Blog Azeroth: Future Raid-Drop Pets

I'm rather late in getting around to posting my response to Effraeti's (of Awaiting the Muse)question...

While running through MC, BWL, AQ40, and Naxx over the weekend, I got to thinking...

 

If a future patch adds more raid-dropped pets like those introduced in 5.1, what pets would you like to see? What raid and boss would they be available from?

It's taken me so long for a few reasons - one being the festive season but the main issue being I have very little experience and therefore knowledge of any raids! Nonetheless, I love collecting and battling pets so I wanted to think up some sort of reply.

For me, the addition of raid-drop pets and the achievement Raiding With Leashes was really exciting. It gave me a reason to go to these old raids that I'd mostly never heard of. I had cleared the Molten Core a few times with my guild but it was this achievement that made me go back.

So, all I can say is that I would love for there to be more raid-dropped pets added in the future. Where and who they're mini versions of - I have no idea!

Got him!

In my last blog (link) I spoke briefly about my boyfriend finding a Scourged Whelpling and my minor touch of jealousy. Well, I've finally got one of my own... thanks to my lovely boyfriend! After work last night my boyf was playing WoW and I asked him to pop to Icecrown and have a quick look. To both of our surprise, there were several whelps in the area and continued to spawn for around 5minutes. To reiterate, this was not after a server restart and was at approx. 4:30am server time.

Yayyy!

The geotag above shows where exactly I caught my rare whelpling. I had expected the to spawn slightly further north around the pit/crater but got mine south-east of there. However, others were spawning further north.

Capturing this guy also meant that I finally achieved Northrend Safari.

I'm a very happy bunny and best of luck to anyone who's also after one of these guys!

Un-Healthy Competition

Last night, well this morning, I got home from work to find my boyfriend was still awake. I asked why he was still up at 6:30am and he told me he'd stayed up for the server restarts and had something to show me. I assumed it was a Minfernal which didn't bother me as I've already captured one. However, when he said it was a Scourged Whelping I must admit to being rather jealous and a little angry! It's the last pet I need for Northrend Safari.

Anyway this got me thinking about my own in-game competitiveness and in-game competitiveness in general. Personally, I don't think I'm very competitive, with one exception - pet battles. Only 3 or 4 people in my guild are into pet battles and this includes me and my boyfriend. The two of us do compete and compare who has what pets etc. But other than this I'm fairly relaxed.

Something that's not uncommon in-game is people getting competitive over gear. This can occur at a variety of levels, right the way up to ninja-ing gear. As mentioned above I'm quite laid back and to me my ilevel means nothing! But to some people ilevel is everything. People at the oppoiste end of extremes, to myself, can even get aggressive over gear. Such an incident happened within my guild a few months back: four guilides were running a dungeon together with one random. During a loot role one guildie rolled need, with the intention of mailing said piece of gear to a different char and they already had an excuse/reason lined up - 'they were fed up of people doing it to them'. Personally I don't agree with this behaviour and think it makes you no better than those you're complaining about. Also, there can be wider repercussions. I think people are well within their rights to report this behaviour to the offending persons GM - if they can be bothered. Whilst I think it would take something a bit more that a ninja for me to worry, I certainly would if someone was being abusive in a dungeon.

Christmas Chaos!

Today, I've woken up to the realisation that I'm very behind with my list of stuff to do this week before Christmas. Working nights hasn't helped - that is for sure. I spend my evenings doing housework, cooking etc and playing a couple hours of WoW before work. As a result, I've not progressed too well concerning Winter Veil and the Merrymaker. I wanted to have this achievement complete before Christmas but it looks like I'll be finishing it off afterwards.

More urgently, Christmas is just one week away! My boyfriend doesn't want anything in real-life, so I decided to get him something in-game. But... what do you get someone who's banking alt has over 200K gold and as a result they have almost everyhing they could want? There's one in-game pet that I happen to hvae two of that I know he lacks so my plan is to cage it up for him. I'll have to think some more about what else to get him.

Even more importantly though - I have to sort my gift for my Furtive Father Winter recipient! I now know who my recipient is am working through a series of ideas but it's proving much harder than I frirst though. I'm still really looking forward to making said gift - once I've decided upon an idea / theme to go with. Oh well, it's all good fun!

Dalaran Crater & the Lofty Libram.

One of the Winter Veil quests (You're a Mean One...) requires you to travel to the Hillsbrad Foothills. Whilst there I decided to check out the Dalaran Crater. I'd never really paid much attention to this area and it was only due to being in the zone and the Lofty Libram battle pet that I bothered.

My boyfriend filled me in on the lore as a circled the site in search of the Libram. I was surprised at how pretty and peaceful the site was. I saw a paw print on the map, a rat, and went to battle it in the hope it would spawn a Libram. A troll beat me to it, so I continued on my route. Within seconds a new paw print appeared and this time it was a Libram. Nice bit of luck!



North of the crater.

 

South of the crater, above where I caught theLofty Libram.

With my Lofty Libram.

The Pet & Mount Store - Some Recent Purchases

The Blizzard Store have been doing a fair few offers recently. Last week, in-game mounts were half price (reduced to £8.50 each) and now the in-game companions are reduced (to £4.50 each). The Blizzard Store is in itself an interesting topic. I have no objections to Blizzard selling in-game pets / mounts for real-life money. At the end of the day they aren't a compulsory part of the game and people buy them voluntarily if they wish to. Despite this, some peopls will (and do) argue that Bizzard are trying to make money out of the fan-base. Perhaps this is true, but it should be remembered that these same moaners often stll have active subscriptions to the game and are themseslves paying Blizzard each month to play the game!

Anyway, this post is really just about my recent purchase and my surprise gift. I have always loved and wanted the sparkle pony (Celestial Steed). Last week I was in two-minds about purchasing the mount. My two arguments were : Could I afford to spend the £8.50 on an in-game item? vs. Would it make more sense to buy it cheap now? In the end I flipped a coin and purchased the mount. I didn't see my boyfriend until the next day as he was leaving for work and all he said was "check your e-mail". I realised that he, knowing I was in two-minds about the purchase, had also gone and got me the mount. Fortunately, Blizz are refunding this purchase.

The last three days I've been quite ill and in a bit of a daze. Last night, I was sat minding my own business when he told me to check my e-mails. This time he had purchased me a Moonkin Hatchling. These guys are so cute and probably the only pet I would consider purchasing. You also, to some extent, get two pets out of it. They come in two colour morphs - blue for Alliance and brown for Horde. My boyfriend also purchased himself a Moonkin Hatchling aswell as a Pandaren Monk (whom he's named 'Po').

Caught in a Sandstorm

Earlier this evening I was on my usual circuit looking for pets when a bit of luck struck. I took the portal from Stormwind to Uldum and then flew (on my new sparkle pony - aka the Celestial Steed) to Tanaris.

As soon as I entered the zone the ongoing sandstorm became very apparent. I had never witnessed a sandstorm and wasn't sure what to expect. Asking around in-guild revealed that most people had never seen one so I was still a little in the dark. However, the recent hotfixes did include making such events more obvious.

Stormy!

Just in case you haven't worked it out already - I was in search of the Silithid Hatchling. These guys only spawn during sandstorms and within two areas of Tanaris - the Noxious Lair and Gaping Chasm.

I caught mine within the Gaping Chasm and can report that not only were there several within the area but that they continued to spawn throughout the sandstorm. I battled several and got an uncommon quality one.

With my new Silithid Hatchling.



Blog Azeroth's Furtive Father Winter 2012

I've decided to take part in this years Furtive Father Winter event. This isn't exactly a Blog Azeroth: Shared Topic more a Blog Azeroth community event. It is being hosted by Akabeko over at Red Cow Rise and has been featured by WoW Insider this week.

The event is basically a virtual secret santa with participants being given a gift recipient whom they have to purchase (or rather produce something) for. For more information on how the event works see Redcow's original post and the Blog Azeroth thread.

I'm really looking forward to this event and would like to encourage everyone interested to take part - after all the more the merrier!

Kun-Lai Summit & the Draenei with Glasses?

Yesterday, I wrote my piece for the Blog Azeroth shared topic about Winter Veil (link) and this really helped me to focus on what I want to achieve before the new year. I'll be the first to admit that Pet Battles have absorbed a large amount of my in-game time! Even when I'm not battling / leveling my pets I often find my self circling around spawn points looking for certain, more elusive pets.

Anyway, last night I had a new-found focus and with it being my one night off work decided it was time to get back to leveling my hunter. She was about a third of the way through level 87 and located just insude Kun-Lai Summit at Binan Village. I quested from here through Westwind Rest, the Yaungol Advance, One Keg and up to Zouchin Village before moving on to the Townlong Steppes. Shes now level 88 and that one step closer to level 90.

Along the way I took a few screenshotes (below) and managed to achieve Quality & Quantity, brining my total number of unique pets up to 349. All-in-all not a bad evening.



At Lao & Son's Yakwash.



Mishka, the Draenei with glasses, at Westwind Rest.

Whispercloud Rise.

Gateway in the Shado-Li Basin.

The Brawler's Guild

I've recently been spending a fair amount of my in-game time within Bizmo's Brawlpub (aka the Brawler's Guild) so I thought I'd have a bit of a ramble about it. Normally, my knowledge of in-game items, events etc. is quite poor but it seems that I know more about the Brawler's Guild than a good two-thirds of my guild!

Inside Bizmo's Brawlpub.

Firstly, I've had a few of my guildies asking where it is. For Alliance the entrance is within the Deeprun Tram, Stormwind end. As you enter the tram 'station', head left to the ramp (that you use to get back up if you fall off the edge), down the ramp and its opposite you. For Horde I believe it's in Orgrimmar but I'm not sure where.

More Pets...

After capturing my Minfernal on Sunday (link) I seem to have had some luck concerning the capture of battle pets. Considering that my play time has been limited due to work I've managed to tick a few off of my list of "must haves". As previously mentioned, the recent Patch (5.1) introduced both new wild pets and pets that drop from old raid bosses - and these pets have been on my list.

Since Sunday I have captured the following: Infinite Whelpling, Mini Mindslayer, Emerald Proto-Whelp and the Darkmoon Glowfly. I also saw Harbringer of Flame drop but lost the roll.

I found my Infinite Whelpling just outside the Caverns of Time. There was just the one and the capture was fairly simple. Once I'd won the battle and phased back out someone else had just appeared and was flying around presumably in search for one of these guys. I'm really impressed with how these guys look and their symbol.



Outside the Caverns of Time with my Infinite Whelpling.

 

My very own Minfernal!!!

Finally, I have my very own MINFERNAL!!! Normally I wouldn't go into much detail about the capture but as it's Minferal it's a bit different.

Yayyyy!

Large map to show exact spawn location within Shatter Scar Vale.

 

I was just on my usual route looking for pets. I decided to spend a little time in Shatter Scar Vale, Felwood. There were a few people around but not that many (5 max.). There was a Pandaren killing the larger infernals that the tool tip suggests these guys should spawn from.

Arcane Eye, Cogblade Raptor & the Nexus Whelpling!

This post, incase you haven't guessed already, is about me capturing the Arcane Eye, Cogblade Raptor and the Nexus Whelpling. Yet again I've been short on time and haven't got much done in-game. I have just started a temporary Christmas job that involves me working nights. Despite this impacting on my play time I'm hoping that it will have a silver lining and that it will increase my chances of getting more elusive pets (i.e. Minfernal and the Scourged Whelpling) after server restarts as I'll just be getting home. But we'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, last night (Saturday) I was online for about 3 hours. I started of on my mage portaling my way around looking for pets to capture. As usual no sign of Minfernal so I headed to Deadwind Pass in search of the Arcane Eye. I completed the pet battle daily and found an eye on top of Karazhan, poor quality.



With my Arcane Eye, Karazhan.