Account-wide Pets with Patch 5.0.4

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Community Manager
#1 - Aug. 25, 2012, 1:16 a.m.
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When Patch 5.0.4 goes live in the next week, we will be implementing systems that prepare characters for the Pet Battles system that is coming with World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, and bringing account-wide non-combat pets to the game. During the patching process, non-combat pets will be migrated among your characters, with the final result being all of your non-combat pets available to all of your characters. This initial adjustment to your catalog of pets includes several changes that are worth noting.

1. There will be a limit of 500 pets, per player, that can be carried going forward.
  • Players will be allowed to go over the 500 pet cap during the 5.0.4 migration.
  • The migration will not convert more than a total of 1500 pets for a player.
  • Unique pets will be merged, so there will not be more than one unique pet on an account.


2. Pets that can only be used by characters of the other faction will be greyed out.
  • Such pets can only be summoned by characters of the proper faction.
  • Examples include: Balloons, Moonkin Hatchlings.
  • There are certain pets that will not be account-wide. Examples include: Guild Page, Guild Herald, Argent Squire, Argent Gruntling.


3. Players should not see more than one of any unique pets. Examles include: Lil' KT, Murky, and Frosty.

4. All standard pets will be merged. There will be a limit of three per type for players, but the migration can exceed this limit. Examples of standard pets: Orange Tabby Cat, Brown Prairie Dog, Crimson Whelpling.
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#67 - Aug. 25, 2012, 5:37 a.m.
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The best suggestion I've seen here is to think of the end result of the migration as a "pet bank" into which all of the pets on all of the characters on your account are going to go.

With a very small number of exceptions, your characters then all have access to any of the pets in the "pet bank".

With exceptions, if you have two or three copies of the exact same pet somewhere in your account, you'll see all the copies in the "pet bank."
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#69 - Aug. 25, 2012, 6:04 a.m.
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08/24/2012 10:50 PMPosted by Killercaitie
With a very small number of exceptions, your characters then all have access to any of the pets in the "pet bank".


At the same time?

Such as KC here can have her Worg Pup, & then I hop on an alt & she also still has it?


Yes. Yes.
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#138 - Aug. 25, 2012, 9:40 p.m.
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Also that makes we wonder why they are going to do with the vanity PETS we have NOW in the guild bank, are they going to auto be caged or put in our spell book and once again if we have more than 3 of something we are going to lose them?

I have been stocking up on vanity pets in my guild bank, I have a guild bank tab full of them so I really like to know what/how are you going to handle those ON AH and in a person GUILD BANK on patch day, give me some clue so I can do something with them before patch day or wait???


The key is to differentiate between pets that your characters have learned, and potential pets that you have as items in bags or banks or in the mail or on the AH.

Pets that your characters have learned are going to be merged, and will be account-wide thereafter.

Pets that are items will be unaffected.
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#142 - Aug. 25, 2012, 9:53 p.m.
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I am totally confused, and if someone could clarify, that would be awesome.

As I had understood it, pets would be account-wide, period, meaning, that if one character had it, all characters in that account would. Simple enough, right?

Sooooo ... what is this example of the three-cat thing? Why would I want three of the SAME pets on an acct.?


Let's say that across all of your characters, you've only ever acquired one Crimson Whelpling. It's on a character that you rarely play. You wish you had a Crimson Whelpling on your current main. But alas, you do not.

After the migration, you will see that Crimson Whelpling in the pet list for every character you have on that account. You can summon and use your Crimson Whelpling without restriction.

Now let's say that you'd like to occasionally go into a Pet Battle with two Crimson Whelplings (and one 'Lil KT). You'll have to acquire a second Crimson Whelpling to do that.

After you've gotten your second, all of your characters will see two Crimson Whelplings in their pet lists.

After you acquire your third, you've reached the limit that the system will allow. You can trade in caged Crimson Whelplings all you like (those are items), but you will not be able to add a fourth Crimson Whelpling to the list of pets all your characters share.
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#145 - Aug. 25, 2012, 10:23 p.m.
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HELP! Please clarify the meaning of "Account-wide" in regards to pets. I currently have 3 licenses in my family under the same Battle.net account. Will the pets really be merged across all of Battle.net as the press releases state or is it actually just within each individual license?


Yes. All of the characters on all three licenses will share all of the pets in that Battle.net Account.

08/24/2012 07:21 PMPosted by Stygimoloch
If all of our pets are merged into one super library, how will we be able to battle each other?


Only one player per Battle.net account can be in a Pet Battle at a time. Any other players on that account who are logged-in will be able to summon the shared pets as companions, but will not be able to enter Pet Battles.

08/24/2012 07:21 PMPosted by Stygimoloch
Will we be able to be logged in at the same time with identical pet rosters?


Yes.

08/24/2012 07:21 PMPosted by Stygimoloch
Will we each still be able to each do the quest lines and dailies? Using the same pets? Will we be able to level and battle with pets all at the same time in different parts of the world?


Yes and no. Daily Quests that are specific to Pet Battles will be limited to once per account. Other sorts of dailies will be unlimited, and there is no 25-daily-quest cap anymore.

08/24/2012 07:21 PMPosted by Stygimoloch
I am on the verge of separating my licenses onto different battle.net accounts to make sure that we can participate fully. My son will be devastated if we can't battle each other!


You will have to separate licenses for two players on the same Battle.net account to enter into Pet Battles at the same time.
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#153 - Aug. 25, 2012, 11:23 p.m.
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One question wasn't answered, are we getting the new AH with the battle pets tabs in this patch or MoP and what about the vanity pets that are on AH before the patch hits, will they all of sudden be CAGED pets, or sent back to the sender or will the new AH accept uncaged pets?

Thanks in advanace!!

Edit: btw Thanks for working on a Satuday!!! :P


Caging and trading caged pets are Mists of Pandaria functions. You'll see some mention of it after the 5.0.4 patch, but you won't be doing it until the expansion.
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#452 - Aug. 28, 2012, 10:52 p.m.
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08/28/2012 03:45 PMPosted by Tiggindy
Before you ask a question dont just read the Numbers read the points under them also and maybe just maybe you wont have a question to ask anymore!

Point 4 is FALSE!

You can have more than 4 of a particular pet type in your journal.


This is correct. The migration was allowed to exceed the limit.

It is a limit on the player collecting pets, going forward.
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#456 - Aug. 28, 2012, 11:02 p.m.
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This is correct. The migration was allowed to exceed the limit.

It is a limit on the player collecting pets, going forward.

Is the only way to get rid of the excess (I have so many rocket bots) releasing them?


Yes.

Please note that there are many pets that will have significant value once they can be caged (after Mists of Pandaria).