The new skill pitch poll has just concluded with over 178,000 votes. Whew! What a fantastic turnout. Whether youre an aspiring sailor, shaman, or tamer, wed like to say a heartfelt thank you for taking the time to vote. Youre part of Old School RuneScape history!
Our philosophy has always been to put our community at the heart of everything we create after all, we make the game for you! In line with this weve made massive changes to our polling approach, taking your valuable feedback into consideration much earlier in the design and development process. Critically, this means that we spend less time on content you dont want, because were able to drop unwelcome ideas much earlier on. The new skill pitch poll has been the first real trial of this system, and we think its been a great success. We hope our new community-centric approach has been a welcome change for all of you, too!
No matter the outcome we want everybody to continue participating in the development of the skill. Whatever skill you voted for, your opinion is still important. Together we can make this new skill work for everyone.
Enough stalling: its time to see the results of the poll!
Sailing has been chosen as both the communitys favourite skill pitch and the skill well take forward into refinement. Sailing is an open-world skill which will let you explore the uncharted seas of Gielinor, take part in various maritime activities, and upgrade your very own ship!
Weve already taken on board early feedback about community deal-breakers, such as the navigational mechanics and the concern that the skill will feel like a minigame. In the near future, well present a more detailed explanation for what refinement means for Sailing. Our kick-off meeting is scheduled for later this week!
Were glad that our skill pitches resonated with so many of you, but unfortunately, its time to say goodbye to one of them. Taming was pretty popular, but didnt receive nearly as much support as the other two skills so we wont look to pursue this idea further.
However, the third skill, Shamanism, came very close to taking the crown, with just a 3% difference in the votes. At times, Shamanism and Sailing were just 100 votes apart! With that in mind, we think its important to talk about whats next for our runner-up skill.
While Sailing will of course be our primary focus, we want to reassure you all that were open to exploring more skills in the future. Your feedback regarding Shamanism was clear: you love the concept of the spirit realm and see the potential to revitalise under-utilised areas of the game. You also like the idea of expanding our rich lore and in general, a production and gathering skill was something the community felt fit Old School RuneScape to a T.
Because Shamanism has already proved so popular, it will be going into our backlog for refinement at some point after Sailing is complete assuming the community still wants it by then!
You may be wondering, since the votes were so close, why we didnt run a tiebreaker poll for Sailing and Shamanism. This was something we considered when it became clear that the two pitches were neck-and-neck, but ultimately we decided that this approach had too much potential to hinder the process. Wed probably be left with the same situation, where the results were very close. Plus, we dont like the idea of pitting two amazing skills against each other! While we love seeing your passionate arguments for the new skills, we want the community to really come together during the refinement phase.
We completely understand that some of you will be disappointed that your preferred skill didnt win the poll this time but remember, were still open to adding more skills in future, and you still have the chance to make a significant impact to the development of the winning skill. So, even if Sailings not your favourite, please continue to send in your feedback so we can shape it into the skill you want it to be! Lets work together and focus our efforts to create the best skill possible.
Once again, wed like to thank everyone who participated in the poll. Youre all upstanding members of the Old School RuneScape community! Keep an eye out for future updates on what's next for Sailing were looking forward to working closely with you all on this exciting project further during refinement!
Now, hoist the rigging we sail at dawn!
The Old School Team
