No use in having more than 3 of a pet?

[Tennberg]

Hi all,

So, after the patch, I logged onto all my toons to get all the pets into my journal. I know that after the merge, Blizzard allowed over 500 pets and more than 3 instances of any single pet (if you had more than 3 across your toons and the pet wasn't unique).

While I'm sitting below 500 pets in my journal, there are some pets that I have 5 or 6 copies of. Some can be released, others caged. If I understand it correctly, at some point Blizzard will be pushing a patch that limits the number of any single pet (that isn't unique) to 3. So, is it best now, even though I'm under 500, to release or cage/AH any pets that appear more than 3 times?

Also, what happens when I release a pet? Is it released into the zone where I am? Does it just go into the generic wild? Is it then later able to be caught by someone? For example, I think I have 5 or 6 Creepy Crates. If I release some, can they later be caught?


--Tennberg

[Arji]

Taking a wild guess here ...

Releasing is just a nicer word than deleting .. isn't it?

As far as I understand it, you can ownly cage pets that were/are regular companions. Not the animals you catch via battles in the wild.
The upside of it is, you can cage seasonal pets (like the crate) aswell and give them away to unlucky friends, trade them with other collectors or try to sell them on the auction house (prices are dropping fast).

I for excample have no crate. I would love to create a char on your Realm just to trade you.

Does that help?


(And yes, I am not really happy with the only 3 of a kind rule ... as there are wild pets with more than three different colors.)

[Lysi]

Releasing a pet just makes it gone.

I haven't seen a blue post saying we're going to be forced down to 3 (if anyone has, let me know!) They may just rely on attrition to bring the number down, since people will have to get rid of pets to stay under 500 once they start battling. I could see caging rare pets as a precaution, though.

There will never be much of a market for the most common pets. But I could see a market reemerging for some semi-rare older pets, as new players come to MoP (and I think the game will attract some WoW virgins). Some new players will jump into pet battles and want to get all the pet achievements, including the 250 pets, etc. Many people on this site already have almost all the old in game pets, but these new players won't have any of them. It's true you can capture a lot pets in the wild, but there are a couple hundred from before (not all cageable). And most people are not going to want to (or have time to) do a bunch of old rep grinds and the like. Of course new players won't come all at once, we'll probably see some bumps, like around Christmas, and of course new players just showing up at random times.

The nice thing about the caged pets is that the deposit is only like 1 silver, so you can try to sell them and not lose gold. I'm planning to keep duplicates as long as I can, until I need the room. I'll sell some for reasonable amounts, release things I doubt will ever have a market, give valuable pets to friends, save some in cages for now.

[Gossamrblade]

I had several copies of the same pets from different toons, putting my total over five hundred, so I had to cage many (usually keeping three of the same pet), and 'release' many more (oh, look at all those balloons flying away!). I sold a few, but I don't think they'll all sell.

I don't think Blizz will start deleting pets if you have more than three of a kind or more than five hundred total, but if you get down below those numbers, there's your hard limit.

[Tennberg]

Thanks all.

@Arji: I just checked. It will only let me release Creepy Crate (I checked all 6 in my journal). If anyone has been able to cage it, let me know.

@Lysi: I swear I saw a blue post before the big pre-expansion patch detailing how pets and what not would work. It said that all pets would be merged on your account, uniques would be reduced to 1, and that you'd be allowed to stay over the hard cap of 500 for now, etc. I then remember seeing something on how there would be a later patch that would bring the number of a non-unique pet down to 3. I tried searching for the blue post but couldn't find it. Perhaps Blizzard decided not to do it.

As for releasing, since we can only have 3 battle pet slots (I assume this won't increase in the future), I may just start reducing anything above 3.

[Myrikenes]

I like to hop into this and ask the (maybe) dumb question.
Why would I like to have more than one of each pet?
I mean sure, if I want to battle I would like to have the pet with the highest rarity but why not delete every other copy of the pet?
Or is there something I am missing?

[Lysi]

I like to hop into this and ask the (maybe) dumb question.
Why would I like to have more than one of each pet?
I mean sure, if I want to battle I would like to have the pet with the highest rarity but why not delete every other copy of the pet?
Or is there something I am missing?

Various reasons, here are a few..

Some pets can be caged and traded/sold/given away. Some people wanted to have something to show for all the work their alts did to get pets, so for now they are allowing even more than 3. But even getting down to 3 you can still "store" a couple extras to sell later, if it's easier for you than caging and taking up bag space.

If you have a wild pet that's already leveled but then catch one of rare quality, you might not want to be forced to immediately ditch the leveled pet to make room for the unleveled, even if it is rare. You can always delete it later, but I wouldn't want the program to force me lose it immediately when I get the new one.

The same wild pet can come in more than one color (some even have more than 3 skins). You can keep a couple extra colors if you like.

Some people may want to name more than one of the same pet. For example, I have one Pet Bombling name named "Boom" and another named "Dud". Probably most helpful for roleplayers.

Originally, Blizzard was going to allow the trading of wild pets. I'd guess allowing 3 pets was originally decided, in part, to allow people to catch extras to sell--and they didn't change it even though wilds can't be sold now. I'm hoping they'll decide to let you sell wild pets at some point in the future.