I’m still trying to catch up with recent news — so it’s likely that you, my dear readers, know more about these things than I do — but nevertheless I wanted call out some of the more interesting bits of info that have shown up in the comments here and in my e-mail recently.
Today let’s talk about summoning effects: It seems that all pets have lost any special summoning animations or effects they may have had. This means that Arikara the wind serpent no longer appears in a poof of dust, and Gezzarak the Huntress, warp stalker extraordinaire, no longer sizzles into being with an impressive flare of light.
Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot more to say here. The fact that these effects carried over from the wild state was probably unintentional, Blizzard changed something that fixed that carry-over … and that’s that. Our chances of getting the effects back in the future are probably pretty low.
Then again, I never thought we’d see more color-changing pets, and yet we still have Rip-Blade Ravagers and WotLK added several more color-changing worgs and worms.
[edit]
As scott pointed out in the comments, this also affects the Vicious Teromoths of Terokkar Forest. These moths come from the Cenarion Thicket area, where a Strange Aura lowers your stats and gives you a sort of greenish-blue vapor glow.
Previously, Vicious Teromoths would apply the visual part of this aura (but not the actual debuff) whenever they were summoned after they were tamed, making them the only greenish-blue glowy moth with green wings in the game.
Now, confined to their unaltered colors, they have green wings with a red body and no vaporous glow.
Are there any other vanished summoning effects that I missed?
Yeah, I noticed my Gezzarak not having the shiny lightning awhile ago. Made me a little sad, hehe, I liked it. Very shiny and attention grabbing.
I’m very curious about these color-changing pets. Care to elaborate?
Color-changing pets are pets that will randomly choose between two or more colors each time they are called. For example, if you tame a Dredge Worm then sometimes when you call it it will be brown and sometimes gray.
Back before The Burning Crusade expansion there were several of these pets: like the Son of Hakkar and … err .. was it the Bloodaxe Worgs? One of the high-level (at the time) worgs.
Anyway, Blizzard explicitly fixed these pets in TBC (with patch notes and everything) so that they would only have one color. It seemed that that behavior was unintentional and we figured we’d never see it again.
But TBC also added a new color-changer: the Rip-Blade Ravager can be orange, purple, or orange & purple when it is called.
And Wrath added a couple more color-changers in the worgs and worms. (You can see them all on the Pets with Special Behaviors page on Petopia.)
So either Blizzard changed their mind about color-changing pets, or they forgot, or … the situation has changed enough that it’s no longer important to them. *shrug*
There was a post on the boards about Gezz and the Blizzard poster that responded where not against bringing the summon animation back. It wasn’t removed intentionally, but was a sideeffect of other cleanup they did. Now, just because they wouldn’t mind bringing it back doesn’t mean they’ll actually do it. I’m keeping Gezz as my tank pet since it still has a unique skin.
While the effects were cool and unique, they really were intended to be part of the spells that summoned the mob during the quest events. So it makes sense that they are gone. And a more positive way of looking at it is that it’s a good sign that tamed pets are less likely to carry over any buggy quirks from their original NPC. I’m just glad my wolf still barks… I’m surprised that didn’t vanish too.
when I tames a grey rhino in sholazar basin and summoned it – it came either brown or grey. I don’t know if they fixed this since then.
Ah, yes — I forgot the color-changing rhinos! Thanks — I’ll get those added to the special behaviors page.
On the other hand, it seems they had fixed the movement animation of the ghost wolf. At least, mine now runs properly instead of the strange fast-walking had before.It was quite annoying to me, so i´m glad ^_^
Don’t forget the ghostly Jormungar Worm! :) My BElf hunter has him just ’cause. :D
Good to hear, on the European forums they never responded to this subject. It would be nice if they bring it back.
Also the Drakuru Raptors in Zul’Drak go from blue to black :)
Ever notice Blizzard seems obsessed with removing every fun “unintentional” thing that people do ? They only want you to have fun with their grindy holiday quests.
But if you realize you can repeat a demon summoning quest until you get the name of the demon you want? Remove it! You tame a beast they didn’t mean to? Remove it! I am so tired of it all.
I’m sure they were fixing something, noticed that they’d break all those animations, and thought to themselves “meh players won’t care”
Just like they were suprised at blizzcon that so many people were excited about the barbershop. Imagine players wanting to have fun that has nothing to do with progresssion in the “game”
This means no more radioactive moths either… :(
There is something that you might notice. If your pet is elite in its wild form, then the mouse-pointed message will show it as an elite. Like this:
xxx <–(your pet name)
Pet of xxx <–(your name)
Level 80 (elite)
My Humar has the (elite) mark. And I think if you tamed Pitch, though they are the same skin, it will have no (elite) mark.
“There was a post on the boards about Gezz and the Blizzard poster that responded where not against bringing the summon animation back.”
Always make sure you take Blizzards posts with a grain of salt. These are the guys who said that Ghost Wolves were here to stay and 2 months later yanked them out after giving Ghost Wolves to Pre-made PTR hunters.
They’re not against bringing it back, but it’s probably low on their “to do list”, if its even on there =/
The Change to the Bloodaxe worgs really pissed me off though, back in the day (and still to this day) that was the only way to obtain that Brown/beige/tan worg w/ blue eyes skin.
@Stranger:
I agree with the ‘elite’ tagging of some pets. I have Gondria on my Hunter and it will, every now and again, say “Level 80 (Elite)”. If it doesn’t say that, it will say its name over and over again:
Level 80 Gilgamesh Gilgamesh (Player)
Yes, I named my Spirit Beast Gilgamesh…
That, too, is annoying.
I didn’t have a problem with my old Rip-Blade Ravager changing colors, but, for whatever reason, I have a serious problem with my Cavedweller Worg changing from gray to white and back again everytime its called. So I went out and tamed a permanent white one.
Awesome, I may have to go hunt down a color changing pet! Though, I’m really in love with my ghost worm. Thanks for the info. =D
I edited the post to mention the Vicious Teromoths. Is there anyone else I missed with a summoning effect? Or rather, who used to have a summoning effect?
Yes, I noticed that to, Stranger. It’s a fantastic addition that they hopefully won’t “fix”. I went through the trouble of taming Kresh way back when, and now he’s rewarded with an authentic tag! It’s like a certificate of authenticity for taming an elite.
I noticed some normals having funky names though, for example I have Mazzranache(actually named that) too. When moused over he displays;
Mazzranache
Playername’s Pet
Level XX Mazzranache Mazzrnache (Player)
Yes, not only is he a Mazzranache instead of a plainstrider, but he’s a Mazzranache type Mazzranache. And a player at that!
Is really a pity.
But as far as I know, the “Bloodsail Admiral” title was create because a good amount of players asked for it. I suppose we can ask for the summoning effects.
But it must be made in the American forums. The european forums have no real influence in the game.
In fact, I purpose to start here a campaign to ask for the summoning FX.
I believe Blizzard might bring it back and might not, many people within the company are very passionaite of the game and understand gamer concepts, but the company as well gets in the way as production and the amount of time for profit means they cannot go for these little things if to much of a hassle, so most likely they really wish for much to still be in the game, just cannot do anything about it as profit goes over everything in a corporation (also would like to note that few people out of the millions who play Wow even have these pets, so really it isn’t something that the majoirty even care about so fixing a problem that only effects a few hundred and all for a “unnessicary” product of the game is not productive for a company).
Believe me i got an lvl 80 hunter with Gezzerak the Huntress, i couldn’t meet the requirements to tame the spirit wolf, so i was at first very happy with my new warpstalker. After the patch and once i noticed the summoning animation gone, it frustrated me as i did so much work to get that pet and a big part of it’s unique self is the fact that it had the lightning effect, i am still greatful for the fact i got a warpstalker that has a color that looks good and is unique as i never have seen another with Gezzerak.
Antarx:
/agree
And while we’re at it, I want to start a petition to make hydras tamable. I missed the ghost hydra by 7 levels on my hunter, and I will never forgive Blizzard for making them untamable for no good reason. I’ve ALWAYS wanted a pet hydra (I have a HUGE soft spot for dragons and serpents), and there was absolutely no reason for them to make that change. “OHNOES! We made beasts with unique skins tamable! FIXITFIXITFIXIT!” They had no special abilities or attributes, just neat skins.
/mourn untamed hydra (and ghost crocs and slimes)
He would have fit in perfectly with my ghost wolf and ghost saber. We would have been one big happy, ethereal family.
They aren’t removing pet quirks because they enjoy angering random players. It’s usually like was mentioned before; in order to clean up one thing, they removed another.
One thing people didn’t mention yet, Mania… they not only fixed the shuffle on the ghost wolf, but on the Vargul blight hound and ALL devilsaurs. So you can get the Un’goro ones and they move as smoothly as Tyrantus did… they still have a short stride, but at least they aren’t patter-stomping. And the plaguehounds have a nice smooth gallop.
I’m upset and a little frustrated that I tamed Gezzerak, put her in the pet stable waiting for her to be fixed when she was buggy, they finally fixed that and all was well until they took back her impressive summon.
I put in a ticket for that, and I hope they change it because she was a piece of work to tame, and to stick with just to have part of her uniqueness taken away.
BTW, I think I might be the only one on my server with her, never seen another hunter with her.
I love when they are shiny!
I love the ghost worm. I doubt they’ll change it though. It’s on the same page as the ghost sabre. Just a visual effect that makes the pet unique without being disruptive. I do have to say that I’m sad to see arikara’s uniqueness die out. He was cool, and my old leveling buddy.
Donno if the radioactive moths thing is gone…
I noticed that tag about elite as well yesterday when i hunted with tekk the leaper which i called Springrain. Kind of funny, as the same hunter also has humar.
More good news!
The Lost Torranche (purple and green tallstrider) has been fixed as well! It now runs normally for a tallstrider. I’m going to go check the Rabid Grizzly to see if it too has been repaired.
And! The Rabid Grizzly (undead polar bear) is also fixed. And… I have a new tenac pet. *nods solemnly*
@Mr. Perfect
Mazzranache
Playername’s Pet
Level XX Mazzranache Mazzrnache (Player)
This type of error will occur only after you take your pet out from the stable. If you mount and dimount, or dismiss the pet and recall it, the message will become normal. This error is not related to the elite tag.
The shard horn rhinoes in sholazar basin also change colors, from grey to brown and blue.
Eginor
/not agree
The summoning FX is something that already existed. Blizz doesn’t need to write a new code for them, only find the previous code lines that enables the FX, and restore them.
Also, It doesn’t (unfortunately) affects more than 3 pets. It can’t be so much work.
Is it supossed that I (and every other hunter in the game) must spend a 1 or more weeks camping for a spirit beast, and blizz can´t spend a few minutes? If not, at least the can spend a few seconds writing a blue post about why not give FX back to Gezz.
Also, why not remove the skeletal drake mount from those players who earned it? It’s only a cool mount, isn’t it?
I spend days to get enought reputation with the skyguard to be able to start the Gezz quest, and a few more days (an a good amount of gold) to pick all the haste gear needed to make the tame fast enought. 3 hours mounting a cuasi-raid to help me to tame her, and 2 more hours to tame.
And I did all of these for a bugged pet (I was Aware of it) only because It was the coolest pet in the game.
Gezz is to other pets like the Skeletal drake is for normal mounts. I want her back.
Antarx:
You seem to think that’s so simple. While coding is something that’s not simple in it’s own mind, the problem is not the mob itself. It’s the transition from “wild mob” to “tamed pet” that is causing this problem.
Yes, the FX do exist for wild Gezzerak the Huntress. However, when you tame her, that “pet file” now goes over into a file of “tamed warpstalker” where they now all default to instead of being Gezzerak’s folder. (this is laymen’s terms btw, I don’t actually know what its all called).
Moving the data to a default “Warpstalker” pet was something they did to make it to where all pets didn’t have jarred walking (like Devilsaurs and wolves) or other effects that sometimes is unforseen until someone tames one.
You also seem to forget the Terms of Service Blizzard has to agree to before you play. They can change anything they want without giving any form of compensation.
Having Gezz is like the arena drake, you can’t no longer obtain one (using your example). The drake, as you pointed out, is nothing more than a cool mount. Gezzerak is nothing more than a cool warpstalker. The mount itself doesn’t appear in a lightning bolt or anything. It flies faster, but thats something pallies and DK’s can do already, so its not unique in that sense; so comparing Gezz to the drake is not really a fair comparison.
All in all, until Blizzard devotes time to changing how a newly tamed pet file is written, you’re not going to see summoning animations make a return. And while it does suck, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Sure, you can petition it, but keep in mind druid’s petitioned for new forms for over 3 years and just barely got heard out. It’s not going to be something that’ll happen soon.
Having gezz is not like the arena drake*
(this is why you don’t type so early in the morning)
I’m pretty sure that since that fix I haven’t seen any bugged hunter pets at all. You know, where they spawn in their wild form? Which made pets like Uvuros and Terokkarantula appear gigantique. That’s probably why the summoning effects where removed as a side effect.
Shinryu:
Actually that still happens occasionally, which makes me think it might just be a client-side lag. My spirit beast did it yesterday, but out of 3 people in the group, only 1 saw him in his natural Loque’nahak form. So I think that might be why that bug still occurs, it’s got something to do with the individual client.
As far as other pet bugs go though, I agree. I haven’t seen any other bugs.
Sadly, the Daggercap Hawk -still- flies in its ‘at rest’ position.
I have a feeling that since it hasn’t been fixed, that it may end up on the untamable list before long. It’s always struck me that the Hawk was supposed to be a ‘critter’ and got flagged as a beast by accident. (If memory serves, there’s a brown version that -is- a critter…)
Still, even if they do, the ravens in Blade’s Edge will remain tamable, so it’s not like the skin is going away.
Rikaku:
My point is not “it’s easy”. My point is “It can’t be so hard”
About changing the file folder… ok, but is only 3 creatures.
About the Terms of Service Blizzard… that somethig to avoid be demanded. I’m not going to take it to a tribunal, and, anyway, it also something that blizz doesn’t intend to remove.
Goshtcrawler said some time ago that blizz wants to give back “the old hunting”. Early in the vanilla wow, hunters from all servers were camping for certain pets with special habilities, but most of them, were standarized for balance motives. I believe that gondria an Locke are the new “pets-to-hunt”.
The FX doen’t break the pvp or pve balance between classes. Is only something cool.
Its so hard to fix 3 kinds of pet?
Quote from Nethaera’s sign
“Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.
-Jonathan Winters”
At least, we can try.
“One thing people didn’t mention yet, Mania… they not only fixed the shuffle on the ghost wolf, but on the Vargul blight hound and ALL devilsaurs. So you can get the Un’goro ones and they move as smoothly as Tyrantus did… they still have a short stride, but at least they aren’t patter-stomping. And the plaguehounds have a nice smooth gallop.”
Oooh, that’s great! Do the blighthounds have a swimming animation now too?
I may have to play around with my hunter again. :)
Antarx:
Right now, yes it is just 3 creatures. But with each expanison and content patch, who knows what new mobs are in store for Hunters to tame. Perhaps this will affect much more than just 3 mobs, perhaps in the long run its affecting a great deal more. And on that fact, perhaps it *is* hard to make the system designate “ok these # of mobs remain the same tamed as they are in wild and the rest revert to default family folders”. I’m not a coder, but I bet it might be a particular pain in the butt.
Again I don’t think its so much as hard but, other than to us Hunters, it’s not that big of a deal. Sure, don’t get me wrong, I want Gezz’s lightning back, I miss Raiju’s thunder. But overall it’s just not a big enough deal to warrant Blizzard’s work I guess. If this actually affected the Hunter class as a class, then I’m sure it’d be fixed.
And yes, it never hurts to try. I mean it took Druids 3 years of trying to finally get the revamp they needed. I’m just saying exactly what the rest of that quote says “Some things are just less likely than others.”
Things like this only reinforce how right my choice to quit Wow was. I keep checking back, to see if Blizzard can remember what they were, and how fun they could be….but no dice.
If you quit WoW because your warpstalker doesn’t spark any more… I think you have priority issues. o_O
I dunno, Nacht. I think it is more the spirit of the matter. I am tired of the fun little quirks being removed, personally. You can talk about how it isn’t fair for one class to get a bunch of fun things all you want, but it isn’t like it’s hard to level a hunter if you want those fun things yourself. Nothing in your post there said as much, I was just thinking about it. I guess I am just a bit tired of having the unique things taken away. The official unique, Loque, just isn’t as fun as the unofficial.
But it’s not like Blizzard took the summoning animations away just for the hell of it. War is acting like they did it just to spite players. That’s a level of tinhattery I could never get behind.
But part of the problem is this: They realize players enjoy effects like that. They had a HUGE following for the Ghostwolf at the time, and for every other effect they have removed. They KNOW how much players enjoy little things or big things like that. And yet all to often they still end up getting rid of them. In fact, to date, always. Perhaps that isn’t doing it just to spite players, but it certainly doesn’t keep the playerbases interest in mind. It’s one thing if it really and truly interupts the game play, like my vaunted shadow damage Lupos. But so many, if not most of the effects they have removed had no negative effect on gameplay. They were just fun little things that people who were quirky could enjoy. In a way, it is almost worse, that they know and simply do not care enough to make the enjoyable things permanent.
A few corrections and clarifications. Quirky doesn’t mean minority, since a ton of hunters love those effects and things. The bug that allowed hunters pets to attack NPCs without flagging the hunter needed to go, and negative bugs like that as well.
Well, think of all the ‘quirks’ they’ve removed that aren’t fun. Pets that run too slow, pets that glitch and can’t attack, pets that don’t run, pets who’s butt sucks in so their tail is somewhere near their kidneys.
No one likes those glitches and no one is sad that they’re gone. But I’m sure that from Blizzard’s standpoint, a glitch is a glitch, whether it’s a case of a trait held over from the the summoned mob or an inability to move or attack properly. It isn’t the way the mob is supposed to work, and therefore, will be edited out eventually. The fact that they haven’t been before now is probably more a case of them having more important things to deal with than glitches that don’t affect game play, but now that they do have time for it (the next expac is not for awhile yet), they’re methodically going down the list and fixing EVERYTHING. So yes, it makes things a little less Unique Snowflake, but it also makes the game a more uniform experience for new players.
not sure if anyone here cares.but the blue mentioned something on the druid bear/cat forms and there are previews for the new bear skins up on the site…
Yuppers. Both the nelfbear and moobear skins are up with the old skin/model for comparison. MUCHLY improved, and means I might actually get a druid higher than 13 one of these days.
Nacht, I SAID it wasn’t a bad thing that the negative glitches were gone. I said the FUN and unique quirks were the real shame. Color changers, unique summons, unique pets in general, certain unique behaviors and the like. I never said “Dude, it really sucks that my wolf/cat/one-eyed-one-horned-flying-purple-people-eater had it’s running fixed, so now it runs full speed! Wish they’d left that slowness in there!”
I don’t WANT A !@#%ing UNIQUE SNOWFLAKE, and honestly, if it isn’t apparent, that particular saying is starting to piss me off. It isn’t about having a pet that isn’t like anyone elses. That is simply impossible. What it is about is either leaving alone the ‘unique’ effects and pets, or refining them, and making it something official, and supported. Blizzard knows when the fan’s like things like that, its when they ‘fix’ or remove things that the fanbase likes and that don’t negatively effect gameplay that I get aggrivated with them. I even stated that the removal of such things as Lupos’s shadow damage were in fact a good thing. The removal of the ghost wolf was a bad one. I am not trying to come off as rude or what have you, but it really sounds like you didn’t read my post at all.
Maybe the blue was being honest, and maybe the special summons removal really was just an accident. The problem is, you can never really tell what the blues know and what the development team hasn’t told them. We’ve encountered it on multiple occasions where a blue poster will say one thing, swear to god by it, and have it be totally different in game. The problem is that this time, something cool, and nice, and yes ‘unique’ was taken away because of it, and probably won’t be put back in. It’s just a shame is all.