No Pet battle system for F2P?

[Punnishers]

Q: As a brand new player just getting into World of Warcraft for the very first time, what can I expect?
CS: For one thing, the 100g training cost is going to make it difficult for a new player to get caught up in Pet Battles super-early, and that’s by design, because everyone should learn how to play World of Warcraft first. Having said that, a new alt that can get 100g from another character can start the Pet Battle system at level 5.

Pet Battles Q&A with Cory Stockton - World of Warcraft

And i just got the Singing Sunflower...

 

[Tooh87]

I didn't think it would be. I assumed it was a MoP specific feature. Kind of like how old world flying is a cata specific feature.

 

[solvogero]

Price: Personally i think the 100g is going to change and drop way down (if not at launch, then no later than 1Q2013). The whole Blizz saying "hey, lets make as many play options as possible so players can do whatever they want...but wait, first lets make them do a bunch of PvE (which they might not give a crap about) so that they can then do pet battles (which might be the only thing they give a crap about)"...is just going against their open play-how-you-want theme. What if I, as a paying subscriber, want to jump in with Pet Battles...and then MAYBE PvE (if even no more than to get a few more pets). What about me?

For someone just rolling into WoW, 100g is still a crapload of money when alls you want to do is a bit of c*ck fighting. ... especially considering it takes newbs awhile to even figure out what the AH is (took me to like lvl 30 or something).

MoP specific: yeah, i'd be surprised if they open pet battles to F2P at all. At best (imo of course) you might see it work the way BG's work...where P2P have a stacked set of cards against F2P.

 

[Swoops]

I don't think they want people to jump right into pet battles when they're new to the game though. Something that's just meant to be a fun little diversion from the main gameplay probably shouldn't be easily accessible that early on. 100g isn't very much once you get up around level 60, and its nothing at max level. Starting it at level 5 on your first character could potentially make it feel like too big a portion of the game. Its not meant to be the game, just something else to do in it. People should be exposed to and grow accustomed to the actual gameplay of WoW before something like this.

Their play-how-you-want theme is mostly in the context of core activities in the game, such as gaining your weekly Valor Points from dailies, scenarios, dungeons or other end game activities. Pet battles offer no real meaningful rewards, they aren't meant to be connected with character progression in any way.

 

[flux1]

Pet Battle training is account wide last I heard. So once it is bought on a P2P account it should be active for the whole battle.net account, even F2P. People will be able to confirm this in a few hours to see if it works. If it does and you don't have an active account, you can wait for the pandaria 10 day trial to come around and use it to get training.

 

[Lord_FireHat]

I made a ticket asking about it, a GM told me it will be MoP only and it is not planned to be on free accounts.

 

[Purse]

I'm hoping Thirk will find a way to get access to pet battles for F2P.