Shadowmoon Valley had a wider variety of tameable pets than Frostfire Ridge did (a lot of the ones in Frostfire weren’t yet flagged as tameable on the alpha). Some of the ones in Shadowmoon still can’t be tamed, but that’ll be fixed in time.
Is your stable full? You might want to make room for some of these guys, and this is only the stuff from a single zone… nevermind any rare spawns we haven’t even seen yet.
New Wolves
Shadowmoon Valley has both gray and black wolves of this new variety, but right now I could only tame the gray ones. In Frostfire there was also a white variant, but it was also untameable at the time (this will be fixed eventually). You may recognize these from the War Wolf mount you get from killing Garrosh on normal mode. It’s the same thing, minus the armor.
What was really interesting was this next wolf I found in the Warlords intro experience in Tanaan Jungle. I have to say that, unfortunately, I am skeptical these will remain tameable.
These “Void Wolves” are flagged as beasts in Tanaan, but in Shadowmoon Valley, where these void creatures also play a role, they are flagged as Aberrations. So while this amazing looking wolf might remain tameable, don’t hold your breath. If it does, make sure you go into the starting experience with an open pet slot because I’m not 100% sure if you can go back in there afterwards.
Update on the Void Wolf:
@nyrikah @TheBrewHall Current plan is that they’re aberrations, except for one that’s still being turned and can be saved. Thoughts?
— Jeremy Feasel (@Muffinus) July 1, 2014
Sounds like the void wolf is here to stay, only it won’t be a common pet. Good move in my book! It also looks like it will be a spirit beast.
Sporebats
The new sporebat model is a minor upgrade from the old. Nothing dramatic, but I’ll take it. Most pets that previously brought melee or spell haste, including Sporebats, now just bring a general 5% haste buff.
There’s a total of 3 color variants in Shadowmoon Valley — two of which are just steps from your Garrison.
Riverbeasts
These guys are Draenor’s hippo analog. Again, only one color found in Shadowmoon so far. These guys wander the shorelines of the waterways and some others can be found getting eaten alive by some carnivorous plants. That’s where my hippo buddy is from. I tamed him while he was being eaten alive.
These guys are supposed to have the mortal wounds (25% reduced healing) debuff which is kind of disappointing. How often do you need that thing? I’d rather they have an actual buff so I could use them in more situations. Right now they’re bugged and have a dog’s special ability which doesn’t work, but according to the patch notes it’s going to be mortal wounds.
Hydras
These guys are hilariously large and are as stompy as they come. Seriously, their stomping noise needs to be turned down! They don’t run properly right now either. Instead of running, they seem to play their walk animation at supersonic speeds and it looks pretty goofy. Couple that with a stomp noise for every footfall, and you’re going to have some sore ears. Thankfully this is just alpha (well, now beta) and they should hopefully fix this because the actual run animations look really good in Wowhead’s model viewer.
Update: Happy to report the stompiness has been turned down and they now run properly. You can see them in action in this video.
Serpents
These are the first tameable serpents which use the python model. Right now, they actually shrink quite significantly when you tame them. I wouldn’t expect it to go live like this, though the little baby snake pet is kind of neat.
More pets
There are quite a few, like that Bloodthorn Ravager above, who still aren’t flagged as tameable. Chances are I also missed some others in my initial exploration. Every time I was getting disconnected, it was porting me back to my Garrison on the arse end of nowhere. Without flying mounts it can take a while to get back to where you were, so I’m sure I didn’t fully explore some areas.
Now that we’ve got many more hunters coming into the beta, I have no doubt we’ll have a complete catalog of all the new pets very soon.
I would hope that the void wolves would remain tameable. I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
I’ll see you there. Hoping for a multistrike pet.. not that I can even get to Draenor right now, the guy who starts the assault thing is disabled right now
The direhorns have the same stomp issue as the hydra, I expect. Their stomps were just as loud as all other noises and tends to drown out the music – which is currently enjoyable. Two years from now it probably won’t be.
Not gonna lie, I’m hoping those snakes go live. It would be a good survival pet imo.