And of course, I included screenshots of my new lovelies! To all of you still camping, I wish the very best of luck. We understand what you're going through, and just remember that in the end, it'll be worth it!**
One day my rare will spawn
(My first Rare tame of Cataclysm, found in Twilight Highlands the morning after I hit level 85. Named Koda, after my RL dog.)
Things have been a bit quiet here at Aspect of the Wild because I've been leveling to 85. And camping fantastic new pets. Every time Blizz releases a new Spirit Beast into the wild, I know I'm about to spend several days in a kind of sleep-deprived zombie state. Cataclysm brought not one, not two, but three new Rare spawn animals for me to tame.
Spirit Beasts (and other Rare creatures) spawn once every 6-24 hours. Probably. They’re highly desirable Hunter pets, the ones from WotLK also dropped gold and blue items, and some gave Achievement credit upon death. This means that many players compete to tame/kill these Rares. I’m usually not the only person circling or camping their spawn points, waiting to swoop in.
When I camp a Rare, my obsessive superpowers activate, and I’m forced to eat-sleep-breathe the Rare until my tame is accomplished.
I begin the hunt cheerful and optimistic, thinking luck will shine on me. I’ll make a few loops and there she’ll be, just waiting for me! When that doesn’t happen, I pass the early hours gathering herbs and goofing around in guild chat. As the hours drag by, I begin to feel discouraged. No sign of the beast. What if I missed it while I was afk grabbing a mocha? What if someone tamed/killed it right before I got here, and it won’t spawn again for 10 more hours? Should I give up for now and check back later? That would be the sane thing to do...
But no, my obsessive brain whispers. You can’t give up now...
You’ve been here 5 hours. That means it should spawn any minute.
If you leave now, it will spawn, and you’ll miss it.
If you leave now, you’ll have no idea when it spawned, and you’ll just have to waste 5 more hours tomorrow.
Three hours later, all my friends have logged for the night. I’m alone in guild chat. I’ve quit picking herbs because I’m worried that if I pause my patrol even for a second, another Hunter will ninja my beast at a different spawn point. Morose and exhausted, I stare at the screen and ride around and around the spawn points, obsessive brain insisting, Just one more lap. Check one more time. Five more minutes. Okay, maybe fifteen more minutes. You can’t give up now...
You’ve been here 8 hours. That means it should spawn any minute now. Really. ANY MINUTE. If you leave, you’ll miss it. You’ll have to surrender 8 more hours of your life, and your sanity, tomorrow.
Also, now it’s 3:00 in the morning. That means that most sane people are asleep. Even on the east coast, it’s only 6:00, which means that most sane people are still asleep. Your odds of catching it in the middle of the night are better. Less competition.
An hour later, and still nothing. It kills me to give up, because the longer I wait, the more likely it will spawn, and the more time I’ve wasted on a wild goose chase. But eventually I can’t take it anymore. I’m slumping in the chair, nearly dozing off at the keyboard. I’m freezing cold, because the garage where I play WoW has no heat. The idea of a warm bed and blissful unconsciousness wins out, and reluctantly I shut down the computer and collapse into bed.
But blissful unconsciousness denies me. I toss and turn restlessly, haunted by images of my character flying from spawn point to spawn point, ceaselessly searching. Waiting. Hunting. Seeking. Finally, I drift into a fitful sleep, where I dream about the beast. In my first dream, I spot the animal and swoop down to tame, only to find that somehow I’m PvP flagged and another Hunter pwns me dead and then tames my Rare. In the second dream, I log in and NPCScan blares that my Rare is found, but I quickly discover that it’s just a corpse—I was a few minutes too late. I wake up every hour or so, groggily turn over, and I think... Maybe you should get out of bed and log on, just for a minute. Just to check. Maybe it’s waiting there, right now, and if you go back to sleep you'll miss it.
Then, after all this, comes the heartbreak of camping another 5 hours the next day, only to approach a spawn point and see that indeed, another Hunter has just finished taming my Rare. Another Hunter that just happened to stop by at the right place, and the right second, and get really lucky. It’s hard not to cry. Maybe I do cry. Just a tiny little bit.
But at least now I have a timer. 6-24 hours. I’ve heard tales of people getting really lucky at the 12 hour mark, so I go to bed at a reasonable hour and set my alarm for 5:27 in the morning, exactly 12 hours after I witnessed the tame. When my alarm buzzes, I swat it groggily and think... This is ridiculous. You’re exhausted. Just go back to sleep. It’s a stupid pixel animal. It’s not worth torturing yourself. You’ll catch it someday if you’re patient. Just forget it and go back to sleep.
But I don’t. Wearily, I drag myself out of bed and heat a cup of coffee. As the coffee is heating, I remember my dream where I logged on moments too late, and start to fret. I hurry to the computer, log in, and NPSCAN BLOWS MY EARS OUT. RED ALERT. Yeah, I’ve logged in directly on top of my Rare. It’s still alive. Nobody else around (did I mention it’s 5:00 in the morning?). I panic. I tame. I win.
And then I bask in the glow of sweet, pixilated victory. Until the next patch. Until the next Spirit Beast.
(My second Rare tame, luckily spotted mere hours after I found Karoma. Named Ceilingcat because he looks like Aslan.)
(This is the one that tortured me. Appropriate, rite? Took several days to catch him, at 5:27 in the morning, at the Abandoned Reef. I named him QQ because it fits my lolcats theme, fits Ghostcrawler, and fits the suffering I endured to tame him.)
