DLC 19 Speculation

I disagree with tree-kangaroos being demanding. You're pretty much half way there with koalas and you're at the other half with wallabies. And something like howler monkeys are fairly easy to derive from capuchins. The most resource-intensive pack IMO is the North America Animal Pack, and no pack since then has reached a similar complexity in animal behaviour.
Yeah, but in that case everything in zookeeper is also derived from something else and the sifaka is still missing like half of its animations, so there seemingly werent enough ressources available.
And idk about you guys but if we get both the spidermonkey for example and the tree kangaroo and they are missing alot of stuff id rather have them chose one of them and do that one proberly instead of doing both but they end up halfassed.
 
Really from the breakdown of that list, the only two real oddballs were the Dama Gazelle (with one paltry vote,l can't get much less requested than that!) and the Asian Water Monitor. All of the other animals were ranked medium to very high - from what I could tell almost all of them in the top 100 spots from the time of that packs' release, and most of those within the top 25 and higher.
Then again the Water Monitor is the most common monitor in captivity (I think) and I personally love it.
 
the sifaka is still missing like half of its animations, so there seemingly werent enough ressources available.
If you're referring to the climbing then I can honestly say it's much less of a resource thing but more of a "climbing system" trade-of. Sifaka's very much "hug" branches when they climb which doesn't work well in a game where you can make any climbing frame you want out of any climable pieces that are of different widths. Even at the peak of the game's development a sifaka most likely would have always climbed like the rest of the lemurs. Like, even koalas ingame struggle with it and don't always look good, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why sloths were made as exhibit animals as well.

It's a trade-off, one of which I'm aware that not everyone likes and some people go as far as saying that it shouldn't have been in the game; but I'd rather have sifaka's that don't climb exactly like they would in real life if that means we can have the flexible climbing system we have today (as much as I curse it sometimes because of it black-box nature haha).

I tend to agree with Mjmannella, I wouldn't go as far as NA to make the point as there sure have been animals with equal amount of complexity since then; but the game has certainly reached a point where very few land and semi-aquatic based animals are completely out of bounds or require massive amounts of resources to make. There's an incredible library of animations and behaviors they have to start from, and software that allows them to speed up the process of reusing that library.

At this point in time, I can barely think of any animal that wouldn't fall into the "reuses an altered existing rig and animation set with some extra animations" category, with the work that Frontier has put in so far pretty much nothing in terms of land and semi-aquatic animals is impossible or resource intensive.

Are you implying that we are getting owls in the next DLC? That's Cool!

Just kidding, just kidding 🙃
I'm going to tell @TheDuckKnight you hate ducks @Aramar .
 
I disagree with tree-kangaroos being demanding. You're pretty much half way there with koalas and you're at the other half with wallabies. And something like howler monkeys are fairly easy to derive from capuchins. The most resource-intensive pack IMO is the North America Animal Pack, and no pack since then has reached a similar complexity in animal behaviour.
I really don't think any of the animals people are clamoring for are particularly resource intensive, TBH. Most have pretty solid bases, animations from other critters that could be applied, etc.

Some of them would have tricky bits that might be resource-intensive (e.g., neck movements for the howler monkey calls, walrus movement) but nothing that strikes me as an impossibility.

I don't think that it influences the fact of us getting more news, but do know that quite a lot of tech/gaming companies have flexible working hours which means that people often get to choose when they start and stop. There's plenty of developers that are night owls and start very late, and there are early birds that start very early (I start at 7:30 am for instance haha), so I think there's a chance they now have a few more night owls on the team :p
It's purely anecdotal, and definitely not something that's always consistent, but usually the SteamDB depots stop updating shortly after regular business hours. And as we start getting nearer to a DLC, the times get later. Moreso than flexible working hours I assumed it might just be people in different time zones or something but...

You're right. It could definitely be a shift in the team with somebody working different hours. Mah bad. 🥸

Remember when in a ✨very special stream✨ (I think it was Grasslands?) they passingly commented on Bernie's owl mug and people thought it was a hint that we were getting owls? Good ol' days
I still think it's truly a missed opportunity for them to not have sold that mug as merch IRL. Haha.
 
Of all the "nobody was asking for it" picks across DLCs, it's fair to say that the lechwe has arguably aged the best, right?

I remember when Wetlands dropped there was a lot of "eh, two ungulates nobody asked for whatever" but now, I think they're actually pretty well-liked as a species in-game.
Well, they are pretty unique... and nice to look at.
 
If you're referring to the climbing then I can honestly say it's much less of a resource thing but more of a "climbing system" trade-of. Sifaka's very much "hug" branches when they climb which doesn't work well in a game where you can make any climbing frame you want out of any climable pieces that are of different widths. Even at the peak of the game's development a sifaka most likely would have always climbed like the rest of the lemurs. Like, even koalas ingame struggle with it and don't always look good, and I'm pretty sure that's the reason why sloths were made as exhibit animals as well.

It's a trade-off, one of which I'm aware that not everyone likes and some people go as far as saying that it shouldn't have been in the game; but I'd rather have sifaka's that don't climb exactly like they would in real life if that means we can have the flexible climbing system we have today (as much as I curse it sometimes because of it black-box nature haha).

I tend to agree with Mjmannella, I wouldn't go as far as NA to make the point as there sure have been animals with equal amount of complexity since then; but the game has certainly reached a point where very few land and semi-aquatic based animals are completely out of bounds or require massive amounts of resources to make. There's an incredible library of animations and behaviors they have to start from, and software that allows them to speed up the process of reusing that library.

At this point in time, I can barely think of any animal that wouldn't fall into the "reuses an altered existing rig and animation set with some extra animations" category, with the work that Frontier has put in so far pretty much nothing in terms of land and semi-aquatic animals is impossible or resource intensive.


I'm going to tell @TheDuckKnight you hate ducks @Aramar .
Yeah i defintely fall into that last category. I mean i agree that sifakas were never gonna be perfect, but surely they could do better than this right?
Like at the very least reuse the jumping on horizontal climbing. And ideally some kind of new enrichment item were they can behave naturally.
Idk for me its just when an animal doesnt behave atleast semi believable im just not gonna use it. That said i never really had much desire for this species so ultimately i dont really care too much that its essentially dead weight for me. I just think its kind of a shame
 
The least requested are:

IMG_8147.jpeg

And it says absolutely nothing about the species popularity.
 
By adding the second wildebeest, with barely any visual difference from the first and living in the same part of the world, that's a spot that won't be going to an animal that might have actually added something new to the game...
The problem is for most people it was seen as a replacement or something completely new it wasnt seen as a second wildebeest but as getting one for the first time or getting a remaster which is why people didnt hate it. If it had happened the other way people would have definitely hated it and why they did the black first I will never understand.
 
The problem is for most people it was seen as a replacement or something completely new it wasnt seen as a second wildebeest but as getting one for the first time or getting a remaster which is why people didnt hate it. If it had happened the other way people would have definitely hated it and why they did the black first I will never understand.
Which would be dumb, as the second wildebeest was neither a replacement or a remaster...
 
using zootierliste it looks like komodo dragon is first at 130
second and third are close though with the savannah monitor at 119 and asian water montior at 111.

Nile montior I think is 6th at 72
No offense, but I doubt that. Savannah, yes makes sense but I doubt Komodo is number one. It’s a relatively “new” species in zoos which confuses me even more :p
 
No offense, but I doubt that. Savannah, yes makes sense but I doubt Komodo is number one. It’s a relatively “new” species in zoos which confuses me even more :p
If Zootierliste isn't convincing enough for you, here is a quote from an overview of monitor lizards in zoos published back in 2016:
The ten most common monitor species held in zoos globally were V. komodoensis (kept in 83 zoos),V. prasinus (61 zoos), V. exanthematicus (55 zoos), V. acanthurus (49 zoos), V. salvator (47 zoos), V. albigularis (40 zoos), V. macraei (36 zoos), V. niloticus (31 zoos), V. salvadorii (27 zoos), and V. beccarii (25 zoos) (Figs. 1& 3). The greatest numbers of individuals held globally were of V. komodoensis (n = 205), V. prasinus (n = 152), V. acanthurus (n = 146), V. macraei (n = 117) (Figs. 4 ,6 & 7), V. beccarii (n = 84), V. exanthematicus (n = 84),V. salvator (n = 77), V. salvadorii (n = 60), V. varius (n= 60), and V. albigularis (n = 54).
They've only increased in holdings since then.
 
Komodo has 130
Nile has 71
Asian water has 111
Savannah has 119

So komodo seems to be the most common indeed, which suprised me aswell. Although the asian watermonitor seems to have some funky taxonomy going on with some subspecies and some very similar species which may or may not be subspecies, which all would add another couple holdings probably surpassing the komodo if all counted as one.
 
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