Forgotten animals
- Thread starter Marvinb
- Start date
Answer: Sandbox
Yes, my local zoo has a 13,000m2 or so habitat which is arguably one of the better polar bear habitats around. I'm sure this was where frontier got the original space requirements from which is way larger than 90 percent of city zoo polar bear habitats.
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The nyala is amazing. Very underrated.
But besides those, there are some animals that simply have great competition or saturation allready in the game.
Animals like the dhole or sable antelope, while having many great aspects in their own right, just arnt used because they have "better" competition, which is why i personally really dont like people asking for more of the same. If we have 12 cats, just being a cat does not cut it to stand out. One of the best examples is imo the dingo.
The dingo has many cool things about it in theory like being a naturalised apex predator and being for along time australias only terrestrial animal in the game, but people still did not use it.
At first its problem was a lack of australian options. There wernt actually that many canids when the dingo joined as it was only the 4. and as a yellow desert dog from australia pretty unique, but not many people actually build australia areas after the initial hype went down as they most often either used just the kangaroo and or koala for very small areas or just used the animals as general filler. At that point the dingo only had to compete with the african wild dog and 2 wolfs for possible random canid slots, but at that point most people wernt bored enough of continental themes to actually pick just whatever animal, so not being part of a popular area to build was kind of a death sentece for usage, combined with the fact that large canids arnt the greatest filler picks in the first place.
Once the wetland pack arrived, things actually got much better for the dingo. As we got drop fed australian animals 1 or 2 at a time last year, australian areas that were a bit more expansive came back into fashion, with leafs boggy bottons dingo build actually being the first ive seen since the australia pack hype. A few more people build modest australia areas or even australian zoos, were the dingo often was a nesseceary mostly dictated by the lack of options. It wasnt a commonly build for animal, but you saw it from time to time instead of just not like in most of 2021.
But now that the Oceania pack arrives, im quite sure that bit of dingo building will both go up and down.
The fact that oceanian zoos are even more possible now will propaply help them find a spot in them, as it still brings something very unique to oceania with a large pack hunting carnivore, but at the same time in none oceania focused zoos, im quite sure it will pretty much die out?
Why?
Cause this guy
The tasmanian devil is everything the dingo wishes to be. Its a high profile animal that adds australias first marsupial carnivore that can very easily be a highlight animal due to its uniqueness, rarity in zoos and status of being the largest maruspial carnivore, while also being quite flexible as they fit in nocturnal houses, outdoor displays, dont look to wrong in tropical houses, but also are a great filler pick. Im very sure that from now on the by far majority of players will use the devil over the dingo whenever they build for australian areas, which while still limited now have the freedom of choice to build a rather large one with 10 animals without including the dingo, which needs more space, is less unique and overall less desireable for most people.
And now to add insult to injury, the dingo isnt even complete with 2 of its most common and very unique looking colormophs, the black and tan and the cream, missing, aswell as it being the only gray wolf subspecies that did not get the chorus behavior.
And now adding even more damnation, it isnt even special as a canid anymore, as we are now very much saturated with them, with those that came after it having much better reasons to be added randomly aswell as to their respected areas, as the dhole and the 3 foxes are excellent filler animals and the maned wolf being very unique from other canids.
The dingo currently is stuck as the least desireable canid without anything setting it apart and even lacking features that other canids have that it really should have aswell.
The foxes are both more flexible and more essential to their enviroments, the maned wolf is unique both in looks and the fact that its not a pack animal, aswell as having the strongest niche for relevance in the game called being from south america, the dhole is the better filler animal and is among the most flexible animals in the game, the african wild dog is not only prettier then it but also from the continent that most commonly pops up in zoos (how many zoos without an africa section have you seen?) and then the arctic wolf is the pretty dog with chorus and also has the benefit of a starving biome that needs it as theres only so little representation and the original timberwolf, which is more flexible as its the main wolf and canid, but has a really underwhelming model, so its arguably the only one below it and even then i have seen many timberwolf builds, as even though its quality is ass the love for it never dropped of. The dingo suffers from being not just being unpopular, but also being outclassed greatly both in its taxonomic group and its continental niche, making it one of the few truly next to completly not used animals in the game. If its used its never for its own sake but because the person wanted a larger oceania area and ran out of option, something only growing less likly in the future.
Memes aside though, while I think you were a bit harsh in some aspects (I think from a continental perspective at least they still have plenty of points in their favour, such as their extreme versatility, status as a quintessentially Australian animal, apex predator role and relative commonness in international zoos) I agree with your overall take - dingoes are probably going to become less widely criticised as a pick given we now more Australian animals, and yet be less used for that very same reason. It's why I always said I was happy to get the dingo early on in the Australia Pack over something like the Tasmanian devil, given the dingo would never have seen anywhere near the same level of support and likely never been added, which would have been super unfortunate given how much of an essential animal they are for me as an Australian zoo builder (it's rising to potentially become the most common placental mammal in Aussie zoos, with only the meerkat for competition).
Agreed! While I was really sad to see no Tasmanian Devil in the Australia pack, I dont agree that the Dingo was a bad pick at all. It is a very iconic species from Australia, very much needed for Australian roster. At the time we got 2 very unique animals - Koala and Kangaroo and well as Cassowary, which might be on the Ostrich rig, but its animations were adjusted, so as the 1 per pack “easier” animals to make go, the Dingo was perfect (and no, it is not a simple clone, they got so many new animations with the new toys that were added with the pack, it really shows Frontier wanted them to add them a bit of different personality from the wolves already in game.
Memes aside though, while I think you were a bit harsh in some aspects (I think from a continental perspective at least they still have plenty of points in their favour, such as their extreme versatility, status as a quintessentially Australian animal, apex predator role and relative commonness in international zoos) I agree with your overall take - dingoes are probably going to become less widely criticised as a pick given we now more Australian animals, and yet be less used for that very same reason. It's why I always said I was happy to get the dingo early on in the Australia Pack over something like the Tasmanian devil, given the dingo would never have seen anywhere near the same level of support and likely never been added, which would have been super unfortunate given how much of an essential animal they are for me as an Australian zoo builder (it's rising to potentially become the most common placental mammal in Aussie zoos, with only the meerkat for competition).
And now that we also got emus, tassies, wallabies and so on, Australia pack really looks better than ever.
This is the cutest thing I’ve seen all day.Now we have the best possible scenario:
My bad. Thanks
Dont get me wrong, im very glad we got them, but i see it more as a cautionary tale.
Memes aside though, while I think you were a bit harsh in some aspects (I think from a continental perspective at least they still have plenty of points in their favour, such as their extreme versatility, status as a quintessentially Australian animal, apex predator role and relative commonness in international zoos) I agree with your overall take - dingoes are probably going to become less widely criticised as a pick given we now more Australian animals, and yet be less used for that very same reason. It's why I always said I was happy to get the dingo early on in the Australia Pack over something like the Tasmanian devil, given the dingo would never have seen anywhere near the same level of support and likely never been added, which would have been super unfortunate given how much of an essential animal they are for me as an Australian zoo builder (it's rising to potentially become the most common placental mammal in Aussie zoos, with only the meerkat for competition).
Im quite sure if we wouldnt have the dingo id be one of the few guys somewhat wanting them, with atleast one paragraph somewhere of the usual "uhm actually guys the dingo is pretty cool and has lots of things going for it" but to me thats also kind of the point.
The dingo has lots of things going for it, but its still one of the least used animals in the game because of the circumstances surrounding it, so when an animal that is pretty essential to its bioregion, but gets beaten down in general usage by many different factors which i feel can be somewhat hard to point down, what does this say about other potential future additions?.
Like yeah its not like it has no niche no role to play or nothing differentiating it from other australian animals or canids, it has tons for both as australias main placenta mammal, apex predator and pack hunter aswell as one of the largest animals, or as a creamcolored desert canid with added flexibility and a rather good looking model, but still while i can justifiy their inclusion it doesnt change their popularity, a fate that i can see many more carnivorans and ungulates chare in the future, especally when they arnt as essential as the dingo.
For some examples that i often hear thrown around, mid sized african antelopes are the main suspects here, cause animals like the gerenuk, impala or kudu have valid reasons to be in the game, but at the same time what would actually make them stand out or just as meh just replace whats allready there?
We allready saw that with the blue wilderbeest, which does not feel like an exciting new animal and i allways forget it. Why? Was it a bad addition? No not in itself its a very iconic animal but all it really did was replace the black wilderbeest in its entirety and while its "nice" to choose between 2 similar animals, imagine it was a black buck or a nilgai or if we want to stay with african antelopes the common eland that actually differentiates itself from other african hoofstock due to its sheer size, filling a fresh and new niche.
Imo looking at animals like that both old and potential new comers really shows that while their are many animals still left to be added for some groups, their sheer saturation alone can make these additions quite pointless as even if they will be frequently used it will simply come at a cost to other members of their group or even similar niche and leave us with technically more animals, but less in actual usage.
Another thing that it shows is that sometimes first impressions are just bad and people often are biased.
If we flip the coin one of the most hated animal on release was the spectacle caiman, no doubt about that. I still remember when it got revealed and every response was pretty much "what a great roster! But a shame that we get another filler crocodile", but by now all you hear about it is that people love it. It and the alligator are often fighting for the top spot for the crocodilians and have left the others behind in their dust, not completly as they still got their own niche usecases, but if we are talking just random crocodile habitat its allways those two. So why is that? It got a neat size. I could go on and on and list all the reasons why they are cool, but really thats why they stood the test of time. They are just the right size for a small filler crocodile exhibit, but not to small to be hard to watch when not really close and also looking fine from a far, giving them a sweetspot in habitat size to animal size ratio especally for indoor builds. The fact that it model is gorgeous also doesnt hurt.
So case in point, sometimes animal popularity is really hard to predict and for most animal groups only a very slight few are frequently used so while the element of choice is neat it also creates even stronger competition leading to those animals falling of potentially much harder then others.
A rather niche animal i havent seen mentioned yet are for example the two tapirs, eventhough i wouldnt be surprised when many people also just boycott one of them for very unknown and rarely talked about reasons, and while i wouldnt say no to a brazillian tapir and would quite like one i gotta ask, what would a brazillian tapir bring to the game then the death of ussage for the bairds tapir? While you could fault the bairds tapir for being a niche choice and make an argument for all 3 tapirs coexisting and all having their worth while traits (South American: Most common, best model as the newest, largest range, most diverse biomes, smallest size even if it isnt by much, got a mane; Malaysan: Asian, unique compared to other asian animals, very distinct colors and patterns aswell as the largest, the sheer hype a remodel would bring; Bairds: Distinct color and markings, Central American,,,yeah you got me here) but as you can see these mostly boil down to South American Tapir vs Asian + colorration and patern differences, which isnt bad and while the south american is arguably the most unique and a very desireable animal on its own, really the main thing id see it do is make the bairds tapir obsolete, so would it really be a new choice if theirs one clearly better option?
Ofcourse saying an animal shouldnt come to the game because its a better version of what we allready have is in some ways a backwards argument, as we do agree that it would be better, but better really doesnt mean different so while yes id rather put the better animal into the habitat when its in the game, id rather have something that manages to stand out as different on its own that doesnt come at the cost of another animal.
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