"Odds are if you quit over a change then you were already unhappy with the game and were looking for an excuse to quit."

/QFT

Pet Collar? If you are referring to giving hunter's pets a collar that is socketed that would be an awesome idea. I don't play my hunter anymore but having hunter pet itemization would be a great idea.

Well, we spent the money to get the gem, arranged for a priest and shaman and spent almost an hour trying a few weeks back but with no luck. With the plan to try again when time permits in the guild. I'm glad I read this now. I'll tell them not to bother. But the question is. Did they take out the ghost wolves that got tamed during the apparent *bug* period ? Fortunately our hefty gold amount went on the pattern for the gem so not a total loss but I dread to think how the hunter that wanted it will feel knowing this.

You couldn't tame the Ghost Wolf without the benefit of a meta gem, a shaman in your group who is level 70 (bloodlust/heroism) and if you can get a priest to MC that would be helpful. At the minimum you need a 200g meta gem, a meta gem socketed item to put it in (I don't think you can get that before level 66 at the earliest) and one level 70 friend willing to come to the swamp and wait for your meta gem to proc so he can pop a ten minute cooldown ability.

If you arranged all that, went there, spent the night trying and failing and only then found out that the ability to tame the thing had been taken out, you might be irritated enough to consider quitting.

I stand corrected then. My point was more that the only reason I could understand someone would quit WoW over the unavailability of the ghost wolf was that he planned on leveling a hunter just to get it, which I might have a found a bit excessive.

@6
No offense, but that just means you haven't been able to adapt to the changes. I still beat hunters all the time on my mage. It just has to be done slightly differently than before.

As everybody else is saying, things come and go with the game. That's kind of the whole point of paying the subscription fee. They'd have to really eff it up (a la Star Wars Galaxies) for people to be able to justify quitting over the tweaks that they make IMHO.

Yeah fair point.

Like some of the other comments mentioned, it's about fun. Straw that broke the camels back etc.

There's just something about hunters autoshot/pet damage for pressing nothing (boosted vs cloth) that really gets to me.

Totally agree with Buuty.

Blizzard said one thing and then did another. And they did not have to do either. They did not have to say Ghost Wolf tame would stay in game. They could have said we are still thinking about it.

I left SW:G when Sony Online Entertainment treated its players deceitfully and they have not gotten one dime from me since then and never will.

You forgot Strike 4: The original thread with the blue post stating they would remain tameable strangely disappeared.

Well put, Buuty. I just want to emphasize that it was the stealth hotfix that made this so insulting. A hotfix for something that didn't make a difference of one health point?

Once upon a time a paladin could get an extra swing on the their next attack when they received a critical. For each critical. Don't attack, just let the crits add up. When Blizzard realized that paladins could get in a duel, for hours, and recieve hundreds of criticals, then walk up to a boss and throw hundreds of attacks in one swing, that was worthy of a hotfix. How does the Spirit Guide puppy compare to one-shotting bosses?

Hunters invest a lot of time, effort, and emotion into their pets. Breaking a promise, hiding it, and lying about it afterwards is pathological. Coupled with the emotional investment that goes into pets and that it had to be hotfixed like something that was massively overpowered, it feels vindictive. And it sure did feel like they lied about the reason for the change, because there are rotting undead bears, wolves, and boars. How can a Spirit Guide be less of a fit with hunters than rotting undead?

What's next? That's the real problem. Should I worry my Auberdine ghost cat will go away? Should I believe anyone from Blizzard if they say I can keep that pet?

Changes happen all the time. I don't envy the job of trying to maintain the classes, races, talent trees, and gear in balance. Blizzard has done a fairly good job of communicating those changes, but if vendictive and pathological is how things will be done from here out, you can bet people will leave in droves.

Some things are 'in the next patch' rather than 'hotfix' because they are more likely to introduce bugs and therefore they need to go through a full testing cycle (and put out on the PTR etc) before release, not just because someone thinks they're less important than other things.