I do not know, Arctic felt much more worth it than this ride DLC Planco2 is getting. In addition to animals, despite the Arctic pack scenery being obviously heavily Christmas themed, it was something new and exciting to play with. It was festive, cold themed and I do not think casual players care that much about realism. It also had 2 new career missions, which yeah, some people do not care about, but they were voiced and continued the story from base game and just something extra. It felt alot more fleshed out than this Planco DLC.
And I know I speak from a priviledged position of being able to buy these packs and not worry about the price too much, but I never minded a DLC soon after game release, because in the long run, it means more animals. In the eyes of many, releaseing a DLC for bugged game is a bad taste, but I never really worried about that, since different people work on DLC content and bug fixes.
But this one just feels...lacking I guess. Additional scenery would do wonders.
I hear you. And I feel very much the same way. But I think that's mostly because I'm not really a theme park "person" rather than anything with the pack itself. I'm very inspired by the animals in Planet Zoo. Getting a single new species in the game can lead to me creating a whole new zoo area or inspire a specific habitat type. With theme parks, I'm not inspired by roller coasters or rides. I'm more inspired by... Decorating them to fit a certain theme. Haha. It's the opposite.
In looking at the way they organized things with PC1, though, I don't think the pack formats are all that different. There were packs that had a few flat rides and then 1-2 coasters ("animal" packs) and then there were packs that had ~3 flat rides and a bunch of scenery ("scenery" packs). So I think it's the same "value" just presented differently. And if you aren't a ride person? Packs like this one won't appeal so much. Much like how, for PZ players the "builders" were less enthused by the animal packs.
But yeah, this early in the game's development? A scenery pack with a brand new theme would have 100% been better received by everyone, I think. Especially for a person like me who isn't too enthralled or inspired by any of the existing themes.
I haven't been around since the very beginning, but for me the thing that was most needed in the base game is education/enrichment.
Enrichment in base game was decent, but basic. Education was essentially nonexistent.
Since then, there have been minimal improvements to enrichment. While we have gotten quite a few education updates, they have been minimal - and not very interactive - and are barely scratching the surface on what zoos can offer.
These were puzzling omissions given how vital both are to modern zoos.
I think the base game animal roster was good enough(perhaps with a few exceptions)...but core zoo features like education really should have been included. I understand that games get released as unfinished products, and periodic updates help keep the game feeling fresh. But some things really are so important that we should have seen them enhanced with the free updates, instead of being added with them.
I think the education
system is fine. It was there in a logical way.
Where I think they missed is in the application of the interactive education items they added as part of a free update. Ironically, those could have
really improved if they had made them
less detailed and more generic. Just make it a little non-descript stand that people walk up to and interact with - and let the player add the signage, pieces, etc. Maybe a few extra signs and pieces for detailing. Give us an empty glass box to fill with whatever that guests will walk up to and learn something from. And let us be the ones to link it to certain animals (and not force it to be a giraffe or a gorilla). Give us a ruler piece and a little platform. Let us be the ones to pick the animals. That sort of thing.
That said, I'm a firm believer that the developers inherently
would do these things if they felt there weren't more pressing things players wanted from a gameplay perspective. So let me ask you this... What would you have excluded from a free update to get additional education features? Or what would you have excluded from the base game to allow for time to have education play more of a role?
