Lonesome George: The Long-Awaited Tribute

[Miacoda]

Also... when he stops following you he does the die animation... so try to look away. <_<
He has an instant respawn though.

[Lupis]

Aw, they should make him do an emote and fly away or something. That would be better than dying. >.<

[Wain]

Aw, they should make him do an emote and fly away or something. That would be better than dying. >.<

I wonder if it's a default way of despawning and can be easily fixed. I know when shammies first got spirit wolves they'd desapwn by dying. It was horrible having dogs yelp and die every time you used them. Fortunately they later fixed it.

[Shinryu Masaki]

That reminds me, the lil aspect pets that we summon with the glyph when we change aspects despawn now instead of dying!

On topic of Lonesome George, I'm really glad Blizzard did this, it's an awesome tribute.

Edit: Removed parts of the post that belong in the beast thread.

[Samskeyti]

Wonderful tribute indeed. Things going extinct... always make me sad. It's just so final.

[Snowy]

I'm normally one to roll my eyes when Blizzard places references in their games now, since in WoW they have *so* many it's ridiculous, but this is just sweet. <3

[Miacoda]

Wonderful tribute indeed. Things going extinct... always make me sad. It's just so final.

That's a good way to describe how I feel about it. It really is final (unless they can successfully clone, but even then it's not exact) and it just has this horrible feeling along with it. Even if it's not my fault, I always feel guilty.
Lonesome George himself just... had this charming look to him.

[Snowy]

Even if they did manage to clone, it wouldn't feel... right. It's so very sad that's he's gone, but all good things must come to an end. :/

[Kurasu]

Quoted from our 'Beast List' thread, so that the many many people who are wanting to rejoice can do so without spamming the poor 'beast thread'.

(Sorry it this has been mentioned already, but I did a search and didn't find any posts on it.)
I logged onto my tauren huntress on the beta to fix a login issue when I saw this:




A flying turtle, named "Lon'li Guju", off the coast of Zouchin village...have I officially gone crazy?

Edit- Resized the images in the post a bit, click for full.

[Crotalus Horridus]

Wonderful tribute indeed. Things going extinct... always make me sad. It's just so final.

That's a good way to describe how I feel about it. It really is final (unless they can successfully clone, but even then it's not exact) and it just has this horrible feeling along with it. Even if it's not my fault, I always feel guilty.
Lonesome George himself just... had this charming look to him.

I remember a line that was said in the beginning of a TV show named Prehistoric Park, which by the way, was a great series and was more scientifically accurate than Jurassic Park. In the beginning of the show, the narrator said ''Extinction doesn't have to last forever''. To this day, I've held onto that single line. Extinction may be final for a lot of animals, like say the ones before the Dinosaurs. But for animals like Dinosaurs and Mammoths (And of course the Pinta Island Tortoise), extinction may really end some day and they may rise from the ashes.

Lonesome George did in fact look very charming.



His face, to me, expresses a lot of emotion. Kinda makes me want to cry actually, it's just so sad...

[Wain]

Since you guys wanted a separate topic, I split off the relevant posts from Doomcookie's thread and moved there here.

[Bonita]

Since you guys wanted a separate topic, I split off the relevant posts from Doomcookie's thread and moved there here.

Had to double check which thread I had clicked on xD. Was trying to figure out why it felt like I was back in the beast list thread lol.

I think this is pretty awesome. Its so sweet how they did this for him so now he can live on in the virtual world.

[Kurasu]

My only problem is that he's not tameable. My *God*, I'd love a spirit-winged turtle as a pet! I'm going to be /hug'ging him around me every chance I get, I think.

.... I wonder if he can be 'stolen' from someone else if they're running around with him and they /hug him. Or does he spawn off a 'ghost', so multiple people can have a pet George?

[Sukurachi]

I had NO idea who or what a "Lonesome George" was.

Now WHY did you have to make me go look it up?

Now, I'm going to be crying all day.

[Samskeyti]

I like the fact that he's not tameable and respawns immediately. Like that, he's the unique Lonesome George that the tortoise itself was. You can visit him anytime, but you can't tame "clone" him and have lots of hunters with him. Just like you can't get the actual tortoise back.

Personally, I'm not sure about recreating dinosaurs. Because, all the resources we'd put into it, we should use them for slowing the current biodiversity loss. I wrote my master thesis on animals, and how we look at them, including taxidermied specimen and what's left when an animal goes extinct. It's a fascinating area of study. We can all do something, even if it's just putting up a wild bee hotel in the backyard and not getting rid of every single weed in your garden.

(PS. Thanks for pointing the spelling out! Corrected. I'm not a native english speaker)

[Slickrock]

Personally, I'm not sure about recreating dinosaurs. Because, all the resources we'd put into it, we should use them for slowing the current biodiversity loss. I wrote my master thesis on animals, and how we look at them, including taxidermied specimen and what's left when an animal goes extinct. It's a fascinating area of study.

I would hope that some of the archaic research practices (drawers of hundreds of stuffed specimens, and such) are drawing to a close in the digital age where there are other ways to study a species. Even zoos, which are part of the reason that led to the demise of George's kind need to reassess how they collect animals (if they should be collected at all).

Regarding the dinosaurs, it's likely we'll get a mammoth first, and see how that goes. The science going into that effort should yield other dividend. Slowing the biodiversity loss is really an economic issue, and a side-effect of medical care becoming too good.

[Tsuki]

I somewhat am hoping this is going to be tameable as a spirit beast, but I also want it to stay untameable at the same time...
(Maybe they can make a different coloured one as a tameable, and keep this one unique?)

[GormanGhaste]

The best way to reduce habitat loss is human population control. We need to find a way to make this a cultural and ethical priority. Part of this is making access to birth control easy, affordable, and socially acceptable.

[Kalliope]

I somewhat am hoping this is going to be tameable as a spirit beast, but I also want it to stay untameable at the same time...
(Maybe they can make a different coloured one as a tameable, and keep this one unique?)

He's friendly and not even classified as a beast, let alone a turtle.

If there was a tameable one of any kind, this tribute would lose its impact. :/ After all, the whole point is that he was alone...

[Snowy]

I like the fact that he's not tamable and respawns immediately. Like that, he's the unique Lonesome George that the tortoise itself was. You can visit him anytime, but you can't tame "clone" him and have lots of hunters with him. Just like you can't get the actual tortoise back.

This. I wouldn't have anything against him being tameable really, but I find it nice that he isn't. Because this way there will only be one of him, like there was in real life. Lonesome George was a symbol because he was the only one left of his kind, thus making the in-game tribute make sense for not being tameable.

PS. Everywhere on this forum I see people spelling 'tameable' wrong and it really bothers me. It's tameable, not tamable! xD