News and Updates

With the launch of Diablo III, the new Fetish Shaman is now live!

You can obtain a Fetish Shaman by picking up the Diablo III Collector's Edition, sold in stores in limited quantities beginning today.


The D3 Collector's Edition includes:

• Diablo Skull and 4GB USB Soulstone
• Exclusive In-Game Content (Diablo III Aesthetic Artifacts, StarCraft II Battle.net Portraits, along with the WoW Fetish Shaman pet)
• Behind the Scenes Blu-Ray/DVD Set
• The Art of Diablo III (book)
• Diablo III Soundtrack (CD)

Be sure to get yours soon while supplies last!

Ready for more delectable datamined previews from the recent beta build? Here they come!

New Pets
Three new BoP pets were discovered in the latest beta patch. It's unknown where these pets will come from at this time. [source]

• Aqua Strider
• Grinder
• Hopling

A New Auction House
MMO-Champion has a small preview of a new Auction House coming in MoP - The Black Market. [source]

This new market will be used by NPCs to sell special items that are not normally sold for gold. An example would be the Ashes of Al'ar mount being sold by Mei Francis, a mount vendor.

Guess who will also be taking part in The Black Market? Breanni!



As seen in MMO-Champion's screenshot (reprinted above), this pet-loving gnome is expanding her business ventures and will be selling pets on this new AH.

It's still unclear which pets will be available through The Black Market. Better start saving up gold while waiting for a list of possible companions, though. Looks like the this market won't be cheap!

UPDATE: The title "Tamer" has been replaced with "Zookeeper". [source]

The MoP beta is trucking along, and another build was recently released. There are some interesting changes and additions in the latest patch. [source]

Achievement Title Reward
Many have been requesting for a pet collecting title to proudly sport, and this request might be fulfilled in MoP!

The achievement Time To Open a Pet Store now rewards the title Tamer <player name>. It also now only requires 335 Pet Battle achievement points, down from 400. The achievement points necessary will probably encompass all achievements earned in the Pet Battles tab, including the three sub-categories - Collect, Battle, and Level.

New Children's Week Orphan
A Cooking School Bell was added recently, and as the tooltip indicates, this item appears to be an item used to summon a new orphan for next year's Children's Week.

It's likely that the orphan NPC will be a Pandaren child, and the quest chain will start in Pandaria. We will have to wait and see what the rewards will be for completing a new Children's Week quest chain, but maybe it will include a companion pet!

New Pet Battles Item
Another new item was discovered from the most recent patches. Datamining revealed a Battle Pet Bandage. It's currently unknown where this item comes from, and how the use of the pet bandage will be integrated into Pet Battles.

However, it does seem probable that pets will require healing and sometimes reviving between battles. [source]

Pet Battles Still WIP
Pet Battles are still not quite ready for testing, however there have been consistent updates and changes to the UI and the battling system with each beta patch. We will have more in depth coverage and details of Pet Battles once it is fully activated on the beta.

For those curious and would like to read more about Pet Battles in its current state, feel free to check out this blog post or the WarcraftPets forums.

Another beta patch was released and a new achievement reward was discovered! [source]

New Achievement Reward
Completing the achievement Pro Pet Mob (raise 75 pets to level 25) will reward players with a Singing Cricket.

Whether or not this pet will actually sing, like its name implies, is unknown. If it does, perhaps it will take song requests!

New Possible Guild Pet
The guild vendor was updated with some new items, including a new possible pet, the Thundering Cloud Serpent Hatchling. There is also a mount of similar name currently priced at 3,000 gold.



For the time being, the Thundering Cloud Serpent Hatchling does not have a sale price, and the item on the vendor appears to only be a placeholder. Much like the Dark Phoenix Hatchling, it's likely that this pet will be a reward for completing a guild achievement. We'll just have to wait and see which achievement will be necessary to unlock this mystical companion!

In a recently released official blog, Ghostcrawler expressed Blizzard's goal and intent for account-wide achievements. [source]

Pet-Related Achievements
According to Blizzard's current design model, a few achievements will be "account-only". For these achievements, it's unlikely to earn them on a single character, therefore:

...the cumulative work of all your characters on those criteria will count.

Under this guideline players could add to their progression or complete pet achievements such as Legendary Pet Battles (win 5,000 pet battles) on any of their characters.

This will definitely make it more convenient, but don't let that stop you from attempting to earn an achievement all on one toon should you desire to!

Faction-Specific Pets
Ghostcrawler also touches on the topic of faction-specific pets in his latest blog post. Note that there might be exceptions and this entire system is still a work in progress.

You also won’t be able to use a faction-specific pet, mount, or title on the wrong faction.

Enjoy our monthly web comic created for WoW pet collectors! We feature a new World of Petcraft strip each and every month.



About the Artist
Meaghan McLaughlin is an aspiring artist and the author of "Nerds Illustrated." She's currently available to create custom artwork of your WoW characters for a modest fee.