Cosmetic Pets for all Classes

[twilight07]

As the title suggests some of us thought it would be fun for the other classes to have cosmetic pets too. Here's some ideas that were brought up in relation to it:

non-combat pet hobby. I think a seperate topic for it should be made.


It doesn't matter if it's supported by lore or not. Having a non-combat hobby pet would fill the need for all. Hunters could take the hobby up, get a falcon, and carry it around if they want.

Burgs could have their foxes or snakes. All sorts of possibilities would open up, for all crowds, and no one is forced into having it or not.

if your worried about the number of pets then how about this:

a) They are rare drops
b) They are BoA

Possibly festival items like the snowglobes, except BoA. I think there's some merit to a limiting system like this.
Maybe have to complete a quest chain (like rescuing a kitten in a tree, or tending the broken wing of a sparrow), to be fair to LMs who did it, in order to even use a pet.

Seriously, I like the idea of linking it to some deed or questline so the people who want the pets need to work for them like the LM and his various quest for his non combat freinds. Limit it to one pet per toon so the LM still has a benefit of having multiples.

Just had an thought. Just like the minstrel can teach some one to play an instrument, make part of getting a non-combat pet something a LM has to be involved with.

Some possible pets to work for (besides the existing ones):
- Hunting Dog (That resembles a wolf? )
- Hawk
- owl
- falcon
- boar

[IronVortex]

This has been brought up quite often recently. I personally wouldn't mind it, and would enjoy having a cosmetic pet, if not only for bragging rights.
Needless to say, I think this topic should be relagated to one thread, as there are over three if I'm not mistaken.

[Faildir]

/signed

[Deaphret]

Make getting the non combat pet as difficult or even harder than the LM non combat pets is a must or you are nerfing the LM.

Linking this to a pocket item might be an idea. You can summon your pet only when you have the item equiped and there would be a cooldown timer between summons. This would be another way to limit the number of non combat pets running around.

Truthfully, after the novelty of them wears off, you would not see that many of them just like now i hardly ever see the LM non combat pets.

[kujayhawk7637]

Make getting the non combat pet as difficult or even harder than the LM non combat pets is a must or you are nerfing the LM.

Linking this to a pocket item might be an idea. You can summon your pet only when you have the item equiped and there would be a cooldown timer between summons. This would be another way to limit the number of non combat pets running around.

Truthfully, after the novelty of them wears off, you would not see that many of them just like now i hardly ever see the LM non combat pets.

another idea i posted in another thread. maybe make it a necklace item (since the lms have to give that up if they want a skin for their pet) and give a small debuff to the player when the pet it out. EX: +5-10% miss chance for hunters, -5-10% healing output for minstrels, -5-10% threat generation for guardians, etc.

[Stormcrafter]

/Signed hehe, would be nice to have others running around.

But Wolves... no. I want one, I do, but no -- I've asked before, and the Devs told me that it breaks lore since wolves are 'evil creatures'

And as for skins for LM pets, I always use a skin... and I keep a good necklace. There's a reeeaaallly easy way around it that a lot of people seem to overlook! The necklace only needs to be on when you summmon the pet.
So,
Put on necklace.
Summon pet.
Put on normal necklace.

Presto, pet skin AND a good necklace

[Belwin]

honestly, i think only LM's should get pets.

[DarquePervert]

honestly, i think only LM's should get pets.

I concur.

Although the Captain's lackey could be considered a pet.

[Khafar]

We had "cosmetic pets" in alpha for awhile. They were removed because they were a performance issue (both in terms of the server having to do the pathing AI for them, and in terms of lower rendering performance because they nearly doubled the number of player-controlled entities on the screen). When LMs and Captains have them, you're talking about maybe 1 player in 5 with a "pet" (heralds count for this purpose). Allowing everyone to have a pet is very different, performance-wise, and having a pet is a class perk for those two classes.

I don't expect that's changed since then, and I don't really want for places like the 21st Hall to be even more laggy because of "cosmetic pets". However, there's one type of cosmetic pet I would like to see: house pets. Their performance impact would be minimal because they'd only be active when you were inside your own house, and it would be great fun to have a house pet there to greet me whenever I went home. Not just a mouse, either - I want a nice big friendly dog.

Khafar

[arinthros]

Make getting the non combat pet as difficult or even harder than the LM non combat pets is a must or you are nerfing the LM.

I play a 60 LM and srsly, it's not that hard to get pets. You do a quest to unlock the ability, then you get some pages. You can either get em in groups (used to drop in the Rift frequently), or on AH for about 1g. The only tough one is the sparrow, because you need Kindred with elves. But everyone can do that, not just LMs.

It's not a nerf to give everyone cosmetic pets. Combat pets, maybe different, but that idea (and cosmetic pets) are discussed in my thread HERE
the performance factor is also mentioned there, but there was no Dev response to verify the feasibility of the idea. Maybe the tech has changed enough to allow it now, I'm not sure.

[Thrandiul110]

A dog or cat is one thing, (we already have several pets as house items too!) but going to a hawk/hunting dog/etc. is just plain ridiculous. It's not about lore, it's about realism. And in no way is it realistic to see characters walking around with hawks, turtles, pikachu, etc.

[arinthros]

It's not about lore, it's about realism.

Well so much for the Balrog and most of the game. This is based on a Fictional novel that has elements of realism, but is not real.

It's all about the lore (well, RKs aside). There's nothing in the lore that says people don't have pets.

Examples: There are Dourhand Falconers. They trained the falcons to be 'bad'. No reason why someone couldn't train a falcon to be 'good'. Same with a hawk, or a hunting dog. Huskies aren't wolves, but they look similar. Therefore, you can have a husky, but not have a wolf, but make it look similar.

This is perfectly reasonable.

[Thrandiul110]

We aren't talking about Rune-keepers or even the rest of this game, so please stop talking about that. It was my opinion we were talking about cosmetic pets and how THEY relate to lore, not the rest of the game.

I completely understand like a trained dog or cat, but really "lore-wise" a lore master is the only one who has a deep enough connection with nature to summon something like a turtle. And note, I'm talking about lore as it pertains to pets, I have never said anything about rune keepers or the rest of this game, I don't know where you got that, as I thought we were talking about the idea of cosmetic pets.

[arinthros]

We aren't talking about Rune-keepers or even the rest of this game, so please stop talking about that. It was my opinion we were talking about cosmetic pets and how THEY relate to lore, not the rest of the game.

I completely understand like a trained dog or cat, but really "lore-wise" a lore master is the only one who has a deep enough connection with nature to summon something like a turtle. And note, I'm talking about lore as it pertains to pets, I have never said anything about rune keepers or the rest of this game, I don't know where you got that, as I thought we were talking about the idea of cosmetic pets.

Falcons, Hawks, Hounds, Serpents, Turtles, Monkies and many many many more animals are kept as pets by people IRL. So it's perfectly real as well as fitting in with the lore. I'm not suggesting that all of these need to be opened up to all classes. I'm saying that it is a perfectly legitimate suggestion, and the only potential drawback is performance (again, need Dev response to verify this).

[pictish1210]

this sounds awesome dude. I would have a wolf or wolverine or somthing cool follow my champ around. PETS ARE NOT JUST RESERVED FOR UPTIGHT LORE MASTERS:] OTHER CLASSES WILL HOPEFULLY GET OUR COSMETIC PETS TO!!!

[Subversounds]

There are ways to avoid lag in crowded areas when you add a pet to each car... if you try to summon your comestic pet in the 21st hall a message you appear:

"Pets are not allowed here"

or you try to summon inside Breetown, the same message.

And as posted in another post, put Pet as a Hobby that you have specific places to 'make them appear' and they are always showing in your house if you have a specific house object. And many lag issues would be avoid.

And for the 'realism part', training a dog is way more simple then training a hawk or a boar. So for me only dogs and cats for the start.

there are MMOs around with even dragon pets that you can level and fly around. just to note.

[twilight07]

A dog or cat is one thing, (we already have several pets as house items too!) but going to a hawk/hunting dog/etc. is just plain ridiculous. It's not about lore, it's about realism. And in no way is it realistic to see characters walking around with hawks, turtles, pikachu, etc.

Realism? Realism?! You honestly want to throw that out there? In a fantasy story? \o/

Okay, yeah, ME is heavily based on what could happen in RL with addition of things that can't. (Dragons, Elves, Hobbits, Wizards, etc etc) But really, how is it not realistic to have a hunting dog, or hawk or whatever? I would think that when folks hunted in ME they would sometimes use the aid of animals like people in RL do.

And once again, we are not asking for ridiculous pets here. (Pikachu? honestly. ) We are not asking for dragons, drakes, balrogs, or any other completely off the wall pet. I even relented on the wolf thing, as I realize in Tolkien's world they are evil.

Likely what sort of animals would appear are the ones that LM's already have (cosmetic ones). Or limit it to some of what they have. Or have the pets be similar to what LMs have within reason. (Like I agree, no turtles. )

Really, the ONLY problem would be if it effected performance. And we don't know if there'd be the same problems today as there were in the time Khafar mentioned.

[Khafar]

And we don't know if there'd be the same problems today as there were in the time Khafar mentioned.

Maybe not with 100% certainty, but it's pretty certain that this would still be an issue. They're still debating whether to allow 14 texture "batches" per avatar instead of 13 (so that they could do things like give us hair with our helms). The reason is performance, and if they're worried about an 8% increase in batches, I'm pretty sure they'd be more worried about cosmetic pets (which not only have textures, but also bandwidth implications, server pathing AI performance issues, etc).

I'd still like more choices for house pets, though, with some fun animations and behaviors for them. That's not likely to be a performance problem unless you tons of people in your individual house (a rare occurrence, if it happens at all).

Khafar

[arinthros]

Maybe not with 100% certainty, but it's pretty certain that this would still be an issue. They're still debating whether to allow 14 texture "batches" per avatar instead of 13 (so that they could do things like give us hair with our helms). The reason is performance, and if they're worried about an 8% increase in batches, I'm pretty sure they'd be more worried about cosmetic pets (which not only have textures, but also bandwidth implications, server pathing AI performance issues, etc).

I'd still like more choices for house pets, though, with some fun animations and behaviors for them. That's not likely to be a performance problem unless you tons of people in your individual house (a rare occurrence, if it happens at all).

Khafar

Floon, are you able to comment on the feasibility of this idea?
I'm not asking for a yes-or-no it will be done, just want to know if it's possible performance, time, and value speaking.

[SpecialFavorite]

I came up with a solution to this problem in another thread on hobbies that could satisfy both needs. It would allow for you to have a pet and to train it but it would only be accessible in certain areas so that we wouldn't get lagged out by hundreds of pets. It would also fix the pathing issues as they could only be brought out in certain, small areas. I will quote myself from the other thread on here.

"As far as the pet training goes, even though the idea of having a dancing monkey follow me around sounds fun, I don't think that it matches in with the lore too well or the overall style of the game. However, even though it is never mentioned in the books, with the Shire folks love of farming and such, I bet they probably had animal competitions. If you could change this pet training hobby into a competitive type of thing, that would be different. The pet doesn't follow you around constantly so we don't have to be annoyed by 100 pets in 21st Hall. But your pet is "always with you" in your hobby button. There can be various competitions. You could have pet races, largest pet, most talented, etc. The hobby could be training your pet and at the times of the festival is when you pay a fee to enter your pet into a specific competition. There could be deeds for winning the competitions or something. When you were training your pet, it would only be able to stay our for a short time or prehaps in a designated "Pet training grounds" in the Shire. This would prevent people from having their pets follow them through Moria. As far as style of pets, they would probably not be able to be very exotic so that it doesn't become a WoW type of thing. They would have to be pigs, chickens, dogs, maybe even a pony or a cow. Farm type of animals that would be realistic for people in Middle Earth to own."

I think that this hobby could be a great addition to the game and solve this pet problem. There could possibly even be more than 1 training ground for different abilities. You could go to trainers in the far parts of the earth to learn how to get faster or something like that. At the festivals, there could be races just like the horse races. You sign your pet up, if you are the only one there, automatic win. Otherwise, the pets take off running while we watch and based on the speed from training and some calculated luck, the best pet wins.

[Thrandiul110]

Floon, are you able to comment on the feasibility of this idea?
I'm not asking for a yes-or-no it will be done, just want to know if it's possible performance, time, and value speaking.

Keep in mind that, having the crazy-busy job Floon does, the likelihood of him giving us such a thing as a possible performance time and value, both of which requires a certain amount of his time, is unlikely. Not because he doesn't care, but probably because they either aren't at this time/never/already implementing this idea/not really thinking about it period. Just saying it's unfair to assume Floon will come on here just to answer our questions

Otherwise, give the cosmetic pets morale bars, and let other players attack our pets! That's REAL realism for ya! (And give them a super-debuff if they kill it, like "I feel guilty -50% damage" )

[Subversounds]

I came up with a solution to this problem in another thread on hobbies that could satisfy both needs.

Well, just to make it clear, your post about it was a few hours ago (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=253343) inside this thread, not a 'new idea'. The debate about cosmetic pet with specific areas and training method was first mentioned here (http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=252935&page=3), but probably was talked before. And then ive made a very similar thread - as users posted many replies to that and i even created a thread to discuss it: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=253727


People even mentioned it exclusively to house to avoid lag or stuff, a kind deep talk about it. Worth reading.

[SpecialFavorite]

Well, while my idea may not have been new to some people, it was a new idea to me. I just started posting on the forums for the first time a few days ago and there was no way I was going to search 51 pages of threads to make sure I saw every idea. Therefore, I thought it over and came up with this idea on my own without any influence from previous posts. So it was a "new" idea.

[floon]

I think we would want to avoid cosmetic pets, for a variety of performance reasons, as well as not giving all nine classes another reason to be irritated at some of the pathing issues.

Pets for houses, we've thought about that. No work has been done there, though, aside from the mouse and the songbird.

[semjaza]

I think we would want to avoid cosmetic pets, for a variety of performance reasons, as well as not giving all nine classes another reason to be irritated at some of the pathing issues.

Pets for houses, we've thought about that. No work has been done there, though, aside from the mouse and the songbird.

I did like those. I definitely would like to see more of them. Even being able to maybe put the fish I catch in a tank would be neat.