Promised trailer features

[GrimCamel]

I've been trying to find out any information about features that seems to be "scrapped" or similar that was promised in trailers and videos prior to release such as the seamless growth but I have not been able to find any developer statement only consumer speculation.
I am very dissatisfied with the devs not being transparent enough with the community about previously announced features not being part of the final release.
How can you get better? By telling us features are being worked on or if they have been scrapped. As a consumer, I would, of course, love a date or patch number certain features would show up in but just telling us they're being worked on is enough.

I just want to know features I paid for will eventually be there (or not if they were scrapped which would be disappointing and marketing not very well executed)
If statements about different features have been made in the past, please feel free to post me a link so I may read what has been said. Thank you.

 

[Leopard Lobbyist]

Not so much trailer as dev diary stuff but off the top of my head, things that seem to be missing:
--Comprehensive family trees/traceable genetics
--"Each animal is unique" [Partially. Patterned animals have very minor differences but other animals, like wolves, seemingly share the same one skin]
--Animal "personalities"
--Educational aspect [Mistakes in zoopedia and the labeling of literally any variant skin as "albino" clearly works against this]

If I wasn't at work I'd dig through the dev diaries to find specific examples of these and other things being mentioned. I'm sure someone else can get to it though.

Frontier's communication with their userbase is some of the worst I've ever encountered.

 

[inspectorgadget1]

When you say certain features that may not be in the game currently were 'promised' is it possible you've misinterpreted what may or may not be coming? (you both even say you can't find any evidence of it) And no of course they're not going to give a date/patch number when these supposed missing features will be arriving, that's not how this works.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

Things like the peacock in one trailer video, who shows up his feathers but I still read he doesn't do it in the current version.
I'm pretty sure there was something on family trees too - even if we want to look up the age of our animal in the options the icon to do it looks like a family tree... only there is none there when you clicked on it, just the scale of how old the animal is. Wasn't there something too in beta which told us whether an animal was adopted or born in the zoo in beta? I'm not sure if it showed the parents too, but I thought right there, the family tree will be implemented by release. It wasn't, and also seeing where the animal comes from seems to have disappeared. Maybe they are still working on it, but it would be good to know if we still can count on it... it's okay to work on something until it works but not knowing if something is being worked on, or just is not quite ready to be in the game... or never comes unsettles me a little. Would be nice to know yes.

I'm wondering what is really coming to the game, which things just were planned and not really full implemented, or abandoned after the try to implement it (although it was already mentioned in articles and shown in streams and videos - the peacock is a good example for that).

Realistically, I believe that there is not enough time to inform us, so we'll have to be surprised by updates... maybe someday, there will be more time to inform us more exacly, but I think right now they really work hard to improve things.

If I find the video again, which says something to family trees I'll tell you here. I'll try to find it as soon as possible.

 

[Mkau]

When you say certain features that may not be in the game currently were 'promised' is it possible you've misinterpreted what may or may not be coming? (you both even say you can't find any evidence of it) And no of course they're not going to give a date/patch number when these supposed missing features will be arriving, that's not how this works.

All of the features @Leopard Lobbyist mentioned,are promised features,which are currently not in the game.
You can check on this information by yourself by looking through their Developar Journals,videos on the Planet Zoo YT channel and the game description on steam.
All of those animal related features where a huge selling point for a lot of people and now they are simply not in the game.Frontier even said during the beta,that those features are just not in the beta,but will be in the full game at release.They didn't say "we will add it some months/years after release."
I don't like to accuse someone of something,but that definitely turned out to be a lie.
They should address this issues ASAP,because people are wondering where the promised features are/what happened to them and people already feel scammed regarding that point.

 

[GrimCamel]

Right now I dont have time either to list the features and their sources where they were mentioned, I'd have to go through livestreams and E3 content and timestamp that. I'll see what I can do later today if I have time.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

Hey! I just looked threw everything to that and I just found one video which really shows the peacock (EDIT see all, but the peacock is on 1:37 something little to different fur is on 4:58 zebras):

Source: https://youtu.be/Cfqji4WnX9o

another one was interesting too in some points (EDIT: this one is the right one

Source: https://youtu.be/PQ6DzhLtpxU

it's interesting in the whole, but especially there is one point where "we can see from which point guest can see animals and it affects animals" 4:00... didn't found that in the game, I saw people here who said how useful something like that could be to know better where animals can get stressed and from where visitors can see them... so probably it isn't there like we see it in the video).

I didn't find anything which really talks about a family tree. I just found many articles (mostly in german) which complain that family trees / breed books aren't in the game and because of this lack as a option, you have to work around it with different last names et cetera you easily can loose track of. Maybe this family tree thing just came up, because reviews complained it as an important option you don't have in the game right now... in any case, I have not found anything where Frontier talks about it.

 

[GrimCamel]

Hey! I just looked threw everything to that and I just found one video which really shows the peacock

Source: https://youtu.be/Cfqji4WnX9o

another one was interesting too in some points

Source: https://youtu.be/KbTGel-OKdo

I didn't find anything which really talks about a family tree. I just found many articles (mostly in german) which complain that family trees / breed books aren't in the game and because of this lack as a option, you have to work around it with different last names et cetera you easily can loose track of. Maybe this family tree thing just came up, because reviews complained it as an important option you don't have in the game right now... in any case, I have not found anything where Frontier talks about it.

Thats great! Can you edit your post and write out the time stamps these things are mentioned/shown? Thank you!

 

[Mkau]

The family tree part is mentioned in the Developer Journal: Scaling.

if you look after your animals well, you can witness ENTIRE GENERATIONS living out their lives, allowing you to TRACE A LINEAGE back to the FIRST RELATIVES ARRIVING in your zoo. The genetics of these FAMILY TREES also plays a factor in animal scaling with genes being passed from parent to child.

source: developer journal scaling

Just as a small example.

 

[DeluxeGroupie]

Maybe this family tree thing just came up, because reviews complained it as an important option you don't have in the game right now... in any case, I have not found anything where Frontier talks about it.

The thing with the family tree is that regardless whether Frontier promised this feature or not it is an absolutely neccessary feature, because without it the inbreeding mechanic doesn't make any sense gameplay-wise.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

The family tree part is mentioned in the Developer Journal: Scaling.

if you look after your animals well, you can witness ENTIRE GENERATIONS living out their lives, allowing you to TRACE A LINEAGE back to the FIRST RELATIVES ARRIVING in your zoo. The genetics of these FAMILY TREES also plays a factor in animal scaling with genes being passed from parent to child.

source: developer journal scaling

Just as a small example.

Yes, some things like that I found too in articles... on the other hand I just found german articles who write that family trees / breed books are missing in the game and complained that you're left alone to stop inbreeding in the game, so you have to get creative yourself to restrict inbreeding, which can go wrong... the sad point is, no one (yet) found something that Frontier said it would be in the game. Maybe they are planning on it now, but we're not sure if they did it before. Therefore, we can not classify it as promised (yet)...

 

[NL_Mutso]

I think the trailer also showed something like a (tour) guide, someone mentioned this some time ago.

Unique personalities/animals, is somewhat debatable.
I fully agree, animals don't "feel" unique but maybe some animals are more agressive/passive or prefer a specific toy? Or did they mean unique in just the size, some fur patterns and scars?

Family tree was the biggest surprise to me... The icon in the animal screen looked like a family tree we expected to see..

While I think they should (try to) add these features, I hope they shift their focus more on the performance/stability/bugs before adding those promised features.

Frontier's communication with their userbase is some of the worst I've ever encountered.

The forum/CM's are pretty good actually..A timepath with upcoming content/work-in-progress bugs would be nice, though..
But then again, there will Always be a backlash from some members of the community. For example: "Why didn't they acknowledge time/feeding as a bug/issue?"

 

[GrimCamel]

The forum/CM's are pretty good actually..A timepath with upcoming content/work-in-progress bugs would be nice, though..
But then again, there will Always be a backlash from some members of the community. For example: "Why didn't they acknowledge time/feeding as a bug/issue?"

I havent seen anything major really to say the communication is well. The only thing is in their patchnotes they usually mention they adjust some thing according to feedback but Im not a regular in these forums so I cant tell how much of the forum contents are brought into consideration.
With that said, yes I have seen much better userbase communication.
But what I want to see is them addressing content which was previously mentioned but are not present. This content not being there just gives me No Mans Sky vibes since these are things consumers have to fear since even big developers like Bethesda (fallout 76) and Ubisoft (watchdogs) are actively practising these things where they show/say one thing and sell another. Thats why its important to be open with your playerbase and earn their trust and support.
I was die hard supporting this game and influenced friends to get it but right now I am unsure.

 

[Mkau]

no one (yet) found something that Frontier said it would be in the game. Maybe they are planning on it now, but we're not sure if they did it before. Therefore, we can not classify it as promised (yet)...

Uhm,the paragraph I quoted in one of my previous posts is from Frontier's Developer Journal: Scaling.This literally means,that Frontier said it and not a third party.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

Uhm,the paragraph I quoted in one of my previous posts is from Frontier's Developer Journal: Scaling.This literally means,that Frontier said it and not a third party.

Oh okay I see... so we have to wait I guess thank you

 

[KaoRu]

Not so much trailer as dev diary stuff but off the top of my head, things that seem to be missing:
--Comprehensive family trees/traceable genetics
--"Each animal is unique" [Partially. Patterned animals have very minor differences but other animals, like wolves, seemingly share the same one skin]

I think the only time I noticed a pattern difference (where it was REALLY obviouse) was with my Tigers. One had a noticeable gap on their back but the other Tiger had no gap and was full of stripes.
The rest of the animals just looked the same.

 

[MrTux]

Things like the peacock in one trailer video, who shows up his feathers but I still read he doesn't do it in the current version.

At least this one thing is confirmed to be a bug. I think one of the CMs said in the forum that they're working on it and here it's in the bug tracker.

 

[Crea_TivELA]

Hmmm... a bug? Are you sure? I thought maybe it's just not ready yet so it wasn't in the game by release... I think a bug happens occacionally and often random... at least a few people should have seen it since release then? But good to know they are working on it... the reason for it is not as important, so thx!

 

[yoav_r]

Hmmm... a bug? Are you sure? I thought maybe it's just not ready yet so it wasn't in the game by release... I think a bug happens occacionally and often random... at least a few people should have seen it since release then? But good to know they are working on it... the reason for it is not as important, so thx!

In the issue tracker, it appears as a "confirmed and acknowledged bug"

 

[Crea_TivELA]

In the issue tracker, it appears as a "confirmed and acknowledged bug"

Yes... I voted for it but not all issues in the tracker are really bugs, some are other problems, design flaws et cetera.
But as I said, it's not that important why it isn't there... it isn't, but we know they work on it, so it (hopfully) will be there.