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In Warcraft, Breanni is a female gnomish mage with an inquisitive spirit and an affinity for small pets. Despite her egoistic ramblings, she has a passion for helping others in any way she can. Her sense of humor is too quirky for some, but she always draws a crowd on open-mic night at the Goldshire Inn. In short, Breanni is a lot like myself (minus the "female gnomish mage" part). So who am I?
The "Real" Breanni
In the real world, I'm a perfectionistic web developer, graphic designer, artist, writer, and of course, gamer. Admittedly, I play more World of Warcraft than I should. With so much game time under my belt, I've managed to create and play one of every class (and concordantly one of every race) to level 65+, with the crazy goal of bringing them all to the max level. And as you've no doubt gathered, I'm an avid collector of minipets.
Q & A with the Site Creator
I've done my best to anticipate and field some questions about me, my love of small pets, and my Warcraft habit. Enjoy!
Why did you create this website?
In spring of 2006, the Children's Week quest was updated with three new vanity pets. As a collector, I was thrilled. But I realized it would take at least three characters to collect them all. I'd been intending to divvy up my collection between all of my characters anyway (you know how bag space is). But my obsessive nature compelled me to try and figure out which pets I hadn't yet collected would best complement each of my characters. So I hunted down a small pet guide without any luck. And that prompted me to do a little research and create my own.
I figured since I was already making a guide, I might as well share it with the Warcraft community. So I posted it on the official Warcraft forums. Thus, my popular Guide to Vanity Pets was born. Since pet collector's were so pleased with the guide, I decided to take it to the next level and create the definitive website for small pet collectors.
How long did it take you to build?
It took nearly three months to complete this site.
I continue to work on it during my spare time, which means my characters don't do as much leveling as I'd like. But hey... it's for a good cause.
Why the fascination with small pets?
That's a toughie... I guess you either love 'em or leave 'em. And I fell in love with them ever since I saw the two-page spread in the back of the official World of Warcraft strategy guide. I thought to myself, "How cool would it be to have my own pet within the World of Warcraft?!"
What was your first small pet?
Getting my first pet was a challenge, even though it was quite common. I took a two-week old, level 12 Breanni in search of Donni Anthania. I only knew that she was somewhere in Elwynn Forest. I searched in utter frustration for over an hour, fending off nasty bears and murlocs. Having access to this website back then would've saved me a lot of trouble! When I finally found her, I blew almost all the coin I had on my very first small pet: a Silver Tabby. But much like potato chips, you can't stop at just one.
How many small pets do you have now?
After three years of collecting, I have 77 of 84 small pets that I'm able to collect. Go me!
Which ones are you missing?
Visit my profile to see my collection, along with all of the pets I'm currently seeking. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to collect these pets:
Do you have any pets in real life?
The Fuzz
You bet. After growing up with five cats, two dogs (who in turn had four puppies), four gerbils, several frogs, and a turtle, today I've scaled back to a Persian cat, affectionately known as "The Fuzz". Additionally, after my mother's recent passing, we adopted Kirby, her loving Rat Terrier.
A possible tribute? In patch 2.4, a new kitty was added to the bedroom above Stormwind's main inn. It's a Siamese cat named Fuzz. A few visitors to this site suggested it might be a tribute to me. It's probably just a coincidence, but I wonder...
So why is Breanni the host of this site?
I posted my original Guide to Vanity Pets on the forums under Breanni. Since people knew me by that name, it made sense to carry it over to this site. As such, I've had a lot of fun further developing Breanni's persona.
How many other characters do you have?
I play 11 characters total:
- Breanni, a gnomish mage
- A blood elf warlock
- A dwarven paladin
- An orc shaman
- A night elf feral druid
- A tauren moonkin druid
- A night elf holy priest
- An undead shadow priest
- A human rogue
- A troll hunter
- A draenei warrior
While Breanni may be the most well-known, I really don't consider her my "main". In fact, I don't have a main. I love playing each and every class depending on my mood. All of these characters are 68+ (yes... I have no life). Lately, I've been doing a lot of dual-boxing, which has been loads of fun.
The nice thing about playing all nine classes is that I have a great understanding of how each class works in tandem with the others. This has helped my DPS control, my tanking, and most notably, my healing. Thus, I wrote another popular guide on the Priest forum called A Beginner's Guide to Healing. I reprinted that guide on this site as Healing for Beginners—a great guide for any novice healer, if I do say so myself.
The other nice thing about playing so many characters is that I can spread my pet collection out amongst all of them. At any given time, each carries at least three different pets. After all, one of the best things about pet collecting is being able to show them all off!
Check out 9 Classes Ranked: Leveling Speed to learn more about my journey leveling each of these characters.
Do you play any other female characters?
My rogue and Smolderweb
Yes. In fact, almost all of the characters I play on a regular basis are female. Surprised? Me too! If you had told me three years ago that I'd be playing so many female characters, I never would've believed you.
Breanni was my very first character. Originally, I was intending to make a male tauren, but then I reconsidered. I thought it might be more fun to play the tiniest of races, so that people would subconsciously underestimate my strength. Following that same logic, I chose to play a gnomish female.
When Breanni hit her mid-30s, I got curious about other classes and the horde. So I decided to create my first alt. This time, I would make that male tauren druid. And I did. But I had trouble seeing around his enormous frame and it was adversely affecting my game. At the time, I had no idea how to zoom out the camera (my trackball doesn't have a mouse wheel). So I deleted him and tried a female tauren instead. Her smaller frame was much more manageable for my interface and since the gender difference didn't bother me, I just stuck with her (although her voice still gives me nightmares).
My next character was my rogue. I wanted to roll human since there seemed to be an overabundance of night elf rogues. But let's be honest, folks... most human males look like they got smashed in the face with a sledgehammer. So I made yet another female character. It wasn't too long after that when I decided I'd try to level one of every class. And since I'd already created three lovely ladies, I just figured I may as well go for broke.
So now I have a harem of beautiful women under my complete and total control. Sounds like every adolescent boy's dream come true!
Isn't it strange playing so many female characters?
Not really. I suppose for some guys it might be, but it doesn't faze me at all. It doesn't bother my wife either. Funny enough, her main is a male gnome. Yup... Breanni's got a boyfriend, so if you were thinking of hitting on her, think again!
Well, the site rocks. Do you do any freelance work?
Not so much... I need time to feed my WarCrack addiction!
But in all seriousness, if you're searching for a multitalented graphic designer/web programmer/writer/marketer, I'd be happy to consider your offer. Feel free to email me at info@warcraftpets.com.
Special Thanks
I'd like to extend a special thanks to the following people:
Meg, my wife - Thank you for supporting me throughout my progress with this site. You truly are one of a kind. I you!
Andrew Nebus - Over the years, you've been a great friend and mentor. I wouldn't have been able to assemble this (or any) website without your helpful guidance.
Marc Frega - Thanks for helping to get the site online. I couldn't ask for a better web host!
Dianius - A special thanks to the pioneer who created the first online visual guide for small pets. Dianius' site (which is sadly no longer online) was an inspiration. In fact, if you were still maintaining it, I probably wouldn't have bothered creating my own!
Site MVPs - A great big thanks to all of WarcraftPets.com's MVPs, who have gone above and beyond to help support the site in many different ways. I can't thank you guys enough.
All you Warcraft forum junkies - Especially those of you who constantly bumped my guides (you know who you are!) Your feedback and support were an invaluable source of motivation when I first constructed this site. Thanks!
Blizzard Entertainment - A final thanks to all you wonderfully talented people working at Blizzard. I've been playing your awe-inspiring games for over a decade. Thanks for putting out such polished work. And of course, thank you for creating World of Warcraft!
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