Faar Sep 19th 2009 7:25PM

It's got way bigger eyes than a regular core hound. Also, the mouth(s) seem "cuteified" somehow.

Probably it's a fairly simple conversion job from the standard hound model though, part of it would be some polygon and texture resolution reduction I'd wager, since the scale's so much smaller.

I've wanted Blizzard to re-vamp vanity pets for ages now, I love them, and blizzard seems to love them too, but the implementation is so horrendously cumbersome and sucky that most people don't ever bother with them.

For starters, they need to be changed to function like auras. Turn 'em on, and they're on, until you turn em off. This includes the pet respawning automatically if it somehow ends up too far away from its master.

Second, they need to stealth if the master stealths. Same with shadowmeld, invisibility and so on.

Third, they should not dismount players when (un)summoning them, nor put all skills on global cooldown. I can't see any point in that change at all.

Fourth - and I agree this is a fairly minor complaint: vanity pets should not:
* run right on top of the heels of your character. If you're mounted or a bigger character such as a bear or moonkin, the pet can disappear almost entirely inside your player or mount model.

* be targettable. I'm sure you've had the minipet run up and stand right on top of a mob you just killed and am about to loot/skin, and instead of receiving treasure you hear a meowling petsound instead. :P You should still be able to make the pet meowl by poking it with your mouse pointer (coz many of the sound effects are damn funny), but not having the pet ending up as your target when you don't want to would be real nice.

* break their leashes so easily. The pet leash sold in Dalaran is a wonderful addition to the game, but the implementation is again sucky. Having to put it on your pet manually every time, and then having it disappear if you as much as move any faster than walking speed is a bit trying for one's patience. Preferably, the leash should simply appear whenever you spawn your pet the leash it's present in your inventory, and NOT BREAK all the bloody time... Those who have wrangled nether rays for example know the code for unbreakable leashes already exist in the game.

These are all small changes, but they would go a long way towards making minipets less bothersome to manage, and thus more popular amongst players. (Says proud owner of nearly 80 minipets on his main char... :D)