Peter's Blog

You said: "The bug/feature that allowed you to train a pet while one was dismissed seems to be a memory now..."

Are you getting an error message when you try? I noticed that I sometimes get an error if I login with my pet already dismissed, but calling it and dismissing it again seems to fix it. Other people have suggested that it's due to a server hiccup, but I'd like to gather more data.

For a time you were able to dismiss the current pet and then tame another. When you got back to the stables you could put your new pet in the stable and your dismissed pet would appear again as your current pet. It was cool, you didn't have to train a temporary pet to protect you when you went out to tame something new.

Last time I tried this, after patch 2.1.12 I think it was, if I dismissed a pet and tried to tame another I got a message to say I already had a pet.

There are two pet bugs I am aware of:

• Sometimes the pet action bar does not appear when I dismount and I have to mount/dismount to get it back (or dismiss/summon but that makes the pet unhappy). I normally leave the pet on auto everything, I don't use the bar much but I prefer it to be there.
• I often like to check the pets experience bar in the pet pane of the character panel. If I do this while riding or flying and close the character pane by pressing the close button, the character pane will reopen for no reason when I land/dismount and I have to close it again. I avoid this by switching away from the pet pane before closing the character panel.

I very rarely dismiss pets and I wouldn't have had one dismissed when I logged out. Mae is a Beast Mistress and wouldn't be seen without a pet. Feels very vulnerable.

Peter

I was in SW last year sometime when Lord Kazzak turned up; what a mess, bodies everywhere. Anyway...

(rant) First point - during a questing session last night I passed through SW and IF several times and every time both cities were packed with people yelling, spamming abuse and generally swearing at each other. Having given this a bit of thought I've come to the conclusion that TBC is to blame. As I pointed out yesterday, TBC is in fact not an expansion pack but more like an extension pack in that it simply extends the time it takes to reach the cap/end-game raids, a side-effect of this being the old instances are now largely ignored as the main (only?) pre-58 goal is to level to reach the Outlands. And this, I think, is where the problem starts - everyone pre-58 is doing the same quests, getting the same rewards, not bothering with the old instances, and buying the odd blue from the AH; they're getting bored, they've nothing to talk about so they're gathering in cities and spamming chat. A word to Blizzard - an expansion pack should complement and enhance old content, not assign it to the dustbin.

Second point - following on from the lack of grouping pre-58, many of the low level players now have little or no knowledge of other class’s abilities and spells. I was playing my mage last night with specific talents maxed to give me a 41 yard range on my fireball and pyroblast. After taking out a mob a gobby paladin rushed up to me and started hurling abuse in my face about how I'd taken out his kill. He was convinced I had launched a fireball at his target just before he was about to attack it and therefore tagged it for myself. I tried to explain to him that the fireball was in fact a pyroblast with a SIX SECOND CAST so it was very likely that I started casting before he had even noticed the target. He, however, insisted I had instant-cast it just as he was about to attack. He swore several times and legged it.

Bottom line - the game is, without doubt, suffering due to TBC. (/rant)

I think you're right here, my experience in levelling Mae is that the only people in Azeroth are alt-levellers, mostly doing their own thing to get to Outlands. There are far fewer people around than when I was levelling Pook, six months ago now (time flies). Something I noticed is a complete lack of 'world pvp' such as horde in Duskwood and STV looking for fights (PvE realm). The higher you get the fewer people there are as people get bored with their alts.

And yes, Ironforge is often full of kids climbing the walls and jumping around (I don't go to stormwind so much). I thought they were supposed to be waiting for battlegrounds or something? I'm happy to ignore them, even with 'yo mother' stuff going on in general chat. You don't see the same thing in Shatt so much, everyone seems to be going about their business.

I must admit though, my auction alt is a nelf and I cannot resist jumping when I run, always hoping for the forward somersault.

I've met rude people in game but they normally keep quiet. The worst was someone who kept pestering me to group, wouldn't give up even after /ignore. In the end I started hearthing, then broke it when she went away. Of all the people who have wanted to group recently, most just throw up the group box.

The game filters all the #@$!ing swearing in my chat.

Peter

I did a quick google after my above rant and found this:

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/316/

It's an excellent article and sums up many of my feelings. I think if I'm honest I'm suffering from a bit of nostalgia (I think I sometimes sound like Uncle Albert going on about the war) but I'm also peeved that I now have little choice other than to join the relentless flow of chars grinding or questing away just to get to Outlands. Oh well, life goes on.

Thanks for the link. If you want to leave a link in future, just leave out the http://www bit and I will edit it to make it work. If I didn't put the obstacles in I'd have to delete a few hundred comment spams every day. As it is I get... none

Have you been to Outlands yet? Outlands is very new and different and the rewards are very attractive: Mae has spent maybe two or three hours questing in Hellfire and has a 44dps crossbow and a blue chestpiece with 800 armour to show for it (see armory) and those are rewards from solo quests.

I'm still focused on questing in Azeroth for these reasons:

• there is still stuff I haven't done (Silithus, Burning Steppes, bits of EPL and WPL)
• over level 60 the XP requirements to level shoot up: 400k XP to get to 61? I want to get as much as possible from Azeroth.
• Mae will be higher level when she does start going for it in Outlands and will have an easier time (e.g. Aimed shot)
• When Mae is 70 she will have more quests to do and the rewards will be gold. By then the Azeroth quests will be grey.

I looked up The Blood of Heroes thing I found yesterday and it seems it was once a rare and valueble component in epics, at one time Mae would have been lucky to find it. Now totally irrelevant. Sad.

At one time people ground ardent dawn rep for months for things that are now worthless. By comparison, getting the Epic Saber wasn't such a big deal. Do I really want to do the same in Outlands?

Peter

Hey, are you the Mania of Petopia fame? If so I'm in awe! Great site, if it wasn't for Petopia Mae wouldn't have Tiddles (Ghost Saber) or Rakky (Rak'shiri) as I wouldn't have known of their existance. Big thanks for petopia and for visiting my humble blog.

Peter

I haven't been to Outlands yet, I'm still hanging onto Azeroth for dear life; I know Azeroth like the back of my hand, I still get sentimental about the good old days when I reach certain areas - it still holds its charm for me. I know as soon as I reach Outlands I'll be like a kid in a sweet shop, but for now the emotional tie to Az is too strong. It's pathetic really.

I was impressed by the design of Silithus and I have a feeling there are more soloable secrets hidden in EPL that interest me.

In a way it's nice to be differrent and to be enjoying the old content. I wasn't enjoying Outlands all that much when I put Pooky on haitus. It's much more of a grind than Azeroth. There are some interesting new quest ideas but Zangarmarsh made me flip with the tedium. It's another reason Mae's sticking in Azeroth, I'm in no hurry to go through there again.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Nice Sabre. I let my pig go a while ago to concentrate on my cats. Speaking of pets I came across the Jaguars on the island to the south of Booty Bay. Can't remember the name but the BIG gorilla lives there. I tried to train but it is a little high for me at present however in a couple of levels I will go back. It seems to have the prowl ability which sounds good.

I am having a few issues keeping the pet happy at present. I am even starting to feed him roasted quail but that does not seem to help much. Do you have any views on food?

I have also noted the disappearance of the action bar. Pretty frustrating.

Cheers

Peter

Hi Peter,

Good to hear from another cat lover. DPS and good looks, what could be better?

I think I know the island you are talking about, I went there at about level 45 and met some level 50 cats so I departed. I had a quest there I picked up in a message in a bottle but I never bothered to return for it. I think gorillas have the 'thunderstomp' AoE ability. I have only tried a gorilla temporarily in Felwood when trying to find the rare spawn Windserpent. I didn't have it long: I didn't like the king kong thing when running along beside a Female Dwarf.

When I'm unsure about pet feeding I switch to the combat log and see how the feeding is going. With good meat like roasted quail (which I am using these days) you should see the pet getting 35 happiness per tick and you can wait till the 'feed pet' effect 'fades'. I have found (and this is subjective) that the pet seems to keep happy longer if you are continually fighting: if I am messing around looking for something I seem to need to feed the pet more often. When I'm just grinding I can go half an hour without feeding the pet. Also, if you feed the pet and then immediately send it into a fight I think the feeding effect stops immediately. You should wait for the effect to fade. As always, if in doubt, consult the combat log.

One other little tip: you can also tell if the feed pet effect has faded by mousing over the portrait of your pet and seeing if the feed pet icon appears.

Another issue is food quality: some meats are better than others. If you mouse over the meat in the bag it will show the item level and I am guessing that the higher the item level, the more happiness it will give the pet. The pet will refuse to eat very low level meat: I tried when I was grinding darnassus rep in Teldrasil.

Back to the roasted quail, since I focused on just feeding the cats that I've been carrying around a single stack of it (up to 20) which takes just one slot in my precious bag space. I used to have loads of different meat and fish but I'm not sure it is worthwhile using up all the bag space. A stack of 20 lasts a couple of days, longer than a large supply of ammo. My cats are both level 58 and roasted quail keeps them happy.

Peter