In WoW social situations, combat and non-combat pets alike usually just take up space looking pretty. Hunter and warlock pets have many actions they can perform to help fight an enemy, of course, and for a normal gamer there's no reason they would need to do anything more. But sometimes, as a roleplayer, if you pat your pet wolf on the head, you might expect it to look up at you with those adorable puppy eyes; or if someone else pats its head, you might expect it to bite their hand off. However, with the emote system as it is, we can only type out custom emotes with our own character's name at the beginning of the sentence, never the pet's.There's a way around this problem, which is actually quite obvious once you think of it, yet roleplayers rarely use it, so far as I have seen. If you write the possessive apostrophe-S as the first part of your character's custom emote, you can make your pet seem to do something on its own: "Isabeau 's pet wolf growls and bares his teeth." It takes a little bit more typing, and it leaves a space between your characters name and the apostrophe-S (since that's built into the emote system), but effectively it lets you roleplay two entities at the same time. Hunters and warlocks can use the PetEmote addon to help make this a little more streamlined.
Our reader Ellyndia, for instance, roleplayed a very introverted character that normally would not introduce herself to others, but using such custom emotes, she could have her Jubling walk up and interact with people first to get conversations going. Pets can reflect what your character is thinking but not saying out loud (by hissing or purring perhaps), or they can do anything that such pets in real life might do. Special non-combat pets such as the Children's Week kids, the interactive Animatronics, or even the magical Mojo, could all be especially fun to animate a little now and then. Certainly this technique would become very annoying if overused, but in moderation it can add a extra spice of humor, entertainment and even a touch of realism into the game.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
1-09-2008 @ 9:15AM
ErsatzPotato said...
Fantastic graphic connected to the post. The very first time I've ever seen one on a WoW Insider story that my eyes more than slid off. I did a second, then a third take. Perfectly framed, the colors pop as accents and foreground detail. Better than the original from which you cropped it by far.
Kudos. [Not saying this because I bonked you on the head in the last RP post. Still can't imagine more than an hour of fun playing or interacting with a gag character as RP!]
er... kudos to whoever made it. No idea if it was you.
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1-09-2008 @ 10:25AM
David Bowers said...
Thanks Potato. I didn't take the screenshot, but I did frame it just like this for the post. It turned out to be exactly the right width I needed! It's just lucky it turned out so nicely. I chose it because those kids in children's week are basically the same as any normal non-combat pet, and yet they have no real interactivity with other people around them. I thought it would be neat if some people actually used emotes to have their kids do and say things during that week. Not too much, of course, just enough to make them feel like kids, and not like kid-shaped robots.
1-09-2008 @ 9:56AM
TypicalJeff said...
It is simple enough, but I have to admit it looks a bit, eh, tacky with that space. I, personally, haven't used a whole lot of the two entity roleplaying in WoW. Elsewhere? Sure. Perhaps I'll give it a go if there is a mod that makes it a bit more streamlined though. As always. Good RP-centered article.
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1-09-2008 @ 10:23AM
dAnixx said...
Nice article.
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1-09-2008 @ 12:19PM
onetrueping said...
Does this guy EVER say anything other than promoting his meme page?
1-09-2008 @ 10:23AM
Tirth said...
The whole 'S thing is a little out dated. I have been useing an addon called PetEmote for a while now. Insted of /em for yourself you type /pet and then what you want your pet to say. I love it and joke around with it alot with guildies and when wait'n on those 20m AV ques....lol
http://www.curse.com/downloads/details/3538/
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1-09-2008 @ 10:35AM
David Bowers said...
You did see where I mentioned PetEmote at the end of the second paragraph in the article, I hope. Keep in mind this addon only works for hunter and warlock pets, not for non-combat pets. You type "/pet growls at you", and for anyone using the addon, the emote seems to come from the pet itself ("Wolf growls at you"), but for someone not using PetEmote -- which is most people -- it still looks like the 'S convention ("Isabeau 's pet Wolf growls at you"). Still, it saves energy, and it's a lot more fun than typing all that out every time!
1-09-2008 @ 10:24AM
Charlie Taylor said...
I used to do this all the time when I MUSH'd. There was a complex code built into the game I played that let one take out the spaces where needed, but it's been years so I've completely forgotten it: not that WoW would use any similar code, I'm just rambling really.
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1-09-2008 @ 10:32AM
Pfooti said...
I believe that you meant, 'bares' his teeth, unless there's some weird thing going on where the wolf carries his teeth around on his back.
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1-09-2008 @ 10:39AM
David Bowers said...
Haha! Yeah I did. Thanks for catching me on that! I'll fix it right away.
1-09-2008 @ 11:06AM
Chris Anthony said...
Dentures, sonny. It's nice to have the same pet from 10-70, but after sixty levels those teeth get worn down...
1-09-2008 @ 11:46AM
Duerma said...
Other ways to have your pet emote:
-use of the passive voice (if your pet is doing something to you). For instance, "Duerma is poked by her imp."
- You do something while your pet does something. "Duerma giggles as her imp bites %t on the leg."
My pets have always been extremely active in my warlock's life - she's a narcoleptic, and she has them specially trained to wake her up when she falls asleep. XD
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1-09-2008 @ 12:06PM
David Bowers said...
You can also do something like this:
Duerma 's succubus says, with a smirk, "Is that an Arcanite Reaper in your pocket or are you just tickled to see me?"
Duerma says: "Ugh! Enough with the stupid jokes already."
1-10-2008 @ 12:26PM
Badger said...
Also, while it's not exactly the least cumbersome or most innovative method, my friends and I used to RP 'on behalf of' our pets by using brackets to denote their names.
Two examples:
My Troll Hunter, Marwan, considered his pet tigress, Leilani, his 'little girl.'
Marwan [Leilani] paws at Duerma's feet, starved for attention.
My Human Warlock, Adalrich, used to actually put some effort into training his demonic 'companions' to behave with some semblance of manners.
Adalrich [Zhar'krast] bows respectfully and backs away quietly.
On a totally unrelated note: David, thanks for continuing to share some RP love. I haven't played 'Warcraft' in at least a month (canceled for personal reasons back in December) but your articles always make for great reading for those of us who like to write and RP.
1-10-2008 @ 12:27PM
Badger said...
Also, while it's not exactly the least cumbersome or most innovative method, my friends and I used to RP 'on behalf of' our pets by using brackets to denote their names.
Two examples:
My Troll Hunter, Marwan, considered his pet tigress, Leilani, his 'little girl.'
Marwan [Leilani] paws at Duerma's feet, starved for attention.
My Human Warlock, Adalrich, used to actually put some effort into training his demonic 'companions' to behave with some semblance of manners.
Adalrich [Zhar'krast] bows respectfully and backs away quietly.
On a totally unrelated note: David, thanks for continuing to share some RP love. I haven't played 'Warcraft' in at least a month (canceled for personal reasons back in December) but your articles always make for great reading for those of us who like to write and RP.
1-10-2008 @ 12:29PM
Badger said...
What the hell is up with all these double posts today? I keep getting some stupid error message here at work that says 'Zero sum' or something like that. How annoying!
1-09-2008 @ 11:51AM
Kaphik said...
One of my alts, my 39 Forsaken warrior, I rp her as being psychotic really. Due to circumstances involving her life both before and after the PLague, she's totally insane. Yeah, RP server, so what? I have her Little Red Helper out in battlegrounds, and I rp that the helper tells my warrior who to kill. It started out as a little joke, even got all the pvpers in my battlegroup laughing about it. IU swear though, that since I started doing it, I'm getting a whole lot more kills than I was before!
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1-09-2008 @ 12:01PM
David Bowers said...
That sounds really interesting, but I don't have a clear picture of how it actually works. Can you give us an actual example? Something like this, perhaps:
Kaphik 's little helper tells her to kill Leggolass.
Kaphik says: "What's that little helper? Rip the bowels out of that smarty-pants elf over there? ... Okay! Teehee!"
Kaphik kills Leggolass.
1-09-2008 @ 10:41PM
Sean Riley said...
I had this same idea with a gnome and a Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, togther with a macro for:
/me 's Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, as always, says nothing.
Example:
Gnome: "What? You say I should murder everyone in this room, Kevin? But, that... that would be wrong!"
Gnome 's Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, as always, says nothing.
Gnome: "We couldn't. We shouldn't. We... we shouldn't, of course. We really shouldn't..."
Gnome looks about and fusses with his hands.
I've yet to make this character, for want of funds needed for a Tranquil Mechanical Yeti. :)
1-09-2008 @ 12:08PM
Kaphik said...
Mostly I just have the helper running around with me, bg's get too hectic. Helps to have several hundred snowballs from the past two years stocked up. When people ask about the helper, I tell them that she tells me who to kill. When I've got time, I'll talk to it, or respond to it. Being insane, the conversations are in her head, and therefore only one side is what the others see. It's just for fun, and I'm sure there are some Alliance who see a little tiny red gnome running around and for a second go "wtf?" to themselves. Small disruption like that gives me a slight jump sometimes. :D
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