I agree, the "talking" REs are annoying... except... I do like the ones where your pets ask for things
I sent the following as a suggestion to TNT just now:
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Hey! I love forums, they get your brain juices flowing. Some people were complaining about the pointless Random Events, and I have to agree, the "Adee the Chia says" ones are pretty lame... imho (no offense).
But I understand that you want to have some neutral type REs. So, my suggestion is to make more pet-interaction-with-owner REs, pet-personality REs, and query-of-user-information REs.
Specific examples:
Ethuiladdie says, "I'm glad you're my mom" (can query owner gender)
Athelassie bounces across room and hugs Molly_G_Moo! (an action based on pet species and other pets... maybe a skeith would growl at her, a koi would blow bubbles...)
Molly_G_Moo says, "Tell me the story about your Cellblock! Trophy again!" (query of lookup)
Eowhinny says, "Can we take Bleat for a walk today?" (query of petpet)
Also, what if you established a questionnaire for pet personality... either make it random, created when the pet is created and shown after they are accepted/adopted, or else fillable by the owner. Then you could use that for personality REs.
A form I would use would look something like this:
This pet's favorite color is: _____ choices
This pet's main vice is being: impatient, lazy, hyper, gluttonous, greedy, etc
This pet's favorite item category is: stamp, special, meridell food, etc
This pet's favorite game category is: puzzle, action, luck
The nicest thing about the pet is that s/he: helps others, likes nature, ?
The pet's faerie alignment is: (and maybe you could make it species dependent, like koi's faerie alignment is always water, etc, or color dependent, changing if the pet becomes darigan or maraquan or gray)
I'm kinda getting overboard here but you get the idea. I'm sure you could think of much better ideas than I can.
Anyhow, the last thing I was going to mention was birthdays/anniversaries.
I know you get a real email from your pets on your birthday and I think neoanniversary. But I think it would be really nice if your chance of getting RE's went up on those days... and in a connected way, it would be nice if you guaranteed to have birthday-related "useless" REs leading up to, and on, your birthday, anniversary, and pet birthdays. e.g.:
Athelassie says, "You know, my birthday is coming up next week -- hint hint!"
Ethuiladdie says, "Happy Birthday Eowhinny!"
Eowhinny says, "Bleat is 2 years old today!"
Molly_G_Moo says, "Can I have a _____ for my birthday next week?"
And of course if you felt generous, a "profitable" style event IF they log in on that day. (I won't call that a random event, since it's not really random)
"Happy Anniversary! Athelassie, Ethuiladdie, Molly_G_Moo and Eowhinny all broke their snorkle banks and pitched in to get you a present: _________" - not always the same thing, either random item of a certain type, or please make multiple anniversary items, if you're going to bother with this idea
At any rate, something that gave you more actual interaction with your pets, and for them to acknowledge each other's existence, and for you to feel like they are more of a "personality" besides just a "look".