The Petopia Cataclysm Pet Changes spreadsheet of doom is now available on Google Docs!

Why is this useful? Because it can answer many of your questions!

Basically, the spreadsheet works like this:

1. A beta tester sees a beast in the Cataclysm beta.
2. The beta tester opens up the spreadsheet and records whatever information they have on the beast and the beta build in which they gathered it.
3. Beta testers who don’t want direct access to the spreadsheet e-mail me a screenshot and I add the information for them.

Now you come in, my not-in-beta readers (or beta testers who have better beta things to do with their beta time than track down any beta creatures they may be beta curious about). You have a question and the spreadsheet has (or at least may have) the answer.

Q: Can you still tame Echeyakee in Cataclysm?
A: Echeyakee was seen in build 12319 in the Northern Barrens. Build 12319 is the latest beta build and the Northern Barrens is ready for testing, so it is almost certain the Echeyakee will be available to hunters in Cataclysm.

Here’s how I got that information:

1. I opened the Kalimdor tab of the spreadsheet.
2. I used my browser’s search function to search for Echeyakee.
3. I saw that Echeyakee had been seen in build 12319.
4. I checked the Instructions tab to see the current build number.
5. I checked the Zone Status tab to see if the Northern Barrens is ready for testing.

Now “ready for testing” doesn’t necessarily mean “no more changes”, but since Echeyakee has survived until the zone is ready for testing, there is a very strong chance that he will continue to survive just fine.

Q: What about the Strider Clutchmother?
A: Beta information on the Strider Clutchmother hasn’t been recorded yet. There could be a couple of reasons for this: she could have been moved to another location; she could have been made more rare (longer spawn timer); she could have been removed from the game; she could simply have avoided prying hunter eyes so far.

In other words, we don’t have a solid answer for the Strider Clutchmother yet, but it is possible that she’s been removed from the game.

Again, here’s how I got that information:

1. I opened the Kalimdor tab of the spreadsheet.
2. I used my browser’s search function to search for Clutchmother.
3. I saw that she does not have a type of change (including None, which is a type of change!) or a build number listed.

Q: Can you tame those spiky new crabs?
A: Right now, you can tame a green spiky crab, the Felscale Crawler, in the Blaster Lands. It’s level 58. There are also black, green, orange and red ones in the Shimmering Expanse (a new Cataclysm zone) but they couldn’t be tamed a couple builds ago.

Finding this information was a little more complicated.

1. I started by looking at the New Cataclysm Zones tab because I remembered something about there being a new crab there.
2. I noticed that the Pyreshell Scuttler has a “deepseacrabblack” appearance, which didn’t sound familiar.
3. I checked the current crab family on Petopia and verified that that no current crabs have a “deepseacrabblack” appearance.
4. I used my browser to search for “deepseacrabblack” on each of the tabs. I found a bunch in the Shimmering Expanse that couldn’t be tamed in build 12164, and one in the Blasted Lands that could be tamed in build 12319.

We don’t have any data on the Shimmering Expanse crabs from the most recent build, so they could be tameable now. But the data on the Blasted Lands crab is from the most recent build, so if I were in beta and I wanted a spiky crab I’d probably head there first.

I wouldn’t give up hope on the other crabs yet, by the way. In every expansion so far, Blizzard has mostly added beasts that can’t be tamed first, then gone back later and done a pass so that most of them could be tamed.

Q: What’s your question?
A: So as you can see, this spreadsheet of doom can be very useful for tracking down answers to the Cataclysm pet questions that just can’t wait. It’s not always the easiest thing to navigate (and I’m not completely happy with Google Docs — I’d like to have sorting and filtering and frozen rows for the read-only view and not just the back-end view), but the raw information is there if you’d like to poke at it!

The Petopia Cataclysm Pet Changes spreadsheet is linked from the Petopia Cataclysm page as well, so if you don’t remember the hideous direct link you can always just head to Petopia. (I hope you remember the link for Petopia. Or, you know, have it bookmarked.)