I’m willing to bet turtles will fill some sort of tank-type role.

Look for the Darkmoon Turtle in the preview video below at 5:25, to the left of the Darkmoon Pet Vendor, and in front of the Darkmoon Cub.

The DMF Turtle will be only the second turtle companion pet in the game, so I expect it will be pretty popular.

Darkmoon Monkey

Darkmoon Monkey (Source: MMO Champion)

The monkey seems really cool. He’s got an ‘organ grinder monkey’ look about him, rather than the ‘chimp’ look that the WoW TCG Pet, Bananas, has. He looks like a naughty gypsy monkey, who could probably be really efficient at pick-pocketing.

The monkey pictured here to the right has no hat on, but it’s been mentioned that the Darkmoon Monkey will be wearing a fez.

Watch the preview video to see a glimpse of the Darkmoon Monkey. FF to 5:25, and you’ll see him doing his king of the jungle impersonation on the counter at the pet vendor’s stand.

Darkmoon Balloon – Darkmoon Zeppelin – Darkmoon Tonk

I’m gathering that these pets will probably be excluded from battling, but who knows…

Anyway, here are the other three pets available for purchase at the new Darkmoon Faire coming in Patch 4.3.

Darkmoon Balloon, Darkmoon Zeppelin & Darkmoon Tonk (Source: MMO Champion)

Darkmoon Island Preview Video

Fast-forward to approximately 5:23 if you just want to catch a glimpse of the new pets that have been featured above (cub, turtle and monkey).

Last but not least, there are reports of a new water pet…

A Seahorse pet, to be specific. It’s not associated with the Darkmoon Faire event, but it can only be obtained from the waters off Darkmoon Island, meaning you’ll only have one short window per month in which you’ll be able to get it. More on this in a bit.