I thought I'd make this thread to suggest some ways that pets in certain colours could be released outside of the season or holiday that they're usually restricted to, since the artists don't always have time to draw enough pets to release them all during a holiday, but both them and the users might not like having to wait a whole year (or more) for the next chance for them to be released. I think there has been a decline in the rate at which some colours are released, and there are still some older pets that aren't yet available in certain colours, which always surprises me when they are released because I assumed they were available already.

At the moment, Storm pets are sometimes released outside of Vesnali on Mondays, since Tempest doesn't like Mondays and makes it rain more. Riftborn pets seem to be released whenever even though you would expect them to only be released during Masquerade, but that might be because of the Rift's nature and how it affects time and space. And after we didn't get any new Angelic pets in Winter 2018, someone made a feedback thead about it, and then we had angels as a monthly theme last August, where we got several new Angelic pets and revamps, which was well-recieved. I recently made a feedback thread about not getting at least one new Graveyard pet this survival in the hope that some could be released during Morostide, or there could even be a way to release them before that. And one of the staff said they are planning on releasing some new pet colurs off-season, and I thought this suggestion thread could help with it not seeming too out-of-place.

So anyway, here are my ideas:

Monthly themes: These don't necesarily have to directly relate to the colours themselves like the August 2019 theme did. They could relate to the lands that the colours are associated with, or to things that the colours could loosey tie in with. For example, a theme to do with sweets/candy could bring some more Sweetheart pets outside of Survival, and a theme to do with the Omen Islands could have some new Hydrus pets released outside of Keel Hauliday (and I have another idea for Hydrus that I'll bring up soon). There could also be monthly themes based on specific pets, or types of pets, that get some new colours during that month.

Weekend quests: For something that gets a news post every time, the weekend quests don't really seem that exciting unless it's the Wizard or Saggitarius, or maybe Pete or Carl since they can give rare items (I heard Quentin can give out subq items but it's very rare). But I thought maybe during those weekends, there could be a chance of certain pet colours being released, like Graveyard pets when it's Quentin, Darkmatter pets when it's Maleria, Nostalgic or Steamwork when it's Cinthia, and others that I can't think of right now. This goes for pet types as well, maybe when the Wizard is the Weekend Quest, there could be a chance of a new colour for the Kumos or other Sacred Lands pets, Ontras for when it's the Library, and maybe the dragon pets when it's Saggitarius.

Opposite colours: The seasons are different in different parts of the world than they are in the US or Europe. So maybe some pet colours relating to a certain season could be released in the opposite season for people who live in those other parts of the world.

Merana on the map: This might be hard to do since I think Merana is programmed to appear randomly, but since she's there for 12 hours at a time, maybe any new Hydrus pets that have been ready to release for a while could be released while she's available?

If anyone else has some ideas, feel free to share them.

Oh, and this goes for revamps too.

No support.

These are some creative ideas. I don't think the staff responsible for their release suffers from a lack of imagination. I don't think Subeta is unaware that having more pet colors is fun.

I don't think we have enough of an art staff to make this Suggestion relevant. Pets get released when they get released because we don't have hundreds of people drawing tons of pets and all these images are waiting just for release.

I have some strong opinions regarding pets vs. subeta but I'll keep my soapbox to myself (because it's a big one and who doesn't get tired of talking to, or yelling at,a brick wall) but I will say I would LOVE to see more pet colors released throughout the year, regardless of their "season" but my expectations would be slim to none. If staff artists got the drive to knock out ten angelic pets today, then in their season we'd actually get ten released (disclaimer: I have no idea if there's ten angelic pets left to be drawn, it was just the first color that came to mind). Considering we rarely get more than one or two pets a season, it leads to one of two reasons:

1. there's not that many species/color combos left, and of those see number two.
2. there's no desire/time to draw the species/colors left so there's nothing to be released regardless of the season.

I know sub is running on a skeleton crew these days, and I would absolutely love to see something happen that brings in enough revenue for us to see more pets/plots/items/etc, so something regarding more pet combos could become a reality. I'd die happily on a hill knowing that existing colors are finally DONE and staff could create new fun special posed colors to tie to events (new or existing); I'd love to live in the world where we got a sleek cyberpunk color to counter steamwork, but yeah.

I say all that to basically say, realistically I don't see releasing colors throughout the year would help. Regarding special poses and whatnot.

However, I DO like the idea of month themes (or quarterly, perhaps) regarding pet colors and the concept of weekend quests.

Not for existing colors, but for new base colorfills; which would, in theory, be easier for a smaller staff to manage.

I have long wanted more colorfills in more simple colors and more aesthetically pleasing color schemes?? Instead of white/black/pinks and shades of red/orange/accent blue... just a stand alone color, or new color pallets. There's been a number of times where I've thought about making an overlay because arid (example) would work if not for the splotches of black and pink on it.

White, Black, Soft yellows, pastels, muted (soft, pale, muted colors), etc. The potions could be in the quest shop or a random drop from the weekend quest, or just restock like the rest of them. Release via quests would actually motivate me to do them though, so I suppose there would be that.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that I want the staff to draw more new pet colours more often, what I meant was what if they drew a pet in a specific colour, but weren't "allowed" to release it until several months later when the appropriate season or holiday was? In the feedback thread I made about Graveyard pets, a staff member said they are planning on releasing some new pet colours outside of their usual holidays and seasons, and I was just suggesting ways that they could still tie it to something.

Some colors are almost done. We're missing three angelics, one chibi, three bloodred, four glade, three reborn, six graveyard, five glacier and five nightmare. That...really isn't much

Spectrum/Blacklight, Riftborn, Storm and Harvest have a lack, of course, but everything else? There isn't that much missing

I know we don't have angel zentu or angel harvester. Which is the other missing angel pet?

And..I'm surprised a new glade pet hasn't appeared yet this year. Vesnali seems to be the smoothest holiday so far this year, so errors/lag can't really be the reason a new color release has been delayed.

I think staff likes to release specturm & blacklight at the same time because they're the exact same excluding the color palette. The other three are more recent, so having fewer species for them is understandable.

I know it's a lot of work for the artists, but it bothers me when 99% of news posts are about clothes. I'm here for the pets, and it's disheartening to rarely see a new one, especially around holidays that are associated with certain colors. Very sad that we got no new glade pets. Andrea suggested more colorfills, which I think would be an excellent idea. Surely that would be easier for artists?

If not new pets or colors than how about beanbags for all the pets? The Velosotors only have Steamwork, and no other beanbags, not even Common. Just SOMETHING more related to our pets, please.

Just wanted to point out that saying there's only 1 missing chibi completely disregards the eighteen experimental pets still waiting for their chibis. Eighteen!!!

HOW CAN YOU JUST FORGET THE EXPERIMENTS LIKE THAT?!?!

ahem Unwarranted panic and yelling aside, I think that just counting how many species there are of a given color is a bit reductive. Many species (hello, aenoids) are begging for updated looks and some colors could use revamps as a whole (idk, maybe it's just me, but what's up with gold, really?). We don't have to have new colors, necessarily, to have them released on a more frequent basis or out of season.

Not to mention, how long do you want to hoard the remaining colors for? Even if we only get 1-2 of a certain color per year, that would still last a few years for most colors. A few years is quite a lot of time to plan for and implement new colors, if desired.

...For which there is an endless supply of creativity in the Suggestions forum. Seriously: endless supply.

If Keith and the Subeta team are planning on transitioning Subeta to a more subscription-based model, then they need to be able to release new content on a regular basis too, to justify the subscription in the eyes of the subscribers. So really the only reason that we cannot release more new pet designs is because of a lack of artists or artist time. Perhaps the steady income of a subscription model would help to rectify that - I don't know, and I don't mean to derail this topic with a different one, but I think they're related. If the artists can (both by means and desire) do it, then having colors at surprise times or just-for-the-heck of it times or vaguely-related-reason times sounds like fun.

Pherrets ;_;

I didn't expect this thread to get revived. I'm still salty that they didn't release any new Steamwork pets this year, especially after we only had one last year, and it felt like they were making fun of me when they released a Rift pet on the last day of Masq. They already release those all year round, but unless they want to make an exception, Steamwork pets seem limited to Masq only. I'm hoping that the reason is the same as for Graveyard pets, that the staff are "behind on pets," but I have yet to see them fulfil their promise of releasing certain colours off-season like they said they would. It would really suck to have to wait 2 years to get a new Steamwork pet after only getting one previously. At least with Graveyard pets there's the possibility of them being released during Morostide (even though that Holiday already has 3 other colours limited to it).

Yes, a lot of pets could also use revamps, and so could some experiments. I also don't fully understand why Spectrum is limited to Spring, it could easily be used for Summer as well. And not all Spectrum pets get Blacklight at the same time. The Blob still has yet to be released in Blacklight, and I have no idea if it will be a recolour of Spectrum or have a different design.

I might be biased because I don't know how pet colours work behind the scenes. I remember early last year that one of the staff said they'd already decided which toys some unreleased Notalgic pets would be based on, but those pets have still not yet been released, so I don't know if they've already designed them or if they're still coming up with images before deciding on a final one or not. Maybe if Subeta does have a subscription thing (I heard the staff were planning having a Patreon or something like it) people who pay for that can get the chance to learn more about how content is made or something?

But anyway, this is getting off topic, the original purpose of this thread is to suggest ways to release new pet colours without having them limited to certain holidays or seasons, but not seem completely random either.

Noktoa!

Oh! I'd like to see that one too. It's got serious competition with glacier noktoa though.

Totally agree with you on the subscription stuff. More and more people are wary of subscriptions nowadays.

Am I the only one who want more colors for experiments? I mean it's totally possible, we can just zap them in like we do for HAs during Moro.

Blacklight blob will be a different design most likely. But I'm not too familiar with blacklights, so I don't know which one it could be.....

I'm sorry. wHaT?! Sorry for getting off-topic here, but Where Did You Hear Such A Rumor?

Answering here in case anyone else is wondering the same thing, but beyond that more discussion should go to another thread. You can reach out to me specifically as well if you'd like, but I don't have more information than what I've listed here. :)

In the post for the last Cash Shop Bonus Weekend, it was mentioned that there would be no bonus weekend in May. Keith made some comments under that post to elaborate:

(Boldness added.)

AFAIK it has not been addressed elsewhere yet.