Spring 2024 DLC Speculation

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Please frontier make an announcement soon so this thread doesn’t hit 400 pages… then again we likely will start another thread and go bananas there.
In May they have the first batch of dlc for consoles so I think they would give of players something for April. Then again maybe they are focusing on console so they can update or promote.
I have no interest in the secret species dlc for JwE2, y’all think there’s something coming soon?
 
Please frontier make an announcement soon so this thread doesn’t hit 400 pages… then again we likely will start another thread and go bananas there.
In May they have the first batch of dlc for consoles so I think they would give of players something for April. Then again maybe they are focusing on console so they can update or promote.
I have no interest in the secret species dlc for JwE2, y’all think there’s something coming soon?
I dunno I feel we may be cautious with a summer/fall pack conversation. We won't know the schedule for one, assuming there even is one. Which is the even bigger question - will there be one? We can postulate with a little more information once we know what the upcoming pack will be - it may give us a pretty definitive answer we're not getting anything else, it may leave us questioning if we're getting something else, and even possibly may put us more firmly convinced we've got another pack coming.

FWIW, there's already a summer 2024 and I think even fall 2024 thread, but I think those were all done between when Oceania and Eurasia released. A lot has happened since then.
 
So why do you guys think Frontier has an aversion to monkeys?
Do you think it might be due to technical limitations or something like that, or more so because of more casual players might not care for them as much (people finding monkeys creepy looking due to their similarity to humans).
First, Monkeys are quite time-consuming to work on, they require a lot of complex animations such as climbing, swinging, playing etc. Even reskinning the Monkeys' faces is a difficult job, now the Modders can do great on making ungulates but still not decent on Black Howlers and GSN Monkey b/c they need new rigs, just reskinning from the current models can't achieve good job.
Second, Monkeys are generally not highly demanded by general players, look at the DeLadysigner's top 100 popularity list that voted by 2500 PZ players, the only Monkey made it in the top 100 list was Capuchin, and Mandrill fell in the 50 most unpopular list. If Baboon and Gelada are offered in the future, they are likely rated as unpopular as Mandrill. I also doubt the general players will favor the Black Howlers since they are sluggish and make "scary" sounds. The Spider Monkeys may be favored since their behaviors are similar than the Gibbons, the two Gibbons in the game both made in the top 100 popular list but both below top 50. The only Primate species in top 50 popular list is Orangutan, so I would say there is no Primate species that can be considered highly demanded overall
I feel like it has been mostly a case of not realizing the big difference between apes and monkeys. I'm sure they have realized that over time but now they already filled the game with apes, so they will now avoid monkeys since parts of the fanbase see any monkey as a clone.
But the Frontier clones many ungulates though, in fact Monkeys are hard to clone and that is one of the reasons that the Frontier doesn't want to offer that many Monkey species.
 
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and Mandrill fell in the 50 most unpopular list. If Baboon and Gelada are offered in the future, they are likely rated as unpopular as Mandrill.
I don’t think they will be, the Mandrill has been in the game for a lot longer than newer primates like siamang or the Lar gibbon, primates that have newer animations and behaviors like the brachiation, plus they have better quality. So it’s very possible that people voted those as their favourites because they are more fresh and have new animations. If we do get a baboon it will probably get this treatment having new sounds, behaviours and of course it will look a lot better than the mandrill, plus it’s a popular animal for general players.

So in the end I think that players will vote for the most entertaining species and the best looking ones, if we get baboons they will definitely look great quality and will probably get some sort of new behavior and new sound design.
 
First, Monkeys are quite time-consuming to work on, they require a lot of complex animations such as climbing, swinging, playing etc. Even reskinning the Monkeys' faces is a difficult job, now the Modders can do great on making ungulates but still not decent on Black Howlers and GSN Monkey b/c they need new rigs, just reskinning from the current models can't achieve good job.
Second, Monkeys are generally not highly demanded by general players, look at the DeLadysigner's top 100 popularity list that voted by 2500 PZ players, the only Monkey made it in the top 100 list was Capuchin, and Mandrill fell in the 50 most unpopular list. If Baboon and Gelada are offered in the future, they are likely rated as unpopular as Mandrill. I also doubt the general players will like Black Howlers since they are sluggish and make "scary" sounds. While the Spider Monkey may fit general players' favor since their behaviors are similar to Gibbons, and two Gibbons in the game both made in the top 100 popular list.

But the Frontier clones many ungulates though, in fact Monkeys are hard to clone and that is one of the reasons that the Frontier doesn't want to offer that many Monkey species.
I would say that statistically speaking, that vote actually means very little. Most of his group comes from the YTB producer's fan group, which is very limited. As for the active users in the official forum of this game, how many participated in the voting?
 
I would say that statistically speaking, that vote actually means very little. Most of his group comes from the YTB producer's fan group, which is very limited. As for the active users in the official forum of this game, how many participated in the voting?
Be aware that, the previous META wishlist in the forum https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/new-25-essential-habitat-animals-meta-wishlist.582340/ only has 659 voters participated within 2 years, compared to Deladysigner's vote had 2500 voters participated within 1 month, looks like the opinions from our forum are more limited.
 
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Be aware that, the previous META wishlist in the forum https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/new-25-essential-habitat-animals-meta-wishlist.582340/ only has 659 voters participated within 2 years, compared to Deladysigner's vote had 2500 voters participated within 1 month, looks like the opinions from our forum are more limited.
2 things
1 the metawishlist and deladysingers ranking are measuring 2 different things one is what peope want in the game and the other is what people use and like currently ingame so the list arent really comparable outside of some generalisations. Also consider that deladysinger fans are more likely going to like animals that she consistently builds for making it a potentially biased source of info.

2 yes deladysingers vote had more people but it was likely much more skewed then any response here because ultimately you have to be her fan to contribute which would be a narrow portion of the community. This is the official planet zoo and frontier forums which ideally though probably not the case would be the broadest range of players you could get a transect of unless frontier themselves did a poll on their socials or ingame. Alot of bad data isnt necessarily better than less good data.

Too be clear im of the opinion that both lists are bad at representing what people actually want.
 
I’m just putting it out in the universe again: please no more exhibit animals that are not flying birds!! Or at least walkthrough animals.
 
That list was supposed to be people's 20 favorite animals. Not many people have monkeys as their favorite thing. Monkeys and birds are not typically people's favorite animals, but they are super underrepresented. They are still extremely important for real-life zoos, and with the ability to create your own climbing frames, primates and other arboreal animals are fun to build for in Planet Zoo. Not every new animal is going to be a crowd-pleaser. Still, I think there are some that would do very well in their categories.

For birds, I think a colorful duck would go over well, especially given how people liked the swan. The Mandarin duck is an obvious choice for a crowd-pleaser, and it would be popular here as well. A few more species would allow people to create duck ponds and fill out habitats from other regions. One of the pink trio (scarlet ibis, roseate spoonbill, or American flamingo) would add something colorful for both Americas, which currently need birds more than any other region. The secretary bird has a ton of fans, partly from ZT2. I think it would do awesome with a general audience, but a grey-crowned crane would also be appreciated and possibly more useful with interspecies enrichment bonuses. Africa has a ton of popular and great ones. A pelican would probably do ok, especially if it had interspecies enrichment with the pinnipeds. People have heard of them, and they are funky in a good way. Domestic fowl (chickens, turkeys, and guineafowl) would likely be well-received among the options for a domestic pack. The problem with most birds in Planet Zoo is they reproduce too quickly and then get sick. They are a bit of a pain to play with. I would imagine most people would have ~2 in their top 20, a favorite ratite, and a flashy one like the swan, peafowl, or flamingo. They aren't cute and fluffy like red pandas or large and impressive like elephants, but they make great choices for smaller habitats, and birds with interspecies enrichment are fun to spice up larger habitats.

For primates, I think tamarins would be the best-received of anything. They are colorful, cute, endangered, and common in zoos worldwide. Squirrel monkeys are also small, cute, and colorful. I agree that spider monkeys would be interesting to watch kind of like the gibbons. Add in the color morphs, and I think they would be received ok. Flashy African monkeys like the guereza and/or De Brazza's guenon would probably do ok. Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys are pretty popular animals in China, which has more of the playerbase than any other country. If they were voting, I'd imagine their monkey would be decently popular. I would guess most people would have ~2 primates in their top 20, a favorite ape and a smaller one. A lot of people find primates scary, but they are interesting to watch and a major part of zoos. Building climbing frames for them is fun.

I would imagine howler monkeys, baboons, Indian monkeys, and rheas would not make many top 20 lists, but they are still very important species to flesh out the roster. Taxonomic diversity is important for the gameplay overall. Not every animal has to be a crowd-pleaser.
 
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