Why setting the game on Las Cinco Muertes was a bad idea

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

Initially, when I learnt that the 'story' for JWE was to take place on Las Cinco Muertes, I was excited. I was excited for the JP/JW lore to be expanded, I was excited to play on Isla Sorna and I was excited to explore the remaining four deaths. More than anything, I was excited to play a dinosaur management game with an engaging storyline and interesting characters.

Spoiler Alert:
That is not what we got. What we instead received were five fundamentally interchangeable islands with a barebones plot and wholly uninteresting characters save the scientist and Dr. Ian Malcom (and a fairly substantial part of me thinks that the only reason he was interesting was due to nostalgia).

The following is why I think setting the game on Las Cinco Muertes was a bad idea:

Jurassic World: Evolution is fundamentally a management game. Management games are typically very open-ended and encourage creativity. Therefore, forcing players to play through a very contrived 'story' mission (especially when the sandbox mode and it's features were predicated on you playing through it) needed to be executed in such a way as to add to gameplay. As it stands, it doesn't. You are plopped on islands that are barely indistinguishable from one another, 4 out of 5 have pre-existing infrastructure and are essentially given free reign over the parks like you would in a normal challange mode. The story does not interefere with or alter the gameplay AT ALL. The biggest consequence you experience as a player is if you neglect one of the three factions, they may unlock all the gates in your park like a petulant child.

It's as though JWE is suffering from an identity crisis. On one hand, it wants to give the player the facade of a game with a story. On the other, it seems afraid of actually giving the players a story that impacts the gameplay in any meaningful way. It's in the awkward position of wanting to be a story focused campaign and an open-ended management game. These two features do not coexist well together.

Why does setting the game across Las Cinco Muertes compound this problem? Well, unfortunately, it actually reinforces everything I have already mentioned. If the game were entirely set on Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, and the 'story' mode was as barebones, I doubt anyone would have even noticed. In fact, I think people would have enjoyed it a whole lot more. I want you to think about this because it is the fundamental point of this whole post; if the game were entirely set on Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, adding 'story' missions to it would feel like a break from the monotany of gameplay, a welcome change. You could build one giant Jurassic Park and not have to worry about starting from scratch four more times. However, setting the game across Las Cinco Muertes actually highlights the lack decent storytelling because the entire point of a having a story mode...funnily enough..... is for there to be a story. Because of this, the Las Cinco Muertes feels entirely arbitrary. There is no good reason for the game to be set over on the five islands; it adds literally nothing to the gameplay or story other than to act as an elaborate tutorial for a non-existent challange mode. Because there is no real story. There are no consequences for the decisions we make. We learn no new JP lore.

Moreover, setting the game on one giant island would have allowed the Dev team and writers to create a much more coherent story and detailed island setting. Instead of the Isla Sorna and Nublar we received; we could have islands that actually resembled the ones depicted in the movies. Isla Sorna in particular was handled, in my opinion, woefully. I challange anyone to explain how the island we got was fundamentally any different from Isla Matonceros or Tacana other than the weather systems and size and shape of playable area. The vegetation was the identical, there were no hidden easter eggs like abandoned Ingen buildings or the Bird cage. It in no way felt like the island we visted in JP:TLW and JP3. It was just another island. There was SO much potential for Isla Sorna and it was by far my biggest dissapointment of the game.
This could have been entirely avoided had the 'story' been set on one island. They could have literally created a scaled version of Nublar/Sorna, encompassing the entirety of the island (instead a small portion of it), with recognisable features and actual landmarks from the movies. Instead we got artibrary, generic islands and were only allowed to play on a tiny fraction of them.

To summarise, the design choice to set the game on Las Cinco Muertes negatively affected the game by virtue of the fact that story was so barebones and inconsequential that had it been omitted, there would have been no fundemental impact on gameplay. Therefore, the choice to include it detracted from other aspects of the game that could have been elaborated.
The concept of playing on all five islands initially excited me. However, it was executed poorly and made the design choice seem very tacked-on and arbitrary. To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcom: "Yeah, but your [devs] seemed to be so preocupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think whether they should".

 

[Aramus418]

1) Jurassic World: Evolution is fundamentally a crisis prevention/response game centered around the dinosaurs. You're not Walt Disney here. Creativity is not discouraged, but it is not the focus of this game as it is with it's Coaster and City builder cousins in the genre. I won't say you're comparing apples to oranges; it's more like you've said "all apples are red" when that simply isn't so. Frontier got the lisence rights for the Munsters and Back To the Future too, so if this was suposed to be Planet Coaster with dinosaurs then it would have just been dlc for Planet Coaster.

2) How different, exactly, were you expecting 5 tropical islands in the same archipelago to be? (Although as a minor note, did you notice that the grassland brush on Muerta and Pena is different from the other 4 islands'?) And how does changing the story to be set on one island improve on this? Oh, and since we can invoke tangentially related games: isn't starting from square one or with otherwise very little already in place every new location you go to how most if not all management games work?

3) I rather enjoyed the story element. Homer's Illiad and Odessy it ain't, but I think the game's value is greatly reduced by it's absense in favor of just opening up the 5 islands for the end user to just make their own stories. I'd play it and still enjoy it, but it's not better than what we have. I wouldn't expect it to add to JP Lore because while the plot leads up to Fallen Kingdom, Fallen Kingdom doesn't seem aware that any of this happened or that 5 new parks with more dinos beyond Nublar, so like almost all the other Jurassic Park video games, it's not here to advance the overall plot of the IP. None-the-less, there are a few things here for the fans to chew on; nothing as shattering as a volcanic eruption, but beyond that I'll pass on giving spoilers. I'd also appreciate it if you could explore what you think "impactful to the gameplay" would look like in a game like this; both as you see the game focused on open-ended creativity, and as the game actually is on keeping all the dinos on their leashes. Could you provide examples of a management game whose story was impactful on gameplay, and how?

4) "...with recognisable features and actual landmarks from the movies..." Nublar's "Great Valley"-esque sandbox map is literally in the shadow of Mt. Sibo. Oh! You mean like you clear some trees for the next paddock and stumble upon the overgrown ruins of _______. *shrug* And then what? Decide wether to demolish it to make room, or leave it as some fan shrine/grimdark memorial? Sounds interesting. Impactful. Add it to the wishlist thread.

5) I'd like full island maps too, but quite frankly I think that only Nublar and Sorna would even have something like what you're expecting. Looking at the terrain of the others doesn't reveal too many additional places like the areas we already got of them. And as for the real scale of a fully mapped Sorna or Nublar, even without any story I suspect we wouldn't even have a playable game to complain about right now: just a hangar to walk around in and look at the jeep and acu heli we pre-purchased and continue to get hyped like Star Citizen.

 

[SonOfTheSun]

Very good post, I never really thought about it that way and I agree completely. Instead of having one huge park on Nublar or two with Sorna we have 6 Parks which are so limited that it isn't really fun to build them.

1) Jurassic World: Evolution is fundamentally a crisis prevention/response game centered around the dinosaurs. You're not Walt Disney here. Creativity is not discouraged, but it is not the focus of this game as it is with it's Coaster and City builder cousins in the genre.

Then Frontier should have advertised it as this clearly from the beginning. I guess most of the people waiting for the game expected exactly what you say JWE isn't, a park builder simulation. But the real problem here is, that the game is neither, not a simulator or crisis management. What do you realy manage in a crisis? Tell everyone to go into the shelter and then look for escaped animals which are easy to tranq and bring back because of the small parks, while lawsuits for dead visitors have literally no impact on your park.

 

[PCMR4Life]

You are completely and utterly wrong. The islands are not all exactly the same. The play areas are different, each is different in size. As for them looking the same? What do you expect? They are islands all in the same chain. We don't have whole islands to build a park on, just one small part of each island.

I actually think having the game take place on the islands from the Lore was a good move and not bad in anyway. It's much better than that horrible island generator that JPOG used where all the islands did look exactly the same, you either got round islands or square islands. They all looked like golf courses. The islands were all pathetic looking in that game. The islands in JWE make you feel like you are actually building a JP/W on each island.

I wouldn't want a modern island generator either. In another thread someone posted about how someone managed to remove the boundaries from the islands and it basically caused a huge performance hit on their PC. So I doubt consoles could handle larger islands.

 

[SonOfTheSun]

Island generator is indeed something people may remember as something good but I never had any game where procedurally generated worlds really worked for me (except for Minecraft maybe). They always look unnatural and repetitive and especially in JPOG the Islands where so liveless and artificial looking. But that was more of a problem with the game being 15 years old.

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

1) Jurassic World: Evolution is fundamentally a crisis prevention/response game centered around the dinosaurs. You're not Walt Disney here. Creativity is not discouraged, but it is not the focus of this game as it is with it's Coaster and City builder cousins in the genre. I won't say you're comparing apples to oranges; it's more like you've said "all apples are red" when that simply isn't so. Frontier got the lisence rights for the Munsters and Back To the Future too, so if this was suposed to be Planet Coaster with dinosaurs then it would have just been dlc for Planet Coaster.

2) How different, exactly, were you expecting 5 tropical islands in the same archipelago to be? (Although as a minor note, did you notice that the grassland brush on Muerta and Pena is different from the other 4 islands'?) And how does changing the story to be set on one island improve on this? Oh, and since we can invoke tangentially related games: isn't starting from square one or with otherwise very little already in place every new location you go to how most if not all management games work?

3) I rather enjoyed the story element. Homer's Illiad and Odessy it ain't, but I think the game's value is greatly reduced by it's absense in favor of just opening up the 5 islands for the end user to just make their own stories. I'd play it and still enjoy it, but it's not better than what we have. I wouldn't expect it to add to JP Lore because while the plot leads up to Fallen Kingdom, Fallen Kingdom doesn't seem aware that any of this happened or that 5 new parks with more dinos beyond Nublar, so like almost all the other Jurassic Park video games, it's not here to advance the overall plot of the IP. None-the-less, there are a few things here for the fans to chew on; nothing as shattering as a volcanic eruption, but beyond that I'll pass on giving spoilers. I'd also appreciate it if you could explore what you think "impactful to the gameplay" would look like in a game like this; both as you see the game focused on open-ended creativity, and as the game actually is on keeping all the dinos on their leashes. Could you provide examples of a management game whose story was impactful on gameplay, and how?

4) "...with recognisable features and actual landmarks from the movies..." Nublar's "Great Valley"-esque sandbox map is literally in the shadow of Mt. Sibo. Oh! You mean like you clear some trees for the next paddock and stumble upon the overgrown ruins of _______. *shrug* And then what? Decide wether to demolish it to make room, or leave it as some fan shrine/grimdark memorial? Sounds interesting. Impactful. Add it to the wishlist thread.

5) I'd like full island maps too, but quite frankly I think that only Nublar and Sorna would even have something like what you're expecting. Looking at the terrain of the others doesn't reveal too many additional places like the areas we already got of them. And as for the real scale of a fully mapped Sorna or Nublar, even without any story I suspect we wouldn't even have a playable game to complain about right now: just a hangar to walk around in and look at the jeep and acu heli we pre-purchased and continue to get hyped like Star Citizen.

"1) Jurassic World: Evolution is fundamentally a crisis prevention/response game centered around the dinosaurs. You're not Walt Disney here. Creativity is not discouraged, but it is not the focus of this game as it is with it's Coaster and City builder cousins in the genre. I won't say you're comparing apples to oranges; it's more like you've said "all apples are red" when that simply isn't so. Frontier got the lisence rights for the Munsters and Back To the Future too, so if this was suposed to be Planet Coaster with dinosaurs then it would have just been dlc for Planet Coaster. "

No it isn't. It's management game where you build your own Jurassic World. That's literally the game's slogan. The number one complaint I've seen is that the game lacks creative depth. Repairing fences and tranquilizing dinosaurs does not a good game make I'm afraid.
Where in my post did I say I want PC with dinosaurs?

"2) How different, exactly, were you expecting 5 tropical islands in the same archipelago to be? (Although as a minor note, did you notice that the grassland brush on Muerta and Pena is different from the other 4 islands'?) And how does changing the story to be set on one island improve on this? Oh, and since we can invoke tangentially related games: isn't starting from square one or with otherwise very little already in place every new location you go to how most if not all management games work?"

You've unintentionally helped me prove my point. If it's that difficult to make the islands feel unique (which honestly, it shouldn't), to the point where you have to resort to artifically making them unique by changing the time of day etc, perhaps that's an indication that setting the game across 5 geographically similar islands isn't a good idea. If your reasoning for setting a game somewhere is no more nuanced than 'it sounds like a cool idea', especially when it doesn't impact the story or add anything to the experience, why include it?
Moreover, your tangentially related games are irrelevant if the reasoning behind it flawed.

One big island with lots of dinosaurs > 5 small islands with less dinosaurs to help fit a flawed narrative.

"3), 4) and 5)" = nonsense

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

You are completely and utterly wrong. The islands are not all exactly the same. The play areas are different, each is different in size. As for them looking the same? What do you expect? They are islands all in the same chain. We don't have whole islands to build a park on, just one small part of each island.

I actually think having the game take place on the islands from the Lore was a good move and not bad in anyway. It's much better than that horrible island generator that JPOG used where all the islands did look exactly the same, you either got round islands or square islands. They all looked like golf courses. The islands were all pathetic looking in that game. The islands in JWE make you feel like you are actually building a JP/W on each island.

I wouldn't want a modern island generator either. In another thread someone posted about how someone managed to remove the boundaries from the islands and it basically caused a huge performance hit on their PC. So I doubt consoles could handle larger islands.

"You are completely and utterly wrong. The islands are not all exactly the same. The play areas are different, each is different in size. As for them looking the same? What do you expect? They are islands all in the same chain. We don't have whole islands to build a park on, just one small part of each island. "

So don't include them.

"I actually think having the game take place on the islands from the Lore was a good move and not bad in anyway. It's much better than that horrible island generator that JPOG used where all the islands did look exactly the same, you either got round islands or square islands. They all looked like golf courses. The islands were all pathetic looking in that game. The islands in JWE make you feel like you are actually building a JP/W on each island."

How is it good for the lore if the lore wasn't explored? Also, I didn't once mention an island generator.

 

[Aramus418]

1) If you hate the mechanics that are in the game and demand mechanics and features that are not in the game because that’s what others in the genre have, then there’s a chance you do t appreciate what the game even is.

2) Set them all to the same time of day, destroy all building, and make them all look like untouched nature and I bet you any honest person can tell the first island from the last, the beach resort from the lake resort, and Alcatraz from all others most of all. The 5 islands are perfectly distinguishable. And again you dodged my point- if we scrap the 5 islands in favor of just 1 how does that solve your primary contention?

“3) 4) and 5) = nonsense”
Oh, so your just a pathetic troll. Ok, bye.

 

[Docjas18]

He brings up some interesting points. Aside from the shape, time of day, and weather patterns the islands offered very little variety. I think they’d be ok as they are, with more in depth features. A bigger hook for each islan after matanceros. Pena sort of had that with the increased power costs. But why not go bigger? This challenge went unnoticed by me. Tacano you start in dept, did that take anybody more than 3 seconds to figure out how to get out of debt? I never at any point had to worry about money in the game so this “challenge” falls flat on its face. Sorna has “wild dinosaurs”. 1 spino and a handful of stegos? Again no meaningful hook. Muerta introduces you to storms. Fair enough I was still learning ins and outs and managing angry carnivores did make the storms feel dangerous enough to elicit a groan at first. But there was no challenge to overcome.

Id expand on what TC said and say we don’t need bigger islands, we need a more unique obstacle for each island. The framework is there in my opinion.

 

[Spinomonkey]

He brings up some interesting points. Aside from the shape, time of day, and weather patterns the islands offered very little variety. I think they’d be ok as they are, with more in depth features. A bigger hook for each islan after matanceros. Pena sort of had that with the increased power costs. But why not go bigger? This challenge went unnoticed by me. Tacano you start in dept, did that take anybody more than 3 seconds to figure out how to get out of debt? I never at any point had to worry about money in the game so this “challenge” falls flat on its face. Sorna has “wild dinosaurs”. 1 spino and a handful of stegos? Again no meaningful hook. Muerta introduces you to storms. Fair enough I was still learning ins and outs and managing angry carnivores did make the storms feel dangerous enough to elicit a groan at first. But there was no challenge to overcome.

Id expand on what TC said and say we don’t need bigger islands, we need a more unique obstacle for each island. The framework is there in my opinion.

That’s not a bad analysis. It’s like complaining about the dinner plate when in reality the dinner itself was simply “ok”

 

[okxt2jzdjsrz]

The challenges may (or may not) have been "challenging" depending on the player, but it was intentional. Since the islands are fictional, and never fully described in the source material, they were built exactly the way the game designers wanted them to be. Just because you as a player did not like it does it mean it was a "mistake" or "bad idea".

It's like playing a game set in Cinderella's kingdom, and complaining game designers should have set it in Snow White's kingdom instead...

 

[IndigoBlue]

The challenges may (or may not) have been "challenging" depending on the player, but it was intentional. Since the islands are fictional, and never fully described in the source material, they were built exactly the way the game designers wanted them to be. Just because you as a player did not like it does it mean it was a "mistake" or "bad idea".

I agree with this - it definitely was not a mistake, it seems quite intentional.

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

He brings up some interesting points. Aside from the shape, time of day, and weather patterns the islands offered very little variety. I think they’d be ok as they are, with more in depth features. A bigger hook for each islan after matanceros. Pena sort of had that with the increased power costs. But why not go bigger? This challenge went unnoticed by me. Tacano you start in dept, did that take anybody more than 3 seconds to figure out how to get out of debt? I never at any point had to worry about money in the game so this “challenge” falls flat on its face. Sorna has “wild dinosaurs”. 1 spino and a handful of stegos? Again no meaningful hook. Muerta introduces you to storms. Fair enough I was still learning ins and outs and managing angry carnivores did make the storms feel dangerous enough to elicit a groan at first. But there was no challenge to overcome.

Id expand on what TC said and say we don’t need bigger islands, we need a more unique obstacle for each island. The framework is there in my opinion.

Again, why set the game on 5 islands at all? Why not one large, spectacular island where you have all the space you want? I've explained precisely why setting the game on 5 islands contributed to some of the issues we have with the game.

My other main complaint was about the lack of any compelling story. There is literally no reason to include a story mode if the story itself is almost non-existent.

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

That’s not a bad analysis. It’s like complaining about the dinner plate when in reality the dinner itself was simply “ok”

No, it's like complaining about the quality of the dinner which was predicated on the quality of the plate it's served on.

I'd like you to explain where you came up with this analogy considering he pretty much agreed with me?

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

The challenges may (or may not) have been "challenging" depending on the player, but it was intentional. Since the islands are fictional, and never fully described in the source material, they were built exactly the way the game designers wanted them to be. Just because you as a player did not like it does it mean it was a "mistake" or "bad idea".

It's like playing a game set in Cinderella's kingdom, and complaining game designers should have set it in Snow White's kingdom instead...

Where in my entire 900 word post did I mention any issue regarding challange or lack thereof being an issue in the game?

Edit: Moreover, I'm fairly certain my position for not wanting the 5 islands was a tad more nuanced than ' I don't like it so therefore it was a bad idea'. I explained at great length why it was a bad idea. Perhaps respond to the content of the post.

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

I agree with this - it definitely was not a mistake, it seems quite intentional.

I never once said it was a mistake. Of course, it was intentional. You don't make a game unintentionally.

My issue was regarding the reasoning behind the decision to set the game there.

 

[Dino droppings? Droppings?]

1) If you hate the mechanics that are in the game and demand mechanics and features that are not in the game because that’s what others in the genre have, then there’s a chance you do t appreciate what the game even is.

2) Set them all to the same time of day, destroy all building, and make them all look like untouched nature and I bet you any honest person can tell the first island from the last, the beach resort from the lake resort, and Alcatraz from all others most of all. The 5 islands are perfectly distinguishable. And again you dodged my point- if we scrap the 5 islands in favor of just 1 how does that solve your primary contention?

“3) 4) and 5) = nonsense”
Oh, so your just a pathetic troll. Ok, bye.

I never said I hate anything, nor am I demanding anything. Creativity in a fundamentally creative game is always a positive. It doesn't take a genius to work that out.

I really think you're being facetious here. I'm perfectly aware that one could distinguish one from the other and I was using hyperbole when I called them 'indistinguishable'. That still isn't the point. 1) They aren't distinguishable enough to warrant having 5 of them, 2) the fact that there's five of them impacts the story in literally no way. So again, instead of one giant big island, we get 5 small islands and a poor story. My question for you is WHY? What benefit does it bring to the game other than a 'yeah it's cool to play across the Muertes archipelago'?

Well, setting the game on one large island, either Sorna or Nublar would have allowed all the effort to go towards creating a large, detailed and lore friendly park. Instead of creating a tortured narrative to fit playing across the Muertes archipelago, you could have literally built Jurassic World on Nublar. The story could have been set back in the early 2000's when Masrani was about to rebuild Jurassic World. I think that would have been an infintely more interesting plot, and one that fits together well. Do you really think that it's logical that just years after the fiasco at Jurassic World that Ingen is again making a Jurassic World, not on one island, but on 5???? They didn't even explore how that came to be, how they were allowed to and why guests would turn up. It's a vey unintelligent plot.

So from an island design choice and a story perspective it just makes a whole lot more sense.

I apologize for how I responded in my last message. They weren't nonsense but seemed rather confused.

 

[BionicMeatloaf]

I was about to argue in favor of the 5 islands, but as a read I agreed with you more and more.

I don't regret buying the game, and I dearly want to love it, but I can't quell this growing feeling of just how shallow the game actually is and this just added to it. Having heard that Frontier is not one to simply abandon their games after launch I can at least hold onto hope that they're listening closely to the mountains of feedback they're getting right now

 

[okxt2jzdjsrz]

Where in my entire 900 word post did I mention any issue regarding challange or lack thereof being an issue in the game?

Edit: Moreover, I'm fairly certain my position for not wanting the 5 islands was a tad more nuanced than ' I don't like it so therefore it was a bad idea'. I explained at great length why it was a bad idea. Perhaps respond to the content of the post.

Well, since I didn't directly quote you, it's quite possible I was addressing others and not you...

But, what I said still was relevant to your OP. The islands are fictional, the source material has no actual details, so the developers made the setting the way they wanted (ie for a challenge). Your wants are irrelevant; you can't please everyone.

 

[JurassicJim]

I feel like you are missing the point of the games story.

In the lost world movie or the books fans were introduced to the five deaths, but it wasn't really covered in the movies as to why they are the five deaths, sure after watching the second move people may assume that the islands got their names from the dinosaurs killing everyone. But that was in fact not the case.

Through the story mode of this game we not only get to see every island of the 5 deaths but can find little hints as to how the islands got their name, and which island is which of the 5 deaths. In addition if you complete the memos portion of the Ingen database you will see how Dr. Wu interacts with the other characters on the island and get some idea as to his intentions. This whole game is as if the first 4 movies took place but went a bit differently than they did in the movies. Which lead to the creation of 5 new parks on each of the five deaths. In some way this is a bit ironic as We are literally making the 5 deaths into a place where people can literally go to and never return.

And I think this game is actually really creative and is both a park management as well as a crisis management. Because lets face it in a dinosaur theme park we need to manage it like a theme park, but we also face problems that a zoo might face. Except unlike a zoo our animals are much larger and stronger, and even more capable of endangering our guest. As such it is a crisis management. Heck they even added lawsuits which is both a park management and crisis management. Even theme parks have attractions go wrong from time to time, and people get hurt.

And having limited space on an island makes you get creative, especially since you can come back with new dinosaurs and adjust your park as you see fit.

I personally looked at my islands( after getting used to the games mechanics) and started to plan my park accordingly, I found myself then adjusting my plan to fit the guest's needs and to 5 star my parks. but it had to be done with creativity.