How the Birthday Minipets should have been done.

The way Anet implemented these is not well thought out in my opninon, they are cool little pets though.

Here is how they should have done it.

• When you type /age you see your characters creation date to the
  day so you know when your birthday is.
  
• When you have a birthday or are a newly created character (thus having a birthday)
  you get a birthday gift box that opens up into a birthday voucher, which you can then
  turn in to an NPC for the pet of your choice.
  
• Each birthday gift is linked to the character slot so that people can not just
  make/delete/make/delete characters for more pets.
  
• The pets would be dyeable
  
• The pet types would be expanded by doubling them for a wider variety.
  
  • Mini Tiger/Panther/Lynx
  • Mini Glint
  • Mini Tengu
  • Mini Devona
  • Mini Whirling Blade mob (from Factions)
  • Mini Bog Scale
  • Mini Bear/Panda
  • Mini Gwen
  • Mini Griffon
  • Mini Moa
  • Mini Naga

This would prevent dissapointment on a day that is supposed to be special. This would also prevent someone from making/getting a ton of minipets via create/delete.

Why Anet didn't do it this way I'll never know.

The pets are character based.

Reading comprehension good sir/madam

Look at my post and the way i think it should have been done, then you'll see why i was saying they need to be character slot based.

Ah, so you think people really will create a character, wait a year to get a pet, and then sell it off for money?

Not to mention the fact that, according to Gaile, 2nd birthday presents will be something far more to behold.

do you know this to be fact?

and what profession gets which?

what should an ele get?

The whole purpose of this being a present is that nobody anticipated it. Nobody knew what they were going to get from the present in their inventory. You asking for birthday vouchers that turn into NPC's from which you can buy the pets of your choice would really ruin the whole element of surprise.

I will agree with you that they should have a greater variety of mini-pets. Though I am not sure if this is a valid request because I am sure there are some mini-pets that no one has seen yet. (some more rare than others)

I don't know if all of this is Gaile speaking, but the bulleted points are.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3021242

By character based, I mean that the birthday presents appear when a character is one year old. The miniatures are random; as far as I know, ANet did not bother creating a formula to determine the pet any profession combination will receive.

The whole point of getting gifts is to get something you like. With the random way anet has done it you end up with that unwanted christmas style gift. You'd like a computer game, people know you want one, you get socks instead. Giving gift certificates is the smarter move and many people do that these days.

Whats this I hear of mini pets? Is this for collectors edition people or anyone? I read that this is a suggestion on and not the real thing, so how does one actually get a pet?

They are given to any and all characters who have are 1 year (12 months) old. When your character turns 12 months old, you get a Birthday Present, which is a wrapped box. You open it, and you are randomly given a mini-pet. You can summon the mini-pet outside of towns, and it will follow you.

being a "surprise gift", it would kinda ruin the suprise. Also its a Gift.

I don't see the need for linking it to character slot (I know you are thinking that way you will get 4 of them...) Its a gift to your Character/toon, and not to your account. So if you "kill" your character by deleting it.. well.. kinda too bad.

But I agree the PvP would get shafted too. I would say A.net need to give us another Account-Based Birthday Gift!

/signed

yea, would be nice to have 2 "birthdays" and i'll mention why.

1 for the "account birthday" where you would get an item/gift that all 4 of your characters can get. and can be obtained by using the /birthday or a similar function much like the /preorder command. this gift would be mainly to show that you're a veteran of the game and the item would NOT be tradeable/sellable as it would just be a means for people to sell them.

and another birthday for the birth of the character, this would be to show that you have kept that character for a whole year.

I don't know about you, but when I have a birthday I generally don't get to pick what I want for it..

Wow this sounds like a direct quote from my half sister, complete brat. The whole point of gift is to show appreciation, not to give you whatever you want. You got something attractive and interesting, a trinket, if your so stuck on a certain gift, then go haggle it off of someone who has it, if you want a different gift that hasn't been made, then suggest it.

Giving gift certificates is the lazy way to get a gift for someone, if you are creative and considerate, you will think of something that person would like instead of buying a gift certificate at a place you know they will shop. And if the receiver is considerate, he will appreciate the gift and the spirit it was given in instead of complain about what he would like to have. Grow UP, no realy, Please grow up.

Just like a child to receive a surprize gift, and then snear and say it isn't good enough. You are the reason they made up the myth about Santa leaving coals in the stockings of bad children, unfortunatly for us, your parents didn't put a few coals in your stocking to teach you a lesson.

love where this thread has gone... it's a video game for crying out loud.. you think anet is gonna sit there and be like "oh, little johnny likes to farm charr... lets give him a Miniature Prince Rurik"...

imho, they did good on the initial idea. although it has been implemented and people have already sold their pets.. so they're not gonna change it.

still /signed on my original post about 2 birthday presents.. 1 account based and 1 character based...

The whole Minipet idea can be extended massibly, but that's not what they intended. They could make you able to learn one spell, they could add Minipet fight, they could add 300 different Minipets, they could add Minipet food, they could add Minipet clothing.

But if that's what you want, why aren't you playing Pokémon?

We get all this cool free stuff that Anet is not obligated to give us, and all people can do is complain. This is as bad as the people whining that they didn't get a Tengu mask cos they weren't online. You sound like spoilt children, just enjoy the game or don't play it.

This is not true at all. There are 12 pets, not nearly enough for every class. When the bug occured on April 27th that allowed you to get a birthday present every time you made a new character, I managed to get every single type on warriors alone.

Do you still get a present if your inventory is full?

Thanks you just proved my point in your condesending, nasty way.

You see Anet can not be "creative" in giving everyone gifts because they do not know what everyone would like. So your "spoiled brat" sister has more brains then you in giving someone a gift certificate so that they can and will get something that they really enjoy, thus showing your appreciation for them by making sure it is something they desire.