Ok, I know Krin has already said he plans on only returning old themes twice... personally i actually don't like that idea, and this post will attempt to explain why.


First, I am not trying to say we should have all the themes each year, that would be its own kind of bad. But I do like the idea of old themes coming back every couple of years, for one simple reason- as the site grows, Krin and Fai are adding lots of cool new genes and mutations to all the different species. As it stands right now, if you want to add some of those new genes, you have to find an un-mated, un-philtered of the theme you want, and use a greater mute on the pet to get the gene you want. While possible, this is expensive and in some cases, just not practical, since there aren't always that many to begin with. By bringing back old themes periodically, that lets the new genes show up in the zone on those themes. Heck, in some cases, even the genes that were out at the time didn't all show up on what was caught, so this is a chance for all those genes to show up again.

By introducing those new(er) genes and mutations to the old themes, it allows breeders to re-do some of their lines and revitalize those old themes. Otherwise the old themes can look kind of stale next to the newer ones with the newer genes.

As a side benefit, if the developement team doesn't have to redo all the pets each year, that can save the site money and them a lot of headaches getting ready for all these festivals, AND the megazone, AND the eventual revamp of the site as a whole.

The way I see it working, each festival, they usually use two sets of themes- the first could be an old theme (preferably from at least 2-3 years back), later joined by a new set of themes. Actually, it would probably be better to have them flipped, so the old theme isn't in the zone the whole time, so there are fewer dropped... but from a practical standpoint that may be difficult to achieve if they are having trouble getting the new themes ready in time.


Beyond the general themes, there are also a couple I would love to see be pretty much regularly back- the ones that have all the pets colored similarly- Festives, Patriotic, Zombie, Tyrriel's Minions... these seem a special case to me. I would actually be happy to see them back in their own spots/conditions on the map each year. This in some cases would make themed legendary pets more accessible to even newbies, and in others like the Festives that are just plain scary scarce, over time give people more chances to find something so vanishingly rare. I would love to see each fest have its own theme like this, actually, each with it's own mechanism for finding it. (Of cours,e this would also assume that some of the main Bosses like Tyrriel and the Horseman would also be re-used each year...)


Of course, the "exclusive" themes, the old Wheel pets, and the newer ones from seeking, etc, those are different, and I would assume would be a once from one festival kind of thing.

Thoughts anyone?

I can't support this I'm afraid. Krin has already laid out plans for what they're doing with themes in the coming festivals and I support that.

Zone themed for the most part are so prevalent it's easy to pick them up and mutate them for new genes if needs be. Having them appear every year would tank the value of tagged and offspring - what's the point of buying them if you can just wait and catch 20 the following year ad finitum. New themes are one of the biggest attractions of festivals, having the same pets would make things stale. Not everyone can get an exclusive/wheel pet, they should at least have the chance to pick up an exciting new theme they like in the Zone every other year. Two years is plenty of time for tagged.

EDIT: Also there must be some credence/perks to having been around a long while to keep the game exciting. Having been around to pick up the relevant themed is one of the perks to keeping active on the site. We have another year to pick up zone themed if we miss them, but there would be no sense of urgency if this suggestion came to light and our old tagged pets would plummet in value. We get the occasional re-release in the form of boss drops, anniversary wheel etc which is a nice touch but just bringing back a surplus of old themes to be caught would be disastrous for the pet economy.

I'm not saying the themes should come back every year, honestly I wouldn't even think every other year.. but we have enough themed already of most of the types out there that we could do this every three to four years at the earliest and still not run out, especially since if you read what I wrote carefully, each festival would have at least one new theme as well. Eventually that would provide a lot of themes available for use.

I also think that although there definitely are some themes that are going for really cheap, there are others that seem rather expensive to me. I guess that's a relative thing. I guess maybe part of this also is I don't think the current obsession with keeping themes "valuable" is all that great for the economy anyway. It sets up an economy where the cool kids have all the cool stuff, and everyone else is stuck with garbage. Its all well and good to say some things should be "exclusive", but that usually is code for omg expensive...

I don't see any urgency to collect most themes now anyway, to be honest. For the exclusive legendary ones yeah, that's different. But the regular themed? Some are relatively expensive but others are dirt cheap. So I honestly don't get where you are getting at with that. If you want to do a project with a theme, you'll collect them. If not you'll try and sell em. That's not just during the festivals, but whenever you decide one way or the other.

And I'll say it again, for some of the rarer themes, not the exclusive ones but just ordinary themes that for whatever reason didn't drop that many, it's not always even possible to find one you can mutate the way you want. IF you can afford it, and the Greater Mutator. That's expensive, and especially for newbie players and those who for whatever reason can't continually invest in diamonds to shore up their accounts, that makes things expensive to even start a project.

And please note... I watched what happened with the Arctic Storm Griffs last winter fest... several times I saw people on chat say they killed one because all it had was an old gene. Just because the Theme is recycled, doesn't necessarily mean we will get over run with them. Themes seem to be dropping less now than they were anyway. I really don't see this as being that much of a problem.

This is definitely an interesting suggestion. I do like the idea of being able to acquire newer traits on older pet themes. Years down the road, eventually we will run out of those unbred, and unmutated pets. I also enjoy getting my new themes every other year and understand Krin and Fai suggestion to retire them. If they don't return for the festivals, what if a special zone is set up for Sylestia's anniversary(once we have a lot of retired themes) and for a day or two you can explore this zone and possibly come across these retired zone themes. Prevents over flooding but also allows for the chance of getting that old theme with a new trait.

I really like Kalores' suggestion. With the anniversary wheel last year, it did allow for some new blood and new traits in the retired wheel pets, but the sheer variety of themes involved, as well as the low drop chance made it so that we weren't overrun with a ton of new pets in every theme either. If we had an anniversary zone that ran like a small fest with any retired theme possible to show up, then the low occurrence, added to the possibility of pets running, and the fact that it could be any theme, would give a chance for new genes, but also keep the pet population from exploding.

I do like the idea of older themes returning in some way even if in small numbers. Like how the fall fest boss last year would drop an egg or I think Jinxie also would give old themes if she was found. It's not many so I don't think it floods the market. At the same time you do get a bit of fresh blood.