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. mmoc873233a919's Avatar
    Frankly I don't care if these are tradeable or how much they cost or whatever. What I want to know is what are they? Where did they come from? How did we get ahold of them? What are they guardians of?
  1. Selkhet's Avatar
    I don't think that many people are willing to spend gold on a vanity pet.
  1. Vook's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Barzulan View Post
    This. At least make it cheaper! For crying out loud, it's a whole lot more difficult to reconcile spending $10 on a pet for a single character than a pet for an entire account. $10 for 10+ pets across an account is a much better deal than spending $10 on a pet for only one character.

    Not happy with this move at all. I collect mounts/pets on my main, however I also want this pet on certain alts that use the winged guardian mount more frequently than my main.
    >$15 a month
    >complains about $10 one-time payment

    wat? Over a 100%-vanity item, no less.

    Blizz is just trying new things, quit the QQ.
  1. Derpdederp's Avatar
    Boycott Gaurdian cubs?
  1. mmocfce0b22c62's Avatar
    Very good. Now i can have a pet from the blizzard store and still /lol at the people buying stupid stuff with real money. And at the people crying. Get real. This won't change anything.
  1. Zangetsen's Avatar
    So, the cub will be ten bucks, be a one time use unlike the pets such as Lil Rag, Lil XT, and Lil KT...
    Quote Originally Posted by Blizzard View Post
    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.
    Who in their right mind would say "Sure, I'd like to pay the same price for a ONE TIME USE item instead of it being like the rest of the pets from the pet store. Are you kidding me blizz?Note: I've personally never bought a pet from the store, but I just think the idea that this won't work like the other pets is just silly.
  1. obscurede's Avatar
    basically exploiting their own rules here. Sheesh blizz, u are giving all the old players all the more reason to quit from wow .......
  1. Fateq's Avatar
    To all the people crying about gold selling now being "legal" you're pretty hilarious, its as if you're implying that buying gold was hard or risked your account in the first place.
  1. Idoru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by nyc81991 View Post
    This is what a lot of people were afraid of when they started with the blizzard store. We arent far away from selling epic weapons in the store now.
    Ok, people have been singing this song for more than 4 years now, shouldn't we have had those epics for cash by now ?
  1. Zephyr Storm's Avatar
    Yet another, greedy, money-based decision on Blizzard's part. Blizzard must REALLY want to try and milk as much money out of their players as they can, before they lose even MORE subs. Grats Blizzard, on showing your true colors yet again. WoW is definitely becoming less and less about the customer and more and more about how much profit they can make every quarter. Screw you Blizz, screw you.
  1. david0925's Avatar
    This is probably litmus test to see how close they can get to real currency trading without making it bluntly explicit. With that said, gotta love all the overreacting people here. If you need a reason to leave the game feel free to use it though.
  1. mmoc6a381dc082's Avatar
    And yet another pet that will be next to impossible to get without spending real life money, GG blizzard..
  1. Ryme's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Idoru View Post
    If it's impossible to stop the illegal trade isn't it then better to offer a legal solution?

    I wonder how many of the nay-sayers here are actually for legalizing marijuana......
    I wonder how that relates to this piece of news at all.
  1. Puremallace's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mionelol View Post
    Just as expected.
    Actually when NCSoft did this exact thing with their weapon skins it wrecked the economy in Aion pretty bad. Do not be surprised with Transmogrification that they open a wardrobe cash shop very soon after.
  1. Paigeyotto's Avatar
    It probably won't even sell for a lot of gold either. There's going to be so many that it's going to cause the prices to be low since they're not rare/hard to obtain.
  1. Jagstang's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Synris View Post
    Because a pet one of the guys at blizzard did during his lunch break is taking away from endgame development, right?
    Yeah, if they can make more money from shitpets, that wowdrones will buy, what would be the purpose of creating interesting endgame content?
  1. Hellfury's Avatar
    What this is comming to... its just a way to sell gold really, they dont even try to disguise it lol
  1. david0925's Avatar
    Like, people actually need to think about it. Who is going to prefer buying gold then buying this off the AH, as opposed to just buying it with money directly from Blizzard? Or are you going to tell me all the pet-collecting maniacs won't have the gold.
  1. Zephyr Storm's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Paigeyotto View Post
    It probably won't even sell for a lot of gold either. There's going to be so many that it's going to cause the prices to be low since they're not rare/hard to obtain.
    This ^.

    There will be so many of the damn things on the AH from people who are trying to make some quick gold, that they won't be worth shit. $10 of real world money for maybe 1,000 in-game gold? Um, no thank you. Worst idea ever. Blizzard is the ONLY winner in this situation, not the players.
  1. Idoru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowdream View Post
    I wonder how that relates to this piece of news at all.
    The post I quoted didn't really relate to the news, but to gold selling.

    Both are illegal (in most countries anyway), and both are impossible to stop.

Site Navigation