If have spent any appreciable time in the Outlands, especially in Shattrath City, you have likely seen them alongside a hunter. If you have spent time in Dustwallow Marsh since patch 2.3, you have likely fought them. The Grimtotem Spirit Guides, also known as the Ghost Wolf, was discovered post 2.3 to be tameable if you could get your tame beast spell down so it took less than the 7.5 seconds they lasted for. Blizzard was asked if this was within the scope of acceptable behaviour, and a CM replied that yes, it was fine, the Devs had talked it over and found it to be acceptable, and as well a fun and ingenious way to get a unique pet. To quote my fellow hunters: They lied.
The reaction around the WoW Blogosphere has been plentiful, fast, furious and accusatory on this topic. There have been some posts that have been purely informational, most have been full of anger, suspicion, and frustration at the decision Blizzard made. To me, this looks like a CM said it was all fine, so that hunters would not be making a land rush to the marsh, while Blizzard tried to decide if this was really ok. A couple of bloggers pointed out a few definitive side effects this controversy will have. 1. Do not trust the CMs, for they have no true information, cannot speak to or for the developers, and have no authority. 2. Do not trust Blizzard, because "it's fine, it won't change" has now been proven to be a lie, and if they will lie repeatedly(remember all, the Serpent taming lies of 2006) how can we possibly trust them now?
Here is what I think Blizzard needs to do, right now, and as quickly as they can. They need to acknowledge the hunter community with something other than placating and 'you're SOL' type responses. They need to bring back the spirit guide as tameable, even if they remove it in a later patch *with forewarning* so that hunters will not have spent hundreds of gold to get one only to be left in the dark. They need to have a respected person, who has not been shown to have lied blatantly to the community in the past, to address the community and make guarantees about what will happen in the future in regards to issues that are in discussion, instead of feeding us lies like we had here. They also need to guarantee the model of the ghost wolf will not be removed or changed.
As a Hunter, I was not planning to get a Ghost Wolf. They look cool, but I do not play my hunter enough to justify the cost, and I am already leveling one lower level pet(the white owl in Felwood) and do not need another. As the point has been made, though, they are a unique way to express your hunter dedication and whenever someone saw a player with one, they would know that hunter spent a lot of time and money to get that pet, not to mention the effort required to get their pet to level 70. If Blizzard does not do these things now, then I see no or little chance that their CMs, Devs, or representatives will be trusted for a very long time. These are the kinds of mistakes that will give an opening to other games to steal away huge chunks of the playerbase.
Ameland, Level 70 Night Elf Hunter
Traluun, Level 41 Draenei Hunter
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