Hunters are getting a special treat in the next World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands. Blizzard intends to increase the size of the stables, making it so that Hunters can keep more pets in their collection.
“To prepare for the fight ahead, all hunters will have their stable size significantly increased to hold many companions, including the new creatures they discover and tame in the ethereal wilds of the Shadowlands,” Blizzard writes during their announcement. Essentially, the developers announced in their class updates earlier that there would be more room for pets in the stables, with a full page coming. A whole page means that players have access to ten more pets, bringing the total number of pets that can be kept in the stables up to 65.
Obviously, gameplay-wise, this seems a bit unnecessary on the surface. Hunters can only have one pet active at a time, so why does anyone need more than five dozen pets?
More than anything, this is due to a collection mindset over anything else. Sometimes, hunters will want to have several pets so that they can have one for specific situations – some pets are better at tanking than others, some do more damage, and so on. Others also have access to abilities that some don’t have, so it’s more than worth it to have several pets to make sure you have the tools you need for whatever job is coming up.
But sixty-five? Obviously you won’t be running into sixty-five different issues out there, but that doesn’t mean you won’t want that many pets. Many players end up socially attached to the animals they tame in the same way that we do in other games, like always keeping your first Pokémon in your party no matter what else you get. It’s a common thing for players to keep pets they were attached to in their stables instead of abandoning them, which can make it fill up quickly.
Of course, plenty of others rack up pets out of an interest in having as many as possible. It may be something as deep as wanting to tame an animal that eluded them previously or that they spent hours struggling to down and now they want to keep it as a memory, or it could be something as simple as thinking a new animal looks cool.
With every expansion, dozens of new tameable animals are added into the game, and if the stables don’t grow then players are forced to abandon pets they like. It’s great to see that Blizzard is adding in more pet slots to keep players happy, as it really is just a harmless feature that only serves to increase the enjoyment some players get out of the game without negatively harming anything else.
