Noahdeer over at Blog Azeroth has had a shared thread come up i think we can all associate with a bit. he Asks ..

World of Warcraft has added many different items for players to collect, whether it be collecting pets, mounts, transmog gear or knickknacks about the lore. This week’s topic asks what you do collect in the game and what is your prized item from that collection?

So relax as I take you on a small tale to explain my obsession, I mean collection ..

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How many of you remember getting your first mount? OK, and how many of you remember getting it back when having 90 Gold was an actual achievement .. you know back when you ran the length of the barrens because that would be 10 silver more towards your mount rather then taking a flight path, when as a druid teleporting to moonglade and flying to TB was a preferred mode of transport because it saved on hard worn copper and you could use the time to take a toilet break.

Well folks thats when it happened. I was partway through Desolace and I realised I had this mount thing ‘looming’ in my future. So I started scrimping and saving. Then I heard of a possible cash cow, selling horde pets via the neutral AH. So I went to spend some of my hard earned cash on a prarie dog and .. they cost what , OMFG definatly not gonna do this, ok maybe 1 .. so I go to click and what happens, game freezes. next thing you know I have 20 of the little buggers in my bags ( this is my first hint to never ever keep clicking when the game seems to lag and you are buying things). There goes what I felt was a sizeable stash of my gold maybe I can , no they won’t buy back at the same price, damn it.

So I take the long walk from Thunder Bluff to Ratchet and hitch a ride down to Stranglethorn where I check the Neutral AH to see what these beauties are going for. WoW I can’t believe it, these things are not going cheap .. they are going for a whole gold piece. Anyway as I am posting these up for sale 1 at a time chatting away with a Shaman I had met a few weeks earlier I mention how silly I had been and how I accidentally bought so many but would keep one for myself now I had them all. At this time the Shaman (Korskaa) mentions he would buy one off me as he doesn’t have any pets (Kor was a level or so behind me at that time, and now over 5 years on is still one of those I talk to and enjoy playing with). Offended, I tell him I am not accepting payment and send him one anyway.*

So what happens, the next day in the post i receive an email from Korskaa, he says “Found this little guy thought you may be able to give him a new home!”, and there it was .. the item that started it. The Mechanical Squirrel. Through Desolace, Ferales, Most of the Eastern Kingdoms and a good deal of early TBC Zones he was my constant companion. He was the pet that started me collecting. By the end of TBC I was using mostly 18 slot bags everywhere, and my bank was literally filled with pets, I mean I had no bagspace then .. now I shake my head and wonder what silly items I would have kept had pet/mount tabards come in earlier.

It was the humble Mechanical Squirrel that set off my pet collecting drive and for years it has been my game within a game. Sometimes I even had guildies pass on rolls or send along rare pets they knew I was missing, and by the end of Cataclysm there I was at almost 200 in-game pets, I was missing a handful, had (according to warcraft pets registry) more then anyone else on my realm at the time. Then Mists of Pandaria launched. All of a sudden everyones pet collections were exploding and I was sitting there decrying the fact that this was not true pet collecting! yes, laugh at me, I do even now, because like many others as soon as I started pet battles I was hooked .. and while I may no longer have the largest collection on the realm I am close 🙂

So here I am more dungeon runs, farming hours, battling hours, crafting hours and begging .. I mean bartering hours on from the humble prairie dog and mechanical squirrel days, with a grand total of 496 unique pets and scarcely two dozen missing that I feel I can possibly obtain. While I have levelled a number to max level and began hunting blues, the small mechanical squirrel is still my all time favourite.

Looking back now it seems weird I put in so much effort on Jod for the pets and mounts, considering they are now all account wide .. and considering that my bags are still as full as ever, but now with gear and vanity items, but each of my toons has it’s oddities. My warrior has a bank full of shields he has been collecting, despite the fact he doesn’t tank, the hunter has an impressive collection of Bows, Crossbows and Guns, even the newly minted Monk has his own little collection .. a small start to collecting every kind of brew on Azeroth.

Still if there wasn’t something we enjoyed we wouldn’t keep playing would we ?

* For those curios those little prairie dogs netted me almost 80 gold after multiple resells, combined with the cash I had collected from questing, selling greys and avoiding all flight points i was stoked that when i turned level 40 i had an astonishing 111 gold, so I go off bought a mount spells and was broke again. At which time a RL mate who was playing at the time and was actually just purchasing his first flyer sends me 90g and says “Gratz on 40”. The truth is i still feel rather proud that I managed to scrimp and save for myself and I feel that new players have it too easy (get off my damn grass! ) .. but I  shall admit I would now miss mounts at 20 🙂

PS:  ALSO .. lets be honest isn’t THIS (below) what you all imagined when you first heard the words “PET BATTLES”

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