Preparing for PZ2 metawishlist

[Captain Callum]

I think there's also a lesson for the traditional animal meta-wishlist authors to look at the way I run my feature meta-wishlists. The less you "interfere" with people's suggestions, the easier it is to get a unbiased view of what the community wants. I learned that restrictions on suggestions however annoyed they personally make you, just make people unwilling to participate or even try to call out why certain suggestions are blocked from the wishlist.

Animals of certain groups or game classification of a complete mega meta-wishlist should be treated equally and without any classification of any sort. Forget exhibit and habitat grouping, treat every animal as a habitat animal. The entire point is to cast a vote for that animal not the way it is displayed ingame. You want to vote on how animals are displayed for a game not yet made? Make another kind of wishlist for that or head over to the feature wishlist as I'm willing to cooperate with animal additions in that manner.

Seeing how this meta wishlist is supposedly going to be run by several people, agreements between this group of people and others wanting to simply vote for their favourite animals is not going to be simple.

 

[SuzieSky]

After seeing other posts here, I feel compelled to add...

Taxon grouping and such are less about a desire to "influence" votes and more about a way to split things so they will actually fit within the word limit. If there is a better way to break it down (i.e. exhibit/aviary and habitat/large tank animals, PZ1 animals and non-PZ1 animals) I'm all ears. I don't believe a meta-wishlist where you can vote for any animal will fit into one page. I could also only show the most requested animals that will fit onto a page.

 

[Stygi]

I think the fewer restrictions the better as restrictions insert bias from the creator into the list, I personally think 200 animals would be a better number than 150

 

[Milurian]

Should we focus on what animals will be new to the game? Or would that include returning animals?

both dont limit any suggestions if people only want returning animals so be it

Do you think maybe setting a ratio for Habitat : Flying : Full Aquatic : Exhibit would be a good idea? For example, your list should include:

25 Habitat Animals
20 Flying Animals
15 Full Aquatic Animals
15 Exhibit Animals

(FOR EXAMPLE)

That way, people’s lists aren’t too muddled and heavily imbalanced with 100 species of macaw or something.

no restrictions it would limit the community to show what they actually want and then also be more work for us to identify and sort based on categories especially when it comes to the border between exhibit and habitat animals plus we still have no idea what system pz2 will use

Thanks for starting this one and including those points of discussion:
My thoughts:

• I'm happy to help providing my meta-wishlist's post template and Excel file and any advice on how to run it. But, I don't have the time to commit to tally the votes and keep it updated. Not now nor in the next months.

• Who will manage the thread: I think @SuzieSky did a fantastic job with the latest wishlist and could be a good candidate to start and update the OP. However, I genuinely think this should be a collaborative task this would be a formality more than anything.

• How will we manage such a large list: Again in my eyes this should be a collaborative project, we're talking potentially 2-3 years of people's submissions, with the added complexity that it'd be a large number of animals per individual list submitted (I'll get to this later in the post). As this is a massive commitment (we're looking at potentially >75000 votes), people who would like to be involved and help would need to get organised and be open to share Excel files, R scripts or whatever you prefer (I guess Excel is the easiest). Opening a dedicated space to get organised for this would not be out of this world. Something like a Discord server as it'd be impossible to organise all this here privately, let alone publically. The managing team could perhaps work in relays - eg. each working to keep the list updated on a monthly basis.

• What groups of animals will people be allowed to include: I would opt for the whole animal kingdom, as this would ensure everything is in one place assuming that we'll get a more flexible exhibit system, aviaries and aquariums. This being said, for the sake of simplifying things specially thinking of people doing the work, I think implementing ratios of Category A, Category B, etc. animals would be an extra task I deem unnecessary. We also genuinely don't know how that ratio would be ingame? Couldn't it be changed precisely because of our feedback here? If anyone is only interested in building aquariums, why wouldn't they be allowed to vote for just aquatic animals?

• How many animals will be people be allowed to submit: This is completely arbitrary but based on the amount of animals we got in PZ at launch (around 75?) and what they did with JWE2, I reckon 150 is a fair number to ask for. Now, sorry @Fini but I have to disagree with you, asking people to state whether they want X animal in base-game or future DLC is again another unnecessary level of complexity that would involve extra time to manage.

• Will we allow edits: Again I don't think this is a good idea at least until PZ2 launches, then I wouldn't allow them more than once a year. Believe me, too much work.

• Animal groups, species, subspecies, populations/breeds debate: Something that was criticised a lot in the meta-wishlist was that it was not generic enough or, that the results were skewed whenever someone voted for a "generic animal from X animal group" without specifying the species, as their vote would go to the most voted species within that animal group. Where would we set the threshold? In general terms I would go for species for the standard animal category, only allowing subspecies for those animals that were featured as subspecies in PZ1 (eg. lions, tigers, brown bears, etc.). Breeds should be accepted for domestic animals.
  And perhaps this time around, to please the masses, we (you) could change how you tally the votes for "generic gibbon", adding a vote to all the gibbon species so none of them is overestimated.

Definitely no edits until release since until then there will be no new information. After release I have thoughts but this is for a post release discussion.
I agree all animals should be treated equally as valid additions no categories are really necessary.

One of the biggest issues will be how people submit their lists. Species level additions should be the preferred and will be added to instructions but we need to discuss what happens if someone unknowingly suggest a family or genus instead how do we sort those votes and what happens to breeds subspecies and populations.

I've been disconnected from the forums lately and I didn't know about the limit. I've just seen Milurian's thread though.
I never had a problem with that myself but I guess that's because I only stuck to habitat animals, making the main list only 726 rows long.

I agree it's a good approach to include as many as the forum allows and keep the rest in a public Excel file.

yeah my list is almost double yours in length because I gave no restrictions in an attempt to view the most accurate sampling of what people have seen. The limit is 100,000 characters and with a list of 1350 animals I would hit that on the base list alone no subcategories.

 

[Milurian]

After seeing other posts here, I feel compelled to add...

Taxon grouping and such are less about a desire to "influence" votes and more about a way to split things so they will actually fit within the word limit. If there is a better way to break it down (i.e. exhibit/aviary and habitat/large tank animals, PZ1 animals and non-PZ1 animals) I'm all ears. I don't believe a meta-wishlist where you can vote for any animal will fit into one page. I could also only show the most requested animals that will fit onto a page.

taxon grouping in of itself also has bias based on where lines are drawn. I think the best possible way of fitting into the limit is to keep the list small and simple 50-100 animals max and only display the data one way

 

[Stygi]

taxon grouping in of itself also has bias based on where lines are drawn. I think the best possible way of fitting into the limit is to keep the list small and simple 50-100 animals max and only display the data one way

I would argue larger lists are more valuable as they allow for more expression of choice as most people will want animals like elephants, lions and tigers on their list (these are also animals frontier knows we want, so if the list only includes obvious zoo classics it becomes a bit redundant) and by the time one works their way through that long list of essential animals they then would have limited opportunities to show what other animals they want in the game, I think shorter lists reward megafauna and punish oddballs and groups underrepresented in game like birds and reptiles

 

[Milurian]

I would argue larger lists are more valuable as they allow for more expression of choice as most people will want animals like elephants, lions and tigers on their list and by the time one works their way through that long list of essential animals they then would have limited opportunities to show what other animals they want in the game, I think shorter lists reward megafauna and punish oddballs and groups underrepresented in game like birds and reptiles

I agree but we both have to sort and display this information which are not compatible with a longer list trust me sorting through lists of 200 plus animals each of which you have to sort out based on changing common names, misspellings and bad taxonomy can take hours per list.

 

[SuzieSky]

What I'd perhaps suggest is opening with a "seed" poll to basically get the top... say... 20 out the way to prevent them clogging up lists.

Like, they're just not gonna make a Zoo game without Lions, Tigers, Elephants, Giraffes, Zebras, Hippos, Rhinos, Gorrillas etc

Then after that's wrapped up, thats when you move to personal preference lists?

I love this idea, but I don't think people will have the patience to read through the seed list.

 

[Captain Callum]

Please no restrictions, I seriously want to see the Himalayan brown bear appear on the wishlist

 

[Mjmannella]

Like, they're just not gonna make a Zoo game without Lions, Tigers, Elephants, Giraffes, Zebras, Hippos, Rhinos, Gorrillas etc

Frontier already made a zoo game 11 years ago without 2 of those

 

[SuzieSky]

Here's an idea:
Vote for your favorite (up to 200) extant species. It can include whatever you want.

The actual wishlist page will only show the top 300 animals, and maybe a separate list for the top 100 reptiles, birds, mammals, fish, and other animals.

 

[TheYeti]

Species/subspecies:
The species/subspecies debate is an interesting one. Biologically species are an obvious choice, but we've seen Frontier make different choices. I mean, we have two bears, two wolves, two tigers and two leopards. Also real zoos tend to indicate subspecies, rather than species.

I don't really think there is a perfect solution, but for simplicity I'd say it's good to stick with species. However, that doesn't mean people shouldn't indicate a subspecies if they do have a preference. We can follow the same system as with Random Goat's original list where subspecies counts are listed in brackets.

Character limit:
Regarding character limit, I think there are some solutions:

• Compile the list in an Excel/Sheets document and post a link in the first page. This would allow an easy sorting by taxonomic group/probable game classification in tabs.
• Paste the list as pictures with each picture covering 20-50 positions on the list.
• Only showcase the top n which is likely to be somewhere in the 100s anyway.

 

[Stygi]

Here's an idea:
Vote for your favorite (up to 200) extant species. It can include whatever you want.

The actual wishlist page will only show the top 300 animals, and maybe a separate list for the top 100 reptiles, birds, mammals, fish, and other animals.

I fully support this idea, and although not all the animals will end up in the base game we can still try and inform frontiers plans for DLC

 

[SuzieSky]

However, that doesn't mean people shouldn't indicate a subspecies if they do have a preference. We can follow the same system as with Random Goat's original list where subspecies counts are listed in brackets.

I do not want to do this.

 

[Milurian]

Species/subspecies:
The species/subspecies debate is an interesting one. Biologically species are an obvious choice, but we've seen Frontier make different choices. I mean, we have two bears, two wolves, two tigers and two leopards. Also real zoos tend to indicate subspecies, rather than species.

I don't really think there is a perfect solution, but for simplicity I'd say it's good to stick with species. However, that doesn't mean people shouldn't indicate a subspecies if they do have a preference. We can follow the same system as with Random Goat's original list where subspecies counts are listed in brackets.

Character limit:
Regarding character limit, I think there are some solutions:

• Compile the list in an Excel/Sheets document and post a link in the first page. This would allow an easy sorting by taxonomic group/probable game classification in tabs.
• Paste the list as pictures with each picture covering 20-50 positions on the list.
• Only showcase the top n which is likely to be somewhere in the 100s anyway.

keep in mind that in the entirety of planet zoos existence we have only 5/6 cases of repeat visits to a species so its not common so species is by far the most common category plus there lines between subspecies are very blurry in some cases. I agree that sticking with species with a preferred subspecies being identified works the best

using pictures will just make the list a usability nightmare since you wont be able to search through it as easily and will increase load times.

 

[Stygi]

I do not want to do this.

I would be fine with it though, because we are probably going to be splitting the work between a small group of us I would be fine with being in charge of managing a subspecies list, if there is enough demand for it

 

[SuzieSky]

I would be fine with it though, because we are probably going to be splitting the work between a small group of us I would be fine with being in charge of managing a subspecies list, if there is enough demand for it

I think it should be done on a separate thread. I know some people are passionate about this, but I truly, strongly feel that the Metawishlist is not the place for it.

 

[Stygi]

I think it should be done on a separate thread. I know some people are passionate about this, but I truly, strongly feel that the Metawishlist is not the place for it.

fair enough, although I think if it isn't happening on this thread there is no point in making a specific subspecies meta wishlist

 

[SuzieSky]

If you start opening the door to subspecies, (I've already spend too many hours dealing with it) people start adding them for every random animal. It shows up as a typo for me that I have to manually correct, Google to be sure it's not its own thing (it's debated in some cases), and then inevitably make some mistakes that need to be dealt with. It would more than double the workload, mostly unnecessarily.

Most people only care about subspecies for big cats, bears, and wolves anyway. I think those debates can go on elsewhere.

 

[Milurian]

If you start opening the door to subspecies, (I've already spend too many hours dealing with it) people start adding them for every random animal. It shows up as a typo for me that I have to manually correct, Google to be sure it's not its own thing (it's debated in some cases), and then inevitably make some mistakes that need to be dealt with. It would more than double the workload, mostly unnecessarily.

Most people only care about subspecies for big cats, bears, and wolves anyway. I think those debates can go on elsewhere.

I agree they are a pain to deal with but they will happen no matter how well we control simply because some people just dont know whats a genus species or subspecies.

I feel the best way to deal with them is to have people say the species specify in brackets if they want a subspecies and when its sorted the species is tagged with a note that says the subspecies and how many votes. They wont appear on the list but should the list be continued post pz2 launch having the subspecies split will be important should only one make it in.