Hey all,

In this blog, we wanted to talk about some changes we’re planning to make to the Activity Pets update. Plus, there's a competition in which you could win six months of membership - and get your pet design in-game!

For the uninitiated, on October 30th we launched an Activity Pets poll. This included 12 options for pets, covering non-skilling and non-combat activities, like Clue Scrolls and minigames. Our intention was that the top six options would be selected and then moved to a player competition, where the most artistic of you would design the pets.

When we launched the poll, however, feedback suggested that the update was not wanted by all of you, and that our efforts should be focused on other changes, such as improvements that are already needed for existing pets (like making established pets into overrides). You also said that you had played the attached content already, and didn’t want to play it again. Plus, we’re RuneScape, not PetScape – we have added a significant number of pets in recent months, and a player only has the ability to showcase one pet at a time, after all.

While these opinions aren’t necessarily shared by everyone, we were still surprised about the number of negative posts.

Rewinding back four months, the biggest reason that we greenlit Activity Pets was that it could be developed almost entirely by an external art studio. By working with this external partner on an art-focused update, we could add additional updates to the release schedule at a time when you’ve been calling for more. We could get ahead of ourselves and then stay ahead, which would improve the quality and quantity of 2020’s updates. Also note that we are planning to work with this studio on a few other projects, like area remasters and rewards.

Taking all of that into account, we have therefore decided on the following changes:

We plan to reduce the number of pets down to four, so that the update takes up a smaller proportion of the external studio’s time. This will hopefully also reduce the PetScape criticisms.

Three of these will come from the top options from the poll (Clue Scroll, Area and Moneymaking pets), since they were notably more popular than the other options.

We’re also adding a Runescore Pet, which came from a very popular player thread at the time of the poll. This would not be an RNG pet, and would instead represent Runescore progress, which goes some way to addressing the ‘I don’t want to play the content again’ criticisms.

We feel the pets listed are the cream of the crop, and will be exciting for players who were positive about the update.

Next, in the same update we want to address your issues with pets in general:

We will be looking to make a number of existing pets into overrides (including some headliners, like Eddy). This includes exploring whether there is interest in creating 'generic' attack, defend, death and other animations that could be applied to all pets that currently don't act as overrides.

We will be canvassing you for other quality-of-life improvements that we can make to pets at the same time. Please do send us your ideas for improvements on the forums, Reddit, Twitter etc. We feel this is a wiser use of our time than making a wider range of pets.

Your feedback about PetScape has been heard, and we will be extra vigilant about adding pets as rewards in the future. We have seen several threads that have offered alternative cosmetics to pets, and we’re paying close attention. We will also look to bolster the other updates that we will develop with the external studio, particularly as they have come out high on the Annual Survey (which gives you a little hint of what they might be).

We'd love to bring one of your designs into game! Please send us your concepts for any of the four pets. It doesn't matter how good your drawing is - we're looking for creative ideas more than artistic talent. We can't wait to see what you come up with.

We'll pick our favourites from your designs, and the you will all be able to choose from a group of finalists! The winners will get six months of free RuneScape membership. For all the details on how to submit your ideas, please check out this forum thread.

We wanted to thank all of you who gave us feedback on the launch of the poll. Hopefully you will see that next year’s updates are improved because of it.

Yours pet-ulantly,

Mod Osborne