World of Warcraft Housing has finally answered one of Azeroth's most important questions.
How many animals can you reasonably keep in one property before somebody needs to call a professional?
Apparently:
125.
Patch 12.1 has activated Pet Beds for Player Housing, allowing players to place up to
100 companion pets inside their house and another 25 outside. Blizzard confirmed the greatly expanded limits in its live Curse of Ula'tek Housing update.
And because World of Warcraft players can never be trusted with reasonable boundaries, you do not even need to own 125 different pets.
The same companion can be assigned to multiple Pet Beds.
So yes.
If you have ever wanted to come home to an alarming quantity of identical murlocs, the technology has arrived.
Pet Beds Are Finally Live in Patch 12.1
The basic system is wonderfully straightforward.
Place a Pet Bed decor item somewhere in your house or on your exterior plot, interact with it and select one of your eligible non-combat companion pets.
Indoor pets have two behavior settings:
- Stationary, where the pet remains around its assigned bed.
- Roaming, where it can wander around the surrounding interior.
Outdoor pets are currently limited to Stationary mode, although they can still perform their normal idle animations.
A small number of companion pets cannot currently be assigned to Housing, but most of the collection is available.
This is considerably more ambitious than putting a decorative cat model next to the fireplace.
These are your actual collected pets becoming part of the house.
The Limit Is 100 Inside and 25 Outside
The most surprising part is just how generous Blizzard has been with the limit.
Earlier Patch 12.1 development notes originally described much smaller limits of 10 indoor Pet Beds and five outdoors. By the time the system reached its current form, Blizzard had increased those limits dramatically to
100 indoors and 25 outdoors.
That means a fully committed player can display 125 companion pets across the house and exterior plot.
At that point you are no longer decorating.
You are running a sanctuary.
Possibly an unlicensed one.
You Can Use the Same Pet More Than Once
This is where the feature goes from sensible collection display to something much more interesting.
You can assign the
same companion pet to multiple Pet Beds.
You do not need twenty copies of a pet to place twenty of them.
One collected pet is enough.
That immediately opens up some deeply irresponsible decorating possibilities.
A hallway lined with identical cats.
A garden defended entirely by baby dragons.
An entire room populated by one particularly unsettling battle pet.
Or, as players discovered during PTR testing, enough Egberts to create a poultry-based containment problem. Wowhead specifically noted that duplicating pets across beds works with the system.
World of Warcraft Housing was always going to become strange.
It has simply happened faster than expected.
Indoor Pets Can Actually Wander Around Your Build
The roaming option may ultimately be more important than the raw pet count.
Housing can look impressive in screenshots while still feeling strangely lifeless when everything is static.
Pets help solve that.
Blizzard developed navigation technology specifically so assigned companions can move through decorated interiors rather than simply standing on a predefined spot forever.
That means your house can now have movement happening naturally in the background.
A pet wandering past the fireplace.
Something small disappearing behind a chair.
A creature you forgot you owned suddenly walking through the room at 2 AM.
Immersion.
Yesterday's Secret Pet Suddenly Has Somewhere to Live
The timing is also perfect for collectors.
Players have already discovered Slitherfang, Patch 12.1's hidden pet inside Mythic Altar of Fangs. The secret requires five players to perform a ritual involving hidden items after the dungeon's bosses.
Now Slitherfang does not have to disappear into the collection interface immediately after you obtain it.
You can bring it home.
Or apparently bring it home 37 times.
That is progress.
Housing Is Starting to Feel Less Like a Furniture Editor
When we first covered
Patch 12.1's Housing Blueprints, pets were one of several upcoming additions alongside saved and shareable layouts.
Now that Pet Beds are actually live, the feature makes more sense as part of Blizzard's larger Housing direction.
Blueprints make homes easier to create and share.
Decor makes them personal.
Pets make them feel occupied.
And allowing as many as 125 of them means Blizzard has clearly decided that tasteful restraint is a problem for the player to solve.
Good.
This is World of Warcraft.
If somebody has spent twenty years collecting tiny dragons, spectral cats, miniature demons, robots, snakes, murlocs and things that appear to have escaped from an alchemist's sink, they should be allowed to put them somewhere.
Patch 12.1 finally provides that somewhere.
Just remember:
100 pets indoors.
25 outside.
And apparently absolutely no requirement that any two of them be different.
The housing endgame has begun.
And it has fleas.
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