Wild Pet Trading Removed
So today I check out MMO-Champion and came across a blue post about the Pet Battle System which in my opinion kind of makes the whole system stupid now in my opinion. What do I mean? They have removed the option to trade wild pets in-game.
What this means to you, is that you can no longer go out into the game world, find a rare pet, catch it, level it to max level, then put it in the pet cage and sell it on the Auction House. This is not allowed now and the game wont let you. Here is the blue post.
We just finished a pass making all pets that are caught via pet battles in the world non-tradeable. This means these pets cannot be put in cages for trading or posting on the AH. We felt that the option to buy these pets on the AH would take away from the exploration/collection gameplay of the system.
This could always change in a future patch, but this is how it will go out with MoP. You should see the change in our next build.
After I read a few post in the thread, I was shocked to see some people where happy with this changed? Um what? The heck? I don’t understand why people are so against the pet battle system allowing someone to buy it off he auction house. It doesn’t affect you.
I think my replay to the post here puts everything in how I feel about this change. Frankly it’s sad this happened. I was looking forward to finding a new niche market as a gold maker. Now I don’t care, I have this collection of pets I stockpiled and simply will just when Mist hits sell them off slowly.
Even now the pet market as it stands now will die, new players who never collected those pets will still come into the game and pets will still sell mostly, however you wont see them sell as often. Nothing more to say about this, I had so much I wanted to write about with the pet battle system. I understand it because I used to play Pokemon back in the day like a fiend.
Blizzard clearly didn’t do their homework, the one cool part about the pokemon game was the trading part of it, trading to friends, etc. Now that we can’t do that, all these wild pets; their value means nothing now. I’ll keep an eye out, but unless they change this, I’m done with pet battles.
EDIT: Blizzard has made it clear that they don’t want us trading wild pets due to some silly auction house unfairness and to keep the spirit of the game. I’ve said my peace on it and comments are now closed on the matter. I respect everyone’s different opinions. However I don’t agree with most of them and the reasons to take it away even for a short time is a slap in the face.
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6 Comments on Wild Pet Trading Removed
July 24, 2012 9:34 AM
I don’t think you’ve grasped just how catastrophic (in terms of server economy) this would potentially have been if it had been left in game.
This would have become the ‘ultimate’ gold sink. People would not care about ‘simply trading’: some fair minded souls perhaps, with no monetary gain attached. However there would be those who would have spent their entire time just levelling pets to max level, selling them and not caring about them or those people playing the game as the rest of the economy collapsed. Such is this mini-game’s addictive nature.
I suspect the ‘rationale’ Blizzard have used is at least in some way correct: you need to level your own pets, not buy a pre-levelled team from the AH then go off and beat everyone else before getting bored. To keep the concept fresh it is not simply about making something that can be bought and sold. This would allow those people who were prepared to play 24/7 in the first weeks to make super pets and sell them, giving others an unfair advantage in game. Blizzard just won’t let this happen.
Most importantly, if you read the entire blue post, this is only for release. This stance may change once most people are max levelled and Blizzard can see how the system works in a larger environment. ‘Putting the safeties back on’ is really the only way to make sure that people don’t cash in and sink this idea before its even had time to float.
July 24, 2012 10:17 AM
That just made me laugh, serious a ‘catastrophic’ collapsed of the economy over pet battle? Are you even kidding me? Do you even understand what a gold sink even is? If I have 200k and you have a super rare max level pet that you sell to me for 200k, I get a pet you get 200k. That is NOT a gold sink. So please do not even try to say that is it. Do you know what a gold sink is? Its taking gold OUT of the economy not shuffling it around.
Those mounts that cost 100k or 16k or anything in the game where you spend gold that just disappears is what a gold sink is. The only sink the pet battle system would bring would be a time sink and nothing more. I’m sorry but people being able to trade pets and sell them for gold to other players would not cause any more bad effect on an already collapsed economy then the lazy shuffle did in cata. That was more ‘catastrophic’ then this would be, being it allowed people to print free gold. Sorry but I don’t agree and I think their logic and reasons is just a band-aid to the real issues.
July 24, 2012 10:29 AM
i’m really sad they made this change, having spent 10+ hrs Petting it up on Beta i can say it is a very fun addition to the game. Catching rare pets in the wild takes ages, i’ve caught 2 rares in 10 hours. I would have much preferred to buy a low level rare pet from AH then level it up myself. You can kinda sense Blizz want to make Pet battles very grindy like Archaeolology.
July 24, 2012 10:32 AM
Which is what I’m talking about, they are being lazy, a mini-game should be fun not a grind that I roll my eyes at doing. The reason I stopped playing pokemon itself back a few years ago (more like 5) was because it became a grind that was no longer fun. Not everyone is going to want to spend 10+ hours to find a rare pet, the simple aren’t just like someone isn’t going to want to farm boe’s they rather just buy them. It’s simple logic and blizzard and many others who think its a good idea fair to understand that its not a big deal and doesn’t effect you, all the pet battle matches are going to be anonymous anyways, so you wont even know who your facing anyways.
July 24, 2012 1:08 PM
Clearly we have a fairly fundamental difference of opinion. Such is the way these things go, but I am pretty certain Blizzard’s seven years of experience is going to count for something. A quick look at the AH on any of the Beta servers should be enough to make anyone realise that some people just want to make money from exploiting others and pretty much nothing else. In shock news, that’s not the main reason Blizzard make the game.
July 24, 2012 2:12 PM
Okay just stop right there.. look at the what auction house? The beta servers.. yeah that right there is where you are wrong. If blizzard is really looking at the beta auction house simply to make this decision then I have really lost faith in blizzard.
Do you realized that there is no way to look at the auction house in the beta and say “oh yeah that is how it’ll go on live we need to fix this.” NO first off people are down right silly when it comes to beta. Or did you not search it? Did you not see that someone put up low level herbs for 200g a stack too? Just look at the number of auctions. No Beta is more like playing a a very low pop server.
Yes over 1 million players where sign up for the beta. Did every one of those players even play beta? No, you can’t judge a auction house in beta as a means to end of how things will be once it’s live. Did you know I spend 2,000g a stack on herbs so I could level a profession? Do you know why I spend that much? Because I don’t care how much I spend, I don’t care what I vendor, because it’s beta, blizzard can up and release a beta patch and be like “Due to issues with the patch we had to clear the server data, please re-copy your characters or make new ones thank you” And you know what, that’s just how it is.
Your right we clearly have different views but each time you brig up the reason for you different opinion, you just make it harder for me to see from your side. And I hope you understand where I’m from. Wild Pets being sold is not a gold sink for starters, and I hope you know what a gold sink is and using the beta servers as a way to how players will sell and buy is also down right dumb, sorry to put it that way.
The more comments I read about this, not from from twitter but from the official forums.. seems more people are against people making money off pet battles. My question is how does it effect them? Pets have been in the game a long time and people have made but loads of gold off them now they are putting a mini-game to those pets. YOU can not just expect everyone to not try and make gold with it. That is silly thinking and if this is blizzard mind set.. then really?
This is the last thing I’ll say about it, not because I”m right not I’m not its a matter of opinion but no one has come up with a reason not here or the forums as to why its a good idea to prevent this from happening at launch. Every reason I’ve see has been someone upset that another players will make so much gold from it, taking advantage of the system or not playing in the spirit of the game. Maybe these people just don’t look at the bigger picture.
But I’m sorry I spend weeks and days of my time once the beta let out pet battles working on numbers, spawn rates, guides on how the pet battle system works, how someone at level 1 could catch a rare in the early zone, level them up and sell them to get starter cash to jump into other markets to make good gold. This is a hunter blog about making gold from a hunter point of view. And blizzard just slap me in the face of all the work and future posts I was going to make because now I can’t trade wild pets because someone thinks it’s not fair because they can’t make gold or its hurts the spirit of the game. Spare me please, I’m bitter about it and have a right to be, I just wasted my whole weekend writing posts for this week, guides and what not and now I can post them but the are useless.