Well, in my last mailbag, I asked you all to send in pictures of your Earth Online pets, and you obliged! Let’s get to it, and see what everyone’s sporting for vanity companions these days. Before Land Down Under comes out, and they introduce like 200 new companion pets, and everybody loses their fucking minds.

I just finished my rep grind a few days after your call for submissions. I picked out a small puffball of a dog (I think the breed is called Pomeranian) that would be a tasty snack for my raptor Masher if the dog was out in Azeroth. He gets along well with my minions (I get 4 because I am a Stay at Home Mom class) and loves to clean up the food they leave behind so I save time on cleaning. He even washes my dishes for me. My smallest minion is also my most messy so she and the dog get along well because she is always a source of dropped food for him.

–Toka, Orgrimmar

Hey Toka. Interesting with the Mom minions. I’m guessing that works pretty much the same as the minions I get from the Teacher class. Although, from the sound of it, you have to feed yours, which I don’t. But then, I do have to keep a steady supply of lessons coming, so I’m guessing it’s probably a similar mechanic, just with the serial numbers filed off. Come to think of it, I bet there’s a lot of overlap between the minion mechanics for the Mom and Teacher classes. If you don’t do a good job staying on top of yours, do they run the risk or rebelling on you too? That’s a pain in the ass.

Hail, Warchief!

I also did the Humane Society quests to pick up a dog. Actually, I also did a “rescue” quest a while back, but Jamie died of old age a few years back. Not long after that, I got Duke here from the Humane Society.

He’s an Austealian Shepherd — a shout-out of sorts to the next expansion. Duke’s quite a bit bigger than your terrier … which, mostly, just means that he costs more in-game currency to feed.

And a bit of advice for Hannahlee … seriously, just show up and start training. That application thing is just for show. Your qualifcations, or lack thereof, will soon be obvious. Possibly painfully obvious. (Which is where the priest trainees come in…)

Now, I need to get back to that “acceptance test” raid that my guild is running…

— A Concerned Citizen

Now see, ACC, that’s kind of interesting. I didn’t know these pets could die of old age. Or of anything, really. Now I’m going to be all paranoid about running across the street when I have Sawyer out for fear of getting him hit or something. Do they have leashes in Earth Online?

Also, I like the fact that this dog is an Australian Shepherd. Since you mentioned having him going back a few years, that just shows you that the devs really did have this whole Australian expansion in mind going back a long time. So seriously, all you people who’ve been whining about LDU being a big joke expansion and “OMG Australians?!” — it’s been in the lore for fucking ever so have a Kaja-Cola and a smile and shut the fuck up.

Hail Warchief!

Here are two pics of my companion pets. 

Picture one is actually a couple of years or so old. It is of my eldest son and our dog “Boo.”  Boo was an Australian Shepherd, and passed away a couple of years ago. She was a great dog.

The second pic is of our cat “Darcy.” She is still around and ruling the roost. Typical cat. 

Your loyal Reader,

–Zwingli

Well I’ll be damned, another Australian Shepherd, huh? I guess you and ACC must have done the same quest, huh, Zwingli? Another one dying of old age, though. I guess this really must be a game feature I haven’t noticed. Maybe I just missed this since I haven’t even been playing for a year yet, so I just haven’t been around long enough to notice pets getting older and dying? Or is this an Australian Shepherd thing specifically? Or wait, is this “dying of old age” thing mean there’s a limited number of charges on summoning the dog, and that’s just the turn of phrase players use to refer to running out?

Anyway, it’s sad to lose your pet — I know I won’t be a happy camper if I ever run out of charges on Sawyer — but I guess you have to give the devs credit for being that committed to realism. You know, other than the fact that YOU can die like a hundred times and just pop back to life like nothing happened.

Also, Zwingli, do you play one of the Mom / Dad classes like Toka? I notice you have a minion like hers in the first picture. I also like the fact that it looks like you can set your companion pet to protect your minion. Come to think of it, that would sort of make sense, seeing as the dog is a Shepherd. Still a neat feature.

Dear Garrosh,

Here are screenshots of our dog pets we got with rep! I like the idle position – if you stop moving for a while it just lays down and plays dead!  It seems the other one is way more spastic though, and barks a lot more. I can’t quite get it to idle like the other one. I had to turn in-game sounds off because it wouldn’t shut up! They’re pretty cute though and I was told I couldn’t get a third because they tax my computer’s resources way too much. Stupid rules!

–Roika Dark, Brill

Well I’ll be damned, speaking of repeating breeds, Roika, looks like your dogs are West Highland terriers like mine. The one in the first picture in particular looks like he would be a kindred spirit with Sawyer, seeing as he’s a lazy little butterball. Not sure what to make of the problem you seem to be having with the barking, though. My dog hardly ever makes a peep — don’t know if it’s just that I have a lousy audio card, or if there’s something that procs the barking that I’m not doing, or what. So anyway, since you have the same terriers as I do, I’m guessing you did the same rescue quest? How fucked up is that puppy mill sub-zone? I swear, on those rare occasions when I get in a cranky mood, I still go back there just to beat the snot out of the millers some more. I didn’t know the quest was repeatable, though… Something to keep in mind.

Hi Garrosh!

You wanted to know about our EO pets so here’s some pix of mine. I got them through a rescue quest. A friend of a friend was LFG and as things worked out, I was there to lend a helping hand. They try help me, but are easily distracted by food.

Strength and Honor,

–Zug Zug

Ah, another rescue quest, huh?  I only really noticed the puppy mill quests for dogs, but I guess it stands to reason there would be some rescue quests for cats too.  I wonder if there are any other animals you can get from those.  From what I remember, cats are the only type of pet that you can buy outright from the Humane Society based on rep.

Hey mon,

I saw you be wantin’ ta see our Eart’ Online pets, so I figured you be likin’ dis one.  I been spendin’ a long time lookin’ for da right one, mon!

I tink he be likin’ you!

–Bob, Echo Isles

WTF!!! You know what?! I’ll bet you anything THAT’S NOT REALLY THAT GUY’S PET! And hey, guess what else, asshole? If that IS your cat, then your cat’s a fucking IDIOT, because its spelling and grammar is fucking TERRIBLE. Fucking illiterate virtual cat.

Hello, mighty warchief of the Horde!

I write in answer to your call of pictures with our Earth Online pet…

There you can see Ravi, a European Longhair Cat, who is my steadfast companion as I adventure on that strange virtual planet.

FOR THE HORDE!!!!

Faithfully yours *hint hint*

–Uukra

You know, after all the time Uukra has spent e-flirting with me in these mailbags, I suppose it was just a matter of time before she started sending me pictures of her…erm…never mind.

Hey Garosh

I’ve been a pet colecter for a long time in EO so its great to be able to show off a little – some of these are prety rare it realy took me a long time to find them all. You asked for it!

These are my dogs – the black shepherd mix is Kismet, and the golden retriever is Cosmos.

Then there are my cats – Tiger, Cage, and Salem.

Now for the realy intristing ones!

These are my snakes – Medusa (the black one) and Hades (the white one). I got them from a quest in New Mexico and I had to choos one of them but the next week their was a server problem and the quest got reset so i got to go back and do it again and get the other one 🙂

I also got a scorpion off a rare spawn in Africa. I havnt givin him a name though because I’ve mostly been more worried about making shure he doesn’t sting me he has already stung three people in my guild and there toons died!

So after running around getting all these pets I finaly got my Zookeeper achievement and look at the bonus pet I got! So so cute he is an African pygmie hedgehog I named him Moe.

Sory if I spamed you with pictures!

–Eravia

HOLY CRAP that’s a shit ton of pets. Some crazy ones in there too, Eravia, nice job hunting them all down. How many can you have out at once? I could kinda see there being some predator problems if you got too many of them out at once.

Also, based on your writing, I’m guessing you went to school at the same place as Bob’s cat from a couple letters ago?

Dear Garrosh,

I know things must be kind of tense between you and Saurfang right now, but I have to ask — has he had any funny noob moments since he started playing Earth Online? I know when I finally convinced my girlfriend to give it a try, she had a lot of little moments, like not realizing your auto-attack toggles on so she kept spamming her 1 key. Any good ones from Saurfang?

–Dedrin, Booty Bay

First of all, Dedrin, I call shenanigans. Your girlfriend? Everybody knows gamer nerds don’t have girlfriends, and girls don’t play Earth Online (you know, other than all the ones in my guild). People make both those points all the time on the internet, so they must be true. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling.

The funny thing about Saurfang is that even though he’s been flying along leveling like a motherfucker, he IS making all these noob mistakes…and yet stuff STILL keeps breaking his way like crazy. It’s kind of incredible, really. You know that expression about falling out of a tree and landing on your feet? Well, Saurfang keeps falling out of trees, and then landing in another, cooler tree that sprouts up spontaneously right next to the first tree, only this new tree has cushioned recliner branches and grows strippers, thousand-dollar bills, and chilled kegs of beer.

Here, let me give you a for-instance.

Saurfang was doing a quest hunting bears and collecting stolen picnic baskets in one of the national park sub-zones. So you know how your in-game map gets that blue blob on it to show where your quest mobs are? Saurfang was looking at it and asked me if that’s where he needed to go for the bears and baskets. I told him yes, and he said something like “For a moment, I thought it looked like water.” Which, okay, that’s kind of cute in a noobish way, right? Yeah, except when Saurfang actually GOT there? The whole damn area got hit with a giant flood clear out of nowhere. Which killed all the bears. Which somehow he got quest credit for just by being there. And all the picnic baskets came floating up to the surface, so he just swam a quick lap around and gathered them up and off he went on his way back to Park Ranger Smith.

The fuck?

That does it for this week, but Dedrin there gives me another idea. For the next mailbag in a couple weeks, let’s hear from everybody about their Earth Online noob moments! I bet there are some good stories out there about people coming face-to-face with their inner Dontrag and Utvoch.

Also don’t forget to check in tomorrow night — there’s lots going on and I’m planning to have some updates going up then.