Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet
A new pet is coming to a Blizzard Store near you and ... you can trade it and sell it at the auction house!
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Coming soon to a Pet Store near you: the new and titanically cute Guardian Cub companion. You’ve soared across Azeroth on the majestic Winged Guardian. Soon, you'll be able to purchase a pint-sized Guardian of the Titans sidekick to accompany you on your adventures.


Stunning good looks and adorable, supersized eyes aren’t all this new pet has going for it. The Guardian Cub is also the Pet Store's first tradable pet, meaning it can be swapped between characters in-game or given as a gift to guildmates, friends, family, or that special someone -- no adoption papers necessary. Due to his finicky nature, each Guardian Cub will only give its allegiance to one owner, meaning it’s a one-time-use pet that permanently binds to a single character. Be sure to choose a master wisely.

Look for the Guardian Cub to arrive in the Blizzard Store in the weeks ahead -- in the meantime, we've prepped a mini-FAQ to explain how this flying friend will differ from other Pet Store companions.

Q: How does the Guardian Cub pet work? How is it different from other Pet Store pets?

Unlike the other Pet Store companions, the Guardian Cub is a tradable, one-time-use pet that permanently binds to a single character upon use. When you purchase the Guardian Cub from the online store, the character you designate will receive a bind-on-use item to carry in his or her inventory. You can either use the item yourself to permanently add the pet to your character's collection (consuming the item in the process), or -- after a brief initial cooldown period -- you can trade the item to another player so he or she can add it to one of their character's collections. Note that once the pet has been added to a character's Companions list, it can no longer be traded, so make sure you're giving the cub a happy home.


Q: Will I be able to carry more than one Guardian Cub at a time?

While a character can only have one Guardian Cub in his or her Companions list, you can have as many in your inventory as you like. Please note that Guardian Cub items do not stack, so each one will take up a bag or bank slot.


Q: How much will the Guardian Cub cost in the Pet Store?

The Guardian Cub will be priced the same as the other Pet Store pets ($10 USD). All sales of the Guardian Cub are final -- no refunds will be given once a purchase is made.


Q: Why did you decide to make the Guardian Cub tradable?

Since the introduction of the Pet Store, many players have been asking for ways to get the companions we offer there without having to spend real-world cash. By making the Guardian Cub tradable (much like the BoE mounts from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game), players interested in the new pet will have fun, alternative in-game ways to get one. In addition to trading the pet, players can give the Guardian Cub as a gift to another character for a special occasion; guild leaders can use them to reward members for a job well done; and so on. We also hope this change will help reduce the number of incidents of scamming via trading for invalid pet codes.


Q: Could I put the Guardian Cub up on the auction house to try to make some gold if I wanted to?

While our goal is to offer players alternative ways to add a Pet Store pet to their collection, we’re ok with it if some players choose to use the Guardian Cub as a safe and secure way to try to acquire a little extra in-game gold without turning to third-party gold-selling services. However, please keep in mind that there's never any guarantee that someone will purchase what you put up for sale in the auction house, or how much they'll pay for it. Also, it’s important to note that we take a firm stance against buying gold from outside sources because in most cases, the gold these companies offer has been stolen from compromised accounts. (You can read more about our stance here.) While some players might be able to acquire some extra gold by putting the Guardian Cub in the auction house, that’s preferable to players contributing to the gold-selling “black market” and account theft.


Q: Are you changing the other available Pet Store pets (e.g. Lil' Ragnaros, the Pandaren Monk) to work this way?

No, the other available Pet Store pets will continue to work as they always have.


Q: What about future Pet Store pets?

It's too early to say how we'll handle future Pet Store pets. We made this change in response to feedback from players looking for alternate ways to get the Pet Store pets, and we're always looking into other opportunities for improvement. We're interested in hearing what players think of the Guardian Cub when it launches, and we hope you'll have fun with this new flying friend.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Sneak Peek: Guardian Cub Tradable Pet started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 729 Comments
  1. Hokuto's Avatar
    Suddenly, AHs everywhere flooded by cash store pets going for 500g each.
  1. mmoc0a590aa303's Avatar
    meh you could always buy trading card game mounts and sell them for gold ingame no different to this really.
  1. Lothaeryn's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowdream View Post
    More reasons to leave when the alternatives arrive!
    Hello Guild Wars 2, you may not be the same as WoW with your premium services, but it will be alot better than the flooded market of gold selling to come from Activision/Blizzard.

    For those of you arguing about the TCG, it was never guaranteed whenever you bought booster packs to drop a rare card that could be sold. And even then THESE ITEMS WERE/ARE STILL RARE on the server market. This service pretty much supports the gold selling market by making an official means of selling gold for their players. The only downside to this is that its a pet item, and while not everyone will care for it (The pet store was always a scam, to hell with buying shit on top of my subscription) there will be people who buy it to get an economic gain over their competitive raiders.

    Imagine having a competitive guild, while everyone is gearing slowly through heroics, one person decides to sell this pet for say 20-30k gold. which in turn, helps them obtain a BoE BiS epic from the current tier off the AH.

    This said person now joins a top tier guild and obtains server first by fulfilling his role as tank/dps/healing.

    What is the result? a Server first being obtained because someone got a small boost from selling an item on the AH with real money.

    While it is a heavily exaggerated scenario, don't lie to yourself and say this cant happen.
  1. videotape's Avatar
    This is obviously a move to ease the transition into legitimizing real-money trading within WoW.

    I see absolutely no problem with it.

    /Obviously I'm a brainwashed little sheep-man who can't think for himself!
  1. Bombkirby's Avatar
    Wow people are totally overreacting. Like really. Threatening to quit? Extreme profanity? Slandering the companies name? I think yall are overly upset over nothing. How does this even effect you?? It just cuts down on the number of people who are illegally selling pet store stuff.
  1. Idoru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jedek View Post
    The process still stands. I saw that you linked a site that sells tcg's. This doesn't change the fact that someone had to buy those packs, find the loot cards, then put them up for sale. In fact you are proving my point. Visit ebay or that site you linked. TCG's on sale for money... Then you have to bid, and wait for the card to ship, or for them to email you the code and hope that it is valid. This Blizzard method cuts out the uncertainty and time sink, and makes selling boe's in game money makers.

    Thanks for playing Idoru, try again.
    The big difference is that now Blizzard gets the profit.
  1. Jedek's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Baikalsan View Post
    Yes because people that buy packs only do it for the really rare loot cards and otherwise have no way of making money with it..........you have no clue how this works have you?

    And if you want to make 100k gold quickly go to ebay........
    Did I ever specifically mention "really rare loot cards,".... no, you can make money off of any of the loot cards. I do have a clue, it just isn't worth the amount of time you have put into it. Why are you so angry? Probably because the Blizz method of gold selling will quickly supplant the TCG method. If the TCG method were easy, everyone, or should I say, a lot more people would be doing it, but they aren't. Don't be so mad Baikalsan, I'll sell you an ingame guardian pet for 15k, cheap
  1. Antherios's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Idoru View Post
    L2 finish reading before replying?

    Quote Originally Posted by Antherios View Post
    Also, to people saying "this started 5 years ago woth TCG stuff noobs, you are late", getting gold that way is not that profitable. You have to buy decks, and pray to get something worth selling, sometimes not getting shit from the deck. Or go to TCGloot and buy something at 600$ and try to sell it in trade (gl with that). Now, here we have a transaction that costs only 10$, and lets say it can give you 4k per pet if your server's AH is flooded. That looks like gold buying straight from Blizzard to me.
  1. Jedek's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Idoru View Post
    The big difference is that now Blizzard gets the profit.
    At least we agree. The only legal RMT is the kind that earns Blizzard a cut.
  1. paloalto's Avatar
    Post pet store: "Guys, calm down. They are just vanity items. They won't ever add gear or add anything you can sell. Chill out."

    Post TCG cards: "Guys, calm down. There's a really low chance you'll get a card anyway, so why does it matter? And it's still just vanity stuff."

    Post Guardian cub: "Guys, calm down. It's just vanity stuff, so who cares if you can sell it for in-game gold. It's not like they are directly selling gear or gold."

    Post MoP: "Guys, calm down. You can get your tier gear through farming heroics or raids anyway. Who cares if people can buy it, and that's it's also BoE?"
  1. Traeumerin's Avatar
    "Unlike the other Pet Store companions, the Guardian Cub is a tradable, one-time-use pet that permanently binds to a single character upon use." Disgusting... I want to have it on ALL my characters, but that would be quite expensive. (
  1. Idoru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Jedek View Post
    Did I ever specifically mention "really rare loot cards,".... no, you can make money off of any of the loot cards. I do have a clue, it just isn't worth the amount of time you have put into it. Why are you so angry? Probably because the Blizz method of gold selling will quickly supplant the TCG method. If the TCG method were easy, everyone, or should I say, a lot more people would be doing it, but they aren't. Don't be so mad Baikalsan, I'll sell you an ingame guardian pet for 15k, cheap
    The rare ingame pets don't even sell for 10k on my server, this one won't even make 1k.
  1. mmoc8eb592856e's Avatar
    if even 1% of these sales would go to develop new end-game content, Id support this.
  1. Bauwagast's Avatar
    Crappy idea Blizzard. 10 bucks for a one use item, when you got it for all characters and future characters with other pets? Riiiight.
  1. Rexaton's Avatar
    Man people are dumb I have read about 4 pages of constant QQ already. Half these idiots don't know how gold selling is. Gold selling is usually in act of stealing or compromising accounts and taking all the gold off of it. What general happens after that is Blizzard gives all the compromised items back to the victim which means the Gold was duplicated. Which means if you had max gold the gold farmer has max gold and so do you. Which means influx of gold. This isn't the same. Person A: Buys the pet puts it on the Market then Person B: Buys it with his gold that he got from questing. There was no extra gold introduced in the processes. (Unless they bought from a third party source which I doubt) Now as for Blizzard introducing this doesn't affect me one bit. Because I'm not going to by it either way.
  1. Yakuchin's Avatar
    when the AH is so flooded with them, I'll get one for 1k!
  1. alabaster jones's Avatar
    a long time ago I would have said outrage!
    but now I have lots of cash and little free time, the rage just isn't there anymore.
  1. mmoc797e9b2396's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Hampen View Post
    Seems like it :\ This way people can just buy a pet from the blizzard store, and sell it for in-game gold...Auch!
    This is what is going to happen. A moron who thinks that he has a grasp on the economy will just buy like 100 of them and after that he will find out that due to inflation they are worth only 100-200g. The end result is blizzard making a lot of money!!!
  1. mmoca172a76622's Avatar
    Kinda strange.. might as well make the other pets BoE too?
  1. Spike`'s Avatar
    not surprised, another move to squeeze more money from the players to combat the loss they are getting from all the people leaving the game

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