My Collection (When-How)

[Swiiftwiind]

Coppied this from my Bio so appologies if you read it before but it explains it all well.

I first started playin WoW in October 2008 when I was tricked by my husband.
Picture the scene if you will,
the time was about 7pm and the weather was cold and miserable.
He was playing WoW and I was sitting there in front of the telly bored.

" I'll make you a deal " he said

"What sort of deal "(I'm very suspisiouse of him and his deals )

"you spend half hour on warcraft with me then after I will spend 1&1/2 hours with you doing what YOU want"

so I agreed and we made my first character Swiiftwiind
A bloodelf Hunter, at the same time he bought me a few pets from the AH.
Next thing I know I got over 20 pets ( pinched a few hundered gold from his main , what wife wouldn't )
Tamed my first combat pet and was hooked on pets.
trouble was when I looked at the clock it was 3:30 in the morning.

[Moonkin]

Waaaaay back in early BC a friend got me and my BF into WoW.

When we reached the right level, our friend and a two of his guildmates took us on our first dungeon group so we could learn what we were supposed to do in a dungeon (BF was druid tank and I was a NE priest). We somehow made it successfully through the dungeon, and I got to loot Cookie.

Me: "A cat carrier? What's this for?"

Friend: "CLICK IT!! CLICK IT!!"

Me: "OK. . .what's it do. . ?" *click* "OHHH!! A Cat!! It is following me!!" *squee!!*

BF: "I know where this is going. . ."

An obsession was born. I scoured Thottbott, then Wowhead, for all the pet info I could find. I hunted down every pet I could find while leveling, taking weeks (or months) to farm up every pet as I went along. I funded my first mount selling Alliance pets on the neutral AH. For Christmas, my BF got me the TCG card for the hippogryph hatchling. Somewhere along the line I discovered this site (but didn't register until recently). I was totally hooked.

When the patch before Wrath came along, and changed the way pets worked, I had no bank space, no bag space, it was all pets. I got the first achievement pet the day they hit (was it 100 pets and the skunk then?).

I didn't play much during Cata, and fell a bit behind with pet collecting, but now I'm back. 291 and counting!

[Stevehansell]

I started WoW in the middle of Burning Crusade a bunch of my friends played it at college and I thought I'd give it a try. Soon after I started, I found out about pets. First I wasn't too overly interested in them, sure I collected the odd few here and there, ones that were easily obtainable, but I was never into them in the beginning. I don't think I can pin point the exact moment I became a propper collector to be honest. There's a few key points that could have triggered it. It could have been the first time I saw a Murloc pet, I really wanted one. Incidentally later down the line Deathy and Grunty were my first murloc pets. It also could have been when I realised just how varied the selection of pets were and the challenge that was presented when seeking out some of them. Nevertheless during WoTLK my collection built up at a steady pace. I'd say at that point I would have never spent real life money on them but I did start to toy with the idea of buying some of the TCG pets from ebay which at that point weren't available on the AH. My first TCG pet was the Rocket Chicken because well, it just looked incredibly humerous.

I was glad when the pet battle system was introduced because it gave a little bit more meaning to collecting the pets, it wasn't just a collection for vanity anymore, they could fight. Although admitedly I have struggled with the pet battle system since it came out but recently with a little help from the battle guide on warcraft pets I think I have a bit of a handle on it.

[Opallena]

I started out as a mount collector in BC and left pets to my sister for most of Wrath- but once she started getting a lot of them, I decided to pick up pet collecting myself since I was running out of easy mounts to go get. Now I'm very big into collecting pretty much everything in WoW from toys and pets to mounts and wardrobes!

[Cardee]

First I came across the rabbit vendor in Dun Morogh. Then I found the crazy cat lady in Elwynn. Then I managed to buy the little white kitten from the little boy wandering around Stormwind. Then my friend IRL told me about the chicken quest in Westfall. Then I found the owl vendor in Darnassus. Then I found the parrot vendor in Booty Bay. Then while trying out another toon I found the Undercity Cockroach vendor. Then doing Un'Goro Crater quests on my main the Disgusting Oozeling dropped from one of the bags. Then I found the quests to get the Worg Pup and the Smolderweb Hatchling in LBRS. Then while looking for obscure quests, I came across the one that awarded the Sprite Darter Hatchling.

I might have missed some pets there, but you get the idea.

Then shortly after BC was released, I took a break from WoW. I did not come back until halfway through MoP *facepalm*. By then I already missed several pets that were available in the game only for a limited amount of time. Anyway, I returned to WoW because I found out that my account was hacked during WotLK. Even though I haven't been on it for a very long time, it's still mine, and I wanted to restore it. The hacker linked my account to his Bnet account, which got me Mr. Chilly. So I guess that's a very small upside to the hacking incident. But yes, I'm still very disappointed that there are some pets that I can never have.

Before returning to WoW, I already heard about the new pet battle system. So when I got back on, one of the first questions I asked my friend IRL is, "I heard there's a pet battle system now. How do I get started?" It took about an hour for my toon to recover from the hacking (transferred the account to my own Bnet account, got my main toon a spirit rez, tried to figure out where the heck I was, repaired her all-red armor, found my way back to SW, had a GM restore all her things that were stolen, bought new flying abilities, etc.), I did pet battles. There were of course wild pets in areas that were way above my level, but that didn't stop me. I just hurried into a pet battle before the mobs aggroed.

I really enjoyed that time when I went all over the world catching wild pets. I also love that time when an xpac is new and I get to catch a bunch of new pets. Pets keep me in WoW. *cough*nowblizzjustreleasethoselimitedtimepetsagainpls*cough*

[Angelcat2887]

well not long after i had started playing (mid wrath) i ended up in an accident and was bed bound for a while, not being able to sit at my PC i played on my old laptop, but with it being so old i couldn't do much in game, no raids or dungeons, or even capital city's etc. so i would just spend my time going from zone to zone looking around, a guildie told me about these mini pets you could get and asked if i would want to go "hunting", and that was me hooked, spent the rest of my time hunting and reading up on pets and been at it ever since.

[Graven]

My hunter was my first main character, but after a while I found myself playing my shadowpriest more often. Mostly because I had become quite fond of the Children's Week pet which followed him around (Willy). When the WOTLK pre-patch introduced the achievements system and learnable pets which no longer took up inventory space I started collecting pets properly, and have been pretty well hooked on it ever since

[Kalium]

I played since Vanilla and I had no space for pets or extra mounts. I remember the Crimson Whelpling dropped while I was questing in the Wetlands. I recall vendoring it because I needed the space. After the pet tab was introduced I figured I would the learn the few pets I had or that dropped but I did not go out of my way to collect them. I did not seriously start collecting until pet battling was introduced... I believe that was in Cata. After a couple of starter fights I was hooked. For some reason it just clicked. I really like being able to come up with my own teams to see what works and what doesn't. Been a huge collector and battler ever since.

[Talmar]

I remember my decision to start collecting vividly. My very first character was a warrior, started back in Jan. of 2008 during BC. I remember leveling him and seeing a pet here and there but they took up bag space so there was no way I was going to collect pets. Loose bag space? No way.

Well, on my 2nd character, my Hunter, as I was leveling through Un'guro Crater, the [pet]Disgusting Oozling[/pet] dropped for me. I thought it was a very cool pet and so I decided to learn it. Yes it took up bag space, which on my hunter, with arrow's taking up bag space as well, was very very limited, but I could Hulk out with this pet and that was worth a bag slot to me.

I spoke out in guild chat about my cool new pet and they all started freaking out about it's rarity and how I could sell it for 20k gold. At that time that was a massive amount of gold. I was like, damn, I learned it, well, I suppose it's a great pet to begin collecting pets on, and I'm a hunter, makes sense, fits the whole beast master theme. Went out and got the BC collector's edition, as it had the pet, and started farming the whelplings and got all the vendor pets and here I am today. Still collecting.

But that [pet]Disgusting Oozeling[/pet] in Un'guro Crater, that was my first pet and the definitive moment I began collecting pets.

[Kendrah]

I started during MoP. I got the sandling and the bird pet drop from ToT on the same day, and was like wow! Pets are cool!

[Drudatz]

Ive been collecting Pets (and toys) since vanilla [I tried to collect mounts to but my luck in that territory is just not existant )

[Skavenged]

I started collecting pets as a way to kill time between expansions. Over time, Pet PvP became my favorite part of the game

[Dash]

It started really slow in Vanilla because as others have said you had to have bag space, and it was pretty scarce, so all I had was my pride and joy, the Hyacinth macaw. Then, Children week in BC, I got Whiskers the rat and he became my trusty companion, because I had pet rats irl and I wanted to have one in game as well. I had another account at the time so the next big thing for me was to snatch the white kitten in SW (and other alliance cats) and pass it to my horde char using the neutral Auction house. Glory to the account wide, learnable pets for making things sooo much easier

[Cubcho]

I only started playing maybe two years ago, and battle pets were a big selling point for playing the game with my boyfriend then. the first day I left my pandaria starting area and went to orgrimmar there was a blingtron in front of the auction house, and in the box was a mechanical pandaran dragonling! it felt so fitting and cool to get a pet from a random quest I happened to see, and specially since it was a pandaran dragon I still think of that pet as my "Starter" and think fondly of it

[Uduwudu]

Hi,

Probably at it for almost 2 years, however, I did not get serious on it, until this past year, most of 2016, when the game got a bit boring for me. Took me almost 8 months to figure out who/what Squirt was (no kidding -- us old foggies, don't need just glasses!), and after that the amount of duplicates and such, since I had a fast one and a power one in every pet you could think of in this game that had it. Have cleaned up most of those since, but almost 20% of my pets being duplicates ... means I'm cleaning them out as soon as I am done levelling every thing now that I am so close to finished (just over 100 levels left on 14/15 pets).

All in all, this is a lot more fun for me, than most of the game, since raiding went out of the window by solo folks ... I enjoyed the raid part of the game, but the good/great stuff is not there anymore, and neither is the fashion'ing of equipment for it, which I thought was cool and nice. Now, it's all too easy and numbers go up like an avalanche comes down, or Niagara Falls!

It was a bit frustrating at first, and I always used my favorite pet ... and most fights were going south and could not figure out why. I started looking around, and places like this site made it easier, and then I started on a process of getting pets that were mostly required for the majority of fights, the top 20 and the listing of pets for the Tournament in the Timeless Isle, even though I will never bother with it, but that list, pretty much tells you many of the pets you will need to have for most fights all over.

Nothing fancy, just not afraid to look and try someone else's efforts, and most of them are cool, though I wish most of those people would clean up old stuff that no longer works ... like aquatics with 2 bombs ... is history, and so is most of the Howl strategies that we used way back when. Even now, some of the strategies are kinda ... square ... and three times on Christoph Vonfeasal I bit it, and it was just bad/faulty details ... like Syd pops block on the 2nd round and negates a step in the suggestion ... but I think that the block portion of Syd's play has been extended since to make the fight tougher.

Stuff like that teaches you keep an eye on things ... and makes it more fun! And it only happens on Pet Battles!

[Darkchyld]

I played during Vanilla and TBC and collected some of the more interesting pet models back then, ooze and whelps. Sold off my accounts and quit towards the end of TBC. Fast forward 7-8 years, I was in a waiting period to start basic training for the Air Force and my best friend wanted me to play WoD with him since he heard it was going to be good. Got max level and did some end game stuff, but nothing really interested me. I used pets as a reason to explore old content and definitely my old "gotta catch 'em all" mentality kicked in and I got all the available pets during WoD and currently working on the last couple available pets in Legion (although the new PvP pets will take awhile for me to grind out).

[Milotha]

I played on and off since the start of vanilla in those halcyon days of pets taking up your 9 bag spaces. I didn't collect many pets since bag spaces and bank spaces were limited then. But there was one strange exception on my main. I had the mechanical chicken from the orb rescue quests across the world. I used to get it out and say to my husband 'At least I got chicken', which slowly abbreviated to 'chickON'. A short hand for time to do something crazy in the game.

When Pandaria came out, I thought the pet stuff looked stupid. I wasn't going to do them. But then I did some of the starter quests, and thought this is kinda fun. I got hooked. Had to catch them all. Then I had to collect them all, including all the vanilla ones I'd skipped. Then it was get them all blue. Then all leveled. Trying to take it easy this expansion. Yeah, who am I kidding.

[Mehetabel]

I started playing about a month into TBC and, being a human char, one of my first pets was a cat from the crazy cat lady. I was so excited to discover that you could get pets that would follow you about but I could only afford one at first as I was saving up for my first mount.

I loved pets from the start but I think I probably farmed mounts more than pets during TBC. Even so, I think I still had more pets than most people in my guild at the time. All my bags and bank were full of pets and I'd rotate them so I always had a few favourites in my bags.

Pets becoming spells and then account wide was the best thing ever and I really started collecting every pet I could find from then on. I even spent RL money buying up the Vanilla and TBC CE's for those pets as well as all the TCG pets.

I'm not a fast collector but by the end of every expac I'm usually up to date with all the recent pets.

[Hawg]

I always liked pets starting with vanilla. I picked them up whenever I could, and always bought collectors editions for them starting with BC (unfortunately some of my best pets are on my US account and dont show on main main EU account). The first pet I really went out of my way for was the magical crawdad.

I didn't really start working on a full collection (capturing wilds) until WoD. That was a choice I made after my billionth run through ICC and not getting the mount... I expressed my frustration at the rng component of mount collecting and a guildee suggested I start collecting pets.

Switching from mount collecting to pet collecting was the smartest thing I ever did in wow