Purreau's Legacy: The Future of Pets in Pirate101

I was around for the release of Advanced Pets in spring 2010. As a crowns player having bought just weeks before, I was on board with testing, and I hopped onto the bandwagon with overwhelming eagerness towards all the new games and opportunities. As time wore on, the importance and effects of these updates became clear. And now that Pirate101 is mirroring this progression, the outlook towards a similar result is plausible.

Purreau's Legacy

"A good pet is essential to a good wizard," Evan Silver, a Pirate101 and Wizard101 player points out when discussing the subject, "Many quests and dungeons can't be completed anymore without Spell-Proof, Spritely, or Fairy Friend. (...) Pets really have grown their way into the game." These days, hatching with other pets for these kinds of talents is time-consuming and partially based on chance. If one is also looking for a pet to coordinate with what they're wearing, it may take much longer. However, as Evan describes, having a strong pet may give an almost essential leg-up in fights. "Without a perfect pet," he adds on, "It is almost hopeless to be competitive at all in PvP (too)."

That being said, Wizard101 gained much more good than expensive and time-consuming with the addition of Advanced Pets. A whole new branch of the community, considered to be centralized under the now famous Petnome Project, was birthed with this update, and has grown into a large network of trainers and hatchers with some of the most effective pets. At any given time, there will be contests on Twitter for the latest, greatest pets or pet statistics up for hatching-with, and one can be sure that the stakes are high!

"Pets really have grown their way into the game."

-Evan Silver 

The Bestia of the Restia

Spring 2014 launched an update that was both highly requested and expected by the player base: Advanced Pets for Pirate101! Coming with a myriad of new pets an hybrid possibilities, Pirate101's pet community immediately began to grow and blossom at that point. Pets come in all shapes and sizes, actually growing as they age in a training system different than Wizard101's in time and ability, though still making pet snacks a very lucrative selling point.

One of the greatest things about the Advanced Pets update and those following it is that KI has left us with pets hidden away all over the Spiral for us to discover and farm for. Rumor has it that there are hundreds of pets out there, and that we as players have only scratched the surface of the quantity of pets in the Spiral. Do I believe this? Absolutely. While giving players even more of a reason to farm, it also sets a path for the community's both upcoming and finest pet hatchers - now morphers, in P101-speak - to experiment and trailblaze.

A Path Through Which to Weave

This all sounds quite familiar, doesn't it? In the sense of weaving around obstacles on a course, crossing over the most direct path (i.e. Wizard101's additions) at times and upon others making one's own way around things, Pirate101 is executing a different take on a familiar theme. It seems, though, that pets are quickly becoming more and more of importance as time goes on in the game. What will their profoundness be in the next content release? What about the one after?

Should Pirate101 follow Wizard101's actions in this way, then pets are going to get a lot more important. And it looks like it will; Powers, being looked in on, are likely going to become more useful since the extent of attacks (since Pirate101 characters move around) is so complex. As more hybrids and first-generations are being discovered in the game, the number of powers and talents up for the taking will be massive, but it seems that it's getting close to SPUDF time for our swabbies.

"...we as players have only scratched the surface of the quantity of pets in the Spiral. Do I believe this? Absolutely." 

Questioning Necessity

If a good pet is essential to a good wizard, will Pirate101's pets grow so significantly in importance that the lack of those helpful talents will render some challenges (like PvP, but also questing/farming) nearly impossible? In short, we'll have to wait and see. Will Pirate101 try to evade this issue by 'nerfing' pets and their capabilities, or will Pirate101 follow this path? There are lots of opinions to take into consideration, and going in either direction will result in a profound impact on the way pets play into our skirmishes.

Here's looking forward to good talents!