Blizzard has drastically shrunk the best boy in World of Warcraft. This is bitter for fans who have played for hundreds of hours to unlock him.
With patch 10.2.6, Blizzard introduced some new features to World of Warcraft. For collectors, one of the most important aspects was the introduction of the large “Meta-Achievements,” which occur more frequently at the end of an expansion. Here, Blizzard demands that you have played through pretty much all the content of the current expansion in detail, enticing you with special mounts and creatures.
For the achievement “A World Awoken,” there is the “Leash of the Good Boy” – that is the Bakar Taivan as a mount.
Only a small fraction of players have been able to earn the Bakar so far – and then he was shrunk by Blizzard.
What is the problem with the mount? Days after the first players had unlocked Taivan, there was suddenly a hotfix. Overnight, the large Bakar shrunk significantly, by about 30%. While Taivan was previously quite impressive, he is now noticeably smaller and not quite as special.
This is particularly frustrating because the achievement “A World Awoken” takes a lot of time. Anyone still needing to complete all the tasks can invest several hundred hours to catch up on all the achievements.
That this reward was suddenly shrunk afterward feels bad for many who worked hard for Taivan. Therefore, the complaints are loud (via reddit).
Why did Blizzard do this? The reason for Taivan’s shrinkage lies in a bug with the animations. Due to the size of the mount, some aspects of the model do not function correctly, resulting in several clipping errors. As a result, Blizzard significantly reduced the size of Taivan.
Will the dog get bigger again? Yes. Blizzard has heard the loud – and very clear – feedback from fans and plans to restore Taivan to his original impressiveness with patch 10.2.7. However, they want to take their time to fix the clipping errors so that the Bakar can afterwards show in full glory that he is simply “the best boy” (via Blizzard).
Who is Taivan? You met the Bakar dog Taivan in the plains of Ohn’ahra if you followed the quest line attentively. Taivan is an especially large Bakar, but initially, he is unsuitable for any task. Bakars have special duties with the centaur. They either help with hunting or herding various livestock. However, Taivan is suited for neither – he is too anxious and playful to be able to perform either task, which frustrates the centaur.
Taivan’s true talent reveals itself as a rescue and therapy dog. Because he helps rescue buried centaurs from the ruins of a city and afterwards warms the heart of a boy who previously did not want to speak to anyone.
Just the quest line was enough for many fans to take Taivan to their hearts – the Bakar who is so different from his brothers and sisters, but whose special behavior makes him just as important.
Have you unlocked Taivan yet? Or is the achievement just too exhausting?
Elsewhere, Blizzard immediately backpedals on a mistake – because they accidentally referred to Sylvanas again with a curse word.
