Colour-changers no longer

[Wain]

I'm not sure if this is intentional or an accidental fix, but it appears colour-changing pets no longer do so.

The untamed versions still appear in all their colour variants in the wild, but after taming it seems they'll always appear in the colour you originally tamed.

So either taming now tracks skin as well as NPC id, or someone has gone to the trouble of giving unique IDs to every colour. That is possible.

I first noticed this with the Crystal Spine Basilisk a couple of patches back. I've now confirmed:

• Sand-Husk Scarab
• Rabid Hyena
• Oasis Crocolisk (couldn't find grey-with-green-fins variant, I wonder if it was removed)
• Enthralled Crustacean
• Crystal Spine Basilisk
• Vale Howler (couldn't find grey-with-black-face variant, maybe removed?)
• Venomtip Needler
• Curious Jungle Monkey
• Zulian Gnasher
• Baradin Fox
• Pyreshell Scuttler (they seem to have removed all the water, I initially fell to my death from my seahorse trying to reach them!)
• Marsh Crocolisk
• Borer Beetle (confirmed by GormanGhaste)
• Dredge Worm (confirmed by GormanGhaste)

In all cases I tested every colour and resummoned ~6-10 times per colour.

I haven't yet confirmed five NPCs: Savage Worg (UK), Jeweled Scarab (HoO, summoned in the Earthrager Ptah fight. Beware there are two NPCs with this name and the one in the previous corridor already isn't a colour-changer), Spiny Raptor (Lost Isles, so goblin starting zone only), Mountain Mastiff (worgen starting phase of Gilneas only), Wary Mastiff (Gilneas, but possibly starting zone only, not sure). Gilnean Hound is still listed on Petopia as a colour-changer but all of them are actually grey now.

Could others please confirm this so I can be certain it's not just some weird caching thing with my client making it look like they're always the same)? If possible in the presence of others so you can be sure they all see the same thing.

I'd also be interested in people confirming it if they already had a colour-changer tamed from prior to the beta and brought it across with them. I wonder how that would be handled.

I should add that the basilisk is the only one I've tested over an extended period, i.e. over many days.

If this fix remains then it means that some people who love their pets changing colour will be unhappy. But it also means that some colours will become stable for the first time (like the Pyreshell Scuttlers). I think it's ultimately a great fix.

[GormanGhaste]

Have you tried taming a Borer Beetle from BRD? That would be an alternate way to get a white silithid beetle.
*heads to Blackrock Mountain*
Edit: silithid, not scarab!

[Niabi]

I wonder if this will also fix the issue we have with Chasm Stalkers as they appear on the characters log-in screen and in the armory database? They appear as the green model under both circumstances rather than the intended, permanent blue model.

[Wain]

I wonder if this will also fix the issue we have with Chasm Stalkers as they appear on the characters log-in screen and in the armory database? They appear as the green model under both circumstances rather than the intended, permanent blue model.

Definitely. It'll be interesting if people can confirm this from the beta too!

[Wain]

Have you tried taming a Borer Beetle from BRD? That would be an alternate way to get a white scarab beetle.
*heads to Blackrock Mountain*

Thanks for checking those! Hopefully you can confirm the worms at the same time. I forgot to list that beetle, plus a few others (now added to the unconfirmed list).

I assume they would be another source for the white beetle, but potentially a very slow and frustrating one... you might get one first try, but iit's possible to reach max. instances any number of times before you get it to spawn

[Neilaren]

So this is just on the beta client? I don't remember if my BRD black/white beetle Vaiyr survived the stable-lock bug, let me check.

EDITING!: It appears my Borer Beetle is still capable of summoning as either black or white... for now? :O

I'll add that I tamed Vaiyr pre-Beta.

[GormanGhaste]

Had excellent luck in BRD on the beta, two waves of Dredge Worms the first time and two waves of Borer Beetles the second. All four colors tested 10+ times, confirmed stable.

Am keeping all of them for now, for any further testing.

[Wain]

Awesome! Thanks

[Sesamee]

The Sentry Worgs from Western Icecrown no longer change color either. They stay white.

[Miacoda]

Aaaaaahhhhh I love it when my hunches are correct! Super happy about this change.

[Sesamee]

I'm fine with this change too. My wolf, Boudicca, was a Sentry Worg and I found that eventually I preferred the grey color so just changed her to a permanent grey worg. I think it'd be kind of cool if Goblins got to keep their color changing raptors and Worgen their color changing mastiffs but I'm not sure if that's even technically possible.

[Kalliope]

I wonder if this will also fix the issue we have with Chasm Stalkers as they appear on the characters log-in screen and in the armory database? They appear as the green model under both circumstances rather than the intended, permanent blue model.

Definitely. It'll be interesting if people can confirm this from the beta too!

I no longer have a warpie at all because of this.

More than happy to check.

And wow, you are right about water still being broken. Dropped to my death zoning the normal way.

And thankfully, Caelan was on at the time, so I didn't have to fly out there to try again - her warpie is indeed blue on the login screen! But still green in the stable. -_- Weird.

[SylviaDragon]

Noooo! *hugs Zim* I waited a year to get my color changing wasp don’t take him away from me! T.T

[Bonita]

Ill copy my goblin hunter over and check her raptor.

Edit: My goblins raptor still changes color atm.

[Shinryu Masaki]

I really hope this change doesn't go through, I specificaly go out of my way to tame color changers over stable colored pets. This news is leaving a really sour taste in my mouth right now. Not happy at all.

[Wain]

Ill copy my goblin hunter over and check her raptor.
Edit: My goblins raptor still changes color atm.

That's interesting. Thanks for checking!

I wonder if it's still changing colour because no colour got saved with it when you first tamed it. If this is the case then old pets might retain this trick even if new ones don't.

This also suggests the effect is real and not some illusion due to the way things are cached on the beta or something. Otherwise I think your pet would have stabilized on the first colour you used.

If this fix does remain then I fully understand that some people are going to be upset over it. But I think the benefits will be worth it. Especially if old pets still change colour, for those who are used to them that way.

If a pet is changed to a new skin on live, I wonder if older tames will keep the original appearance now. Or if they'll change simply because the original skin is no longer included with the NPC. If the former then it could also provide a lot of benefits as they could easily make NPC colour changes and not upset people whose pets suddenly look different.

[7seti]

The Gundrak Raptor that I transferred from live is still a colour-changer, but if you tame one on beta it's not. The wild ones still come in both blue and grey, but they stick with their original colour now.

I can see why they did this. It's so they can make more wild mobs with varying colours, giving the world more variety, without over-populating the place with colour-changing pets. It's nice that they let us keep pre-tamed ones.

If there's a colour-changer you think you might want, better tame it before the expansion goes live.

[Gimlion]

The Gundrak Raptor that I transferred from live is still a colour-changer, but if you tame one on beta it's not. The wild ones still come in both blue and grey, but they stick with their original colour now.

I can see why they did this. It's so they can make more wild mobs with varying colours, giving the world more variety, without over-populating the place with colour-changing pets. It's nice that they let us keep pre-tamed ones.

If there's a colour-changer you think you might want, better tame it before the expansion goes live.

Though I agree it's nice that they're not changing pre-existing ones, I'm not sure it's intentional. What I'm guessing happened is this: The color changers have 1 ID, that's what causes the rainbow. I'm betting that Blizz just made new ID's for each individual skin, and removed the color changer. That's why the pre-tamed ones are still rainbows, because they're ID didn't get changed into a solid color, just removed from the spawn list. SO, while it's great that they remain rainbows, it easily could have been an accident that left them around.

/shrug

[Wain]

Though I agree it's nice that they're not changing pre-existing ones, I'm not sure it's intentional. What I'm guessing happened is this: The color changers have 1 ID, that's what causes the rainbow. I'm betting that Blizz just made new ID's for each individual skin, and removed the color changer. That's why the pre-tamed ones are still rainbows, because they're ID didn't get changed into a solid color, just removed from the spawn list. SO, while it's great that they remain rainbows, it easily could have been an accident that left them around.
/shrug

That's what I initially suspected when I noticed it on the basilisks. But if they did then they were extremely thorough, as they caught every last one we've tested. And the new IDs haven't shown up in the databases. That and at the time I asked (a week ago) Noah said he had no knowledge of it, and he's usually one to be involved in that kind of thing. Like I said in my original post, it's still possible, just it seems a lot less likely to me now than it did originally.

You know, as a trade-off, a "Minor Glyph of Noah's Rainbow" might be a rather cool addition... have every pet summon in a random colour

[Gimlion]

Huh, maybe taming does track color specifics then... If that's the case, maybe the pre-existing tames are bugs? Or, on a far stretch, this whole ordeal is a bug. I'm not sure, as what you said shot down my best guess.