They certainly have had some major leaks including species found in the aquatic and SE Asia DLCs being seen on a screen in the background of (if I remember correctly) a careers video about Frontier and the entire lineup of the Africa pack being prematurely present in the game files.
DLC18 discussion and predictions
- Thread starter Leaf Productions
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Oh, huh, interesting. I only joined a year ago so I wouldn’t know about those but it is interesting that they happened
But those arent really leaks right? Those are just mistakes by the company.
To my understanding leaks are something shared before the intended release date without consent by employees/ex-employees, hackers etc
Huh I forgot about those. Either way a modern leak would be nice.
Yh it’s annoying, why can’t they be more like the prehistoric kingdom devs, they do a roadmap as well as monthly dev diaries
I mean, it's all semantics but... Leaks aren't always intentional. Somebody accidentally tweeting something and deleting it 3 seconds later would technically be a leak, I'd think.
So somebody accidentally showing something on a screen that clearly shows an animal name months before it was to be announced? I'd call that a leak (caused by a mistake). Because it clearly shows what's happening behind the scenes.
But it's still pretty impressive how infrequently this happened!
What i think would be pretty dope is a sort of guess the animal game leading up to the DLC reveal. Like it could start a month before the reveal and every couple days we get a little hint. At first some really vage hints like its and herbivore or it has brown fur, so nothing that would give the dlc away immediately. I imagine them doing rounds of hints for each of the animals, so each one would end up with like three hints like "brown fur - omnivore - walks on four legs" or "black fur - herbivore -long tail". But still vaguely enough so each one could be different things, and still leaves the community speculating which one could be what and how it all fits together
Maybe if the final dlc is bigger than normal we can start getting a “secret” countdown. Maybe it only shows pieces of animals, or hints to their inclusion.
Here’s an idea: let’s say like JWE1 we are finally getting birds in the WTE. Maybe the hint for the countdown can be an empty WTE, but somewhere in the cluttered photo is one of the fake eggs.
Maybe for a howler monkey it’s just a screenshot of the chorus behavior announcement.
Maybe for something like the walrus it’s just a picture of an iceberg.
It would open the way for speculation, and would get the community together and theorizing.
I'm real curious if we get any sort of tease at all for this next DLC. They didn't do anything for the Barnyard pack... But that would have been a really difficult pack and theme to hint at (and in the absence of the free update info probably would have worked against them).
If we do get anything, I might expect something more akin to what we had for the anniversary pack (or even what was done for the SA pack back in the day). I do like the idea of teasing a few animals over the course of a week using social media and some carefully selected videos/screenshots/audio to do it. Especially if it's the keeper pack! They could create a narrative where it's a keeper going about their work in a new section of the zoo, being trained on how to care for the new animals ("and being a bit distracted so their photos might not be so good").
But it'll probably just be them randomly dropping a tweet announcing whatever it is. I'm hoping for some fun but expecting nothing. LOL
I'm pretty optimistic about the content in the next pack. But man, am I pessimistic when it comes to them bringing back any sort of teasing or creative ways to hype up reveals.
If we do get anything, I might expect something more akin to what we had for the anniversary pack (or even what was done for the SA pack back in the day). I do like the idea of teasing a few animals over the course of a week using social media and some carefully selected videos/screenshots/audio to do it. Especially if it's the keeper pack! They could create a narrative where it's a keeper going about their work in a new section of the zoo, being trained on how to care for the new animals ("and being a bit distracted so their photos might not be so good").
But it'll probably just be them randomly dropping a tweet announcing whatever it is. I'm hoping for some fun but expecting nothing. LOL
I'm pretty optimistic about the content in the next pack. But man, am I pessimistic when it comes to them bringing back any sort of teasing or creative ways to hype up reveals.
Yeah after the firing and layoffs, it’s seems like the view of Planet Zoo looks different to Frontier. Part of me wonders if no one wants to work on it/ the current CMs don’t seem to care for it/ the game is simply ending with no sequel in sight.
The lack of social media posts is weird, especially after a successful console launch. We have already discussed the Frontier unlocked stuff before, but my GOD it seems like they could care less. I get there is “less to share” but if the console bundle post has more to say you might as well have not said anything.
I really hope the next dlc gets the hype up instead of just being dropped on us again. But part of me wonders if they also intentionally did that for the barnyard pack.
Well, that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never fire almost all your community managers. There are no people to plan anything or hype things up. That's why things seem stale now.
And honestly, after the lack of sound work on the donkey and the rather rushed hair texture work on the cattle, I can't feel excited about the next DLC anyway. The quality of the DLCs has dropped in my opinion in some aspects (not all) and I can't get myself excited over another low budget and low staff production.
And honestly, after the lack of sound work on the donkey and the rather rushed hair texture work on the cattle, I can't feel excited about the next DLC anyway. The quality of the DLCs has dropped in my opinion in some aspects (not all) and I can't get myself excited over another low budget and low staff production.
What makes me curious is I wonder if the dlc was made for the free update and not the other way around? Like barnyard would seem like such a low effort knock out of the park. Yet it had plenty of its own issues that made it more odd. What’s with the lack of cross on the donkey, the hair on the cattle, and some of the roster choices? Did we need another pig? If we got the goat did we need the sheep too? The chicken was the best part of the pack.
One of my personal theories is if this next dlc is bigger/ harder they used barnyard as a middle ground. Maybe for the next dlc they needed more time for animations, rigs, etc. so barnyard seemed like a good way to go. They could fill the void of a lack of releases with an easier dlc for them to do internally. Which of course doesn’t account for any restructuring/ layoffs as well.
So I’m still a bit hopeful for the next dlc, but I would also not be surprised if it’s more of the same and I’m proven wrong.
Me theory is that either barnyard was originally supposed to a normal scenery pack and they deceided somewhere in between to make to scrapp the full scenery idea and do this middle ground thing instead. Or perhaps more likely its was originally supposed to only have 6 animals and deceided more or less last minute to throw a new color on the wild ass and put it in as a domestic donkey, which explains why it makes the wrong noise and missed the stripe.
With the SEA animal pack im pretty conviced this was the case. It was supposed to be a normal pack with the bear, babirusa, monkey and leopard, but they deceided for whatever reason that animal pack should be a thing and added the other 3 animals, which is why there was this weird quality difference between the first 4 and the other 3, (ofcourse the dhole, binturong and tapir got all revamp over time).
And perhaps like with the donkey it was originally only supposed to have 6 habitat animals, but they realized that that would be kind of a scam to sell for the same amount as a standard pack so they asked the intern to recolor over the tapir in paint lol.
Yeah i'm the same. I feel like Barnyard was put together quickly to tie with the update which was really the star.
So i still remain hopeful of the next DLC's Quality, not so much about the size and roster though.
I've been saying variations of this for a while. In order for them to implement petting zoos they kind of had to put forward a pack like this. And if they hadn't... People would be demanding a Barnyard pack.
I actually think all of the animals in the pack look great. In some cases they could be better (highland cattle) but they're all usable without being distracting for me. But it still kinda feels more like a "means to an end" rather than something they were excited about.I do like the pack quite a bit and I think it'll continue to age well (especially when you factor in what can be done with these species mod-wise which I think is going to become a larger factor post-development) but it will always feel like the DLC was driven by the feature (when its usually the reverse). And, TBH, I think the "feature" and how it encourages a brand new way to build is probably the only reason the pack happened.
There's also something to be said for the research that would need to go into domestics versus, say, a pack of global wild animals. It's just a little easier. Especially since they're presumably already very familiar with the species. So it probably took less time from a few angles without sacrificing too much in the way of quality (highland hair aside) opening up more time for another pack.
More reason to be optimistic about the next pack? I think so. Haha.
Rushed work during a stressful and tireing time for the people that worked on the pack. No time to research propperly (or no mental capacity for those in charge because they were already facing possible lay offs.
We got another pig, sheep, goat etc. because they required little to no sound work and not much of altering, so whre able to be produced with as little as possible resources.
A bigger last pack would be fair, desireable and in my opinion needed for a propper good bye to a franchise that brought Frontier A LOT of growth and money. I don't believe in it anymore regardless.
Yeah that’s how I feel, even if the next dlc gives me animals I don’t “need” as much they will still look amazing. The quality is usually never in question for me!
Oh but the roster? I scratch my head a lot.
This isn't a bad theory. My thought was always that there just wasn't a suitable exhibit animal given the pack's theme, current exhibit functionalities, and the free update. So them doing the scenery items was a way to compensate for that. From a cost perspective, based on my math each "animal" in a pack is generally worth ~40 scenery items. Factoring in the items that get developed for each exhibit (general exhibit layout plus the various enrichments) and considering how "simple" some of the items were... The math makes sense for me.
But either could be true. Though, TBH, I feel like the donkey was literally just somebody going "I know what a donkey looks like; I got this!" but... They didn't.
For the SEA animal pack, I actually think that happened because people were continually upset/disappointed by the lack of animals in certain packs. At the time there was a pretty large outcry about that. Species were being missed and people were just really calling out for more. I think that was the first time I feel like the community really felt heard by Frontier. And contrary to what some people think they have really listened to the player base. There was a large Word document that was compiled by folks on the BroNation Discord and shared with Frontier at one point a few years ago, complete with all sorts of suggested features and at this point I think virtually all of them have made it in.
Yeah, now that we're in July, I think June 2024 will go down as the quietest month in the history of the game.
A grand total of 4 posts on their social media, the forums grasping for topics to discuss, and a minute and half discussion on the live stream (also am I the one with thought the host seemed kind of idk "annoyed" to talk about PZ?)
It's certainly a bizarre time. We know another pack is coming, but still I've never seen an transition period between DLCs this quiet, tbh I almost forgot about the game lol
And since the dust has settled, you can officially count me in the "Barnyard is Based" crowd.
I know there's issues with the cattle, donkey sounds, and roster picks, but since it's dropped, I've literally have spent hours just watching the chickens lol
I don't know what it is about these walking McNuggets, but I've haven't been this entranced by the game since the bats came up.
A grand total of 4 posts on their social media, the forums grasping for topics to discuss, and a minute and half discussion on the live stream (also am I the one with thought the host seemed kind of idk "annoyed" to talk about PZ?)
It's certainly a bizarre time. We know another pack is coming, but still I've never seen an transition period between DLCs this quiet, tbh I almost forgot about the game lol
And since the dust has settled, you can officially count me in the "Barnyard is Based" crowd.
I know there's issues with the cattle, donkey sounds, and roster picks, but since it's dropped, I've literally have spent hours just watching the chickens lol
I don't know what it is about these walking McNuggets, but I've haven't been this entranced by the game since the bats came up.