Hunched Cats

[Nanluin]

Way back 'in the day' (Classic WoW), my BM Hunter (main) tamed Broken Tooth when I was at his level. I named him Sarge, and that cat became my primary Dungeoneering pet for a *very* long time. With that 1.0 attack speed, his scientific name should have been Castus Interruptus. Then came the pet ability normalization and my blender-in-a-plain-brown-wrapper became just a regular brown cat.

After that, I caught the unique-skinned rare bug, and Sarge was released to the wild to make room in the still-small stables of that time. Now, however, with the introduction of Pogeyan into the game with the Cataclysm, Sarge is back, now with glowing red eyes and shiny glowing skin. My stables contain all of the Spirit Beasts and every unique-skinned Cat in the game, but the Brown Cat / Hunched Brown Cat model still holds a special place in my heart, just out of legacy and longevity.

Having said all of the above, I do find the pet sound animation to be annoying (the yawn-growl followed by a flappy-jowled head shake), and it's presence was the reason why I got rid of my Rak'Shiri when they first introduced this animation into the game. It was almost as annoying to me as the constant hissing of a Crockolisk pet. Now, however, you can turn off pet animation sounds in your sound options window, and I'm fine with just the visual. Unfortunately, un-checking pet animations sounds does not get rid of constant Corehound fire-crackle noise: taming The Kurken is the only solution there.

-- Nanluin

[Ayrisa]

To me it looks like they have their head lowered in a kind of bullish way, like they're really determined.

Seeing them Dash then go into Charge while their heads are downward like this makes it look like it really hurts the enemy!

I hadn't thought of this! Gonna try to "see" it when I log on next!

[Fafnir]

I tamed one of the ones from Zul'Aman yesterday just to see if I liked the basic deal. I think I do. They're ... powerful-looking.

I couldn't put a finger why I liked the gem cat so much until this, and I agree. The pose is very powerful and a bit menacing. To me, they aren't looking at the ground; the face is pointed downward, sure, but eyes glaring upwards at a target. It is a very directed look (think someone pulling down their sunglasses a bit to stare at you) and the rest of body tension reflects it.

Unfortunately I'm not as much of a fan of the glossy texture and super-glowy eyes they have for the natural looks, but for the gem cat it fits perfectly and the skin is very cool and lacks the cross-eyed box-nosed look the normal cats have.

[Kurasu]

To me, the head down always made it look like the corruption was eating them from within, on the original ones (the subverted 'tigers' and the corrupted 'offspring'). Not like they were sick exactly, but like they were fighting some inner battle, and the lowered head was sort of like their psyche's submission to that power within.

.... yes. I think too much about these things. Why do you ask?

Of course, then came Pogeyan, and Skarr, and I no longer had any sort of excuse as to why they looked like that. Pogeyan might be bowing his head in reverence? Or maybe he's fighting the corruption of the troll gods that you hear about. Skarr.... I really don't know. Maybe his head is just too heavy to lift?

[Vetiver]

i agree with OP 100%.

i reeeeeally like all the special shiny metallic hunched cat skins, but as anyone who owns an actual cat knows, that posture means a sick or frightened cat. just can't bring myself to use them for that reason. would be really nice to see a shiny metal skin on a non deathly ill cat model. i also never use the cat mini pets because they drag their bellies with their head ducked and their tails down which means: very extremely unhappy/terrified cat. no thanks!

[Kikanu]

If they were hunched while running, but normal stance while standing or fighting, and the shininess were removed for most models, it'd be fine. Lowering the head to avoid any major impact on the head right away makes sense, much like throwing your arms up.

I like how Skarr looks, but two things prevent me from ever taming it (Other than the numerous amount of people wasting their gametime sitting in a single spot, of course);
- I have a cat I love to death. It was my first pet that I kept after taming it. Springpaw Lynx, which I tamed when I ran from dustwallow marsh all the way to Eversong on my level 26 Draenei Hunter back during early BC. Saw it when my friend first started playing, he told me hunters could tame it, and I wanted it. A good 2 hours to get it, but I never dropped it since.
- I dislike the hunched models' shininess. It's uncalled for, especially on the normal cats like the tiger and black leopard.

[Nachtwulf]

I admit, I like the hunched cats. Why? Well, when they go to do the headshake in their idle animation, they don't actually do it; instead, they wiggle their ears in the CUTEST WAY EVER AUGH.

The earwiggle is so, -so- worth the small thing of them dragging their fangs on the ground a little.

So damn cute.

Edit: Also, the yawn-slobber annoys me too. That's why I adapted the mod CrowdSilencer to mask out both the sabercat yawn (I don't mind the lion yawn, since it's just a brief 'oorawr' and no fap noise), as well as my worgens' constant snorfling. MY GOD THE SNORFLING. I don't know how anyone can survive without muting it. I think there's probably guides to doing so, but I can post it if people have misplaced the ones that were already put up.

[Vephriel]

I've never found the hunched cats to look defeated or cringing. As someone else mentioned earlier in the thread, to me the posture seems very threatening and strong, lowering their head determinedly. I've always found it to look like a powerful stance.