I think Kea would certainly get more popular on here once/if we get flying bird species in the game. Kiwi is just more realistic as a flightless bird and infinitely more iconic as people from New Zealand have the same name too.I'm one of those weird people who are not interested at all in getting the kiwiIf we get it, I will be happy for all who wanted it but, tbh, I don't really understand its popularity. I've never seen a kiwi in a zoo and there are so many more common in zoos birds that we need first. I mean, to me, any bird would be better than the kiwi at this point, except maybe the rhea. And hear me out... If you people really want representation for New Zealand, why not the kea? Amazing NZ bird and way more common in zoos than the kiwi. #TeamKea
Hot Take: Commonness in Zoos as a criteria for upcoming DLC animals
- Thread starter Marvinb
- Start date
I switched camps. I now like the proboscis monkey because it's unique and cool, and the model is grest. Also they are finding ways to keep it outside of its natural range.
People seem to forget that the game is supposed to encompass the entire world. The game allows you to open up a zoo in different continents outside of just North America / Europe. This means that we COULD have in theory almost any animal in this game. Although a species may not be kept in Western zoos (Wild yaks are a good example), they are kept in Asian zoos. So this whole "they wont add this species because it's not common in Western zoos" is just silliness imo.
While I get the desire for a Kiwi (I hope PZ gets one too), I also donât think that anyone needs to paint the Nene as a common, âfarm animalâ to prove the Kiwiâs worthiness as a DLC inclusion. The Nene is neither common, domestic, nor a barnyard species. Thatâs like saying the Przewalskiâs Horse is just a domestic pony so itâs boring, which isnât truthful at all. Just because there are domestic breeds that look similar to both the Nene and P. Horse doesnât mean that those two species are.
Plus, why does it always have to be âthis bird species vs. that birdâ when it comes to DLC talk? We never do that with mammals in DLC talk. Instead, often wishlists have majority mammal rosters. So why couldnât Frontier put out a DLC with more than one bird species, especially if they are both pretty iconic to zoos and conservation?
Personally, Iâd love to see Frontier get a little more creative with future DLC rosters, and pull from taxonomic groups that have little-to-no representation in PZ. This said, Iâd love to see both the Nene and a Kiwi make it into a hypothetical Islands Pack. Frontier has the opportunity to pull together a really diverse and unique DLC lineup if they look to the worldâs islands for inspiration. There are so many oddball picks that likely would have never evolved on continental mainlands. And itâs species like this that I hope would fill an Islands DLC.
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I wasn't saying the nene is domestic, but most likely to most people they'd just see it as a goose, which they'd compare to any farmyard animal. Maybe I'm wrong, that's just how I think that the general public would see it
You're right, and I'm not against the nene, to be honest. I prefer the kiwi, yeah, but I'm not against the nene and if they added it I'd be happy
On the other hand I think a lot of people "out there" are more open-minded towards domestic animals than people on this forum, so it might not really be a problem if people confuse it with a farm animal.
Maybe so. I haven't seen all aspects of the Planet Zoo community. Most I hear is from here, followed by Steam and occasionally YouTube, but on YouTube most people are positive about just about whatever we receive, and on Steam it's so varied
I stumble upon stuff on the Facebook community from time to time. A lot of people over there have a quite different approach to the game than in here. It is like Sandbox mode doesn't exist, and there is far less focus on the creative aspects of the game. Community challenges seem like a much bigger deal and stuff like color variations are very popular, the red fox was a hit. Of course this is a bit generalized, but there clearly is a difference between the various communities.
Given the fact that there's a species limit, I'm always going to be against unrealistic choices for as long as that's there. If they take it away, they can add in whatever the hell they want - I can just mod in whatever I need. But if I have a select and small roster, I will want it to be as realistic and as versatile as possible.
Yeah, itâs interesting to see some of the differences in popular opinion throughout the various PZ sub-communities. YouTube creators primarily are interested in sandbox mode, extremely detailed builds, and favor DLCs that bring a larger piece-count. Discord seems to primarily advocate for new species that have different rigs/animations from any of the species currently in PZ (likely because the more unique rigs there are, the more modders can create). Reddit seems to gain the most average-user input, and the opinions can vary more greatly there. As for here on the official forums, thereâs a limited amount of active users and many of the popular opinions are based around whatâs happening with the meta-lists or whatâs most common in worldwide zoo holdings/stats.
All this said, I think honestly majority of PZâs still-active players probably arenât that involved in any of the various PZ sub-communities and likely donât hold staunch opinions on whatâs absolutely needed/expected from Frontier in future DLC/updates. They see when a new DLC has dropped, notice a couple âcoolâ species they may know, and choose to buy the DLCs just to see what they bring.
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I wanna remind everyone that this is a video game, and whilst I do also subscribe to the "it must be found somewhere in captivity" mantra, I especially like to hone in on the "somewhere" aspect of that. We should absolutely have common zoo species so PZ feels like a legitimate zoo sim (I heavily wanted the alligator, emu and I'm still waiting on a hamadryas baboon), I do believe that the rare and exciting species deserve a spot in the game. I love the inclusion of the pangolin, proboscis monkey and platypus because they're so unique. I'd argue 100 times for kiwis, along with saigas, Sumatran rhinos, and even the Yangtze giant softshell turtle (which has only 3 known living individuals, only one of which is at a zoo) and leopard seal (only found in one zoo historically and doesn't exist there anymore) purely for the novelty of it as they can exist in captivity.
Of course, I want these types of species to be unique. I'm not a big fan of the wild water buffalo and the Nile lechwe due to their just being better options that are more common in captivity. That's just my more than two cents though.
Of course, I want these types of species to be unique. I'm not a big fan of the wild water buffalo and the Nile lechwe due to their just being better options that are more common in captivity. That's just my more than two cents though.
Sure you could always use a nyala over the lechwe bit you can not tell me the cape Buffalo is better than the water Buffalo. The Cape buffalo's model is so jank and even named incorrectly. Objectively worse alternative.
I'm talking about alternative species for the dlc itself. We could've gotten the barely different but just more usable domestic species of water buffalo (which some breeds even have horns similar to the wild species, so it's main unique trait is redundant) and Sitatunga instead of the lechwe (although that one leans far more heavily into personal preference I realise).
I'm in no way trying to state the African Buffalo is a good alternative, heavens no we needed the new buffalo, but the domestic species would've made so much more sense imo. I imagine we got the wild species because of the backlash received from the llama.
I don't think commonness or realistic presence of animals in zoos should be a criteria or limitation at all. As mentioned, the game (in theory) allows you to build zoos in any area of the world so an animal that isn't found in captivity in one part of the world may be more present in another.
Second, zoos are - more and more - becoming the last refuge of desperately endangered animals and I think we're going to see more and more of that as habitat degradation gets worse. A classic success story are the California Condors - on the surface not a good zoo option; needs huge territory, we hadn't bred them very successfully, etc but it was determined to be the only way to save the species, and we did. Now they are present in several US zoos, and that is pretty much the only way the species survived. Maybe it's hard to keep so-and-so animal in a zoo but, frankly, in increasing numbers of cases, that's the only way they have even a chance to survive (the little Mexican porpoises spring to mind - as they're attempting to capture the last few survivors for a captive program - but I think we're too late for them).
Finally, of course, ... it's a game and this is an area where I don't think we need to hew to realism.
Second, zoos are - more and more - becoming the last refuge of desperately endangered animals and I think we're going to see more and more of that as habitat degradation gets worse. A classic success story are the California Condors - on the surface not a good zoo option; needs huge territory, we hadn't bred them very successfully, etc but it was determined to be the only way to save the species, and we did. Now they are present in several US zoos, and that is pretty much the only way the species survived. Maybe it's hard to keep so-and-so animal in a zoo but, frankly, in increasing numbers of cases, that's the only way they have even a chance to survive (the little Mexican porpoises spring to mind - as they're attempting to capture the last few survivors for a captive program - but I think we're too late for them).
Finally, of course, ... it's a game and this is an area where I don't think we need to hew to realism.
I think this really is a matter of a opinion ND there is no right answer. Personally, I don't use animals that aren't kept often in captivity (wild water buffalo, proboscis monkey, platypus) because I like to build fairly realistically. I don't really mind if we do get animals that aren't really common in zoos because we have a pretty decent amount that are.
In my opinion, I like a little bit of fantasy. That's what made Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2 so special and why they still hold up today (I still occasionally play ZT2 modded).
Do I want entirely unrealistic species only? No, I don't. My limit is animals that have a captive presence, no matter how rare. If only 1 out of 1.000.000 zoos have a purple-faced wooly fox, then I'm happy to have it...
So, I'm happy with the proboscis monkey and the buffalo. The only animal I'm on the line about is the HBB; I personally would've preferred the Eurasian brown bear instead, but whatever
Do I want entirely unrealistic species only? No, I don't. My limit is animals that have a captive presence, no matter how rare. If only 1 out of 1.000.000 zoos have a purple-faced wooly fox, then I'm happy to have it...
So, I'm happy with the proboscis monkey and the buffalo. The only animal I'm on the line about is the HBB; I personally would've preferred the Eurasian brown bear instead, but whatever