Might be a hot take, but as an American, I DONT want the American Black Bear. I'd rather get the Andean Bear for more SA rep, and cause of its unique coat pattern. Maybe I'm a bit biased cause none of the zoos I've gone to have had Black Bears, but I'm not really interested in getting them in game.
DLC18 discussion and predictions
- Thread starter Leaf Productions
- Start date
I think the root problem is that we have so many bears that getting more just becomes bloating. I'd say a good zoo roster is restrictive of the bear species it contains. Up to me, I'd only do polar bear, American black bear, sloth bear/panda bear, and sun bear.
For a good zoo roster, a brown bear is absolutely mandatory. It is by far the bear species that is more often kept in zoos, almost doubling the second most kept. Maybe a generic brown bear would be enough instead of adding two subspecies (one for America and the other for Eurasia).
Brown bear:
American black bear:
Polar bear:
Asiatic black bear:
Sun bear:
Andean bear:
Sloth bear:
Panda:
American black bear:
Polar bear:
Asiatic black bear:
Sun bear:
Andean bear:
Sloth bear:
Panda:
According to those numbers, and bearing in mind how iconic the bears are for the places they are from, I think that the truly essential bears for a zoo game are:
Brown bear, American black bear and Polar Bear. Due to their fame, including giant pandas makes sense too.
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I personally don't value a species based on how common they are in captivity. Zoo game rosters would be heavily restrictive is this was a pillar of influence. Though I would now probably replace the sun bear for the spectacled bear for more global representation.
This isn't always true, see: Baird's tapir, brown-throated sloth, nine-banded armadillo, takin, collared peccary and more which were chosen over alternatives more common in British zoos.
I also want it, actually, very badly. Or at least just a generic Eurasian wildcat, since the exact taxonomy of the Scottish wildcat is somewhat disputed.
It's true that there's exceptions. Though I do think the hometeam factor played into things like getting grey seals before Cali sea lions or nyalas instead of kudus.
I wouldn't count on that, but considering the current HBB model is just more or less identical to the grizzly, I don't know why they didn't just throw in one or two additional brown bears while they were at it. I mean, would it have been any additional effort just to move the mouse slightly higher up the colour wheel once or twice to give us the Eurasian brown bear, too?
Anyway, a generic brown bear wouldn't have been easy to swallow. Look at the timber wolf as an example. Even though it's labelled as generic, it's designed with a specfic subspecies in mind, and then we still got a specific subspecies after the fact, and even today people still ask for yet more specific subspecies of grey wolves besides.
Honestly the only time where frontier was biased towards britain was barnyard imo.
Apart from that i might even say they were largely biased against it for the most part atleast priority wise, with the basegame having none to arguably almost no european animals, the first of which we only got 2 years later and then again only very recently with eurasia.
The sea lion is actually the more common one, by quite a while actually
I always got the impression that the grey seal was added first because there was a relative dearth of European animals at the time. Plus the California sea lion was an obvious choice for a North America pack.
All the aquatic pack choices were not the most obvious ones. The African or Humboldt penguin, California sea lion, Asian small clawed otter and spectacled caiman or American alligator would have made more sense, unless Frontier was saving them on purpose for later packs.
Couldn't agree more with your argument. There is no sound reasoning in labelling certain species as needed or other objectively-framed statements, and very little consistency in the criteria cited for them.
Worth bearing in mind though that this is not an academic community (although there are a lot of academics and professionals on here). I feel that there should be room for people to express themselves without fear of reproach or criticism. People on here are of mixed ages, neurodivergencies and world experience. One of my guiding principles in life comes from the old Jimmy Stewart film Harvey: "it's better to be kind than to be right." It's okay if people have nonsensical debates, if they're enjoying themselves. Don't you think? I respect you though for raising the standard (or trying to!)
I've been thinking about the tuatara recently actually. Who doesn't want a three-eyed lizard? I just wish exhibit boxes were more appealing, then I'd be more strident about all the reptiles I'd love to have in the game. It will definitely go on my wishlist for PZ2.
New Zealand is literally part of Australia! I’m confused if you had ever seen an animals in real life. How the heck aren’t a shoebill and walrus aren’t VISUALLY unique. Yes you can just grab a gray seal and put two tusks on it but there’s a difference between rig and what these animals look like. How does a Dik Dik look like a oryx? The monel I can understand but the rest are unique compared to our game’s roster.
With regards to bears, I feel torn. In real life I really like them, but I hardly use them in the game and find them pretty boring, aside from (controversially) the sloth bear (just personal preference, I like fuzzy baloo). I wonder if I'm switched off to them because the game got bears so wrong right from the outset. I don't really want any more bears in the game personally but I can see how N Americans feel underrepresented without the ABB.
I wish the game had started with the ABB and a European brown bear, and built from there in the DLC with the polar bear, sloth, sun or moon bear for Asia and the spectacled bear from SA. That would be enough bears for me.
I wish the game had started with the ABB and a European brown bear, and built from there in the DLC with the polar bear, sloth, sun or moon bear for Asia and the spectacled bear from SA. That would be enough bears for me.
Yikes. No. You had better google this. NZ is a separate country, with very different governance, culture, history, flora and fauna, etc etc. It's sometimes described as being part of the continent of Australasia but we now use Oceania.
A bit of homework needed on this for you my friend
you might be about to get some heat!
New Zealand and Australia are literally 2 independent countries, New Zealand isn't part of Australia