Recently on the wow community council q&a the devs stated that they are toying with the idea of making new holidays and then asked if anyone had ideas to please share them.
My question to you is. What would a battle pet centered holiday look like to you?
Where would it be?
Why is it celebrated?
Who would celebrate it?
How many days would it be?
Would there be activities, rewards, and achievements?
I’d stage the events at various Pet Trainers across all the continents.
May is National Pet Month in the United States which makes a lot of sense since so many animals are born in the Spring, and it’s one of the few months when there isn’t already a holiday on the WoW calendar. January is another gap, between Winter Veil and Lunar Festival, and there are a lot of pet-related holidays during January surrounding responsible pet ownership (probably because so many people acquire new pets at Christmas). Much like Children’s Week, I think it would be interesting to have a holiday event which encourages kindness and care toward our animal friends who are also a very important part of life in Azeroth, from battle pets to Hunter pets to the wildlife that we all interact with in the game.
I think you could have several different kinds of content that might appeal to the player base. Hunters should have their own special quest line that grants a cool new pet, maybe a recipe for special pet treats, or in the very least some pet-related cosmetics. A toy that tosses a ball and your Hunter pet fetches it, for example, would be really fun.
There would need to be content for collecting and battling pets, obviously. One way to do this would be to simply enable the pet trainers around Azeroth as World Quests for that week, granting the opportunity for additional awards for beating them. I’m kind of sad this hasn’t already been implemented during Pet Battle Week anyway, it seems like it would be pretty straightforward to implement and would bring a lot more spice into the event, probably even get people who aren’t normally into pet leveling more interested.
Alternatively, a special trainer could appear who would not only be particularly challenging, you could battle them as many times as you want during the event. They would give a great XP buff and/or the chance to earn more pet charms, cosmetics, or new pets. If there is a mount to be earned, I would suggest a pretty little pony.
There could also be some questing for players who aren’t hunters or battle pet enthusiasts, and I think there’s a lot of room for creativity here. For example, instead of the usual “go kill 4 of X and 8 of Y beasts and return with 12 of Z loots,” players could be sent out to help the beasts and critters of Azeroth instead. You’ll need to protect the bunnies in Elwynn Forest from predation by wolves, toss frogs blown into the Uldum desert by a mysterious storm back into the water (the quest name would be “It’s Not Easy Being Green”, naturally), find and soothe startled pups who were scared off by fireworks in Valley of the Four Winds, etc. If there isn’t some sort of herding cats quest, I will be very disappointed. In gratitude for your services to the pets of Azeroth, you’ll be granted a special title “Friend to the Furries” and a currency for the other event-related rewards.
Another fun bit of content that could be part of the event is the “Gimme Shelter” Achievement, where you gather resources and “rescue” a list of pets around Azeroth in order to build a pet shelter in one of the capitol cities. This could be similar to the Pet Menagerie in the Garrison, but more evergreen.
A week would probably suffice, since this feels like a Pet Week similar to Children’s Week. If Blizzard wants to make it last for a fortnight or even a whole month, though, I wouldn’t object.