Recently, a friend of mine who is genuinely interested in animals in real life FINALLY started playing Hunter seriously. As in, he's filling his 205 stable slots with beasts. Or rather, that's what he WOULD be doing, but he found several things were dishonest and unfair. Namely, that Beast Lore "lies" and that tamed beasts "lose their identity" most of the time. This confused me until he properly explained it, and when he did, it reminded me of an old suggestion I had. So, since it's very relevant to both my friend AND myself, I'm gonna throw these suggestions out there. Prepare for a small wall of text.
First, let's talk
Beast Lore. My friend's first complaint was that he cast Beast Lore on
Rek'tor, a raptor in Stormwind City that uses the black outland raptor model, and found that it said that it was not tameable. This led him to believe that the model itself was not tameable. When he told me this, I pointed him to Petopia so that he could see where that model was available, and he immediately complained about the information from Beast Lore being inaccurate. The NPC, Rek'tor, has the subtitle of <Colin O'Rourke's Pet>. "If it's not a tameable beast, then why is it a pet?" he asked me. Because I had no logical answer, I simply said "That's just how it is", which he didn't particularly like. He now uses Petopia to go looking for things, but he's still rather annoyed that Beast Lore "lies". Seeing this perspective from a player who has never truly tried playing Hunter until just recently, it made me think "Maybe this should be changed to make more sense?", and that led me to suggest that Beast Lore be reworked.
The rework would be as follows;
- Beast Lore is now a passive spell, rather than needing to be cast on every individual.
- Beast Lore can be toggled on and off under the Hunter's tracking menu.
- NPCs that use a tameable model will be flagged "Tameable", even if they are friendly or already controlled by another NPC.
- Beast Lore's tooltip will now show new text for tameable beasts, such as "This species can be tamed", or something along those lines to imply that the species can be tamed.
This way, if a new hunter wanders around and sees a cool beast that an NPC is using, and they want to have their own version of that NPC, then they can immediately know "I can tame that if I find my own? Hooray!". This would greatly improve the flavor of the game, while also providing an incredible quality of life change for newer players who just want instant information, rather than having to go to a website to see if something can be tamed or not. Not that I want Petopia's traffic to drop, mind you, but being able to instantly get reliable information on the spot without third-party tools? You can't complain there!
Next up is
name retention. Earlier, I mentioned that my friend said that pets "lose their identity". When I asked what he meant, he responded "You don't call your tabby 'cat', do you?", in reference to my own family pet in real life (love him, even though I am violently allergic to cat hair). My friend works in animal care, and when he talks about specific animals, he will state their actual names along with any given name, such as "Davey, the Devon Rex" in reference to a cat he helps care for that an elderly woman often brings in. He is a walking encyclopedia of animal species, and he can just straight up tell you what animal you have right away. He's proud of his knowledge, because his clients always come back to him BECAUSE he's knowledgeable. He's not knowledgeable because he wants recognition however; he just loves caring for animals, and that's worthy of respect. When he started taming beasts, he was annoyed how his pets were just randomly renamed to "Cat", "Bird of Prey", and so on. He actively says the names of the NPCs he tamed, such as his (current) favorite, a tan striped gazelle called "Rikkilea Strider". It kind of makes me laugh that he remembers the names of the NPCs he tamed, but I think he's keeping notes to remember which is which, which makes it funnier (not in a mocking way, mind you). He was then introduced to an NPC that actually kept its name when tamed,
Coldbite Matriarch. While it's not his favorite, he still loves that this one kept its name.
To address this, I suggest the following;
- When Tame Beast completes its cast, the NPC's original name is retained rather than defaulting to the pet family.
Doing this would keep an NPC's identity, allowing you to say "yeah, I tamed *this* specific beast". It's no secret that people loved when rares started retaining their names in Battle for Azeroth, and that happiness only grew when "important" NPCs began keeping their names such as quest NPCs. Of course, this was not an all-encompassing feature, and there are still a tremendous amount of NPCs who SHOULD be eligible for this, yet have gone ignored. Battle pets, mounts, and even transmogrification options already work this way, so it's high time that every tamed beast just keeps its name.
Finally, let's talk
babies. I know this is a controversial and touchy subject, considering the vicious discussions and opposing sides that sometimes crop up, however this is included for the sake of completion. My friend did raise this note to me when he saw various NPCs that were babies of larger adult species. Using the Coldbite Matriarch above, he noted that the babies were NOT flagged as tameable, despite the mother being tameable. I told him that, in general and aside from a few that slip through the cracks, baby beasts are normally not tameable. While he understood the reasoning, he also noted that they should still be flagged as tameable BECAUSE they grow up into something tameable. Going back to the previous Beast Lore suggestion, he mentioned that if the babies shouldn't be tamed, then they should just already be controlled. "If a species can be tamed, then they should be appropriately marked", he said. When I told him that doing this would make a lot of things tameable, he simply responded with "then make them friendly or unattackable, obviously". He made a really good point there.
With that in mind, I suggest this;
- Make any NPC that is labeled or intended as a cub, hatchling, or any other form of juvenile beast use a baby model, when applicable.
- Convert all of the NPCs with baby models into friendly NPCs, except in cases where another NPCs summon them as minions, in which case have those summoned baby NPCs be under the summoning NPC's control.
- Make it so that the baby NPCs are flagged as tameable through Beast Lore in order to make it clear that the species, when matured, is tameable
This builds up on the above Beast Lore suggestion, and as I've stated in the past when I ran this suggestion by, would add a tremendous amount of flavor to the game. There really are a LOT of NPCs who are labeled as cubs, babies, hatchlings, and so on that use fully grown "adult" models, and it's no secret that a tameable baby keeps slipping through the cracks
(and often unfairly being taken away from us when we tame them) in recent expansions. To combat accidents, just focus on the above suggestion. This way, the cracks are covered and they still keep the flavor provided by the other suggestions.
In the end, my friend wants animals to be treated appropriately. We're playing Hunters, and we tame beasts. We make them into our companions, and we shouldn't be calling our companions by what they are. He would love a pet baby crocolisk, but he's aware that such a thing won't likely happen. Even then, his various points were all reasonable material for suggestions. To summarize everything;
- Beast lore should be a passive spell that can be toggled, much like the various tracking skills
- NPCs with tameable skins should be marked tameable even if they are already controlled
- NPCs should always retain their name when tamed, no matter the NPC's significance
- NPCs that are intended to be babies should have baby models
- NPCs that are intended to be babies should be both friendly and marked as tameable
- NPCs that are intended to be babies and are summoned by NPCs as minions should also be marked as tameable, even though we can't tame things that are "Already controlled"
This has been my Ted Talk. Thanks for reading.
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I have one of each dagger, and each one fails when trying to use the item- you get the error "Invalid target" and nothing spawns. (edited for clarification)
