10/31/2019
Today we will be launching a new poll asking for your help in prioritising a series of new pets. These pets are all focused on areas of the game that don’t already have associated pets: things like Clue Scrolls, Player-Owned Ports and minigames.
Our plan is to launch six, and your votes will help decide which content they’ll be bundled with. Once we know what the top six categories are, we will kick off a competition. You, the community, will get the chance to flex your creative muscles and design your dream pets.
But that’s for another day. This blog aims to dive into the different poll options so you know what you’re getting from each. Let’s do this!
While you are skilling or participating in combat within a given area you will have the chance to unlock an ‘area pet’. For example, if you are Hunting golden warblers, you will have a chance to gain the area pet for the Kharidian Desert.
Rather than have a unique pet for each continent, we would likely do something similar to the Lorehound: a base pet with region-specific accessories. Gaining the area pet will count towards Jack of Blades-style achievements, but you can try to gain all of the accessories, should you fancy it.
When you complete a challenge, there will be a random chance of gaining a challenge pet. Since this limits the player to one chance a day (although we are looking at removing ‘Recommended Challenges’ in the near future), we‘re looking for other ways that a player could gain the pet. This might include a better chance to drop when completing consecutive challenges, or a ‘pet challenge’ from Fara that only rewards a roll on the pet table.
Whenever you complete a Clue Scroll step, there will be a chance of gaining the Clue Scroll pet. This chance will increase based on the difficulty of the clue that you are doing. Ideally, this pet would be dyeable. That’s something we’d need to look into, and is not guaranteed.
While you are participating in one of the many Distractions and Diversions, you will have a chance of gaining the D&D pet. This will vary different per D&D.
Rather than have a unique pet for each D&D, we would likely do something similar to the Lorehound: a base pet with accessories related to the most popular D&Ds. Gaining the basic pet will count towards Jack of Blades-style achievements, but the hardcore among you can collect all their accessories, too.
Whenever you participate in a temporary piece of content, you will have a chance of unlocking this pet. ‘Temporary piece of content’ encompasses Double XP Weekends, time-limited events, seasonal events, Winter Weekends, The Beach, Mental Health Awareness Week and more. The pet will not be available outside of these events.
Whenever you gain gold from an in-game combat or skilling activity, you will have a chance of unlocking this pet. This would not include player trades, alching or selling on the GE.
We are playing around with an idea that the pet might change or grow based on the amount in your cash stack. This change would happen on summon.
Very much like the D&D pet, while you are participating in one of the many minigames, you will have a chance of gaining the minigame pet. The chances of gaining the pet will be different per minigame.
Rather than have a unique pet for each minigame, we would likely do something similar to the Lorehound: a base pet with accessories related to the most popular minigames. Gaining any minigame pet will ‘count’ in terms of Jack of Blades-style achievements, but the hardcore collectors among you can try to accrue all the accessories.
Very simply, this would be gained randomly whenever you participate in a Player-Owned Farm or Ranch Out of Time activity that gives XP. We recognise that there are some edge cases (can you get it from Magic Beans?) and we would examine them thoroughly.
On the completion of any voyage, you would have a chance of gaining the Player-Owned Ports Pet, with a lower drop rate for failed voyages. If we deem this to be too time-gated, we would look at other things in the Ports area (including Meg, the random events, and more) that could drop the pet.
Similar to the area pet, this would be a pet gained when doing actions over a seasonal period, like Christmas, Halloween, and Easter. These actions would be limited to anything that could also gain you a Skilling, Combat, Activity or Boss Pet. You would not be able to gain this pet outside of the holiday seasons.
This would be a single pet that changes according to the season. You would not need to gain the pet at Christmas to unlock the Christmas variant: it would change automatically.
We need to explore this pet a little further, but we imagine that there would be a chance of gaining it while performing certain actions in the Wilderness. There would be a good chance of gaining the pet from any PvM combat or skilling activity, and this chance would likely be multiplied according to the depth of the Wilderness that you are in.
There would also be a chance of gaining the pet from player-killing in the Wilderness – again, this would be multiplied according to the depth. We would look into including further chances to get the pet in PvP minigames like Clan Wars.
Unlike the other pets on this list, which are gained randomly, the Pet-of-Pets would be unlocked automatically if you ever gain all of the Boss, Skill, Activity and Combat Pets at once. You wouldn’t have to maintain this one: it would be with you forever once unlocked.
As always let us know what you think and make sure to have your say, the poll is live now!