Pets as accessories

[Teigan]

So, sometimes I'll tame something because I think the colors will look good with my character, such as Skoll with my troll. It seems like a lot of hunters base pet skin choices on how they look with their characters coloration. Is this a major thing for you? How do you choose your pets? Is it usually more the appeal of a certain beast or like picking out a pair of shoes to go with an outfit?

[Acherontia]

For me, matching the looks with my hunter is a common thing--but it's not just about looks.

The looks, for me, contribute (along with sounds, size, ability etc) to the overall "personality" of the pet--and I like to have a pet personality that meshes with how I see my char.

That's why some pets match my alt hunter and not my main (and vice versa), and why you'll never see my manly woman orc running about with anything pink.

Lastly, I think the whole hunter + pet as a -team- thing is a strong concept, especially in the Petopian community--it isn't just the hunter and his or her pet, but it's the two of them together and the image they present. Sometimes clashing appearances can make for a neat team, but more often, a sleek blue-haired troll with his Skoll, an undead with a diseased wolf or an orc with a worg just look awesome.

[Comett]

Matching a pet with my hunters is actually something I've never considered or done before. I'm not against it at all (awesome idea IMO), I'd just never thought of it and by now it's far too late to turn back because no pet will ever match Whocat more in my mind than Karma, regardless of looks. XD

But yeah. I love seeing pics of owner/pet look-alikes hahah.

[Vephriel]

Hmm, I don't think I've ever tamed something from that standpoint. Naturally I like my pets to look good with my hunter, but I'm more likely to go find a matching outfit and make my character match my pet rather than the other way around. ;D

[Jin]

My pet doesn't have to match me, however it's a must that I LIKE my pet!

[Hesantia]

I do this pretty often for one simple reason: decision agony (man that looks wrong in english ) I often have a really hard time to decide between pets, so this is kind of a way to say "fuck it, just take one already!" for me And I am not kidding, I can look at two different colours for HOURS and not even decide, so yeah, this is a real issue even IRL.

For an example I used this back in the day when we had three or five slots (don't remember) and my draenei wanted to tame an armored boar. I couldn't decide which colour, but then I took the black one since it has blue runes on the armor, and that matches (the thought of) Gift of the Naaru.
Because of GotN I often tend to lean more to blue and blue-ish pets, since that goes very well with her. Then it feels like they have a stronger bond together, a magic bond, and I'm not even an RP'er


And I will have only undead or ghostly pets on my undead (maybe some exceptions because I love the model though) because that just suits her the most. And honestly, I made her because I wanted the undead hawk, but it didn't fit my draenei, so win-win situation

[Rhyela]

For the most part, I do tend to get beasts with green on them somewhere to match my hunter. But then I do sometimes get pets that don't match me at all, like Aska my owl (the bright red and purple one - though its eyes are kinda green.....), or...um....hmm. I think most of them actually have green on them somewhere, even if it is just in the eyes or whatever. Ah! Celeborn, my white wind serpent, doesn't match me at all, but I love the colors anyway.

But it's not because I think of them as accessories, to me it just emphasizes the whole "team" thing, like we belong together or something. :3

Edit: Bad engrish is bad.

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

I... kind of do this. there are just so many awesome animals out there, and you can't have them all out at once anyway, so I tend to chose some signature pets for each of my hunters. However, it's more then just matching a pet to my character's hair color. I tend to first chose a pet family I think goes well with my character, and only then I pick a color that suits her.
None of my hunters share the same pets, they might have a pet from the same family, but never the same skin. this makes them (amongst other things) unique from each other.

[seclipse]

i pick pets based on a scale of mine

1. usefulness (raiding, questing and all around grinding)
2. Rareness (swap with 1 if in town)
3. looks/color (always nice, but not a game breaker to me)

[Davarra]

Depends on the pet and depends on the hunter.

Some things are RPish...my troll will never have a bird, for example, and my very vain blood elf only wants pets that are red, or at least close to red. I've had to make a few small concessions there but overall I've been happy with how its turned out.

Some are a bit less so. I'd coveted the black and white wind serpent for ages, but then when I got high enough to tame him, he didn't click at all, so I set him free and tamed a green one instead. I'm thinking of setting my old model maned lion loose for the same reasons...not clicking so well anymore, and I'm hearing his kind didn't go extinct like I feared they would in the shattering.

[Worba]

I have so many hunters that themes have become almost mandatory for keeping my interest; this is not to say that all of a given hunter's pets will "follow the rule" (there's so many to choose from, sometimes a hunter will end up with a couple different themes), but it's a good way of spreading them around and keeping this somewhat cohesive;

1) Me. Orange, scaly, toothy (red turtle, red devilsaur, orange boss wasp, etc)... but I also have Skoll who doesn't fit that theme at all (he didn't really fit anyone's theme, but I figured Worb still made the most sense being kinda-sorta my "main"). He does however go pretty well with my HH mount...

2) Bofors. Male dwarf with red beard. Fiery pets (Terrorpene, The Beast, lava spider), and anything red or orange that looks good with a dwarf (spiky red crab, reddish worg, red warp stalker)

3) Khitsune. Female BE w/ Japanese Shinto theme - not much outward rhyme or reason to her collection but it's been fun concocting RP rationales for them...

4) Gunhilde. Female dwarf w/ green/blue pets (green scorpid, clutchmother, green ravager, planning to get jade owl and various others down the road)

5) Dougal. Male NE w/creepy pets - I was going for a bit of a "Tim Burton" theme with him (green helboar, purple jormungar, oil stained wolf, Gondria, Harakiss, Nuramoc)... also got Skoll on him, in that case it was 90% luck.

6) Skarlet. Female orc, somewhat inspired by Mania. As the name would imply, she goes with bright red pets; red outland raptor, red lynx, red windserpent. When she gets high enough level I'll probably get her a red beetle and gorilla.

7) Velocity. Female white haired NE w/ ghostly pets (ghost saber, Uhkloc, blue runehound, misty blue carrion bird, Kurken, Arcturis). She also has Gezzarak, another "theme departure" - I'd already gotten exalted with Skyguard back in TBC but didn't feel like bothering with the Xtreme tame strategy needed back then... but once they dropped the tame cast down to 10 seconds it seemed like an obvious choice, theme or no theme! Qirot was another departure for her - certainly not ghostly, but still... he looks good with her!

Etc etc.

[SylviaDragon]

i will sometimes break down and tame somthing just beacuse i like the look but usualy i am careful with who i tame and pick a pet in the order of:
what i think is best for raiding/pvp,
what skin choice i like the most,
how hard is it to get? (always go for the hard ones)

All in all i dont pick pets beacuse they match my hunter, i just pick whatever look i like the most. (although sometimes i will bring out a pet that maches my dress or somthing when just relaxing with my friends ) I do however have a history of having pets that have a dragon look to them. Warpies, chimeras, chromaggus, some raptors.... lol

[zedxrgal]

I don't have a specific base when it comes to taming a pet. The reason is I may not fit with that animal after the fact. I've tamed based on looks sometimes it works out sometimes it doesn't. Tamed on usefulness with one or the other results.
For me it's hard to say because there are just to many variables. I've done "all the above" (lmao) and it either works or it doesn't. I love it when we mesh though and buy outfits after.