DLC 19 Speculation

[jcp011c]

I've liked all but three DLC, with one doing better in retrospect and another being important even though I didn't personally care for it.

Barnyard - I bought it because I just want more content, but farm animals aren't really my thing. But I totally understand why it's important to have this, it's a component of many real life zoos. So I can't complain too much about it, other than the totally unnecessary pig added in.

Arid - Didn't care for it almost at all at the start, and I still don't love it, but it's warmed up (pun intended) with time. I wish it had not been a total Africa focus though.

Tropical - the only building set I really didn't care for. The total lack of South American habitat species, but at least we got a WTE iconic species. Frustration that this should have been an animal pack. It's not that the roster is bad, in fact it's better than some of the other rosters, but it really missed the point of why a Tropical pack was needed. At least they tried.

 

[Marvinb]

I've liked all but three DLC, with one doing better in retrospect and another being important even though I didn't personally care for it.

Barnyard - I bought it because I just want more content, but farm animals aren't really my thing. But I totally understand why it's important to have this, it's a component of many real life zoos. So I can't complain too much about it, other than the totally unnecessary pig added in.

Arid - Didn't care for it almost at all at the start, and I still don't love it, but it's warmed up (pun intended) with time. I wish it had not been a total Africa focus though.

Tropical - the only building set I really didn't care for. The total lack of South American habitat species, but at least we got a WTE iconic species. Frustration that this should have been an animal pack. It's not that the roster is bad, in fact it's better than some of the other rosters, but it really missed the point of why a Tropical pack was needed. At least they tried.

Always funny to see how different opinions on certain packs are, because the tropical is my personal favorite pack

 

[Milurian]

I get what you are saying. For me, outside of the “big ungulates” like rhinos, hippos, and elephants. I think a vast majority of ungulate species are fantastic for filling up space and making mixed habitats. If you have a massive open field, and we’re making an American section, why not use the pronghorn and bison?

My big thing is we are now past the “big ticket” ungulates for each continent, and while they are amazing animals, we are now getting more complimentary hoofstock. While nice, it usually ends up being at the cost of everything else (potentially, we don’t know how Frontier decides to make dlc). Still waiting for some of the most basic birds is very frustrating.

It’s great having the Kirk’s DikDik in game, but you know what else would be nice? Getting another basic mixed habitat bird! If we had to go for Africa, a grey crowned crane and Guinea fowl would be great. While every animal is beautiful and amazing, this is a video game. So after awhile of playing with the same “toys” it gets boring. If we got 5 crane species in one year, I could totally see why people would start to get sick of them.

Things were fine when it was 1-3 per pack max we still need ungulates but we need other animals more frontier needs to stop with packs that are over half ungulate and people will stop hating them

I don't think so, correct if i'm wrong but I think there's always been more themepark games around than zoo games. So maybe there's more competition. Rollercoaster Tycoon also always seemed more popular than Zoo Tycoon (in my area at least).

Debatable they have always been intertwined there have been just about the same number of "zoo tycoon" and "roller coaster tycoon" games however looking at generalised zoo builders and theme park builders there is a much higher demand for that since there are overall more zoo games then coaster games. There have never been more theme park builders than zoo builders it always been the opposite.

Depends if those coaster fans actually moved on from RCT, my comment was more about the noted players from steamdb which planet zoo has consistently been higher than planet coaster (either 1 or 2). For example the release numbers: planet zoo release was met with 38,000 players, and planet coaster 1 - 22,000 and coaster 2 - 20,000.

This is by far the biggest thing people are missing its doing the same as planet coaster one just not as good as JWE or PZ people are so set on comparing games that are not catching the same audience planet coaster 1 is the best comparison we have and it is doing the same. Is PC2 doing amazing no is it flopping also no

Yeah so when making a realistic biomes pack I would use the ones that have been used:
Grasslands -
Tropical -
Wetlands -
Arid -
Arctic -
Aquatic -

And then probably add Highlands or Temperate as most likely.

spice it up and just use the ingame biomes
grasslands - greater rhea
tropical - goodfellows tree kangaroo
aquatic - sea otter
desert - perentie
tundra - musk ox
taiga - himalayan monal
temperate - american black bear

What would you think about this pack?

Frontier Favourites Pack:
1. American black bear
2. Tibetan brown bear
3. North Chinese leopard
4. Guanaco
5. Ocelot
6. Bornean bearded pig
7. Olive baboon
E: any oddball insect

Spoiler

Just kidding

this is a vile masterpiece that would enrage just about every one well done

 

[Milurian]

What I don't really understand is Frontier's strategy. They don't communicate about the pack, they don't send it to Youtbers and they launch a poor overpriced DLC when the base game is still in a very bad state. I'm reading a lot of negative reactions as I was expecting. This feels like Frontier knows they are acting bad so they are being quiet trying to fool some people to buy the DLC and get the money. I think Frontier is going in a very bad direction, and I'm starting to fear for the future of Planet Zoo (be it more DLCs or a sequel).

This. So much this. Honestly, they need to get a grip or there won't be any funds left for Planet Zoo 2. And oh god, they need to build up trust again and do a better launch with the base game.

This is in no way directed to the Devs, as they are probably working tgheir buds off and are frustrated as we are with the situation, but company wise, holy cow, they seem to commit marketing $uizide.

Every time I think things cant get worse they do frontier is really taking a nose dive right now and I hope it doesnt crash and burn before planet zoo is finished.

7 months isn’t that crazy of a jump though especially if they want to hype it up more. I’m not saying it’ll be teased this month I’m just saying it’s possible

especially if they happen to have a reason to distract people and reinforce investors like the mid tier release of a supposed to be incredible game.

I don't know, the focus on console compatibility has been an issue with PC2 since before it even launched, and the new update has taken steps to alleviate some of it. While I'm sure they'll still plan the PZ2 interface around the console, I very much suspect they'll learn from this. Call me optimistic, but I think a lot of the major cross-compatibility problems will be mitigated if/when PZ2 launches.

Really their mistake was entering the console market full-throttle to begin with. I get the appeal, but the way they did it originally was better. Start on PC, port to console later.

This was such a huge mistake by frontier one of the biggest advantages of pc compared to console specifically in this genre of game is the controls and ui flexibility. To then make the game centred around what console can do and giving pc a console ui makes the pc experience significantly worse off and will irritate a large portion of the player base who focus on building games.

 

[NachoB]

My least favorite packa from most to least disliked:

1. Barnyard: since this one is an animal, despite having some cool building pieces, i judge it based on that. I never wanted an all domestics pack to begin with but even this one felt short of what i would've enjoyed from such a pack because of the poor animal selection. Alpaca, chicken and sheep are probably the only animals i like in this pack and even then the alpaca feels kind of redudant, but they are all three really well done. Donkey and pig are among the worst choices they could've mase for this roster when a duck and a rabbit or even pony were so much better options. Then there is the dissapointment there is the highland cow in terms of quality. It was probably the only domestic animal i actively wanted and turned out to be the worst of the pack, almost unusable for me. And i really can't believe the goat is not a dwarf goat.

2. Zookeeper's: i mean... Is fine i guess... Overall community favorites almost in every pick but almost none of them were a priority or urgent to get for me (with the exception of the markhor and maybe the Palla's cat, but still not really priorities, they just were in my wishlist). The dik dik turned out to be may favorite animal in the pack. The baboon could look better imo, the bear wasn't really what SA needs and i still don't understand why the sifaka (a hard animal to animate that was done half way instead of giving us what most of us really wanted: another new world monkey, that would have been easier to animate as well). I guess some pieces are usefull but really the scenery wasn't that exciting either and the lack of foliage is sad. It didn't really feel like a celebratory pack at all despite the theming and i'm glad is not the last one because i didn't felt any excitement for it.

3. Arctic: it was the first DLC so is kind of unfair to compare it to newer ones, specially in terms of animal quality, but once again the selection was very perplexing to me. A wolf subspecies that people only like because is a timber wolf kind of remake so they give them an okaish wolf ot use. A really underwelming and cartoonized reindeer and polar bear with impossible space requirements (although not really a problem for me since i only play sandbox). I love the dall sheep but really a musk ox would've been more iconic of the arctic (and the wolf should've been the arctic fox from the get go). The wood aet is nice, but a lot of the pieces are heavely themed and are not flexicolor so that reduces the versatility for me, but i still like them though.

4. Twilight: alright, this one is another pack i don't care much about most of the animals but it gave us our first flying animals (and they were bats which was awesome) and aome very useful building pieces (although some others that are too themed to be useful for the most part for me). The raccoon has grown on me a lot because i think they ar every well done and are super entertaining but i was kind of against their inclusion at that time hehe now i'm ok with almost all the animals individually but as a complete roster i don't think any of them are really that exciting.

5. Arid: this one is weird because some of it's wrong were corrected by Zookeeper's pack with the addition of the baboon and the tortoise, but still feels like too many ungulates despite a lot of those animals being personal favorites of mine (rhino, dromedary, addax, porcupine). The dama gazelle is beautiful but really if we never got it i don't think it would have ever made my personal wishlist. Similar thing with the sand cat (although less quality than the gazelle). But the main issue with this pack is the missbranding... Is a north african/middle east animal pack not a biome pack. It was our desert pack yet completly focus on Africa and with nothing from Australia, North or South America which was a shame and the game hasn't compensated for that yet since an australian monitor lizard, patagonian fauna and NA desert animals are still missing from the roster.

 

[KönigDerKaffeebohnen]

Always funny to see how different opinions on certain packs are, because the tropical is my personal favorite pack

The thing is i can completly understand both perspectives.
Was it a crime to get no south american habitat animal and not even the right sloth in what might be the by far ugliest exhibit?
Yes
Was everything actually in the pack amazing? Also yes

If i had to describe the pack in one Word its competent. The animals are all pretty good or atleast allmost pretty good (wrong sloth moment) choices, the brachiachtion update, SEA scenery theme and New foliage slap and it genuinly near completed SEA in most peoples eyes.

Its imo THE pack that has excellent content but suffers greatly from what isnt there, maybd even more then arid

 

[USzoofan42]

My least favorite packa from most to least disliked:

1. Barnyard: since this one is an animal, despite having some cool building pieces, i judge it based on that. I never wanted an all domestics pack to begin with but even this one felt short of what i would've enjoyed from such a pack because of the poor animal selection. Alpaca, chicken and sheep are probably the only animals i like in this pack and even then the alpaca feels kind of redudant, but they are all three really well done. Donkey and pig are among the worst choices they could've mase for this roster when a duck and a rabbit or even pony were so much better options. Then there is the dissapointment there is the highland cow in terms of quality. It was probably the only domestic animal i actively wanted and turned out to be the worst of the pack, almost unusable for me. And i really can't believe the goat is not a dwarf goat.

2. Zookeeper's: i mean... Is fine i guess... Overall community favorites almost in every pick but almost none of them were a priority or urgent to get for me (with the exception of the markhor and maybe the Palla's cat, but still not really priorities, they just were in my wishlist). The dik dik turned out to be may favorite animal in the pack. The baboon could look better imo, the bear wasn't really what SA needs and i still don't understand why the sifaka (a hard animal to animate that was done half way instead of giving us what most of us really wanted: another new world monkey, that would have been easier to animate as well). I guess some pieces are usefull but really the scenery wasn't that exciting either and the lack of foliage is sad. It didn't really feel like a celebratory pack at all despite the theming and i'm glad is not the last one because i didn't felt any excitement for it.

3. Arctic: it was the first DLC so is kind of unfair to compare it to newer ones, specially in terms of animal quality, but once again the selection was very perplexing to me. A wolf subspecies that people only like because is a timber wolf kind of remake so they give them an okaish wolf ot use. A really underwelming and cartoonized reindeer and polar bear with impossible space requirements (although not really a problem for me since i only play sandbox). I love the dall sheep but really a musk ox would've been more iconic of the arctic (and the wolf should've been the arctic fox from the get go). The wood aet is nice, but a lot of the pieces are heavely themed and are not flexicolor so that reduces the versatility for me, but i still like them though.

4. Twilight: alright, this one is another pack i don't care much about most of the animals but it gave us our first flying animals (and they were bats which was awesome) and aome very useful building pieces (although some others that are too themed to be useful for the most part for me). The raccoon has grown on me a lot because i think they ar every well done and are super entertaining but i was kind of against their inclusion at that time hehe now i'm ok with almost all the animals individually but as a complete roster i don't think any of them are really that exciting.

5. Arid: this one is weird because some of it's wrong were corrected by Zookeeper's pack with the addition of the baboon and the tortoise, but still feels like too many ungulates despite a lot of those animals being personal favorites of mine (rhino, dromedary, addax, porcupine). The dama gazelle is beautiful but really if we never got it i don't think it would have ever made my personal wishlist. Similar thing with the sand cat (although less quality than the gazelle). But the main issue with this pack is the missbranding... Is a north african/middle east animal pack not a biome pack. It was our desert pack yet completly focus on Africa and with nothing from Australia, North or South America which was a shame and the game hasn't compensated for that yet since an australian monitor lizard, patagonian fauna and NA desert animals are still missing from the roster.

tbh, your two least favorite packs are actually some of the best packs in the game imao, cmon every zoo has domestics and zookeeper pack is an awesome filler pack.
ignore my post history before we knew about another dlc btw.

 

[SalamAnders]

cmon every zoo has domestics

Every zoo got domestics, very few zoos got Alpine goats and Tamworth pigs...

 

[USzoofan42]

Also, are we SURE there will be another dlc?

 

[Marvinb]

Also, are we SURE there will be another dlc?

Frontier said so atleast

 

[USzoofan42]

Frontier said so atleast

I thought they said there’s MAY be another one.

 

[NZFanatic]

I thought they said there’s MAY be another one.

They did, but them mentioning it at all is pretty much confirmation. Frontier as a company is known to be extremely guarded with these things. There have been several instances over the years of PZ where long gaps between DLC have led to speculation running rampant on the state of the game, which could have been easily avoided by Frontier being even a little bit transparent.

Obviously there's always a chance that they bail on the idea, but it's a very slim chance.

 

[USzoofan42]

They did, but them mentioning it at all is pretty much confirmation. Frontier as a company is known to be extremely guarded with these things. There have been several instances over the years of PZ where long gaps between DLC have led to speculation running rampant on the state of the game, which could have been easily avoided by Frontier being even a little bit transparent.

Obviously there's always a chance that they bail on the idea, but it's a very slim chance.

Now I am thankful frontier isn’t like rockstar

 

[SuzieSky]

Its imo THE pack that has excellent content but suffers greatly from what isnt there, maybd even more then arid

It's so frustrating. I want to love the tropical pack, but I can't quite get over how they basically skipped South America. I try hard to focus on what was added instead of what was left behind packs, but I could not do it for this one. Maybe I'll like it better if we get the South America pack almost everyone is hoping for.

 

[FoxyDee]

I thought they said there’s MAY be another one.

It was obviously used in a context of a teasy tone, like “maybe there will be, maybe not, you will find out soon. Wink wink” not really in a “maybe there will be another pack, we are not sure yet” kind of tone. I cannot possibly see how anyone would take it any other way. Of course, sometimes things get cancelled, but if they did not plan another DLC, they would certainly not even mention it.

 

[Captain Callum]

Frontier has actually said twice now so a dlc next year is likely happening. First the maybe there will be in the stream a while back and also in the steam post about voting it in the game awards:

"We've had 18 DLC packs alongside 18 Free content updates, bringing our total species count up to 195 animals (so far!!)."

That was roughly about 2 weeks ago so the plan for more content is still on their minds for more planet zoo support.

 

[Kevin_23]

How's likely would this dlc be

Planet zoo Temperate Animal Pack

1. American black bear
2. Rosevelt elk
3. Coyote / Raccoon dog
4. European Hedgehog / Echidna
5. European Rabbit
6. Pine Marten / Otter
7. Mallard duck

Tundra overlaps with Arctic
Taiga (Alpine) most requested animals for this biome are already added
That only leaves Temperate as the last in-game biome without a Dlc

 

[Iben]

They did, but them mentioning it at all is pretty much confirmation.

I find it so incredibly weird that people think it's anything but a confirmation. Like, the way they said it it's extremely obvious that the "we maybe have something more" was just a tongue in cheek kind of way of saying it? I genuinely don't understand that people took that "maybe" literally instead of just a way of teasing which it so obviously was.

 

[NZFanatic]

I find it so incredibly weird that people think it's anything but a confirmation. Like, the way they said it it's extremely obvious that the "we maybe have something more" was just a tongue in cheek kind of way of saying it? I genuinely don't understand that people took that maybe literally instead of just a way of teasing which it so obviously was.

I think some people just don't want to get their hopes too high, which is fair. Expectations running rampant has been a problem in this community since the get-go, after all, so it's almost refreshing to see some healthy doubt. Plus the Zookeeper's Animal Pack did feel like a natural stopping point.

Hey at least nobody here (I think...and hope) is still expecting an aviary bird or marine animal DLC.

 

[Iben]

I think some people just don't want to get their hopes too high, which is fair

TBH, to me this feels like a massive over-correction. Frontier isn't going to say they have another DLC planned for next year if they don't, so I don't know, I see absolutely no reason to be cautious about it in the same way there was no reason to be cautious about it when they said Barnyard wasn't the last one.