The Buzzing Box

Update: As of Battle for Azeroth's release (August 14th, 2018), we've gotten multiple bee pets. Another successful mission complete!

A long time ago, 2013 to be exact, I made a silly post on a battle pet that I would like implemented. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but eventually the little sea calf made its way into our collections. Over the years, I've seen many people request certain pets they would like, and I've even thought of a few more, but nothing enough to spark my creativity into motion. As I browsed through my Twitter timeline, I saw a request from Starcrow to the Warcraft developers for a bee battle pet. Now this was something that interested me!

We have many different types of insect like battle pets, but nothing that resembles a bee. My mind started thinking of all the honey comb nests around Pandaria. Then I remembered something about a lone little NPC that most players (even Horde) may not have ever noticed out in the old world. This poor little guy has been plagued with some insect troubles since Vanilla, and no one has even bothered to stop and help him. I think it may be time to change that.

So how would I add this pet in game? Well, our journey would take the player into the Northern Barrens and around a little area called Grol'dom Farm. You take a look around and notice that it's just another farm being attacked by the Razormane; nothing special at first glance.

You turn to leave, but out the corner of your eye you see this flash of green followed by the sound of buzzing and crying. Here the player will meet an orc child by the name of Trok who is being chased around by a swarm of bees! As Trok runs around, you can read his words in chat. He complains about the bees chasing him and then hints that bees should have stayed near the Dry Hills.

The player now has a decision to make. Do I stop for a moment and try to help this little orc or do I continue on? You decide you have nothing better to do, so you head north to investigate this bee business a little more. You head toward the Dry Hills and begin scouting around. In the area, you find an old caravan that is long forgotten. In the rubble you find a lootable bee crate that is perfect for the task.

With your bee crate in hand, you head back to Trok and are now able to talk to him. You are now prompted with text that allows you to capture the bees in the crate. Choosing this option awards the player with a Buzzing Box in their inventory, allowing the player to learn Buzz, a bee battle pet. Trok will thank you for helping him after all this time, and skips off gratefully back to the farm while you admire your new pet.

I know you may be thinking that this area isn't Alliance friendly, especially since Grol'dom Farm has low level guards around it. My solution to this is to make Trok's running path much broader so he's running in a bigger loop around the farm area so the Alliance player doesn't have to worry about being close and aggroing guards.

With Blizzard's recent love of adding puzzles for hidden mounts and things, I think this could be a neat little way to get people to the old world again. Adding an actual bee model would be interesting too because all we have currently are wasp-like and firefly models. Let's face it, most collectors love adding new and unique things to their collection, and I'm sure little Trok would be very appreciative to finally have some time to relax after all these years!

I'd love to do more of these in the future. If you have a suggestion for a battle pet, feel free to let me know in the comments below. Once again, a huge thanks to Starcrow for the inspiration for this post and allowing me to run with it! Please give them a follow, and if you want a bee battle pet, don't forget to ask nicely. Feel free to use the hashtag #SaveTrok to get this little orc some help and a bee into your collection!