A suggestion to blizzard on unobtainable pets

[Nochness]

Problem with the quest you suggested (from what I understand of it) is I think there's already a number of hardcore collectors who would qualify on day 1. So that makes it not seem like much of a challenge to me. I don't have all the PVP ones for example but I have everything else.

Well players who already have all pets, kinda qualify as worthy pet collectors, wouldn't you say?
And they would only qualify to start something similar to a legendary quest

[Ranok]

Some of the "unobtainables" were rewarding folks for being longtime customers. Well, paying customers too. Personally am proud of some of the ones in my collection from years back and would be a little annoyed if they suddenly became readily available.

I've never been to Blizzcon and didn't buy bunch of the Collector's Editions of various xpacs and other Blizz games with WoW pet tie-ins. My fault, and not planning on paying insane prices now on EBay for the codes. I can live with it.

The ones Blizz really should give us a crack at are the overseas promotionals that folks in the U.S. couldn't possibly have gotten. Gurky on EU servers, Murki in Korea, Terky in Taiwan, the Tiny Dragons in China, bunch of others too. Recruit-A-Friend gave us four of the overseas unobtainables so long as you could suck a buddy into WoW, or shell out some Real Money to befriend yourself. Maybe RAF could expand the pet selection.

How about a new Celestial Tournament in Tanaan Jungle with unobtainables as a reward. The Tournament took some time and some dedication and was also pretty much impossible unless you were fairly serious pet collector. Hafta agree that getting rare pets by having huge piles of Gold and willingness to sit in BMAH all day seems like it's not really much of an achievement.

[Nochness]

Okay a new and (hopefully) improved idea!
The way i see things, there are a few different groups of "unobtainable" pets.

1. CE/BlizzCon
2. Anniversary/Special event
3. Simply just not in the game anymore
4. Different region
5. any others i missed?

Different groups require different solutions.

I'd say the first group is the one up for the most debate, since people actually paid for it. Because of this fact, maybe this should be up to the owners of these pets. They could however be made trade able. It would keep the value of the pets, since the number of them in the game wouldn't change. If you wanted them to yourself, you can. But players that dont care much for pets could sell them to earn some.
-As a bonus to this group, there are the CE pets from other blizzard games. I'd say they too should be made either tradeable or added to the in-game shop (maybe as a bundle).

Second group, the special events. Since mounts from anniversary events and other unobtainable items are already achievable in the bmah, i dont see any reason these guys shouldn't be added in the game aswell.
However not as a new item of the bmah, cus it really doesn't seem like much to just buy them.. Maybe add a pet faction with either hard pet quests, a celestial tournament 2.0 or both. Something where you'd have to be a pretty good trainer atleast. And different things would only be a bonus.
Some could be added as new pets for archeology aswell.

Third group should pretty much be added the same way as group 2. I mean, tier 3 is already back in the game.

4th group should as the most important be added to the game aswell. These were pets no player could ever have gotten, if they simply played in the wrong region. These should be added the same way as group 2 and 3.

To keep the feeling of actually achieving the pets by playing at a certain time, buying CE or whatever, just add an achievment like the one i mentioned earlier with the clockwork rocket bot

What do you guys think?

[Ssparkles]

I am in two minds over this. I want the pets. ALL THE PETS!!! I want the CEs I'm missing. I want the Blizzcon I'm missing. I want the achievement ones I'm missing. I want the event ones I'm missing. I want the overseas ones I never even had a chance to get.

But on the other had, I value (covert?) these pets a lot more simply because I can not have them. I started playing a month after WoW's 4th anniversary, no Baby Blizzard Bear for me. But gosh I want one.

I have spent irl monies buying pets off eBay. I paid $330 for a Grunty (didn't mean too. Thought I'd get outbid). He turned up, I got the ach, levelled him to 25 and didn't look at him again. He's just one of 700+ pets now. He gives me an edge, ranking wise, over a lot of other players but that's his only value to me now. And now I'm saving up to buy a WOTLK or BC CE.

If Blizzard would let me I'd gladly throw my money at them. I'd prefer that over random third parties.

I don't really have a solution to offer, but I think Nochness might be right and different unobtainable should have different rankings and be dealt with that way.
Pets that were never available on my region I'd like to see on BMAH. And if the rest were made cageable I'd thrown all my gold at them. Hell I have some unobtainables I could use for trade.

As much as I want all the pets, I know I can not have them. No matter who hard I wish.

[Peterc]

I believe the unobtainable should remain such but if they decide to introduce some how about;
A new pet related World Event for say a week each year. On completion of various quests and achievements the reward would be the choice of various pets. The event would only be available once a year per account so it will take a number of years to get all the pets.

Peterc

[Charlott]

Well, they already made Mini Thor available via the SC DD bundle.
They need to make the other CE pets available the same way now, imo. Make it consistent. The CEs are obtainable anyways (assuming you're willing to shell out money), and I'd rather deal with blizz than some potentially scamming 3rd party. Plus some of those CEs were released before pet battles were even a thing - it was like adding new content that no one knew was going to be there to something that is no longer for sale (except via random 3rd parties /sigh). It's like if I publish a hardcover and softcover book, then 5 years later, I add chapters to the hardcover only -- and don't allow anyone with the softcover to go read the new chapters. If I knew pet battles and all this pet related stuff was going to be added, I would have just bought the CEs when they were new (I don't care about artbooks and such).

I'd be fine with everything being able to be caged.

Region pets -- I wouldn't mind at all if some US only pet got released to EU, etc. If my whole region already had access to a pet, I'd probably view it as common already, and even if every player in the other region kept it summoned, it wouldn't make me feel like mine was less rare because I never see those players. But that's just me!

Pets for everyone!

[Tweak]

*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)

[GilroyKilroy]

What Tweak said

[Tweak]

I'm curious how people feel about this idea:

A cumulative rewards system that allows you to retroactively unlock previous rewards by purchasing newer ones. And by that I mean... Saaaaay...

Like say for every 5 rare pet keys you unlock, you can earn a 6th bonus key you haven't unlocked. Like say you earn 1 of a special currency for every collector's edition you buy, or every blizzcon ticket you buy (limit 1 per account, per in each case)... and you could then buy old special event pets with said currency.

For every 5 Blizzard Collector's Editions you purchase, you get to unlock 1 previous collector's edition pet.
For every 5 Blizzcon items you own, you get to unlock 1 previous Blizzcon item of your choosing.

Maybe some of the rarest ones even cost more. Like Murky or Tyrael or the Vanilla pets cost 10 tokens.

(I say 5 and just because I pulled semi-average numbers out of my butt, so try not to over-think it... I didn't do any kind of hard statistics on this)...

So if say, you currently own Every WoW CE BUT Vanilla... And each pet costs 5, you'd earn enough to unlock 1 Vanilla pet, for having the 5 CE expansions. If you purchased the 3 Starcraft and 2 Diablo CE sets, you'd earn 1 more credit for another Vanilla pet. And eventually, if you purchase 5 more in the future, you could then get that last Vanilla pet you don't have. OR... if you don't have BC, you could get a Netherwhelp. OR, if you have every CE, you can buy Murky with your accumulated tokens. Or if you had every Blizzcon pet BUT Murky, you could earn a credit for Murky for having 5 other Blizzcon pets. Or hell if for some random reason you even missed a later year, and you don't have say... Deathy the Murloc, you could buy him.

This has an immediate reward for players who have been putting in the extra coin all along to collect these special pets, but may not have had the means or opportunity to get the more limited ones early on (or missed one along the way); while also giving new players the opportunity to obtain them slowly and gradually if they stay loyal 5 or 10 years down the road. The only new rewards being added to the system are also the only means of getting the currency. Old players get an immediate reward, new players get an eventual (yet appropriately long) catchup mechanism.

It puts them on a slow trickle into the community, so it's not like their rarity would be instantly obliterated like it would if they became achievement awards, tradeable, or were re-issued. If they become tradeable, they'll get duped, and become worthless. If they're achievement rewards, everyone can grind one within a year. Neither of these solutions is ideal.

My proposed system, rewards people who were already patient and/or loyal to the rarest Blizzard products/incentives with something they covet, but maybe missed out on.

It will give more benefit to veterans who've been at it longer, and have a head start, while not alienating newcomers. Because EVERY pet is now eventually obtainable, but only with a lot of time, and a lot of dedication. Newcomers can EVENTUALLY get the same pets as everyone else... but always on a several year delay. Such is the price of being late to the game, but staying dedicated over a long time. You can eventually catch up.

The only people I could see it having no benefit initially are people who already have every last one of these pets, but I have to imagine that's a VERY small number of people. AND... if the system is extended to include various region locked and/or promotional pets... that problem is eliminated. It's LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for ANYONE who plays WoW to have EVERY pet at present, because every region has some that weren't available to them.

If all these pets were amongst the potential rewards, every player would in some way benefit. If you already had every CE AND Tyrael AND Murky AND Every Blizzcon pet, you could still buy the iCoke China pets. Or the Asian Spirit of Competition pets. If you live in China, and have those pets, you could buy the European exclusive Lurky pet, who only players w/ the Eurpoean BC Collector's Edition got. Things like the Vampiric Batling, Spirit of Competition and the Anniversary Pets could also be some of the lower priced purchasable rewards (I don't however think such pets should grant the currency, because everyone gets one just for logging in).

There's something for EVERYONE to unlock that they didn't already have this way. It's currently impossible for everyone to have EVERY pet, because several are region locked. So it COULD... theoretically work to EVERY collector's benefit.They could even add a couple that could ONLY be purchased for said currency, if it was still a concern.

All Feats of Strength for these events/editions would remain exclusive to those who actually purchased them the genuine way. Nothing (NOTHING) Cageable would be eligible to grant the currency tokens.

Basically, it's a system that rewards the rarest of pets for collecting the rarest of pets. The more you collect the more you unlock. It takes time, dedication and yes, money and rewards the pets we all deem worthy of time dedication and money. Keeping the rare pets among the rare collectors, but giving everyone the means to slowly earn the things they missed out on should they wish to put forth the effort.

I dunno, just a thought I had... but I almost think it works better than the ideas put forth thus far. Whatcha think? Think we could get Blizzard to go for it? lol...

I may post this on the official pet forums later and see what kind of reaction it gets. *Shrug*