gotta name 'em all

got my second lil' bad wolf the other day (i gave the first one to julie) and now it is time to bid farewell to karazhan. over the years i have farmed it for loot, for badgers of justice, for attumen's pony, for transmog gear, and now for pets. nothing left to go back for now, at least until blizzard puts something new in there. seems only appropriate to name the little fella after kara's biggest fan.

okay, yeah, i realize it would've been better if it'd been a rabbit. nothing's perfect. there was a spiffy bit of hunter loot that dropped along with the pet, though...

hydra doesn't pvp. except when she does.

hydrargyrum, of the twisted nether blogcast and (when she remembers she still has a blog) almost evil,  is my oldest wow blogging friend. we met back when we were the only two wow bloggers on the now-defunct vox.com blogging / pre-facebook social media platform. long time ago, that was. somewhere along the line one of her alts on my server got lucky and picked up a winter's little helper pet, which she generously gave to me.

for years it sat in my bank or pet book, only coming out on occasion during the winter veil holiday. when we got the ability to name our pets this expansion, christening it "hydrargyrum" seemed the appropriate thing to do. and at some point, even though it was only an uncommon pet with a really strange spell set, i decided to level it to 25. then i found myself with an extra flawless humanoid battle-stone, so i stoned the little gnome because why hell not?

and then the other day i ran across a pvp team comp that caught my eye. kun-lai runt (a very popular and effective pet currently). slow tundra penguin. and winter's little helper. didn't have a penguin of that particular breed, so i substituted pengu - same spells, but a little faster and a little weaker. wasn't worried about it, because i still think that, with certain exceptions, having the right breed is greatly overrated. anywho, three pets, all with the ability to "chill" an opponent, and all with an ability that gets a bonus when hitting a chilled opponent. so how'd hydrargyrum, slide, and grievous muppet do?

they pwned teh face.

over the  course of the weekend they racked up twelve wins against five losses. not too shabby. along the way i picked up the experienced pet brawler achievement. fifty wins isn't a lot, at least when compared to my pve wins, but pvp is still so darn slooooooooow and doesn't offer much in the way of rewards. yet. can only do a few battles before my brain starts pointing out how many opportunities we're losing by not doing other stuff. but still, i have fun while i'm doing it, and i'm looking forward to the pvp achievement grind that will come in 5.3. mostly.

but remember - hydra doesn't pvp*


*old joke. she'll know what i'm referring to ;)

more pet names, some with reasons

with over 400 unique pets, more than half of them rares, coming up with names for them is a neverending battle. here's a list of some of my newer ones, in no particular order other than alphabetical.

bad attitude - lil' ragnaros. b.a. baracus would be proud - "too soon! you have awakened me too soon, you crazy fool!"

buggernaut  - fire-proof roach. because he is one.

cat in hat - feline familiar. seemed like a reasonable name for a cat wearing a hat.

cute widdle paws - prairie dog. because mylune and her heaving, eye-level bosom want it that way.

deadliest catch - emperor crab. wednesday nights on the discovery channel.

dreamer - wanderer's festival hatchling. "one day we'll find it / the rainbow connection / the lover's the dreamers, and me."

hanged man - restless shadeling. if you've read walter jon williams' metropolitan, then you'll get the most excellent reference. if not, well, that's not my fault now, is it?

j thaddeus esq - huge toad. because of this huge toad:


mighty unclean - stunted yeti. "i'm dirty, mean, and mighty unclean." yeti needs a bath.

feisty oscar - red panda. just because.

whole lotta rosie - silithid hatchling. she's a whole lotta woman.

meanwhile, i have found that the names of the 50 states are not allowed for pet names, but if you drop the directional prefix the game'll allow it. so "dakota slim" or "carolina crunch" are good to go.

some of the colors of the rainbow

my on-again, off-again quest to determine what the limits are for naming our pets is on again. these are the results of the latest testing:

"black", "white", and "yellow" are not allowed. presumably because blizzard wants to prevent fucktwats from using racist names.

"red" and "brown" are allowed. presumably because blizzard doesn't want to prevent fucktwats using racist names enough to be completely thorough.

"green" is allowed. presumably because blizzard doesn't give a flying fuck about offending martians.

a brief word on pet names

being able to finally name pets (without being a hunter) is something i thoroughly enjoy. as usual, blizzard has a secret list of words you cannot use (two secret lists, actually - one for "reserved" words and one for "offensive" words). the illustrious pike pointed me toward the petopia forums where there is a list of names people have determined to be illegal, but i'm hoping to delve deeper and see just how far i can push the envelope, because i'm weird that way. after last night's research, i can confirm the following:

"the" is a reserved word, which is a total rip-off given that some of the npc tamers use it in their pets' names.

most military ranks are restricted, but standard abbreviations are not. for example "adm bigs" and "sgt dingles".

"duke", like most ranks of nobility, is out. "duck", however, is fine. since there are currently no actual duck pets, i picked my nether ray fry to be the "duck of death", and "iron duck" will probably go to my sea gull.

more to follow, as my brain comes up with pointless things to try.