Everything known about pets in WoD

[Undeadgoat]

OK guys, I know the information we got about pets in the WoW panels--even the Systems and Q&A panels--was a little sparse. However, Cory Stockton has been answering a lot of pet battle questions (and other systems questions) on Twitter--go ahead and tweet him @mumper if your questions haven't been answered yet! Also please post links to any interviews that discuss pets I may have missed, or if you got a chance to chat with Cory about pet battles at Blizzcon let us know what he told you!
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From the WoW Q&A panel (Source: [url=http://www.wowhead.com/news=223528/world-of-warcraft-q-a-dungeons-and-raids-blog]Wowhead liveblog[/url]):

Any major changes to pet battle system?
We really see expanding upon the collection aspect. More new pets in Draenor for you to collect, trainers to battle against. Couple ideas for things in Garrison--one building is called the Pet Stable, and you could get a unique trainer there, or finally get epic pet battles from that building.

Will pet battles be on mobile devices?
We've talked about a bunch and put some effort into. The question is how do we get PvP battles to work? We found that we wanted the collection aspect to work on mobile too, and that's the part where we got hung up on. We have some ideas, but no time to execute on them. It's certainly something we'd love to do.
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From Twitter:

[url=https://twitter.com/undeadgoat/status/399393864298930176]@undeadgoat asked[/url]: Will there be any additional levels for battle pets?
[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399712804367654913]@mumper replied[/url]: The cap will remain at 25.

The first official announcement of breeding as a function of the Garrison's Pet Stable building [url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399368141366513664]was tweeted out[/url] in response to [url=http://wowpetaddiction.blogspot.com/2013/11/blizzcon-2013-informal-news.html]a blog post by Perks N Peeves[/url]: "current plan is you can merge two pets of the same family and pick the breed. Doing this gives chance at epic."

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399581434957946880]@Proffessor_Oak asked[/url]: When we breed pets will the species be random if two different species and will it be 100% if same species -> example two cats ->cat
[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399710738698076160]@mumber replied[/url]: Plan is you get to pick based on the existing breed options from both pets.

undeadgoat here: I know this seems a little unclear but I think it means merge the "stats" breed (H/H, S/B, whatever) of one parent with the appearance and abilities (pet species) of the other parent--as long as both parents are Critters, Mechanicals, etc. If anyone sees any information to the contrary please let me know!

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399580989476720640]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: Will the baby pet only have a chance at being EPIC from rare quality pets to reward people for breeding rares.
@[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399710861368901632]mumper[/url]: It would certainly make the chance better.

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399580875613954048]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: When we combine two pets will the baby be an average level of both parents? For example two level 25 pets = level 25 baby.
[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399711140495626240]@mumper[/url]: That’s the current thinking. Also planning to let you consume upgrade stones in the process to boost epic chance.

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399782721024565248]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: New thought on baby pets - will they be BOP and not tradeable or will it depend on pet? Example: Spectral kitten baby tradeable?
[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399791389900156928]@mumper[/url]: Many details still to work out, the design is early. We will update as we go.

So if any of this news is freaking you out . . . very little of it is set in stone. We can certainly make our concerns & ideas heard, but I don't think we have to worry about a lack of content in terms of pet battling and collecting moving forward!
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Well great minds clearly think alike: Tamer Liopleurodon put together [url=http://battlepetroundup.com/2013/11/10/post-blizzcon-pet-information-roundup/]a lovely blog post[/url] overlapping quite a bit with what I gathered together here. She also had some information from friends at Blizzcon who spoke to Cory directly--Corgi pets may be coming someday in the future, and we may very well see Peacocks in Patch 6.0
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Also, this week's [url=http://theinstance.net/]The Instance podcast[/url] (available on iTunes, but shownotes aren't up yet on their blog) featured questions directly to Ghostcrawler from fans, nobody asking questions about spell colors, and someone literally saying in English, "Hey, let's get more questions from women," making it one of the best panels of the entire con (except for no Cory). Alludra asked some pressing questions about pet battles around the 1:10 mark:

Alludra: Hello, I'm Alludra. I like pets, and I didn't hear anything about them. It's just that you put me in a little bit of a tight spot as I'm here to cover this for my podcast and now I have nothing to report on, so thank you!

Ghostcrawler: Did you hear that one of the buildings for the Garrison is a pet stable, and part of what we want to do with that is, you can designate some of your pets to be assigned to that stable and you will see them in the world outside.

A: How many? Because I have 547.

GC: Probably not all at once.

A: OK. I have to narrow it down?

GC: You can pick favorites and just have a few at a time. ... Draenor is a harsh world. They're not all going to make it.

A: So are we going to see, the new pets that are in the old Outland that's the new Outland and now I have a headache, are they going to be like prettier versions of them? So it's like with the mutated and brokenness of Outland it changed the creatures, and the art is based on what we have and made them fluffy?

Scott Johnson: It's kind of the primal Zerg question, isn't it?

GC:It is, and that is a great example. We are really trying to distinguish Draenor from Outland, like in Draenor you won't see things like rock flayers or ravagers or mana wyrms. We all associate those with the portal opening and the influence of all that stuff. Draenor is a primal world. We use examples like Conan or Dinosaurs or the movie Avatar where it is a violent wolrd but it's also really beautiful. Primal, savage, those are all the terms we use to describe it. So there will be horrifying things but they won't all be ugly and green.

(This is edited for readability, I have a precise transcript that none of you want to see. Just listen to the podcast if you want to hear a few more jokes & stutters.)
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Also a little bonus information about Garrisons (a minigame which seems to hold a lot of appeal for pet battlers even outside the Pet Stable--except we get to collect people to fight for us instead of critters!):

[url=https://twitter.com/restokin/status/398935519259664384]@Restokin tweeted[/url]: Your friends can go into your garrison (based on who is the party leader). Show off your stuff!

[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399364837429374976]@mumper[/url]: Garrisons will start at 90, within first hour on Draenor.

AND

[url=https://twitter.com/mumper/status/399364983227564032]Cory said[/url] they are "planning to let you show off your pets at the pet stable!"

SO much better than linking the armory, guise. SO EXCITED to be able to use player housing as a space to show off (as well as having an army of scribes).
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More Twitter information on breeding from later in the day:

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399979402999508992]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: Forum confusion over term merge. For breeding do we get to keep the parent pets after breeding them to make baby ? Or do they fuse?
@mumper: Current plan is that you retain the primary pet and consume the 2nd.

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/400001600225173504]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: Brainstorm: For consumption process can we tag pets similar to favorites so they are never secondary. Tagged pet can only be primary
@mumper: You will be able to pick the primary pet.
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That's all I've got for now! Will update this top post as we find out more/until I run up against the character limit.

[Liopleurodon]

Thanks for the shoutout!

It seems like Mr. Stockton is elaborating further to a bunch of varied sources on Twitter. It looks like their current plan is that you'll be able to choose a Primary and Secondary pet. Primary pet is retained as the, um, species? Secondary is the Breed. So if I combine my primary H/H Scourged Whelpling Radley with my hypothetical P/P Spirit Crab, I'll end up with P/P Radley. You'll always be able to pick, so you don't have to choose Sophie's Choice style between your Scourged Whelpling or Unborn Val'kyr. I'm assuming everyone will, going forward, have dozens of 'trash' common rabbits, infected squirrels etc with good breeds to burn against their favorites in hopes of an epic. And this definitely makes the 3:1 stones they introduced last patch seem kinda silly, as breeding a rare + rare gives a better chance for an epic (probably), and you'll have to stone lots & lots of pets to be able to churn this properly.

The more he responds & the more I read, the more it seems like a lot of this stuff is still up in the air, so it makes sense they wouldn't make more concrete statements at Blizzcon proper. I really hope they let a pet enthusiast have an Official BlizzardTM interview sooner rather than later, regardless.

[Ziboo]

Interesting information. I was hoping they'd stick to specifics as far as breeding - like to like - as in any of the spiders together or cats, but not a spider and a cat just to change the stats. Maybe the combinations could create a new look or two rares with the same (S/S) have a higher chance to create an epic S/S.

I guess it's too early to know for sure.

[Maizing]

I am confused as to how breeding will work... from your posts, it looks like one (or both) parents will be "used up" and only the baby will be left. Am I understanding that correctly? Or do we still keep both parents and just add the baby to our pet journal?

[Denverrunner]

I am confused as to how breeding will work... from your posts, it looks like one (or both) parents will be "used up" and only the baby will be left. Am I understanding that correctly? Or do we still keep both parents and just add the baby to our pet journal?

I want to know this too. I would love to breed my lil' Deathwing, but not if it destroys him. I guess this will be one of the clarifications that will come out later.

[Undeadgoat]

Updated the top post with a little more information about breeding off Twitter. Even though I know a lot could change by launch, I really hope that a blog post or interview will be coming up soon because the 140-character limit is really inhibiting communication on a lot of these points.

For example the idea of the "primary" vs "secondary" pet is pretty confusing to me. I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't want us to quickly fill up every pet slot, Little Lindsay style, but I drew the opposite conclusion as Liopleurodon from the most recent exchange with Professor Oak. My impression was, 2 species enter, 2 species leave, now each with the same breed. However most people are under the impression that "primary" means "the species that will come out of the merge" so WHO KNOWS.

However just the idea of breeding is going to change how I collect--I'm going to be honest, even though I know stats matter in battles, I haven't paid much attention to breed as I collect, it's tough enough to just find those rares. But now I think I'm going to grab up to three blue versions of every wild pet I can just in case, finally install an addon to call out breeds in-game. Maybe go gambling until I have three Bonkers. All that noise.

[Shikon01]

I have no major issue w/ them offering the breeding option< however, I would be extremely upset that any of my pets were absorbed dring the breeding process...hell, they are family lol !!! But seriously, some pets take an act of God to get or extremely expensive which means I probably just have one of them to begin with, but regardless there are some pets I'm just not willing to risk losing on a hope and a prayer so there will have to be some serious discussion as well as clearification before I travel down that road.

[Ruzgofdi]

More Twitter information on breeding from later in the day:

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/399979402999508992]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: Forum confusion over term merge. For breeding do we get to keep the parent pets after breeding them to make baby ? Or do they fuse?
@mumper: Current plan is that you retain the primary pet and consume the 2nd.

[url=https://twitter.com/Proffessor_Oak/status/400001600225173504]@Proffessor_Oak[/url]: Brainstorm: For consumption process can we tag pets similar to favorites so they are never secondary. Tagged pet can only be primary
@mumper: You will be able to pick the primary pet.
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Maybe the Primary pet will go into a slot like the "item won't be traded" section of the Trade window. And the secondary pet will be used like an enchanting scroll.

[Livingdeath]

I'm wondering how much gender is going to come into play. There are some pets that only have one gender from what I've seen.

[Vindagor]

I'm wondering how much gender is going to come into play. There are some pets that only have one gender from what I've seen.

I'm sure gender won't be considered at all, given how nonsensical the genders are for a lot of pets in the first place.

[Undeadgoat]

I'm wondering how much gender is going to come into play. There are some pets that only have one gender from what I've seen.

I'm sure gender won't be considered at all, given how nonsensical the genders are for a lot of pets in the first place.

Same here--even though the breed ID isn't apparent in-game without an addon, you can see what stats your pets have. There's no information available about gender that isn't hidden, and no incentive to collect more than one of a given species other than potential better stats.

[Saasan]

Anyone else think this "consuming" of the parent sounds like a praying mantis?? I'm going to be more careful with my little guys in the future--they are vicious!!!

[Dolz]

I'm wondering how much gender is going to come into play. There are some pets that only have one gender from what I've seen.

I'm sure gender won't be considered at all, given how nonsensical the genders are for a lot of pets in the first place.

You mean like male Unborn Val'krys?

[Eekmeister]

I just knew my collecting habits would pay off when it came to finally implementing breeding. Can't wait to build my stables

[Guest]

I don't really see how they've thought this through properly. People will abuse breeding for leveling. "Baby gets an average level of the parents..."

Primary Pet: Level 25 Infinite Whelp
Secondary Pet: Level 13 Infinite Whelp (caught from wild)

Secondary Pet is consumed in the process, leaving you with a (25+13)/2 = L19 Infinite Whelp.

I just gained 6 levels for no hard work (and had a chance to get an epic pet!)

[Undeadgoat]

Well perhaps due in part to the community confusion about how breeding is supposed to work, we haven't seen any new pet battle tidbits in quite a while, and I suspect we won't see much more until a blog post, blue post or interview comes out with some more comprehensive design information. But I decided to blog about the topic too, not just leave it a forum post forever: http://syrellainstitches.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/pet-battles-in-warlords-of-draenor-what-we-know-so-far-plus-speculation/

It's not a complete rehash of this thread, I swear, I also found some never-implemented 5.4 changes to speculate about wildly.

[GilroyKilroy]

I don't really see how they've thought this through properly. People will abuse breeding for leveling. "Baby gets an average level of the parents..."

Primary Pet: Level 25 Infinite Whelp
Secondary Pet: Level 13 Infinite Whelp (caught from wild)

Secondary Pet is consumed in the process, leaving you with a (25+13)/2 = L19 Infinite Whelp.

I just gained 6 levels for no hard work (and had a chance to get an epic pet!)

I'm not too concerned about this considering leveling a pet from 1-25, with tamers and food buffs, is < 30 minutes and I would guess the CD on this breeding process is > 30 minutes.