Ghostcrawler Told Me Why We Can't Have Hydras!

[Maizou]

I think the Hyena, Ravager, and multiple other pets have worse skins than Hydras. >_>

[Kalliope]

While lots of people have a strong opinion on this topic, and it is very frustrating when you feel like you're being teased with something you really want but can't have, a couple of posts here are getting borderline with decency.

Remember that Blizzard aren't just a faceless company, They are real people and they take pride in, and want people to like the game. But more importantly there are Blizzard representatives that read this board. Even if they are anonymous, you are expected to treat them with the same courtesy that you treat everyone else. Personal insults like "f...ing lazy" are not on. And using one issue as a springboard to tear into everything you hate about the game isn't against the rules, but it really does (as Spiritbinder said) probably belong in the rant thread. If nothing else it doesn't come across as coherent.

Don't get me wrong, being critical of the game is encouraged. It shouldn't all be love and roses. But there are ways to do it.

1000x this. It's really quite sad how many threads devolve and need something like this post in them to keep people from spiraling off into the nether.

Whatever happened to the grade school lesson of "disagree with the opinion, not the person who has it"? Something to that effect, anyway.

[Nachtwulf]

Slightly offtopic but... Rak'shiri's model hasn't been changed, afaik? He's always been a teal riding tiger. Still is, I saw him.... well... about two weeks ago (since the stupid overclock bug has kept me off live for about that long now).

A lot of the -other- tigers in the area changed (white, white striped, and ice riding tigers) but people had been demanding those skins forever.

[Vephriel]

Slightly offtopic but... Rak'shiri's model hasn't been changed, afaik? He's always been a teal riding tiger. Still is, I saw him.... well... about two weeks ago (since the stupid overclock bug has kept me off live for about that long now).

A lot of the -other- tigers in the area changed (white, white striped, and ice riding tigers) but people had been demanding those skins forever.

At one point they changed Rak'shiri to the white saber tiger model, which caused quite a stir, since any people who had owned Rak'shiri for years and knew the blue model suddenly had a stranger in their stables.

Blizzard eventually reversed this and added the white tiger model in other places and left Rak'shiri as the iconic blue.

[Astratia]

Rak'shiri did change just before Cata came into play. He became the white riding saber model. However, due to an uproar of unhappy hunters, the team decided to return him to his aqua coloring

[Astratia]

Veph beat me to it ^_^'

Small side note... I was one of those hunters that caused quite a stir about that change. Ha

[Nachtwulf]

Oh, that's right. Because people had been yelling for the pure white one, so they changed Rak. I'd just forgotten (because it didn't last long). I wouldn'tve had any problem with the change (since it wouldn't be a lost skin thanks to Shy-Rotam sticking around) if they had altered the mob ID so that the OLD Raks wouldn't change, while the new one turned white, but I can totally understand being upset when something you had suddenly mutated into something else on you.

(A related issue: one of my third-string hunters had tamed the old 'tan silithid ant' that was at one time bugged to be a scorpid. When silithids became a legit family, I lost the ability to use it because the alt was a LONG way away from 69, and in fact I couldn't even take it out of my stable and release it because lolsuddenlyexotic. So I got stuck with a useless stable slot for over a year while I VERY SLOWLY got her to 69 and was finally able to let the dang thing go. I really REALLY wish exotics weren't such a high level requirement. x_x )

In the long run I think we got the best end of the deal since Rak's the same and we still got a bunch of new sabercat skins.

Still waiting on that golden one, though.

[Slickrock]

I would point out the not liking the model doesn't necessarily mean the look of the model. There is a lot more in a model then just the skin. They may be talking about something about how it is put together or other background thing that makes them awkward to work with for it to be hunter pet.

This. Sounded like it's more about the model, not hydras themselves.

[Akycha]

Also on the comments of look at the models we have now compared to the hydras, Blizzard generally doesn't take things away from us, unless it is game breaking. There is a whole list of pets that have been grandfathered. I'll get back to this in a bit.

I'm sure they have a certain standard they want things at now to be considered at. Their requirements for animations and the likes for adding new pets probably is much more exacting then it was in the past. I mean in the past most of the pets didn't even have swim animations. It has been a long process through which they've been updating the older models as much as they can get away with. As stated before if a model is changed drastically there is a violent outcry.

So, it makes no sense to make tamable a model which you want to change and fix. Look at all the issues with the Hyena as they are working on "fixing" them. Which brings me back to grandfathered pets, they aren't going to take away our pets, but I don't think they are going to give us pets that are going to cause them issues despite how much people might want them. Much like Wain said though, I wouldn't be surprised if we seem them pop up in a later expansion.

[Redith]

Much like Wain said though, I wouldn't be surprised if we seem them pop up in a later expansion.

Maybe. But it will be too little too late by then. All I have to say is I can't believe they were such a tease to make hydras have their own family then be like, oh ya that was only for SOME people. At this point if I could buy an account with a damn ghost hydra I swear I would.

[Chimera]

If its a model concern, it'd be absolutely lovely if GC could be a little more specific in his statements as to prevent these uproars.

[Myrrmi]

Mostly it's because we hate the model. If we update it, then taming would be on the table. Standard no promises.

Yea... cause all the wolf models are soooo pretty and hi-res. /sarcasm

I'm not big on hydras myself, but I'd love to see them in. Pretty amazing beasties...

[Ariamodasu]

Far be it for me to comment with my main being a Druid and all and my three hunters being alts but:

Seriously?

I loved her Ghost Hydra, it was adorable and the noise never bothered me. Yet somehow seizure spines on old world crocolisks (My eyes are trained to movement, get those things running and as much as I love them they really hurt my eyes) and monkeys are acceptable. Colour me hugely disppointed, maybe in a patch or two a critter will pop up I actually want to grab.

[Holgarr]

Editing to add- I don't think GC's excuse was a very good one. But I don't think they really… need to be forced to have an excuse. They can make some decisions on their own. >.<

To be fair, part of why his excuse seemed poor could be due to how little work-room there is on Twitter.

[Wain]

Editing to add- I don't think GC's excuse was a very good one. But I don't think they really… need to be forced to have an excuse. They can make some decisions on their own. >.<

To be fair, part of why his excuse seemed poor could be due to how little work-room there is on Twitter.

Yeah, while I don't follow Twitter myself, I see enough posts to know this is just the way Twitter seems to be. Short sentences or fragments. I never expect much detail from them.

[Ziarre]

Yeah, it's impossible to know from that what about the model is wonky. I'm guessing skeleton/animations.

[Ickabob]

What is odd is that they technically have a revamped hydra model: Chimaeron. Also, hydras have many animations that other pets lack, such as swimming animations. The only thing I can think of is the run animation, as it admittedly does look silly when sped up. Even then, the model still looks better then most of the old world pets.

[Yaone]

I'm not sure about the Rak'shiri argument going on. I was one of the ones who complained about that one getting changed. But I know the reason why... If they would have put the new model (aka new MoP tigers) with the teal skin I would have been content and accepted the upgrade. But the fact that they changed the essence of Rak'shiri by making him go from teal to white irked me. It wasn't an upgraded model but a skin swap and those should be left to new npc's. At least in my opinion, and quite a few other friends who have had pets since vanilla and theirs didn't get reverted back to what they were before (like deathmaw).

As for the actual topic of the post~

Let them tame the hydra's!! But put in a disclaimer saying they will be subject to change when they feel they get their face lifts.

Or, let the Ghost hydras be tameable again so people can have the hydra that way. (I know "elitist" hydra owners may not like this but its a good way for people to at least be happy)

[Jangalian]

I'd rather have nice new hyenas instead of hydras. Hyenas are awesome. Their models in WoW are not.

[spirithunter]

I was pretty disappointed also, but on the bright side, the lead developer did talk about it, and they KNOW that we want them! We've been heard!

I think they'll deal with it at a later date, when the expansion is out, and stable.