Rak'Shiri changed colors

[Wain]

Well, there's one slight problem, Wain. With this upcoming change, Rak'shiri will now be indistinguishable from the night elf starter pet. She hasn't been made more distinguishable and special...she's been made rather distinctly less so. If you see one of the other cats, or, for the sake of argument, say King Krush, you know in an instant by the appearance that that hunter did the work to get an unusual pet. With Rak'shiri, there's now no way to tell, especially if the hunter in question happens to be a night elf. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with Daishar...but I sure don't want anyone thinking at first glance that I started a nelf, leveled to 10, and race/faction swapped to keep the pet because I really wanted to play a blood elf with that cat skin. No offense intended to you night elf hunter players, just not my thing anymore.

Actually she didn't end up the original colour I hoped, not all the rares did. But I still think they're all awesome colours. I believe your assertion that she's no longer special because of the NElf starter pet is a fairly strong exaggeration, perhaps fuelled by your own dislike of the change and is belied by the large volume of posts prior to the change from people wishing for that skin to be available somewhere. I believe he's done a good job with the colours.

[Kalliope]

Well, there's one slight problem, Wain. With this upcoming change, Rak'shiri will now be indistinguishable from the night elf starter pet. She hasn't been made more distinguishable and special...she's been made rather distinctly less so. If you see one of the other cats, or, for the sake of argument, say King Krush, you know in an instant by the appearance that that hunter did the work to get an unusual pet. With Rak'shiri, there's now no way to tell, especially if the hunter in question happens to be a night elf. I still have no idea what I'm going to do with Daishar...but I sure don't want anyone thinking at first glance that I started a nelf, leveled to 10, and race/faction swapped to keep the pet because I really wanted to play a blood elf with that cat skin. No offense intended to you night elf hunter players, just not my thing anymore.

Actually she didn't end up the original colour I hoped, not all the rares did. But I still think they're all awesome colours. I believe your assertion that she's no longer special because of the NElf starter pet is a fairly strong exaggeration, perhaps fuelled by your own dislike of the change and is belied by the large volume of posts prior to the change from people wishing for that skin to be available somewhere. I believe he's done a good job with the colours.

Would also like to point out that Rak'shiri always shared an appearance with Shy-Rotam, so that the skin is shared with another mob is really less of an issue than "I don't like this color on the pet I've had for five years." Rak'shiri's appearance has never been unique.

[Wain]

Just putting in my 2 cents, Since having Hunters in both Factions. Rak'shiri lost alot of her mystique for the Alliance when the Horde only spawn quest was changed to both factions. She is still a beautiful cat white and black or white and blue. Since we do have a Blizzard Dev looking at our forums, We should make Beast Suggestions that make sense for that zone. Like Winterspring other then the Winterspring cubs all the other cats should be Sabers. There are unused skins for that. We still have rares missing in Alterac and the Badlands lets look at those unused skins and make some suggestion. BETA is still not on the release patch yet so we probably have one more patch before release. So cross your fingers and wish all you guys luck hunting and taming for those rares.

I liked the idea of all the sabers (non cubs) using the sabre model too. He didn't go for that, however that was quite a while ago and there was some confusion. I used the ambiguous term 'riding tiger' model and he had mistakenly thought I was suggesting they all have saddles and obviously didn't go for it. I never went back to it later.

[Calomel]

Hehe, misunderstandings can be so amusing. Though taming a saber with full tack on would be pretty neat!

[Sasrei]

Just also wanted to say thank you the Dev guy who is awesome, and made this all possible. Thank you for the hardwork, and I look forward to seeing what else you guys come up with for pets ^.^

Personally the one skin id love to see is the golden lion skin. On either Araga or Broken Tooth. That be neat

And to be back on topic I really dont get the arguement that Rak shiri will no longer be special because her skin is the NE starting pet.. Her skin isnt unique, it was never unique, and if anything now in Cata is made more easily attainable as that cat is always up. Rak shiri is the skin of NE starter pet, so that only way to get her skin is to either reroll a Lvl 1 NE hunter and switch factions, or camp for her. The bond you share with your pet shouldnt be changed because the skin is different and you think others will think differently of your pet, but the bond you have with your pet itself. If anything it makes her skin more unique, since she wont be an easy find with a 10hour respawn rate, and with all the new races available for hunters (Goblins, Worgens, Undead etc) I dont think NE will be the first thing people will be rolling for as a hunter.

Its almost like the arguement with Araga, but her skin was put on regular cats, and so far has yet to be seen in game. It still doesnt make Teeka any less to me if her skin is used regularly because of the bond we share. And yes I tamed Rak awhile ago and have a story all planned out as to why she changed color. (In the time to Catacylsm, she matured into a mature female and no longer a kitten in order to protect me come Cataclysm).

[Alastiel]

One thing I wouldn't have minded in the least would have been if they had changed Rak'shiri to the pure white saber cat skin. That would have been lovely and unique, and it would have added a new skin to the game. I think that this irks me so because it's the starter pet skin.

Would everyone have been as upset as they are now if Rak'shiri had changed skins to this?


Edit: Oh, and a message to the secret dev if he does by any chance read this: I LOVE YOU! YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON EVER!
... There. Just needed to get that out of my system.

[Astratia]

One thing I wouldn't have minded in the least would have been if they had changed Rak'shiri to the pure white sabre cat skin. That would have been lovely and unique, and it would have added a new skin to the game. I think that this irks me so because it's the starter pet skin.

I think that's what gets to me as well. He's not unique.
Yes, granted he wasn't always unique sharing the skin with Shy, but being only two mobs in game have the skin it's still special. Kinda like Humar and Pitch. Now, Rak had been changed to say the 'ice' saber model or something else I wouldn't have been as disappointed. Grated I would love from him to keep his aqua skin, but well.. we will see.
Sorry, got to babbling there ^^;

[Tahlian]

The pure white skin really is quite stunning. Without the stripes, the cat's gaze seems to have a peculiar intensity to it that's striking. I'd love to see that or the dawnsaber myself, if I can't have her blue.

[Nightsights]

spent 6 straight hours this saturday camping Rak. my 3rd time taming him since vanilla. did the quest to tame Shy also, really like the aqua stripes.

since Rak was the rare, they should have kept him aqua and changed Shy to the black stripes, making him truely unique.

[Tahlian]

I did come across this little tidbit about Shy-Rotam when I was looking for lore on her and on Rak'shiri:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Shy-Rotam

If the story about Tyrande saving Shy 3,000 years ago is correct, it would explain where the Darnassus Companion mobs came from...and might be seen as sort of pointing towards Shy-Rotam being the better choice for the striped white skin. Only problem is, this wowwiki article is the first place I've ever seen that mentioned, so I don't know how right it is.


/shrug

[Magnakilro]

I still think Blizz should bring back Hawkbane and make him the NE starting pet model....he's not a rare...and you'd hafta lvl as much as you would for a tauren starting pet!

[Alastiel]

I don't like the idea of changing Shy-Rotam into something else at all. I'm fairly sure that there are more people who don't like camping for rares than there are people that actually do, and because of that I believe that more people are likely to be affected by a change to Shy-Rotam than the amount of people that are affected by the changed Rak'shiri.

I think that there are a couple of better solutions to the problem of where to put the Starter Pet Skin (RidingTigerSkinWhite).

1. Make the the Frostsaber Companions in Darnassus tameable and neutral to the alliance, as has been suggested before (by Tahlian if I remember correctly).

2. Give the starter pet skin to the Frostsaber Stalkers around Frostaber Rock. The ordinary Frostsabers will still have the ordinary white tiger skin, so nobody has to become upset that that particular skin would suddenly become unique to King Bangalash. The reason why I would suggest the Stalkers rather than the Frostsabers is that the Stalkers are higher level, which seems appropriate for a larger skin.

For Rak'shiri, as I said, I would be thrilled to see him use the pure white skin (RidingTigerSkinNoStripe), if he doesn't stay Aqua. I think that the main objection to the original skin change has perhaps been that Rak'shiri no longer feels unique, and in my opinion, applying a formerly unused skin instead of the starter pet skin would actually add to Rak'shiri's uniqueness rather than detract from it. Out of the unused skins, I believe that this would be the most appropriate one, considering the general colour scheme of the cats around Frostsaber Rock.



And if I can dream a little, though it is off topic, it would be beautiful if Broken Tooth and Araga were given little updates as well.
They too have been rather iconic rare cats, so it sort of feels as though they deserve it. For example:

Broken Tooth (RidingTigerSkinBrown)


Araga (RidingTigerSkinGold)


I think that those two might be the two unused saber skins that are closest to the original skins of these cats. Care appears to have been taken so far to make sure that changed rares don't look incongruous in their surroundings, or too different from their original skins, and I personally appreciate that very much. I would be very happy to see a Dawnsaber type cat as well, but I don't know if a skin like that exists without a saddle.

[Kalliope]

That's a wonderful recap, Alastiel. Clear, concise, and fair.

[Lisaara]

I love your suggestions Ala! :3 And I agree 100%! ^_^ Those skins were just the ones I was thinking of!

That's something we should throw to Blizzard and make em look at that.

[Astratia]

Well people stick all these ideas up on my suggestion thread ^^
Lets get something done :3

[Alastiel]

You mean the one on the WoW forums? I would if I could, but I don't have access to the US forums. European person here.
If you think that any part of what I suggested was good, feel free to copy it to a post of your own over there.

[Astratia]

Just copied your full post and added it in
Gave you credit ^^ so thank you

[Gimlion]

The problem I have with this change is not the Uniqueness of the skin. It's that I spent in the Hours camping for the Cat that would become my favorite pet, just to find out that the skin on my beloved cat that made much of his character HIS, just crushes me. And it certainly will not be the same knowing that I simply ditched 'old' Montie (My cat that ran away a few years back and never came back/as well as my Rak.) for 'New' Montie, especially when the 'New' Montie is now just a common quest mob...

Imagine having Humar, and loving him to bits, then he suddenly turns into a Yellow Lion, or a Black tiger, etc. Sure you could still get Pitch, but if you had spent weeks camping the ORIGINAL black tiger, would it feel the same to have pitch, knowing that you picked him up in a matter of seconds within the basin?

[Keywi]

What i want is:
1) GIve KingB the NE starter cat skin;
2) GIve Rak the pure white riding saber skin;
3) Let Shy stay green-blue ish.

[Alastiel]

Just copied your full post and added it in
Gave you credit ^^ so thank you

Oh, very good. I'm glad others seem to like the idea of a white Rak'shiri as well.

Edit: If you want to add picture links to the post as well, here are the three different skins:

RidingTigerSkinNoStripe: http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6505/whitedd.png

RidingTigerSkinBrown: http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/7954/brokentooth.png

RidingTigerSkinGold: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/6016/araga.png

Just to make it a little bit clearer what skins are being talked about. Only if you want to, of course.