rappelz (from gpotatoe)

its in closed beta though

To my knowledge in other MMO experiences nothing touches the old Creature Handler profession.  WoW has the Hunter profession but as a former Master Creature Handler in SWG I compare it as 'flat' compared to what MCH's could do in SWG.   But I did enjoy it.

But as you pointed out its not offered as an Ionic profession in the NGE.  I would like to see it return... remember the creature handler that cired over his Rancor that Luke killed in Jabbas Palace in RoTJ?

I'd be glad to detail my opinion of Hunter in WoW versus CH in old SWG. 

You can only have one pet at a time as a Hunter in WoW.  In SWG you could store alot of pets in your 'data pad' to be called upon.   Making WoW much easier to deal with.  Pets in WoW eat ALOT... where as pets were more easily maintained and fed in SWG.  So dabbling as a cook in WoW is reccomended by me if you are to try out Hunter.

I have tried all the races in WoW that can be a hunter as both Alliance/Horde toons.  The most fun was the Orc and the Troll races to me, followed closely by Dwarf.  In SWG you could field as many as 3 pets and one droid or faction droid (namely AT-ST).  And in my opinion CH was more fun to play than Jedi or Bounty Hunter in SWG. 

In SWG, you could tame pets in the wild or find a talented 'mad scientist' Bio Engineer that could make custom pets.  Custom pets were almost limitless in special attacks and they were in the types of critters a bio engineer could offer.  In Wow you found and trained pets in the wild.

At level 40 you can get a mount in WoW.  But I cant help you with another suggestion for anything out there like CH was in SWG... other than Hunter in WoW.

duct_tape, dont forget how in SWG you could have your pets do /tricks.  I think each pet had 1-3 tricks it could do, and they all looked so cute and funny!  Plus you could /pet your pets, or anyones pet, or other players...    I guess you can still pet other players, eh?

And you set commands for your pet so that they respond to your words.  There were a whole bunch of pet commands, not like in WoW or any other game.  You could set commands so that when you say 'Fluffy, follow that person!' your pet would follow the person you have targetted where ever they go.  I know there were a whole bunch of pet commands, I cant remember all of them now.  I know that you could tell them to patrol though, right?  Hum, what were the other ones?  Oh well.

I play guild wars now...  Ranger.  You cant tell your pet to do anything though.  You cant even tell your pet to attack.  Your pet doesnt attack until you already hit the enemy twice, so a lot of the time the enemy ignores your pet and attacks you because you hit it first.  There are some fun pets in GW though.  My ranger has a bear, and my warrior/ranger and her three heroes all have Black Moa Birds, so there are 4 Black Moas with us whenever I play with my heroes.

I don't think you'll ever find a pet experence that will match early CH. simply finding some of the "rares" and taming them was a game in itself.   Taming was an adventure, going to some out of the way spot, no one around and hunting, busting a nest to see if a baby would spawn.  trying to survive the attacks from the parents  to get to the nest and not aggroing the baby.  THe pure joy of seeing that one in a thousand spawn  then figuring out how you were going to get to it, much less tame it. Ch's would search for days to find a certain pet. Go to the forums, get the latest cords and head out.  It wan't the gear that marked you as a MCH , it was what was in your  data pad, and in the begining that was about how bad you wanted it , skill and luck. Be's marked the end of the old school ch. There where still the rares but it was now easier and better to get a "custom made" pet.

 I still have both in my pad. Heck i still have my 1st mount that a be friend made for me, a bugged bolo, lv1. O yea i admit it , I used the bugged pets.  a lv 1 rancor, my bolo and a 3rd. serious team. And mounts could fight. I called a few of my mounts out the other day. what a shame, lv 61 mount with 12k health doing right under 500 damage, now he just looks at me. even my old commands are still in there, can't  use them but they're there.  stil have little bunny fufu, lol, that was a fun one. little rabbit doing over 500 damage with over 12k health

Nope not going to find a pet system like the ole ch anytime soon. perhaps the new one coming out will be a bit of fun, who knows.

With Chapter 6 they have an Expertise called Beast Mastery. Its a cross between Bio-Engineer and Creature Handler.

Pets are crafted from DNA. IF you still have your old pets in data pad you can Stuff them for display or get DNA from the stuffing. That DNA can be incubated and experimented on to be formulated into an egg. There is also a chance at mutations but its very complicated and little known as of yet. From there the egg can be hatched and it CH like old days prettty much except its only one pet at a time. You get the option to learn pet skills through Creature Knowlege and teach your pet skills. But alas as in all things you are limited by the points you have dedicated to BM and in most cases its a secondary Expertise Profession.

Take it from a former Master Creature Handler. I has a lot of good things going for it. Especially the companionship of your old friends.

I can only echo the sentiments and thoughts of the other oldschool CHs who have posted.

My WoW main was a hunter, as my SWG main was a CH, but hunter in WoW is nothing like CH was in SWG.  Still enjoyable, but not AS enjoyable.  Particularly since WoW went and took away "out" creatures while you're on a mount.  I used to ride around on my dewback with two GSPs trailing behind in SWG.  I'd go hunting for Great Plains Stalker babies with on my trusty dew mount with my gurreck in tow.   If I was lucky, I'd find a GPS and it  would aggro on my dew (not me!) and I'd have to send the gurreck in on the GPS.  Was never fortunate enough to find a baby, though.

BM is a pale imitation of what CH once was.  I saw a level 90 BM rancor on my last vet trial, and it was barely larger than the old rancor (baby) that you'd tame.  All the other "large" creatures were stunted as well; fambaa, kimos, malkloks, torturs, grauls, even giant veermoks.

Then there's the asshattery of mounts storing when you dismount, just like in WoW.  Mounts used to rush to defend you if you were aggroed by rasps or kreetles.  No more.