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Erin was removed after an update.
As the contents of this page no longer exist in Old School RuneScape, this article is preserved for historical purposes.
This article is about the duck named Erin. For the human named Erin, see Silver merchant.

Erin was a yellow duck who resided in Falador Park. When you got close to it, it would follow you. The duck was added in a hidden update and was removed a week after its release due to a generally negative response from player base.

Snowballs could be used on the duck, giving the message "The duck absorbs the snowball." If enough snowballs were used on the duck by nearby players, a snowman would briefly appear and say "So you wanna build a snowmannnng!" before disappearing. The snowman wore a frog mask, and its examine text was "Really wants to be built."

Controversy[]

When the duck was released it was widely seen as a case of Jagex displaying favouritism to certain players. This is because the duck was named after a Runescape streamer on the popular gameplay streaming website Twitch.tv. Mod Reach came under the most heavy criticism as he implemented the update.

Many players were also concerned that, unlike most content updates in Old School RuneScape, this addition was not added to a poll to be voted on by the community before being added to the game.

Mod Reach posted a thread on Reddit's Old School RuneScape subreddit regarding the issue, and formally apologised for the incident[1]:

Hey guys,

I want to take a few moments to apologise to you and explain where, why, how and what next will happen with regards to the new duck NPC in Falador Park. First off, we think it's important to explain the motives and reasoning behind the decision to add a new NPC to the game outside of poll. The original duck model was built inside the Easter event earlier this year, and as a nice gesture, I decided to move it to Falador park and rename it after a popular streamer as a thank you for their feedback and continued effort to support the game. Initially, this wasn’t part of our development plan or schedule and was implemented quickly to have it in-game in time for the removal of Easter.

In retrospect, it’s clear that the decision wasn’t in line with our ethos and caused a considerable upset and division within the community, something we definitely did not intend to happen. Furthermore, the handling of the situation in regards to the removal of topics discussing the duck, whether they be positive or negative, was definitely poor. As a result, the NPC has been removed from the game in the update which went live earlier.

Lastly, but by no means least, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise for this incident. It’s not within our nature to cause divisions or negative sentiment within our communities and part of what makes us a strong and focussed team is the support, feedback and continued existence of all player driven and controlled communities – Something we have always taken time to engage ourselves with and support. To sum up, what do you think we should do next to ensure the quality and implementation of updates are in line with your expectations and how we can avoid situations like this in future.

Mod Reach and the Old School Team."

 
— Mod Reach

References[]

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