Post
by Tweak » August 11th, 2015, 9:51 am
*Sigh* I'm torn about it all to be honest (probably understandable)...
I have virtually every pet except Murky and Mini-Tyrael. Including every CE pet, every now-unobtainable Special Event pet and every other Blizzcon pet. (The few I don't have, are at least within my grasp, and I'll have them eventually.)
That said it upsets me, that Murky and Mini-Tyrael were never REALLY within my grasp. I mean one can say, "You could have gone to the event!" But dude, I was a teenager when this game launched and those events happened! An AVERAGE teenager! I didn't have the money or means to fly to California for Murky at Blizzcon, much less overseas for Tyrael. Those pets were NEVER something I could realistically obtain. And as the two biggest holes in my collection, that BUGS me.
Now the damn things go for four digits on ebay... that's... also not realistic even though I'm now an adult with a full-time job. Not for one imaginary pet in a pool of 700+ (which may even cease to exist someday if this game should someday shut down).
I would love a REASONABLE opportunity to get those two through some in-game means.
That said... other side of the coin, I do feel like a special snowflake for having all those other hard to get and/or impossible pets I have, and it WOULD irk me if they started passing them out. I mean if you didn't BUY the Vanilla collector's edition, you shouldn't HAVE the Vanilla collector's edition pet, imo. It irks me even NOW that they're giving out the Starcraft ones to new buyers. At least when they bundled the Vanilla pets into that gaming laptop a few years back (and by the way, they did that, for those who don't recall), it was something that cost over a grand, the Starcraft ones are actually CHEAPER this way. Which is... a bit of a kick in the crotch to original buyers.
But as someone without Murky and Tyrael, I also understand the struggle. So I'm very much of two minds about it. *Shrug*
I will tell you one thing though, I DAMN SURE, don't want them giving everyone else a crack at my Vanilla Collector's Edition Pets, if I don't get a crack at Murky and Mini-Tyrael. It better be EVERY rare pet or NO rare pets. Don't bone one group of special snowflakes, while preserving another.
I like the OP's spirit, but I feel like the method described is too easy. I mean he flat out said, "Nothing that takes longer than a month" when we already have a mount achievement in game that takes a year to finish. And that's not even a super-special mount.
It would have to be like... an ASININELY monumental accomplishment imo, to justify this prize. Something like, insane in the membrane and beyond level. Like... all achievements 700+ level 25 rare pets (many on this site already have that done though, so even that seems like not enough in a way, haha)...
Although I do admit, there are achievements for winning 1000s of PVP pet battles... and those sound like hell to finish to me, so maybe all the achievements would be enough. *Shrug*
Anyway... I feel like making them tradeable... is reasonable in many ways, but leaves them open for exploit. I mean the Soul-Trader used to be worth 6 digits in gold, and several hundred dollars. Then they got duped into the ground, and now they're practically worthless. Make the special pets tradeable, and it will eventually happen to them too.
I always thought WoW could benefit from something like Pokemon's GTS system for pet/mount trades. For those who don't know, in Pokemon's GTS system, you can trade any Pokemon 1 to 1 for any other Pokemon. You offer it saying, "I want this in exchange for this" then wait for someone else to accept the trade, and it happens automatically (or search other people's offers and accept them yourself). It's all done online. You simply throw you offer out, and wait for someone to take it. Now if we had something like THAT. Where we could say, "I'm offering my Panda Cub for your Murky" and someone could then accept that offer, that could work. You could even offer a Squirrel for a Murky, and hope you get lucky. BUT... someone would probably find a way to exploit/dupe that too eventually.
So I dunno, something kinda like what the OP suggested, where you catch them yourself, and they remain untradeable, is all I could really see working, to preserve their sanctity from duping somehow.
In all honesty though, I don't think it's a problem that bothers Blizzard half as much as it bothers us hardcore collectors, so I don't ever see them doing anything about it. We're a minority in the grand scheme of WoW. The super-duper-hardcore (but not rich) pet collectors. Not a large segment of the playerbase. It doesn't behoove them to devote a lot of time and effort to appeasing us.
PS. You know what ONE special pet thing still irks the bejesus out of me though. In America we had a special Mountain Dew promo for a Warbot pet. Other countries complained they never had said Dew promotion, so Blizzard eventually put that pet on a vendor in-game, now everyone can buy one. In CHINA they had a special Coke-a-Cola promo for a pet or two. WE never had a chance to get them in America (or anywhere outside China). WHY THE HELL ARE THEY NOT ALSO ON A VENDOR!? Why does the rest of the world get to buy our Mountain Dew pet, but no one get's China's Coke pet? Someone throw this in Blizzard's face next Blizzcon please! (The Murloc pet that only European players got for their Burning Crusade Collector's Editions also bugs me, for similar "unnecessarily region exclusive" reasons)