How do you guys create that great Pictures/Cover/whateverIshouldcallit?
DLC20 Discussion (maybe, but why not?)
- Thread starter DarthQuell
- Start date
I use Canva https://www.canva.com/
One pack I would love to see its an Endagered Species animal pack to complement conservation dlc.
I would too but that’s basically what the conservation pack was.
Would that be such a big issue tho?
Yeah its more or less the same thing, but we have seen that before with other packs.
I think as long as the pack is good noone would really mind revisiting a theme, heck South america 2.0 was the highest requested theme for like 2 years
Yea you’re right. I do want rainforests as well.
Endangered theme would be cool way to string together bunch of animals from different locations (since they already "used up" Zookeeper's theme) for the final pack.
Also, as you said, like new incoming pack, Oceania, Eurasia, Tropical, Arid...it would be complementary animal pack for existing scenery pack.
It would probably have it's fair share of ungulates and carnivorans again, but I wouldn't scoff at stuff like Sumatran Rhinoceros or Sea Otter.
Also it could be our new chance for a NW monkey like Spider or Tamarin (or even an African one, although my knowledge fails me when I try to remember endangered one).
Secretary Bird easily slots in this theme, some new crocodiles like Cuban or Slender Snouted. Hell, the two most popular Tree Kangaroo species are both endangered.
Of course, I wouldn't expect all this animals to make it, it's Frontier so some easier-to-make stuff like West Caucasian Tur, Grevy's Zebra and/or Hog Deer are almost guaranteed.
Endangered theme would slap
Also, as you said, like new incoming pack, Oceania, Eurasia, Tropical, Arid...it would be complementary animal pack for existing scenery pack.
It would probably have it's fair share of ungulates and carnivorans again, but I wouldn't scoff at stuff like Sumatran Rhinoceros or Sea Otter.
Also it could be our new chance for a NW monkey like Spider or Tamarin (or even an African one, although my knowledge fails me when I try to remember endangered one).
Secretary Bird easily slots in this theme, some new crocodiles like Cuban or Slender Snouted. Hell, the two most popular Tree Kangaroo species are both endangered.
Of course, I wouldn't expect all this animals to make it, it's Frontier so some easier-to-make stuff like West Caucasian Tur, Grevy's Zebra and/or Hog Deer are almost guaranteed.
Endangered theme would slap
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Oceania isn't a complementary pack for Australia because both are scenery packs, therefore I expect both will be getting their complementary animal pack in the near future
Down Under Animal Pack:
Short-beaked Echidna
Eastern Quoll
Greater Bilby
Yellow-footed Rock-wallaby
Black Swan
Brolga
Perentie
Frilled Lizard [E]
Pacific Animal Pack:
Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo
Kunekune Pig
New Zealand Fur Seal
Nene
Paradise Shelduck
Kagu
Green Sea Turtle
Tuatara [E]
(im joking of course, Oceania is great as a complementary pack to Australia, but both these would still slap)
This could genuinely be really good imo:
- Celebes Crested Macaque (meme appeal mascot)
- Eastern Quoll
- Golden Lion Tamarin
- Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo
- Green Sea Turtle
- Père David's Deer
- Sea Otter (another mascot option)
I think it goes far beyond just the cover art really, a pack's visual identity is a combination of its content, trailers, key-art; etc. etc. In that regard, I do think you can't keep doing variations of the same thing over and over again and that's a part where a I think a Rainforest pack is going to retread too much ground compared to Tropical and South America. Especially because Tropical and Rainforest would overlap a lot regardless.
It's not that I think it cannot be done; but more that there's a bunch of other pack possibilities where you can much more easily create unique visual identities and why would they go for a difficult one with more risks if there are easier ones with lower risks? It's a company after all, one in a financial difficult time nonetheless. So impossible? Absolutely not. But unlikely? Yeah, I'm afraid so.
In general we have the tendency to think of "solutions" to get the packs we really want but I personally tend to think that Frontier would just go for a different pack that's easier to market
It's the same story with an Islands DLC really, the Oceania DLC already took so much of the visual language of islands that I don't think we'll ever see an Islands DLC for this game. Because we can go back and forth about how not all islands are tropical; but in the end in marketing terms an island in the vast majority of peoples minds is tropical and Oceania did that vibe wonderfully already.Of the top of my head the packs that I can think of that Frontier can easily do and create unique visual languages for are packs like Mountain, Asia (focus on the East-Asian aesthetic), Safari (with very tacky safari aesthetic), Forest (more focus on cabins, ferns, mushrooms to prevent overlap with Tropical etc.), India, Coastal (more heavily leaning on marine aesthetic than Aquatic unfortunately never did), etc.
Yeah, but let us not pretend that everyone who mentioned a Rainforest pack actually meant Temperate Rainforests too; that has hardly been the case with the proposals we saw for those packs so far.
Exactly this though, I don't see a Rainforest Pack itself being a thing; but a general Forest Animal Pack can be done without an issue. Yes you'd probably have to include some animals that aren't rainforest animals for the overal visual language; but you'd hit the same notes that people would want from a rainforest based dlc really. And you'd be able to add some animals for people who want things like more Asian deer.
No but also yes? For us it doesn't, for Frontier it does?
The fact that South America 2 or a South America Animal Pack has been requested for years and we've never gotten one kind of does point into the direction that Frontier does have to try to make packs visually distinct enough (including the name) to not cause confusion among players. Especially now that console is still behind on PC, imagine releasing a South America Animal Pack now and console players see it, go buy the bundle with the South America Pack in it and feel "betrayed" because it was so easy to get these two packs confused.
It's not that it can't be done, Oceania and Australia are good examples of how they tackled it. Oceania has this very vibrant islands themed visual language, whilst Australia had a lot of focus on the outback so these were visually very distinct enough to be able to pull off. If the next pack ends up being a Latin America Pack then it's basically a South America Animal Pack in disguise; but it's visual language is vastly different from the original South America Pack so that's why it works. If that can be done with a theme like Endangered vs Conservation is to be seen tbh, I'm less confident about that.
It's another example of things we as an audience don't have to care about but Frontier ends up having to do. We don't care what animal comes in what pack after all, but they have to sell them to more people than just us so they do.
Agree to disagree. Rainforest is not the same as Tropical, it could have a very different vibe. Comparing biome with geographical theme like SA is irrelevant. I think if Frontier believed it would sell they would make it and figure out the marketing. Forests is another good option.I think it goes far beyond just the cover art really, a pack's visual identity is a combination of its content, trailers, key-art; etc. etc. In that regard, I do think you can't keep doing variations of the same thing over and over again and that's a part where a I think a Rainforest pack is going to retread too much ground compared to Tropical and South America. Especially because Tropical and Rainforest would overlap a lot regardless.
It's not that I think it cannot be done; but more that there's a bunch of other pack possibilities where you can much more easily create unique visual identities and why would they go for a difficult one with more risks if there are easier ones with lower risks? It's a company after all, one in a financial difficult time nonetheless. So impossible? Absolutely not. But unlikely? Yeah, I'm afraid so.
In general we have the tendency to think of "solutions" to get the packs we really want but I personally tend to think that Frontier would just go for a different pack that's easier to market
Of the top of my head the packs that I can think of that Frontier can easily do and create unique visual languages for are packs like Mountain, Asia (focus on the East-Asian aesthetic), Safari (with very tacky safari aesthetic), Forest (more focus on cabins, ferns, mushrooms to prevent overlap with Tropical etc.), India, Coastal (more heavily leaning on marine aesthetic than Aquatic unfortunately never did), etc.
Yeah, but let us not pretend that everyone who mentioned a Rainforest pack actually meant Temperate Rainforests too; that has hardly been the case with the proposals we saw for those packs so far.
Exactly this though, I don't see a Rainforest Pack itself being a thing; but a general Forest Animal Pack can be done without an issue. Yes you'd probably have to include some animals that aren't rainforest animals for the overal visual language; but you'd hit the same notes that people would want from a rainforest based dlc really. And you'd be able to add some animals for people who want things like more Asian deer.
No but also yes? For us it doesn't, for Frontier it does?
The fact that South America 2 or a South America Animal Pack has been requested for years and we've never gotten one kind of does point into the direction that Frontier does have to try to make packs visually distinct enough (including the name) to not cause confusion among players. Especially now that console is still behind on PC, imagine releasing a South America Animal Pack now and console players see it, go buy the bundle with the South America Pack in it and feel "betrayed" because it was so easy to get these two packs confused.
It's not that it can't be done, Oceania and Australia are good examples of how they tackled it. Oceania has this very vibrant islands themed visual language, whilst Australia had a lot of focus on the outback so these were visually very distinct enough to be able to pull off. If the next pack ends up being a Latin America Pack then it's basically a South America Animal Pack in disguise; but it's visual language is vastly different from the original South America Pack so that's why it works. If that can be done with a theme like Endangered vs Conservation is to be seen tbh, I'm less confident about that.
It's another example of things we as an audience don't have to care about but Frontier ends up having to do. We don't care what animal comes in what pack after all, but they have to sell them to more people than just us so they do.
Fair to me!
Though I do not agree with the part that comparing a biome theme's visual language to a region theme's visual language is irrelevant; all packs need a visual language to market them and South America and Tropical both have a very similar visual language (temples in a tropical rainforest). Whether they're a region or a biome based pack is less relevant to the marketing, the visual language of the pack is.
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I think you can think of plenty solutions for it; but that wasn't really my point that I was trying to make.
I don't think the PZ team comes up with an pack and then lets marketing figure out how they are going to market it; I think marketing is involved pretty much from the get-go and that more easily marketable themes will then get picked over ones that come with challenges they have to find work-arounds for.
It was never my intention to say that a Rainforest DLC is impossible to make, rather that there are easier DLCs with less challenges and that those seem more likely.
Yeah true, but what really distinct themes we got left at this point? Mountians would have been the only one i could think of, but that one pretty much lost every requested animal since eurasia.I think you can think of plenty solutions for it; but that wasn't really my point that I was trying to make.
I don't think the PZ team comes up with an pack and then lets marketing figure out how they are going to market it; I think marketing is involved pretty much from the get-go and that more easily marketable themes will then get picked over ones that come with challenges they have to find work-arounds for.
It was never my intention to say that a Rainforest DLC is impossible to make, rather that there are easier DLCs with less challenges and that those seem more likely.
Mountains can be done in the same way Grasslands and Arid were tbh, with some animals were you go "eeeeh yeah sure those can be found in mountains why not". Gelada, Wild Yak, Himalayan Thar, Mountain Hare, Vicuna, Chamois, Marmot, etc but also "mountain-adjacent" ones like Sandhill crane, American Elk, etc.. Animals enough to go by really, especially lesser requested ones, which we both know are going to keep populating packs if we're going to keep going
But other than that, an Asia pack with a East Asian aesthetic, a Safari pack with your typical safari aesthetic, a Coastal pack that leans less into tropical marine areas but more marine harbor (which I'm still so sad about that Aquatic didn't do), etc.
Honestly just a general Forest pack would work really, in all these years there hasn't been a single DLC that really leans into your typical ferns, cabins and red mushrooms that are so typical for a forest/autumn aesthetic. It's surprising but if you go back through the official gallery you'd be amazed at how few temperate forests you'll see and how often you'll see the much more colder forests or tropical forests. Like, Twilight and Europe lean into it a bit but both focus more on Halloween and Christmas, the Red Deer promo shots are the only ones that really lean into a general temperate forest aesthetic. Again, surprisingly so, given that there's so many temperate (leaning) forests all over the world.
I agree actually. I kind of find it a little difficult to make unique temperate forests in the game. I found that surprising especially because we do have options but idk it felt off? More options would be greatMountains can be done in the same way Grasslands and Arid were tbh, with some animals were you go "eeeeh yeah sure those can be found in mountains why not". Gelada, Wild Yak, Himalayan Thar, Mountain Hare, Vicuna, Chamois, Marmot, etc but also "mountain-adjacent" ones like Sandhill crane, American Elk, etc.. Animals enough to go by really, especially lesser requested ones, which we both know are going to keep populating packs if we're going to keep going
But other than that, an Asia pack with a East Asian aesthetic, a Safari pack with your typical safari aesthetic, a Coastal pack that leans less into tropical marine areas but more marine harbor (which I'm still so sad about that Aquatic didn't do), etc.
Honestly just a general Forest pack would work really, in all these years there hasn't been a single DLC that really leans into your typical ferns, cabins and red mushrooms that are so typical for a forest/autumn aesthetic. It's surprising but if you go back through the official gallery you'd be amazed at how few temperate forests you'll see and how often you'll see the much more colder forests or tropical forests. Like, Twilight and Europe lean into it a bit but both focus more on Halloween and Christmas, the Red Deer promo shots are the only ones that really lean into a general temperate forest aesthetic. Again, surprisingly so, given that there's so many temperate (leaning) forests all over the world.
There are still plenty of themes they could go with some that immediately pop out to me
- coastal
- east asia
- mountains
- antartica / polar
- india
- temperate / forest
there is also the major ingame themes that dont have packs yet
- central america
- asia
- antartica
- taiga
- tundra
- desert
- temperate
But arent those example pretty much in the same boat as the rainforest example?Mountains can be done in the same way Grasslands and Arid were tbh, with some animals were you go "eeeeh yeah sure those can be found in mountains why not". Gelada, Wild Yak, Himalayan Thar, Mountain Hare, Vicuna, Chamois, Marmot, etc but also "mountain-adjacent" ones like Sandhill crane, American Elk, etc.. Animals enough to go by really, especially lesser requested ones, which we both know are going to keep populating packs if we're going to keep going
But other than that, an Asia pack with a East Asian aesthetic, a Safari pack with your typical safari aesthetic, a Coastal pack that leans less into tropical marine areas but more marine harbor (which I'm still so sad about that Aquatic didn't do), etc.
Honestly just a general Forest pack would work really, in all these years there hasn't been a single DLC that really leans into your typical ferns, cabins and red mushrooms that are so typical for a forest/autumn aesthetic. It's surprising but if you go back through the official gallery you'd be amazed at how few temperate forests you'll see and how often you'll see the much more colder forests or tropical forests. Like, Twilight and Europe lean into it a bit but both focus more on Halloween and Christmas, the Red Deer promo shots are the only ones that really lean into a general temperate forest aesthetic. Again, surprisingly so, given that there's so many temperate (leaning) forests all over the world.
As for the mountain pack. Its not that i think that there are no viable animals or that you couldnt make an interesting pack. Just that i dont really see it happening with stuff like spec bear, takin, wolverine, markhor, pallas cat and baboon already added over the last couple packs, as those were pretty much the reason why mountains was such a requested theme.
I totally agree that we are lacking temperate foliage / decor variety. My forests all look so samey, whether they're set in NA, Europe or Asia and that shouldn't be the case. More forest floor cover - wild bluebells, fallen logs, ferns and small mushrooms would be really good.
Tropical/rainforest foliage is looking pretty good now.
Animals-wise though, whenever I post a possible roster, it is purely based on what I want, not what I think is most likely (WTH do I know?!) or what the game "needs" (I'm not much interested in that kind of reasoning unless it's a really obvious gap like monkeys).
Tropical/rainforest foliage is looking pretty good now.
Animals-wise though, whenever I post a possible roster, it is purely based on what I want, not what I think is most likely (WTH do I know?!) or what the game "needs" (I'm not much interested in that kind of reasoning unless it's a really obvious gap like monkeys).