Trying to understand

Share pet collecting news and advice.
Post Reply
User avatar
Crissx
MVP
Posts:16
Joined:December 14th, 2008
Pet Score:2497
Realm:Illidan-us
Contact:
Trying to understand

Post by Crissx » April 30th, 2012, 4:23 pm

So, I have 4 Willy's on 4 different toons all on the same account. So when MOP comes out, will I be able to put the 3 extra Willy's in crates and sell them on the AH or will I be stuck with 4 Willy's on one account.

I don't have MOP beta so I am trying to understand how it will work.

User avatar
Quintessence
Site Admin
Posts:2756
Joined:June 4th, 2008
Pet Score:13896
Realm:Proudmoore-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Quintessence » April 30th, 2012, 5:27 pm

At the moment we just can't say for sure. The removal, adding, and trading of pets in the beta is still a work in progress and feels incomplete.

Hopefully these two explanations of how things currently are on the beta will help. Note that lots could still change, and what's been observed on the beta so far shouldn't be considered as the final version of how things will work.

Same Pet, Different Toons
If you've learned four of the same pet on four different toons, those four pets will get squished into one pet and will be found in the Pet Journal in MoP.

If you learned only one of those pets on one toon, and do not learn the other three but save them on separate toons, you MIGHT be able to add a second, third, and fourth pet into your journal in MoP. So far adding additional pets of the ones you already have in the Pet Journal mainly works when using a toon that did not already know that particular pet summoning spell. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it's intentional, though. (Using caged pets might work too, but I haven't tried using a caged version of a pet that I currently have in the Pet Journal.)

Soulbound/BoP Pets
Currently you cannot learn a second BoP pet on a toon that learned it previously. Soulbound pets are still soulbound on the beta, unless you can learn them and then put them into a cage.

As an example: I have two extra Clockwork Rocket Pets and Toxic Wastelings on my main collector on the beta. She already knew both prior to copying over. When attempting to add either pet to the Pet Journal, the "already known" error comes up. Even when I cage a rocket pet, I still can't use the soulbound item version of the Clockwork Rocket, but I CAN use the caged version to re-add it into my collection.

So for the time being, any extra BoP pets are useless unless they are mailed to a newly created character that hasn't learned them already. An example of this would be the Corehound Pup, in which case you can have two in your Pet Journal on the beta. Keep in mind, though, that since pets will be turning account wide in MoP, Blizzard might not mail pets like the corehound or PetStore pets to newly created toons in the future.

TL;DR: If you want to take your chances, gather up your alts and collect BoP pets on them but DON'T learn them yet. Just hang onto the soulbound pet item. Come MoP, use them on those alts and you MIGHT end up with duplicate pets in your Pet Journal that you can cage and trade/sell. This is based on how it's working right now, though. Things could change, and it's likely they will.
Image
Feel free to browse through my pet collecting blog: http://wowpetaddiction.blogspot.com

User avatar
Emberdione
MVP
Posts:48
Joined:May 31st, 2010
Pet Score:11399
Realm:Echo Isles-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Emberdione » April 30th, 2012, 6:00 pm

I know that's how it works now, but I really think if Blizz does it this way it's a bad way to do it.

From a purely game design standpoint they really should reward people like us who have massive collections on tons of toons to be able to sell the "fruits of our obsessions" as it were.

For example: I have all of the Children's Week pets on 6 toons. This is an absurd amount of work and collecting. It took me 4 years worth of playing these characters at minimum to do it.

Good Design: Reward me for my obsession and allow me to essentially have multiple copies. Then I can sell my "extra" copies to others.

Bad Design: Roll the all into one, essentially making any work I did on the extra alts worthless and wasted.

Now, having said that, from a programming point of view, the bad way is much much easier than the right way.

Regardless, we need to make sure Blizzard knows our feelings on the subject. There might be a designer trying to fight the good fight and meeting resistance. If we make our feelings known, then he might have ammo to change the resistant minds.

User avatar
Maleika
Posts:49
Joined:September 16th, 2010
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Maleika » April 30th, 2012, 6:30 pm

Emberdione wrote:I know that's how it works now, but I really think if Blizz does it this way it's a bad way to do it.

From a purely game design standpoint they really should reward people like us who have massive collections on tons of toons to be able to sell the "fruits of our obsessions" as it were.

For example: I have all of the Children's Week pets on 6 toons. This is an absurd amount of work and collecting. It took me 4 years worth of playing these characters at minimum to do it.

Good Design: Reward me for my obsession and allow me to essentially have multiple copies. Then I can sell my "extra" copies to others.

Bad Design: Roll the all into one, essentially making any work I did on the extra alts worthless and wasted.

Now, having said that, from a programming point of view, the bad way is much much easier than the right way.

Regardless, we need to make sure Blizzard knows our feelings on the subject. There might be a designer trying to fight the good fight and meeting resistance. If we make our feelings known, then he might have ammo to change the resistant minds.

Hear, hear!! (((Applause)))

User avatar
Quintessence
Site Admin
Posts:2756
Joined:June 4th, 2008
Pet Score:13896
Realm:Proudmoore-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Quintessence » April 30th, 2012, 7:32 pm

Emberdione wrote:Good Design: Reward me for my obsession and allow me to essentially have multiple copies. Then I can sell my "extra" copies to others.

Bad Design: Roll the all into one, essentially making any work I did on the extra alts worthless and wasted.

Now, having said that, from a programming point of view, the bad way is much much easier than the right way.
This! Very well summed up!

I'd like to think that this is what Blizzard's struggling with, and that they'd like to be able to reward players for all the years of effort and time put into each character, but are held back by coding/programming constraints.
Image
Feel free to browse through my pet collecting blog: http://wowpetaddiction.blogspot.com

User avatar
GormanGhaste
MVP
Posts:371
Joined:August 1st, 2008
Pet Score:10398
Realm:Uldaman-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by GormanGhaste » April 30th, 2012, 7:58 pm

Practically all my alts have all the holiday pets that they are high enough level to get, but I don't feel entitled to anything special because of it. I did it because I love holidays and I love pets, it just happened naturally. The experience itself was its own reward.
Mingyao on Madoran

User avatar
Lysi
MVP
Posts:408
Joined:January 21st, 2009
Pet Score:975
Realm:Echo Isles-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Lysi » May 1st, 2012, 9:56 am

Blizzard is probably still fiddling with exactly how they want to do this. If all those pets were freed up to trade, they may not be worth a lot. Many people would have duplicates, and the only market will be people who haven't ever had that pet on even one of their toons. I hope MoP will be popular, but I don't think we'll be flooded with so many brand new players that it will create high demand. I'm guessing much of the pet journal trading will be trained pets, it will be about what level and abilities they have.

Personally, I don't mind any duplicate work I've done, since I was able to use that pet on that toon at the time. Many I had for years, so I think I've gotten enough use out of those pets for the effort.
Some of my best friends are imaginary…

User avatar
Dementron
Posts:80
Joined:November 12th, 2011
Pet Score:9542
Realm:Uther-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Dementron » May 1st, 2012, 7:49 pm

Lysi wrote:Blizzard is probably still fiddling with exactly how they want to do this. If all those pets were freed up to trade, they may not be worth a lot. Many people would have duplicates, and the only market will be people who haven't ever had that pet on even one of their toons. I hope MoP will be popular, but I don't think we'll be flooded with so many brand new players that it will create high demand. I'm guessing much of the pet journal trading will be trained pets, it will be about what level and abilities they have.

Personally, I don't mind any duplicate work I've done, since I was able to use that pet on that toon at the time. Many I had for years, so I think I've gotten enough use out of those pets for the effort.
Yeah, this is something I'm concerned with as well. If we do get duplicate pets, it could cause a glut in the market, particularly for holiday pets, since those are so easy to get on multiple characters. If they did that with pets that have been mailed to every new character, it could really cause a glut, since every person who has them would have one for every character. I really doubt they'd do that for the all-character pets, though. Maybe they could do it for the non-boa, non-holiday pets, especially the rarer ones, like the Crimson Whelpling? Except that would make the programming even more complicated. : /

I don't know what they're going to do. I don't envy the designers when it comes to stuff like this, because no matter what they do they're going to piss someone off.Ever since hearing about pet trading in Mists, though, I've been saving up redundant BoP pets in the hopes of trading them later, especially pets that I already know on another character, but not the one that picked up the pet. Right now that seems the best bet for preparing for pet trading, to me. One of the few benefits of levelling two characters through Archaeology, I guess (stupid BoP Vial of the Sands recipe...).

User avatar
Crissx
MVP
Posts:16
Joined:December 14th, 2008
Pet Score:2497
Realm:Illidan-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Crissx » May 2nd, 2012, 1:52 am

Dementron wrote: Ever since hearing about pet trading in Mists, though, I've been saving up redundant BoP pets in the hopes of trading them later, especially pets that I already know on another character, but not the one that picked up the pet. Right now that seems the best bet for preparing for pet trading, to me.
I have been doing the same! I figure it can't hurt.

User avatar
Emberdione
MVP
Posts:48
Joined:May 31st, 2010
Pet Score:11399
Realm:Echo Isles-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Emberdione » May 2nd, 2012, 12:48 pm

Yes the market would glut for the first few months or so. Also they could ease the glut by requiring the pet be x level to cage and sell. (So for example, you have to level them up to 10 to be able to cage and sell them, then only people who cared would level and sell, and you could chose not to level the ones that aren't selling well.)

It also depends on how they do the whole leveling thing. Like if I have Willy, but decide to buy a level 25 Willy, what happens?

A point on the whole "it's not wasted time because I got to use him" argument. That's a great thought. I am glad you have it. But to me, it is a waste of time. My rogue got Whiskers and has always, ever, used Whiskers. (I have 1 main and 19 alts...) But I still worked at getting her the other pets, because I have some weird compulsion to collect pets. The point is not that I collected them to later sell them, the point is I put in effort to have Speedy, Whiskers, and Mr. Wiggles on EVERY SINGLE ALT I was playing when Children's Week came up. This represents time and a great deal of money on my part. As a designer for a persistent world game, it should be in the top priorities to always respect a player's time and money. If you don't, they will leave. Someone will be hurt, upset, and insist their time was wasted. If it happens to enough people, you have huge subscriber slides, like we had this past year.

It's less of a "this will tick me personally off" and more of a "as a designer this will piss me off because they aren't being respectful of their player's time". In my experience Blizzard is about 50/50 of doing this correctly versus incorrectly. Even if it's sucky 200g a pet compensation, as a persistent game, they need to give it to us to show us that they are aware of the time players spent in their game.

(This is why I was so enraged over the resetting of the Darkmoon turn in achievements, not once but twice. It's just bad design and goes against everything they should be doing.)

User avatar
Lysi
MVP
Posts:408
Joined:January 21st, 2009
Pet Score:975
Realm:Echo Isles-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Lysi » May 2nd, 2012, 5:03 pm

I only play a video game if I'm enjoying it and that's a reward in itself, I don't approach it like work. I did Children's Week with a lot of my alts, for the XP and for the pets, so I was happy with it.
Some of my best friends are imaginary…

User avatar
Crissx
MVP
Posts:16
Joined:December 14th, 2008
Pet Score:2497
Realm:Illidan-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Crissx » May 2nd, 2012, 5:32 pm

We need to find a pet collector GM and get them on this site. I hate this waiting game!!! I need to know!! lol

User avatar
Nursie
Posts:189
Joined:March 26th, 2012
Pet Score:4675
Realm:Jubei'Thos-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Nursie » May 2nd, 2012, 7:01 pm

I'd suggest not learning BoP pets that you already know on one toon also, I've been keeping my blizz sotre pets unlearned on multiple toons so if we keep the items I should be able to make a fair bit of gold when MoP comes out.

User avatar
Mastr
MVP
Posts:139
Joined:October 5th, 2008
Pet Score:14000
Realm:Burning Blade-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Mastr » May 3rd, 2012, 9:13 pm

I actually hope that once we learn a bop pet we can only sell it once. I like the idea of rare pets. Yes, I do love gold and would profit from selling the extra bops in my bags, but I like the fact that fewer people have them. I guess I'm petvain.

User avatar
Maleika
Posts:49
Joined:September 16th, 2010
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Maleika » May 4th, 2012, 5:00 pm

Evilgnomey wrote:I'd suggest not learning BoP pets that you already know on one toon also, I've been keeping my blizz sotre pets unlearned on multiple toons so if we keep the items I should be able to make a fair bit of gold when MoP comes out.

I hope they scrap the idea of Blizz Store Pets being tradeable for the following reason below
Emberdione wrote:This represents time and a great deal of money on my part. As a designer for a persistent world game, it should be in the top priorities to always respect a player's time and money. If you don't, they will leave. Someone will be hurt, upset, and insist their time was wasted.

User avatar
Dementron
Posts:80
Joined:November 12th, 2011
Pet Score:9542
Realm:Uther-us
Contact:

Re: Trying to understand

Post by Dementron » May 7th, 2012, 4:17 pm

Jenak wrote:Would this mean that (for example) if you choose the blue jouster pet on one toon, then the gold on another, would you then have both at MoP release?

This is for the pets where choosing one meant the other was rendered unobtainable.
You would have both in your journal, yes. However, they actually did make it possible to get the second jouster. The last jousting quest is a daily now. All you have to do is complete that daily ten times and the second pet comes in the mail. :)

Post Reply