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!

Hooked on Mini Pets

I can't believe I've had this blog for almost the entire time I've been playing WoW and haven't went into detail about what got me hooked on my favorite things to collect in game - mini pets! This post came to mind as I was preparing to clean up my WarcraftPet's profile. I figured it would be better to put this here since I have more room to talk about it.

I often like to ask people, what was the first mini pet you remember getting? I'm pretty positive mine were the Senegal and Cockatiel off of Narkk in Booty Bay. I clearly remember keeping one on me and placing the other in my bank. Not long after that I remember running Deadmines and getting the Green Wing Macaw to drop from there. I felt like a pirate!

I went on with my WoW life, still not completely hooked on collecting. I remember when the Azure Whelpling was released in patch 2.3 (The Zul'Aman patch). It was pretty highly sought after on my server at least. I had a friend who wanted it really bad. I used to fish in Azshara probably more than I'd like to admit, so I passed the blue dragonkins that dropped it quite often. Well one day when I was passing, I killed one, and it dropped. I was shocked and quite excited. This began my unhealthy obsession with collecting mini pets!

It's around this time that I made friends with another collector. He's now my oldest Warcraft friend, and we still talk to this day. I'm not sure what got him to start collecting, but we were always talking about who got what pet most recently, and what pet we were going for next. I clearly remember us both hunting for the Black Tabby off of the Ambermill Spellscribe. I'm not sure who got their's first, but I remember we both eventually got it. I also remember by the end of Burning Crusade we both had no more room in our banks/bags for anymore pets since they weren't a learned spell yet!

I also remember some of my more frustrating times. I used to kill so many pirates for the Hyacinth Macaw, but I never was lucky enough to get it to drop. I also used to spend hours upon hours in the Swamp of Sorrows farming for the Emerald Whelp. It was so bad that I remember a guildie asking me why in the world was I always there, hah. I have no regrets on any of this or the amount of gold I've probably spent on getting some of the rarer ones. The only regret I have is that I didn't start playing the game early enough to get a vanilla collectors edition!

I've also met so many wonderful people through the WarcraftPets community, and just in general from collecting pets. They start conversations, and I love it when I can gift unsuspecting people with a pet they don't have. I can't wait to see what's in store for mini pets, and as always, I'm looking forward to expanding my collection!

The Sea Calf Lives!

"Come my children! We ride... to battle!"

Disclaimer: As of 2021, there is a lawsuit going on surrounding ActivisionBlizz. A few days later, Kotaku posted an article which features candid photos of many of the developers including Jonathan LeCraft. I am disgusted at everything about this lawsuit and do not condone any of that behavior. He is no longer on Twitter, but I have screenshots of my mini pet request from 2014 and just wanted to give a heads up.

The sea calf army is a go! Well, not yet, but at least in Warlords of Draenor. I started my crusade back in October of 2013 when I first set my eyes on little Allie on the Timeless Isle. It was in October of last year that I discovered this little cutie, and I began obsessing with wanting one as a mini pet.

I thought nothing more about it until around December when the Harpy's Nest blog decided to host a mini pet competition. Of course I decided to do my entry on the Sea Cows from the daily quest The Way To His Heart... in Northrend. I ended up winning the competition and was extremely grateful for it. About a month later, Jonathan LeCraft asked what new battle pets we would like to see. Of course I replied!

After this, things were pretty quiet on Twitter. I think I asked Jeremy Feasel and maybe one more dev, but I can't find anything about it if I did. However, I got no answer, so I left it alone. Since the Warlords of Draenor Beta was announced and in full effect, sites have been data mining and posting things left and right. I've was keeping up with pretty much every mini pets that was being added so far, but I  was not seeing my little sea calf. Finally I decided to ask again.

And then... Oh, my, gosh...

So collectors who have also been wanting a sea calf mini pet for a while, rejoice! We will be able to add this little cutie to our collections in Warlords of Draenor. I think it was determined that this one will be coming from fishing.

So I would like to throw out a million thanks to TheCrafticus for answering my requests on Twitter and doing something so simple for us mini pet collectors who really wanted one of these! This is definitely one little guy I will be happy to cross off my list! You've definitely made this Undead mage very, very happy!

Competition Entry: Pets Mean Prizes

When Erinys over at Harpy's Nest decided to post a competition based around mini pets, I couldn't have been more excited. Here were the rules:

Pick one of the following
1. Store purchased pet
2. Pet available in game through pet battling
3. A creature which exists in game but isn’t yet a mini pet
and describe how you would make it available if you were a game designer. It could be through questing, through a random drop or from something else entirely. Your submission could be screenshot based, purely text or in iambic pentameter if that’s what floats your boat.

I am currently working on a mini pet wish list post, so this competition was perfect for me to throw in one of the mini pets I have been lusting after since the Timeless Isle was implemented... Reef Calf! While it doesn't currently exist as a mini pet in game, I definitely think it should.

Here is the back story:
I was playing around on the Timeless Isle just like any other day. I was either going pet battle against Little Tommy or do my Celestial Tournament weekly when I noticed this little reef calf named Allie sitting there looking adorable. I immediately tweeted about it and wondered if we would ever get to have a reef calf of our own!

Implementing it:

Back in WotLK there was a daily that would gain you reputation with the Kalu'ak called "The Way to His Heart...". 

During the quest you would have to catch some Tasty Reef Fish, feed the Reef Bull, and make him meet the Reef Cow. Love will blossom soon after! 

The reef cow and her new bull find true love!

Much like the daily quest in Cataclysm to get Pebble and the other daily quest to get the Mini Jouster you didn't pick on the initial quest, I think they could implement the Reef Calf by having you do the daily 10 times. 

After that, Anuniaq will send you a letter saying how happy he is that the Reef Cow population is now flourishing and as a token of his appreciation for what you did, here is your own sea calf to take care of!

A proud Reef Calf owner!

Timeless Isle - First Thoughts

Free trip around the Isle! Wheeee!

So with 5.4 hitting yesterday, I thought I would give my first thoughts on the Timeless Isle. Let me start off by saying that I enjoyed it so much I ended up playing for almost 13 hours. I peeled myself away from my computer around 1:30 or so last night. I didn't get all the screenshots I would have liked, but I was in the moment and that's all that mattered.

When I arrived to the isle for the first time, it was littered with skeletons, but I quickly figured that out why later! I must have died more than a dozen times last night... and all I was doing was hunting rare spawns! The Alliance definitely outnumber Horde on my server. Everywhere you turned you saw yellow! I had to be very careful when looting stuff not to accidentally hit one of them to make me flag up. It's times like this I am so glad I do not play on a PvP server.

Me and my friend on Huolon watch!

The first things I did on the Isle where pick up my quests and explore. I opened so many chests and was actually able to get quite a lot of gear for my alts. In fact, I managed to get more pieces from rares last night that I need to send to them. I also want to try to get myself a trinket piece because I looted a burden blah blah from a chest in things cave. The Celestial's didn't give me a piece of gear... just gold.

I tried out the Celestial Tournament. I managed to beat the 3 tamers very easily, but the Celestials were really hard! I definitely need to work on getting some more pets up to level 25 before I attempt that again! I did manage to get a few new mini pets:
Ashwing Moth
Flamering Moth
Skywisp Moth
Skunky Alemental
and my friend got me an Azure Crane Chick

This rare spawn bug was bugged... Har, har, har!

While I will be playing around on the isle again today, I will definitely be taking it a lot slower, hehe. While fun right now, on a server like mine, I can see it being pretty dead really fast... which will make it a dangerous place to be in!

The Magical Mr. Pinchy

Mr. Pinchy... where do I begin...

I actually fished and got my Magical Crawdad during the Burning Crusades, so when I decided to take up this task again, I didn't quite remember how much of a pain it was and STILL is!

Mr. Pinchy having a well balanced meal.

Here are the things that changed for the better. First, the pool spawns used to only pop up every 30 minutes or so. Now it seems that after you fish in one, you can guarantee another will be up in one of the other locations. Second, and best thing of all is now Mr. Pinchy is on a 4 hour cooldown. It used to have a 2 day cooldown which really made it frustrating to get him!

Fishing skill required: I would go for at least 300+ just to be on the safe side!
Flying mount required! (or someone to bring you there!)

So get your fishing poles, and let's head to Outlands - namely Terokkar Forest! You're looking for the pools called Highland Mixed Pools which of course, only spawn in the "highlands".

Here's the wonderful part, you have 3 locations where you can chose to fish from!

Lake Jorune

Lake Ere'Noru

Blackwind Lake

I really like fishing from  Lake Jorune and Lake Ere'Noru because I was tending to get a lot of unwanted attention at Blackwind Lake. Some Alliance leveling up would follow me and fish from the same pools as me just to be annoying! Also it's a daily hub for the Sha'tari Skyguard so you may have some competition there.

You'll get BC fish and crates with goodies from that xpac in them. You should get Mr. Pinchy pretty fast. I don't think it took me longer than an hour to fish up any of the Mr. Pinchy's for this post, so hopefully you're just as lucky. I'm not sure they increased the drop rate, but since the pools spawn so fast, that's probably why!

After you catch him, this is where the fun begins. The item will grant you 3 wishes. You can use the item every 4 hours. It's completely random to what you will get from it. Here they are below:

Benevolent Mr. Pinchy: follows you around and fights mobs with you!

Furious Mr. Pinchy: very mad and will try to fight with you!

Mr. Pinchy's Blessing: and old flask buff, but you turn a cool shade of red!

Mr. Pinchy's gify: he gives you a gift that contains old health and mana potions!

The last gift is the best of all, Mr. Pinchy grants you the Magical crawdad Box (and an Achievement)! Sadly, I wanted to get another one just for this post, but after 18 unsuccessful wishes, I decided it was just better to write this thing and send all my luck to the person on the other end going on the hunt for him. If you decide to fish him up just for fun, or because you want him for your collection, let me know how long or how fast you got him! Good luck and happy fishing!

My Log:

1. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

2. Furious Mr. Pinchy

3. Mr. Pinchy's Blessing

4. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

5. Furious Mr. Pinchy

6. Mr. Pinchy's Gift

7. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

8. Mr. Pinchy's Gift

9. Mr. Pinchy's Blessing

10. Mr. Pinchy's Gift

11. Mr. Pinchy's Blessing

12. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

13. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

14. Furious Mr. Pinchy

15. Mr. Pinchy's Gift

16. Furious Mr. Pinchy

17. Mr. Pinchy's Gift

18. Benevolent Mr. Pinchy

Qiraji Guardling Woes

I figured since I pretty much did a guide for every other mini pet that has been somewhat annoying to obtain, I should probably do the Qiraji Guardling too. I have to agree with most people in that this is probably one of the most, if not the overall worst, wild mini pet to capture! Here are some tips that can hopefully help you obtain this little one if you haven't already.

Firstly, camping on my main server was a nightmare. I forgot about it spawning on the 21st and went to bed. The next day... and pretty much every day after it was a packed mess on Skywall. I had made myself a Death Knight on a Brazilian realm earlier in the year when I was farming for a rare Lofty Libram and a few others. The realm I picked was Gallywix that only shared CRZ with Goldrinn. It was pretty quiet in Silithus with about 10-12 people camping at a high time to 5-8 people camping at a low time. Most people are lower levels too , so the playing field is semi fair with land mounts vs. flying mounts.

I know there are other realms too that I don't believe share any CRZ with anyone else. There is a lot more information on the Warcraft Pets forum post where players are sharing what realm they used and their own experiences. (Sign up to the site too if you haven't!!)

Next, as always, set up yourself NPC scan. If it goes off when you open your pet journal, I suggest checking off the box that lets you see pets that you didn't capture yet.

The only annoying thing I found with this was that sometimes someone would already have one and pass by you (probably just to show off ), and it would make it go off. I ended up keeping my WoW Folder open so I could exit, delete my cache, and log back on as quickly as possible. It only happened to me about 3 times, so not too bad.

Now where to camp? I will be using in game coordinates, so if you don't have Coordinates, download it! (or something similar)

My pet collecting friend, Junkanoo, caught one on release night around 37,80... it's on the outside of the wall - to your left as you're about to enter the Gates of AQ.

There is a critter that spawns right here. You know you're in the right  spot!

I can guarantee that one does indeed spawn around that area because when I was there yesterday, one spawned, but I lost it to a priest with a flying mount *swoop*. I cried then congratulated them on their catch.

Last night I decided to log back on and wait while it was really late. I was in the same spot - 37,80. There were a few people there, but not many. I waited about two hours before one finally popped, but she wasn't in the area I was waiting in. She spawned further back... closer to the road at 35,79.

The road is behind me. She spawned in this area.

Map view

I never ran so fast on a land mount in my life. I engaged her, she was a rare, and she was mine!

Don't freak out like me and forget you're using level 25 pets. Too risky!

While I have to say that camping is definitely NOT my favorite way of obtaining a mini pet, I did have some good conversations with some people on the Brazilian realms despite the language barrier. They all loved my Tyrael! I didn't meet anyone who was rude or griefing. Overall it was a pretty good experience, and it didn't take me that long to get. If you can make the time to go there at night, definitely do so - the later the better. It might even be easier now that it's a weekday and not the weekend. If you're still having trouble, don't fret, Summer should last quite a while longer! Before you know it, you will have a little Qiraji Guardling to call your own! Happy hunting!