Project Lore

Vanity pets, non-combat pets, small pets, companions, mini-pets, waste of bag space, whatever you know them as, they are here to stay. I am by no means a collector of the pets, but I know plenty of people who are. Way back in vanilla World of Warcraft, I had a guildie whose goal was to fill up all his bag slots with the buggers and then pull them out one by one during a Molten Core run. But just because I don't collect them doesn't mean I don't enjoy them or strive to achieve a few. This year's Children's Week brought the cutest pet I have seen in the game. Getting a hold of the foul beast meant that I had to spend a few hours running all over Azeroth to get Egbert's Egg. Seeing that little Hawkstrider wig out when you stand idle was well worth the time. Then Blizzard Entertainment got into the Olympic mood and added a Gold Medallion that would summon a small dragon known as the Spirit of Competition. This pet also required a bit of a time commitment. For each PvP battleground a player won, they had a chance to be rewarded with the item. The chance was fairly high, making the non-combat pet a fairly common one on my server. Nevertheless, being a huge fan of the Olympics and dragons, I had to have one. The Worldwide Invitational also had an interesting pet that I was not able to get my hands on, Archangel Tyrael of Diablo II fame. Shortly after people began populating the world with Tyrael – not to mention trying to get him to duel with Diablo – I heard that he wasn't that cool of a pet. In fact, Tyrael has one animations to speak of, crossing his arms. He also responds to /dance, he just won't stop dancing until he is re-summoned. Seeing as my main is a rogue, I don't get to run around with my pets too much. It wasn't until I ran a string of heroics and some Karazhans that I realized the Spirit of Competition doesn't have any animations to speak of either. It just floats there, acting like a Wind Serpent. Lame. So what this means is that the last two semi- to near- exclusive pets have almost no animations, idle or emotes, to speak of. It appears that the newest pets have had far less time put into them than the easily accessible rewards from Children's Week or the dozens of other companions running around. I know vanity pets aren't that big of a deal but these are supposed to be the exclusive ones, they should be the coolest to own. What's up with that Blizzard? Did they finally revolt?

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This past evening, for his heroic efforts in the Battle for Alterac Valley, SaintGermain was awarded the Gold Medallion for honoring the Spirits of Competition. This award is a great honor and could not be more fitting for SaintGermain. His tireless efforts to rally troops and provide valuable battle strategy in the midst of the chaos and carnage has time and time again saved the lives of his countrymen and women. If it were not for SaintGermain, many digital lives would have meet an untimely ghost walk and rez. A humble man, looking not for recognition for himself and always focused on the good of the whole, SaintGermain was overheard saying amongst his fellow competitors celebrating their AV victory at a local tavern in Shattrath: "Sweet - New Pet!" Oh, yes. The Spirits of Competition have been kind to SaintGermain. Very kind indeed. And with WotLK coming out soon... maybe... SaintGermian will soon have a place to keep all of his pets. Yes. All of them - the 30+ pets sitting in the bank taking up space and only coming out when it's time for the Azeroth Vanity Pet Show, if they ever have one. Nothing like a good macro to show some of your pets. So thank you Spirits of Competition. Thank you kindly for gracing us with a fine new freakin awesome flying dragon vanity pet. I just wish it would give me fortune cookies when I clicked on it.

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